How to Read Microexpressions: The 7 Facial Expressions Guide

Learn the 7 universal microexpressions with photos and science-backed tips. Spot hidden emotions in faces using Paul Ekman's research.

The face and its expressions, also known as microexpressions, are the window to the soul—if you know how to read them. The good news is that reading facial expressions is a learnable skill, and the science behind it is stronger than ever. The late Dr. Paul Ekman, who passed away in November 2025 at age 91, spent six decades proving that certain facial expressions are universal across every human culture.¹ His research forms the backbone of everything you’ll learn here.

The Face of a Leader

Look at these faces of CEOs. Can you tell which ones have the most profitable companies?

In a study by Nicholas Rule and Nalini Ambady, researchers asked participants to rate these CEOs based on nothing but their photograph. Participants judged traits like competence and dominance in a matter of seconds—a process psychologists call “thin-slicing.” Their snap judgments accurately correlated with the level of profit each CEO’s company actually made.²

Answers: J. David J. O’Reilly (Chevron), G. James Mulva (ConocoPhillips), C. H. Lee Scott Jr. (Walmart).

This study was about reading static faces—the traits we broadcast even in a still photograph. But when faces are in motion, they reveal something even more powerful: fleeting microexpressions that leak emotions we’re trying to hide. Knowing how to read both static facial traits and dynamic microexpressions is one of the most useful people skills you can develop.

What Is a Microexpression?

A microexpression is a brief, involuntary facial expression that flashes across a person’s face when they experience an emotion. They typically last between 1/25 and 1/5 of a second—faster than an eye blink—and are extremely difficult for most people to fake or suppress.³ Because they happen so quickly, roughly 80–90% of people miss them entirely without training.

Microexpressions last between 1/25 and 1/5 of a second—faster than an eye blink—and reveal emotions people are trying to hide.

Micro vs. Macro vs. Subtle Expressions

Not every facial expression is a microexpression. Understanding the differences helps you know what to look for:

Expression Type	Duration	Nature	Example
Microexpression	1/25 to 1/5 of a second	Involuntary; emotional leakage	A flash of anger during a polite smile
Macroexpression	0.5 to 4.0 seconds	Often voluntary; social signaling	A wide smile when greeting a friend
Subtle expression	Variable	Low-intensity; just beginning to form	A slight downturn of the lips when hearing bad news

Microexpressions are the ones that reveal concealed emotions. Macroexpressions are the everyday facial movements we all recognize. Subtle expressions are faint—they happen when an emotion is just starting or when someone is only mildly affected.

A Brief History of Microexpressions

The phenomenon was first identified by Ernest Haggard and Kenneth Isaacs in 1966. While reviewing psychotherapy session films frame-by-frame, they noticed fleeting facial expressions—too fast for the naked eye—that revealed hidden emotions the patients weren’t expressing verbally. They called them “micromomentary expressions.”⁴

Paul Ekman and Wallace Friesen expanded this work dramatically in the late 1960s. Their breakthrough came with the famous “Mary” case: a hospitalized woman who appeared cheerful and requested a weekend pass. She seemed so improved that doctors were ready to grant it. But before leaving, she confessed she had planned to use the pass to end her life.

Ekman and Friesen reviewed the filmed interview frame-by-frame and discovered a flash of intense anguish lasting only two film frames—about 1/12 of a second—immediately masked by a broad smile. This became the foundational evidence for microexpressions as involuntary “emotional leakage.”⁵

From there, Ekman spent decades building the Facial Action Coding System (FACS) with Friesen, cataloging every possible facial muscle movement and mapping them to emotions. His research confirmed that people across the globe—from the United States to Japan to the remote Fore tribe in Papua New Guinea—express the same core emotions with the same facial movements.¹

How to Read Microexpressions

Watch my video for in-depth information, as well as how to detect each microexpression!

Ready to move on? Here is my guide to understanding the microexpression.

