- Every time there's something
juicy on the Internet,
people love to jump to conclusions
about what they think the truth is and honestly,
I'm sick of it.
So today I brought in an expert,
a human lie detector that's going to help me break down
some of these videos we've been seeing online.
Please welcome Annie Sarnblad.
In person too. We love this.
- Thank you. - This is so exciting.
- I'm excited too. - Do you wanna touch fingers?
- Oh, thank God. - [sings high note]
- That's amazing. - This is incredible.
♪
So I called you a human lie detector.
- Yep.
- What do you call yourself? What do you do?
- I call myself a microexpression specialist,
but I do often call myself a human lie detector.
- Okay, what is a microexpression?
Is that just like a twitch on a face?
Like, what's the deal? - So that's the thing.
So we all have universal facial expressions that we all make.
Even if we're born blind, as humans,
they're as natural to our species as erections.
- Wait, hold on, wait, wait. I have so many questions.
So you're saying regardless of where someone's born
in the world... - Right, exactly.
- We have universal ones? - Universal facial--
it's our original language as a human species.
- Okay wait, so what you're saying then--
this is scientific. - This is scientific.
I actually work for the Museum of Science in Boston.
Yeah, I do.
- Okay, because, you know, on the Internet,
a bunch of skeptics are going to say this is just opinion.
It's not opinion. - No, in fact,
all of our emotions have
physical responses in our bodies and on our faces.
And that's why I'm joking about the erections, right?
But you get-- a man gets an erection
when he feels arousal, right?
Not when he's feeling sad.
And if he does, then he needs to go see
somebody else-- that's above my pay grade.
[laughter]
- How long have you been reading microexpressions?
- So I had a difficult family life when I was little,
and kids up until about the age of two
can do this naturally.
If you're holding a baby,
you'll notice that they start looking--
they read your entire face,
and we train our children out of it.
We say, look me in the eyes,
look me in the eyes when you're talking to me.
So in my family, there were some abuse,
there was some alcoholism.
I wasn't trained out of it, because it became an issue
of emotional and physical survival for me.
So I have an aunt who is a psychotherapist,
and she talked about facial expressions
when I was little and it became this full-on obsession for me.
- I'm so excited.
Okay, of course, we have to analyze
the recent Oprah interview... - Yep.
- With Meghan Markle and Prince Harry.
A lot of people have had opinions about this about...
- A lot of opinions, yeah. - What they think is true.
So I want to ask you, the expert,
I specifically want to ask you--
our first clip is about Meghan denying
that she did any research about the royal family
or Prince Harry. Let's take a look.
- But you were certainly aware of the royals.
- Of course. - And if you're going to--
- So, she just showed resignation.
Hold on. - Already?
- There it is. Okay?
So it's resignation. She's double dimpling.
She's doing this.
- [stammering] What is that?
- That means like, "Really?
I have to do this again?"
- Huh, okay. So she's unhappy about this.
- She's unhappy about this. - Okay.
- If you're going to marry a royal,
then you would do research about what that would mean.
- Oh, I didn't do any research.
- Okay. "I didn't do any research."
Right.
So I--whenever I work on lie detection,
I look that the gestures and the body language
matches the words, right? - Mm-hmm.
- And we look at the same thing with the microexpressions.
The microexpressions have to match the word.
When there's a disconnect, like if somebody's saying,
"I did not have sexual relations with that woman,"
that's a problem,
because in Western society, in the US and Canada,
in much of Western Europe, this means yes.
- Yeah. - And this means no.
So if you're saying, "Do you have any cookies?"
"I did not have a cookie." - That's a disconnect.
- Right. - So what you're saying is,
that she's telling the truth here.
- She's telling the truth.
- She did not do research. - She didn't.
And her gestures are spot-on.
- Mm-hmm. - Her answers are quick.
It takes us longer to lie.
I mean, if we get a difficult question,
it makes sense to pause
and think about how we're going to answer that.
