Drunk: How We Sipped, Danced, and Stumbled Our Way to Civilization

by Edward Slingerland

In one disturbing but elegant study,51 the psychologist Leanne ten Brinke and colleagues coded video clips, taken from real life, of individuals emotionally pleading to the public for information that would help with the return of a missing relative. In half of these cases, the pleaders were lying, and had been later convicted, based on overwhelming physical evidence, of having murdered the relative in question. Unaware of which people were later found to have been faking their distress, participants were nonetheless able to pick them out by focusing on facial muscle groups that are difficult to consciously control. The murderers showed less activation of genuine “grief muscles” (corrugator supercilii, depressor anguli oris) and more activation of muscles associated with fake smiles (zygomatic major) and conscious attempts to appear sad (frontalis).