They can occur as fast as 1/25 of a second. You see them everywhere. Bill Clinton showed them during his testimony. Lance Armstrong showed contempt in his interview with Oprah. We just have to know what to look for.

The face is the best indicator of a person’s emotions, yet it often goes overlooked. Dr. Paul Ekman, whose research inspired the show Lie to Me, did groundbreaking research on decoding the human face. He demonstrated that facial expressions are universal.¹

People in the United States make the same face for sadness as indigenous people in Papua New Guinea who have never seen TV or movie characters to model themselves after. Ekman also found that congenitally blind individuals—those blind since birth—make the same facial expressions, even though they have never seen other people’s faces.

Ekman designated seven facial expressions that are the most widely used and easy to interpret. Learning to read them is incredibly helpful for understanding the people in your life.

If you want to practice reading people’s faces, it helps to know the following basic expressions. Try making the following faces in the mirror so you can see what they look like on yourself.

A note on the facial feedback effect: The idea that making a facial expression can nudge you toward feeling that emotion has a complicated scientific history. A famous 1988 study suggested holding a pen in your teeth (forcing a smile shape) made cartoons seem funnier. A 2016 replication across 17 labs failed to reproduce this.⁶ But a 2022 study across 19 countries with nearly 4,000 participants found the effect is real—just smaller than originally claimed.⁷ Your facial expressions can nudge your emotions, but they won’t transform them.

Watch our video below to learn how to read people and decode the 7 body language cues:

The 7 Universal Microexpressions

1. Surprise Microexpression

How to spot it:

• The eyebrows are raised and curved
• Skin below the brow is stretched
• Horizontal wrinkles show across the forehead
• Eyelids are opened wide, white of the eye showing above and below
• Jaw drops open and teeth are parted, but there is no tension or stretching of the mouth

Why do we look surprised? When we raise our eyebrows, we open our eyes wider. This lets other observers see where we are looking much more easily—so they can see exactly what we are surprised about.

And if you’ve ever been accused of lying when you were telling the truth, you might have raised your eyebrows and widened your eyes. According to a 2019 study published in Psychological Science, widening the eyes can make a person appear more trustworthy. When you widen your eyes, you literally give off signals to others that you have nothing to hide.⁸

Surprise can also be helpful in the world of dating and attraction—when someone is attracted to you, you might notice them giving a brief eyebrow raise called the eyebrow flash.

What Is an Eyebrow Flash?

An eyebrow flash is a quick raising and lowering of the eyebrows that usually lasts only a fraction of a second. It is commonly used between people who know each other to indicate familiarity, or used as a sign of attraction and interest.

Ethologist Irenäus Eibl-Eibesfeldt documented the eyebrow flash as a universal human greeting found across virtually every culture—a nonverbal way of saying “I see you” or “I’m friendly.”

In a 2008 study published in Current Biology, researchers Senju and Csibra set out to find the power of the eyebrow flash:⁹

• Six-month-old infants were tested to see if they would follow the gaze of an adult
• When the adult looked somewhere without using an eyebrow flash, the infant did not follow the gaze
• However, when an eyebrow flash was incorporated, infants followed the adult’s gaze

Even babies understand on a deep, biological level that when we see this facial expression, it means something interesting is happening (or someone attractive is nearby).

Action Step: Practice using a deliberate eyebrow flash when greeting someone you know. A quick raise-and-lower of the eyebrows signals warmth and recognition instantly—no words needed.

2. Fear Microexpression

How to spot it:

• Eyebrows are raised and drawn together, usually in a flat line
• Wrinkles in the forehead are in the center between the eyebrows, not across the full forehead
• Upper eyelid is raised, but the lower lid is tense and drawn up
• Eyes have the upper white showing prominently, but the lower white is often obscured by the tensed lower lid
• Mouth is open and lips are slightly tensed or stretched and drawn back

Key distinction from surprise: In surprise, the lower eyelids are relaxed and you see whites both above and below the iris. In fear, the lower lids are tensed and drawn upward. This is the fastest way to tell the two apart.

