In this episode of our series, “The World’s Most Interesting People,” I sat down with Dr. David Matsumoto. He’s the director and lead researcher for Humintell and is the founder and director of San Francisco State University’s Culture and Emotion Research Laboratory.
Dr. Matsumoto is a world-renowned expert in the field of emotion, nonverbal behavior, deception and culture. He has produced more than 400 academic works, including books, book chapters, journal articles, and conference presentations. He sat down with me to discuss how to use observation skills to determine intent and deception.
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What’s a strategy you’ve taught people like the FBI that us normal folks can use?
Dr. Matsumoto is a former instructor for the FBI National Academy. He told us:
If you want to be better at this skill [decoding, reading people, spotting lies], observe.
Dr. Matsumoto
Based on his experience, Dr. Matsumoto sees so many people having interactions who are not really observing. He believes it is absolutely possible to be both an active listener and an active observer.
This is not a passive task, Dr. Matsumoto revealed. To be a good observer, one must notice the signals occurring and also process what those signals may be revealing about the person.
This is a tough cognitive task and takes practice!
How would someone break down this observation skill into homework for themselves?
Dr. Matsumoto suggested honing your observation abilities on your commute, at work or even sitting on a park bench. He also offered you this challenge:
Challenge: Beef up your observation skills by counting how many times I (Vanessa) raised my right hand in the above video. See the final count at the end!
Dr. Matsumoto tested this exact observational challenge when he traveled to Japan–a self-proclaimed, conservatively expressive culture. He watched a five-minute video of a Japanese man talking and counted hundreds of hand gestures. In five minutes! This is way more than the person thought they used. Sometimes, how we think we express is different from what we actually express. This is why it’s so important to observe our own nonverbal and that of others.
Do you have a favorite show that you watch to practice your decoding skills?
Dr. Matsumoto recommended watching the news to see expressions in their natural habitat. He especially likes watching politicians in interviews. This context leads to natural displays of expressions like a scripted or prepared message can’t provide.
Challenge: Pick one of the seven microexpressions and count how many times someone uses it. This can be in person or on TV!
You’ve done so much research. Do you have a favorite study you’ve facilitated?
My favorite study is always the last one.
Dr. Matsumoto
Dr. Matsumoto revealed that he is so proud of his current research and that every time he publishes a new study, he feels it’s the best thing he’s ever done. Now that’s what I call living in the moment!
Can you share anything unpublished you’re working on now or is it all secret?
Dr. Matsumoto shared that he’s currently incredibly interested in clusters of nonverbal behavior.
Analyzing clusters simply means using multiple channels to determine intent and potential deception and can use both verbal and nonverbal signals. When there’s extreme cognitive load or pressure on the brain (this typically happens when someone lies), signaling can occur in lots of different ways–someone may gesture more or less than when they are telling the truth, someone’s speech may change or a variety of other behavioral changes may surface.
In human lie detection, there’s no Pinocchio’s nose, meaning there’s no one cue that means someone is lying. When you examine clusters, you get a much clearer and accurate picture of a subject’s mental state.
You’re studying people all day long. Has anything you’ve learned professionally been brought into your personal life or changed anything about the way you conduct your personal life?
There’s no way to turn it off, Dr. Matsumoto told me.
What’s important to remember, he suggested, is that anyone can learn a skill, but it’s someone’s intent behind that skill that affects behavior. Being able to read and decode people may make someone an incredible leader or influencer if they have positive intent. However, with malicious intent, these same skills can cause someone to act negatively.
You can use it for good or bad.
Dr. Matsumoto
If I were to give you a grant for unlimited funding, what would you want to study?
Dr. Matsumoto said he’d want to study the same things, but he’d go about his research in an entirely different way.
Right now, academics are siloed by department, meaning psychologists, sociologists, anthropologists, economists, etc. all are doing separate research in different spaces.
With unlimited funding, he’d bring these experts together to look at nonverbal behavior from all angles and drivers of the human experience. Basically, he’d create an unstoppable interdisciplinary team to understand how nonverbal all fits together. Unfortunately, the current education model has created what Dr. Matsumoto refers to as the “Humpty Dumpty” effect, which is that everything for one particular topic has been broken up into a million pieces for experts to study separately. This can make the bigger picture or usable findings scattered.
A lot of research is trial and error–not every experiment succeeds. Do you have an example of a past experiment with a hopeful hypothesis that didn’t pan out as you thought? Is there one study that keeps you up at night?
Dr. Matsumoto said yes, many of his experiments turned out differently than he expected. More than that, however, is the surmounting research that he hasn’t published yet. He’s been published in academic journals more than 160 times, yet there are hundreds more studies that either didn’t make the cut or haven’t been formally written into a paper.
One area he’s currently studying is nonverbal signals of triumph and how other mental states contribute to nonverbal behavior. He told us that nothing keeps him up at night–he’s too exhausted after his nightly judo practice!
The good news is there is lots more research to come from Dr. Matsumoto’s lab, and we can’t wait to share it with you!
Follow along with Dr. Matsumoto’s journey:
