Paul Ekman Biography

The Life and Works Of Dr. Paul Ekman

Dr. Paul Ekman is an American psychologist that was a pioneer in the study of human emotions and their relation to facial expressions. He is considered the “human lie detector.” Throughout his lifetime, Dr. Ekman’s discoveries have influenced our modern perception of emotions around the world from lie detection, emotional recognition, even to the media! He was the discoverer of the theory that emotions are universal throughout every culture in the world. Some may say that his work is irrelevant because we, as humans interpret and comprehend emotions every day. However, his work with facial expressions contributed to facial recognition programs that assist in catching criminals and that help stop terrorist

However this did not stop his research, in fact, his career was kick started there. While in the army, he served two years as first lieutenant-chief psychologist at Fort Dix, New Jersey. Upon completion of his service, he accepted a position as a research associate at Palo Alto Veterans Administration Hospital. He was working on a grant that focused on studying the nonverbal behavior in psyche patients struggling with PTSD. In 1963, age 29, Ekman was awarded that research grant to study nonverbal communication. The grant would be continuously renewed every year and provided funding for his research throughout the next 40 years until he was offered to become a professor at the University of California, San Francisco in

This test consisted of 110, black and white photographs of caucasian actors displaying universal and neutral emotions. It was used to study the recognition of emotion by normal and psychiatric populations across the world. By 1978, Ekman had developed the Facial Action Coding System (FACS). FACS used facial movements called action units to describe every observable facial movement for every emotion.This system was used for classifying any and every human facial expression across all cultures, countries, races, and even gender. Over the years other types of tests were developed Including the Micro Expression Training Tool (METT) and the Subtle Expression Training Tool, which were developed to identify emotions on an even smaller