The fear microexpression is closely linked to shock, so there are similarities. But it also has its own purpose—when we are scared and widen our eyes, our field of view increases. This lets us see any threats that might lurk nearby.

Our mouth opens when we are scared because it helps us prepare for two things. First, it readies us in case we need to shout for help. Second, it prepares us to breathe in a large amount of oxygen—helpful in case we need to run or fight.

And if you have ever seen someone frightened, you might have been frightened too. That’s completely normal—mirroring other people’s fear is a natural response. Research shows that when we see fearful facial expressions, the activity in our amygdala—the part of our brain responsible for processing threats—increases significantly.¹⁰ This response even occurs with subliminal fearful faces, meaning the brain detects fear in others before we’re consciously aware of it.

So when one person displays a fear microexpression, others around them will also open their eyes wider. This allows people nearby to be better prepared to seek out signs of danger.

Bonus: Do you ever wonder why we cover our mouths when we are shocked or frightened? This is a way of hiding our emotions. It’s a useful gesture if we are scared by nothing too serious—for example, if we are stumbling around in the dark and bump into someone, only to realize that someone is our friend or family member.

3. Disgust Microexpression

How to spot it:

• Eyes are narrowed
• Upper lip is raised
• Upper teeth may be exposed
• Nose is wrinkled
• Cheeks are raised

Disgust is the expression you make when you smell something bad or hear something nasty. When we squint our eyes in disgust, our visual acuity increases, helping us find the origin of our disgust. It’s also an important microexpression to look out for—if you want to be attractive, science says avoid triggering disgust at all costs.

Here’s why: in a University of Portsmouth study of seventy-six heterosexual women, disgust was found to have the biggest negative impact on sexual arousal—even 3 times more than fear.¹¹ So if you want to be romantic, avoid anything disgusting altogether.

Trying to suppress your disgust also has bad effects. The University of Groningen conducted a study in 2009:

• Participants were asked to suppress their disgust
• They were shown images of a dirty toilet or a film depicting an amputation

Can you guess what happened? These participants began thinking about disgusting things even more. And they also felt more negative in general.

Disgust has 3 times more negative impact on attraction than fear—making it the emotion most worth controlling on a date.

4. Anger Microexpression

How to spot it:

• The eyebrows are lowered and drawn together
• Vertical lines appear between the eyebrows
• Lower lip is tensed
• Eyes are in a hard stare or bulging
• Lips can be pressed firmly together, with corners down, or in a square shape as if shouting
• Nostrils may be dilated
• The lower jaw juts out

(All three facial areas must be engaged to avoid ambiguity.)

Unlike the surprise and fear microexpressions, the angry microexpression is characterized by lowered eyebrows. And there’s a reason why. In a 2019 study in Psychological Science:¹²

• 101 participants judged the dominance of various avatar pictures
• The avatars showed a neutral facial expression but were either tilted upward, downward, or remained neutral

The results showed that those with a downward head position were perceived as more dominant. That’s because when the head is lowered, eyebrows appear more V-shaped and prominent.

This also means that people find angry individuals less trustworthy. With their eyebrows lowered and eyes squinted, it becomes harder to “see” the window to the soul, leading to lower levels of perceived trust.

People who are genuinely angry might try to hide their angry facial expression in social situations. After all, anger is a stronger social norm violation than sadness or other negative emotions. Therefore, people might reveal only a small tell like a quick scrunching of the eyebrows.

However, University of Essex researchers found that angry faces are one of the fastest expressions to be detected. This makes evolutionary sense—we need to quickly tell if someone suddenly becomes angry to avoid possible physical harm.

Besides anger, did you know there are hundreds—if not thousands—of different body language cues? We put together a comprehensive, science-backed tool to learn everything body language:

5. Happiness Microexpression

How to spot it:

• Corners of the lips are drawn back and up
• Mouth may or may not be parted, teeth exposed
• A wrinkle runs from outer nose to outer lip
• Cheeks are raised
• Lower eyelid may show wrinkles or be tense
• Crow’s feet near the outside of the eyes

The expressions on the top are fake happiness, where the side eye muscles are not engaged. The ones on the bottom are real happiness. See the difference?

