Our faces reveal multitudes about who we are, what we are thinking, feeling, as well as our intentions and impressions—it is one of the most complex parts of the human body. Lying right under your nose is an awesome landscape of skin, muscles, features and expressions which we know little about. So from The Pogue Center, here are a few facts you could learn about your own face:
  • The face has the biggest range of muscle structure in the human body and 43 or these muscles are directly linked to facial emotions.
  • Humans are capable of making 10,000 unique facial expressions.
  • Genuine facial expressions are almost always symmetrical. From frowns to smiles, we typicallyreveal true feelings evenly on both sides of the face. Just like a picture hanging perfectly plumbon a wall, one’s face looks its most natural when balanced.
  • It’s the involuntary movements around the eyes that distinguish a genuine smile from a fakeone. Genuine, sincere smiles involve two main parts: upward-turned corners of the mouth, andnarrowing of the eyelids to form “crow’s feet” at the corners of the eyes. Humans canconsciously and fairly easily manipulate the muscles around the mouth to form the bottomhalf of a smile, but it’s nearly impossible for us to fake the muscle movements of the top half,the area around the eyes.
  • Like the rest of your body, exercising your facial muscles will tone and firm them, adding volumeto smooth the surface and reduce sagging.
  • Through his groundbreaking research in the 1960s in the jungles of Papua New Guinea, PaulEkman disproved earlier theories that human expressions were learned, and instead showedthat our facial expressions are innate and universal.
  • There are 21 mimetic facial muscles – commonly known as muscles of facial expression. They arethe only muscles in your body directly attached to your skin and so form the foundation of yourface.
  • We regularly flash micro-expressions that last less than 1/25th of a second. Not all of our facialexpressions, even the genuine ones, are easy to read. Some signs of emotion flash by quickly, injust a split-second, before we consciously or subconsciously neutralize them.