Micro-Expression
A very brief facial movement often described in research as lasting roughly 40 to 200 milliseconds. Its appearance does not reveal concealed emotion, deception, intent, or another internal state.
Micro-expressions are very brief facial movements — commonly described as lasting about 1/25th to 1/5th of a second. They were first documented by researchers Haggard and Isaacs in 1966 and popularized by Dr. Paul Ekman's later work.
Researchers have studied whether these movements correlate with affective processes, but a brief facial movement does not reveal concealed emotion, deception, intent, or any other internal state.
Computer-vision systems built on FACS can mark and intensity-score brief movements frame by frame. Any interpretation still requires the source footage, surrounding context, and qualified human review.
Related terms: macro expression, facial action coding system, paul ekman, seven universal emotions
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