People try to fake their happiness all the time. But spotting the difference between real and fake smiles is possible when you know what to look for.

What Is a Duchenne Smile?

The Duchenne smile, named after French neurologist Guillaume Duchenne, is a smile that engages not just the mouth but also the orbicularis oculi muscle around the eyes, creating crow’s feet wrinkles. For over a century, scientists believed this eye engagement was impossible to fake.

Here’s where the science gets interesting: a 2013 study by Sarah Gunnery at Northeastern University found that about 71% of people can deliberately produce the eye crinkle when asked to copy a photograph of a Duchenne smile.¹³ However, in natural social situations, only about 24% of people instinctively deploy it when trying to appear happy.

A 2021 study by Jeffrey Girard added another twist: the eye crinkle appeared in 90% of happy smiles but also in 80% of smiles where people reported no positive emotion at all. The eye crinkle may signal smile intensity rather than genuineness—when your mouth pulls up hard enough, the cheeks mechanically push the skin around the eyes.¹⁴

So what actually distinguishes a real smile from a fake one? Watch the timing:

• Genuine smiles build up slowly, hold at their peak, and fade gradually
• Fake smiles tend to “snap” on and off too quickly, or hold the peak for an unnaturally long time
• Asymmetrical smiles (stronger on one side) are more likely to be manufactured

We are still pre-wired to respond to the Duchenne marker. Researchers at Western University found that our brains perceive smiles accompanied by the eye crinkle as being more genuine and intense. People who display Duchenne smiles are consistently rated as more trustworthy and warmer—whether the smile is genuine or not.

Pro Tip: Instead of looking only for crow’s feet, watch how a smile moves. A real smile flows like a wave—it builds, crests, and fades. A fake smile appears suddenly and disappears just as fast.

6. Sadness Microexpression

How to spot it:

• Inner corners of the eyebrows are drawn in and then up
• Skin below the eyebrows is triangulated, with inner corner up
• Corners of the lips are drawn down
• Jaw comes up
• Lower lip pouts out

This is the hardest microexpression to fake. It’s also one of the hardest microexpressions to correctly identify. The reason? Sad microexpressions are not very large or noticeable. There’s no large tell like a smile when a person is sad.

Sadness, unlike surprise, is also one of the longer-lasting microexpressions. People can even develop a resting sad face (similar to RBF). Sadness can also be used as a facial expression to calm down those who are angry.

Why sadness is so hard to spot: Most emotional leakage is partial, not a full-face microexpression. Research by Porter and ten Brinke found that the majority of emotional leakage appears in only the upper or lower face—not both at once.¹⁵ With sadness, the key tell is often limited to a brief triangulation of the inner eyebrows—a movement so subtle that most people miss it entirely.

Action Step: To practice spotting sadness, focus exclusively on the inner eyebrows during your next few conversations. That small upward pull of the inner brow corners is the most reliable sadness indicator, and training yourself to notice it takes deliberate attention.

7. Contempt / Hate Microexpression

How to spot it:

• One side of the mouth is raised

What is contempt? Contempt, similar to hate, is a negative feeling of dislike, disrespect, or offensiveness towards someone. It’s the only one of the 7 universal microexpressions that is asymmetrical.

Unlike the disgust microexpression, contempt is characterized by a feeling of superiority over another. When a person feels contempt, they may feel like they are right and the other person is wrong. If you see the contempt microexpression, pay close attention.

