The Ability to Recognize Microexpression and Detect Deception in the Elderly

Abstract

The ability to read other people’s emotions among older people decline with age, which may result in weakened ability to detect deception. Microexpression is closely related to deception; and microexpression can be a valid cue to deception. Therefore, we hypothesized that there existed a positive correlation between microexpression recognition and deception detection in the older adults. To test the hypothesis, twenty-eight older adults (14 females, mean age=70 years, SD=6.2 years) were recruited for this study. They completed the tasks of the microexpression recognition and deception detection. The results showed that: (1) there was a positive correlation between fear macroexpression recognition and deception detection in the elderly (r=0.416, p =.028); (2) the ability of the elderly to detect truth (i.e., truth detection, mean accuracy=0.53) was significantly higher than the ability to detect deception (lie detection), t$(27)$=2.856, p=0.008; (3) there was significant main effect of type of emotional expressions$(F(2,25)$=11.721, p<.001), specifically the accuracy of recognizing happiness was superior to every other emotions’ accuracies of recognition; and (4) there were also significant differences between macroexpressions and microexpressions recognitions among the elderly $(F(1,26)$=113.918, p<.001). The results suggested that, to some degree, there was a positive correlation between the ability to recognize expressions and detecting deception in the elderly, and some factors will modulate the relationship.