And you saw that, like, disgust,
and irritated that they're asking her these questions,
because throughout really the whole interview,
she's truthful.
- So we have in tandem the conversation of,
you won't be given security.
He's not going to be given a title.
- So here she's pausing,
but you see a lot of the puckering of her chin.
- Mm-hmm.
- All right, so think about it like,
squeeze your butt, right? - Yeah.
- You know how your butt looks when you squeeze it?
- I do, I look in the mirror all the time.
- Right, it gets all puckered. - Yeah.
- Well, so that's the same thing we do with our chin.
- Huh.
- So when we show any kind of vulnerability...
- It's also a precursor to crying sometimes too, right?
- That's exactly right.
And that's why we incorrectly think
that a frown is this and that we're pulling--
whenever somebody draws the frown,
it's like an upside down smile.
That's not really true. The lip corners don't move.
But what happens is when we pucker our chin,
our middle lip,
the middle part of our lip moves up
and that gives the illusion
that the corners are pulling down.
- Got it.
- So she does this throughout the entire interview.
She goes...
- And what-- that just means--
- Distress. - Distress.
- She's traumatized.
- And also concerns and conversations
about how dark his skin might be when he's born.
- Shock. - Genuine shock?
- Genuine shock, yeah.
- Who is having that conversation with you?
- [gulps]
- So she just-- she just swallowed.
We only swallow when we get really vulnerable.
- So she's genuinely sad here.
- She's traumatized, yeah. Extremely sad.
- I want you to look at a clip of Prince Harry this time
where he talks about the current relationship status
he has with his father. - Oh, boy.
- There's a lot to work through there.
You know, I...
I feel really let down.
- Okay, showing disgust. Okay?
The full facial expression of disgust or something
you don't like is this-- this facial expression.
And it's again, if somebody gives
you food that you-- that you don't want,
it actually shuts off our sense of smell.
So if you smell your coffee in the morning and you make
a full facial expression of disgust,
it protects us from something toxic.
- Really? - Really.
But the microexpression is just this.
- Subtle, very, very subtle. - Very subtle, right?
And people do it all the time, and you have to look--
you have to look right next to the nostrils
and it's right here, this line right there.
He's deepening it.
- Wow. So he's disgusted.
- He's disgusted. - Wow!
Okay, can we switch gears for a second?
- Mm-hmm. - As I've been talking to you,
what have you gathered about me?
Be honest. Please be honest.
- Okay, so when you walked in,
you were a little nervous, right?
Because there's new people in the room
and you're not into the groove.
- How did you know I was nervous?
- Well, your posture was a little bit stiff.
- Okay. - And you were a little--
you raised your nasal-- your nasolabial furled, right?
You wrinkled your nose a little bit, right?
- [laughs] Now I can't stop it.
- And now you've got it like-- exactly.
Now you're starting to cover and protect.
And then as we got into the interview and you started
getting excited, you started opening up your frame,
you pulled up your leg, which I am so--like,
my knee keeps popping up because we get each other,
right, and because we're aligned,
we tend to mirror each other's body language.
So my knee keeps trying to, like, mirror your body language
and I can't, because then you'll see up my dress.
[laughter]
So my knee keeps popping up and then down again.
So that's one of the things you're gonna look for in dating
is how quickly does the other person
mirror your body language,
and can you get them to mirror it?
- You are incredible.
Thank you so much for coming on the show, Annie.
And will you be our show's truth teller?
- Absolutely, yeah. - Okay.
Any time there's a controversy, we're coming to you.
- Anytime, and I want to hear all about the dates.
- Okay, as soon as those happen...
- [laughs] - I will call you.
- They're gonna happen, baby.
- Are you a fortuneteller as well?
- No, I can just tell. You're hot.
- She doesn't lie, y'all! She doesn't lie.
What does this body language say?
[laughter] That she's a freak!
- That's, "open for business, baby."
[laughter]