Why? According to marriage researcher Dr. John Gottman, contempt is the most destructive emotion in relationships. His research found that contempt is the single strongest predictor of divorce—he could predict relationship failure with over 90% accuracy just by watching couples argue for 15 minutes.¹⁶

Gottman calls contempt the “sulfuric acid of love” and found that couples who regularly express contempt even have weakened immune systems. The antidote isn’t avoiding conflict—it’s building what Gottman calls a 5:1 ratio: at least five positive interactions for every one negative interaction during conflict.¹⁶

Contempt is the only asymmetrical microexpression—and the single strongest predictor of divorce, with over 90% accuracy.

Action Step: The next time you feel contempt rising during a disagreement, pause and replace it with a specific appreciation. Instead of an eye roll, try: “I disagree with you on this, but I respect that you care about it.” Gottman’s research shows this kind of repair attempt is what separates lasting relationships from failing ones.

Bonus: Resting Bothered Face (RBF)

Have you ever looked at someone who just LOOKS to be angry, sad, or hating the entire universe for no reason? They may just be a sufferer of what is known as resting bothered face (or RBF for short).

Watch our video below to learn the science of resting bothered face and how to prevent it:

If you are a sufferer, you know that whatever you do, RBF just does not go away.

• Eating a nice meal? RBF.
• Doing the laundry? RBF.

Bonus #2: The Snarl

The snarl is a facial expression characterized by a raised upper lip, lowered eyebrows, flared nostrils, and teeth showing. Snarls rarely happen alone; people usually snarl at others to send an aggressive warning. The snarl is unique because it’s the disgust and anger emotions combined into one.

Alongside humans, animals such as dogs and wolves also snarl to display their teeth and send a nonverbal message to back off.

Can Microexpressions Detect Lies?

This is the question everyone asks after watching Lie to Me. The honest answer: microexpressions reveal hidden emotions, but they are not a reliable lie detector on their own.

Here’s what the research actually shows:

Microexpressions are rare in real life. A study by Porter and ten Brinke analyzed nearly 700 facial expressions frame-by-frame and found that true, full-face microexpressions occurred in only about 2% of all expressions. Most emotional “leakage” was partial—appearing in only the upper or lower face.¹⁵

They appear in honest people too. In high-stakes deception scenarios (like televised murder pleas), microexpressions occurred at nearly the same rate in both genuine and deceptive people.¹⁵

Training improves recognition but not lie detection. Ekman’s Micro Expression Training Tool (METT) can boost emotion-labeling accuracy from about 50% to over 80%.¹⁷ But a 2019 study by Jordan, Street, and colleagues found that METT-trained people did not outperform untrained people at actually catching lies—and in some cases performed worse than chance.¹⁸

The Othello Error. A truthful person might flash a microexpression of fear simply because they’re stressed about being questioned—not because they’re lying. Ekman himself named this the “Othello Error,” after Shakespeare’s character who mistook his wife’s fear for guilt.

As Ekman wrote in Telling Lies: “Most often lies fail because some sign of an emotion being concealed leaks. The stronger the emotions involved in the lie, and the greater the number of different emotions, the more likely it is that the lie will be betrayed by some form of behavioral leakage.”

The best approach combines microexpression awareness with other signals: what someone is saying, how their body language shifts, and whether their words match their face. Think of microexpressions as one piece of a larger puzzle—not the whole picture.

How to Spot Microexpressions in Real Life

Knowing the 7 expressions is step one. Actually catching them in conversation is a different skill entirely. Use these six techniques to sharpen your ability to read faces in real time:

Technique 1: The Baseline Method

Before trying to read someone’s microexpressions, watch how their face looks when they’re relaxed and talking about neutral topics. What’s their resting expression? Do they naturally furrow their brows? Do they smile asymmetrically? Microexpressions are meaningful only as deviations from someone’s normal. Without a baseline, you risk misreading natural facial tendencies as emotional leakage.

How to do it: Spend the first 2–3 minutes of any conversation asking easy, low-stakes questions (“How was your weekend?” or “Have you tried that new restaurant?”). Watch their face during these answers. That’s your baseline.

Technique 2: The Upper Face Focus

Research shows that most partial emotional leakage appears in the upper face—the eyebrows and eyes.¹⁵ The mouth is easier to consciously control (we practice smiling on command from childhood), but the eyebrows and the area around the eyes are harder to manage.

What to watch for: Brief eyebrow movements (a quick furrow of anger, a flash of raised brows from surprise), tension around the eyes, or a momentary squint of disgust.

Technique 3: The Mismatch Detector

The most revealing moments happen when someone’s words say one thing but their face briefly flashes something different. A colleague who says “I’m fine with that decision” while their lip corner briefly pulls up on one side (contempt) is telling you something their words aren’t.

Action Step: In your next meeting, focus on one person and watch for moments when their facial expression doesn’t match their verbal response. You don’t need to call it out—just notice it.

Technique 4: The Video Replay Method

Pause interviews, press conferences, or conversation clips and study the faces frame by frame. This builds pattern recognition without the social pressure of a live interaction. YouTube interviews with politicians and public figures are excellent practice material because these people are often managing their expressions carefully.

Tim Roth’s portrayal of Dr. Cal Lightman in Lie to Me actually demonstrates this technique in action—his character constantly pauses and replays footage to catch fleeting expressions. While the show dramatized the accuracy, the practice method itself is sound.

Technique 5: The Single Emotion Sprint

Don’t try to learn all seven microexpressions simultaneously. Start with contempt (the one-sided smirk)—it’s the easiest to spot because it’s the only asymmetrical expression. Once you can reliably catch contempt, add surprise (the eyebrow flash), then work through the rest.

Spend one week per emotion. By week seven, you’ll have a working vocabulary of all seven expressions.

Technique 6: The Mirror Technique

Practice making each of the 7 expressions yourself. Stand in front of a mirror and hold each expression for 5 seconds, studying the muscle movements. Then try flashing them quickly—under a second. This builds muscle memory that helps you recognize the patterns when you see them on other people’s faces.

The best way to read microexpressions isn’t watching the mouth—it’s watching the eyebrows and eyes, where most emotional leakage appears.

Control Your Microexpressions, Control Your Life

Now you may be wondering—why should I control my microexpressions? Other than giving you confidence in social situations, your microexpressions give other people glimpses into your true emotions. And as we covered earlier, people are hardwired to respond to microexpressions—whether we like it or not.

When you know microexpressions, you’ll be able to:

• Improve your relationships with your significant other, friends, and family members
• Discover the true feelings of your clients and partners, both in your professional and personal life
• Catch mismatches between what people say and what they feel during negotiations, interviews, and important conversations
• Respond to hidden emotions with empathy rather than missing them entirely

Charles Darwin described it best:

Every true or inherited movement of expression seems to have had some natural and independent origin. But when once acquired, such movements may be voluntarily and consciously employed as a means of communication.

When we learn the microexpressions of others and have greater awareness of our own, we gain a deeper understanding of every interaction.

But the truth is—identifying microexpressions is only one piece of the puzzle. Maybe it’s time to level up all of your people skills.

Microexpressions Takeaway

Microexpressions are real, scientifically documented, and learnable. Here are your next steps:

1. Start with one expression. Pick contempt (the one-sided lip raise) and practice spotting it for one week before adding others.
2. Establish baselines. Spend the first few minutes of conversations observing someone’s neutral face before reading their expressions.
3. Watch the upper face. Eyebrows and eyes leak more emotion than the mouth.
4. Look for mismatches, not single expressions. A microexpression matters most when it contradicts what someone is saying.
5. Practice with video. Pause interviews and study faces frame by frame to build your pattern recognition.
6. Remember the limits. Microexpressions reveal hidden emotions, not lies. Use them as one clue among many.
7. Use the 5:1 ratio. When you spot contempt in a relationship, counter it with five positive interactions for every one negative one.

If you’re looking to step up your game beyond microexpressions:

• Read and Decode the 7 Nonverbal Cues
• Understand the science behind each emotion
• Try our intensive online training to level up your charisma, communicate powerfully, and take command of your presence