This is an interesting article[1], the opinion of the author is that no reliable studies have been conducted as to if humans can detect deceit at all. He is skeptical that machines can deduce deceit using micro expressions.
Quote: "Looking for cues to deception merely from ephemeral facial micro-expressions is questionable and likely fruitless. Micro gestures may be indicative of internal emotional turmoil that is being suppressed, but that is it. The distinguished Paul Ekman, who in fact coined the term micro - expression has stated in his book Telling Lies that micro expressions are rare and they "don't occur that often" (Ekman 1985, 131, 165). Plus as others have said, there is no single behavior indicative of deception (Matsumoto et. al., 2011, 1-4). I am concerned that machines that focus solely on the face will no doubt miss other information from the body (sweating, jittery hand, etc.) or generate lots of false positives because negative emotions abound especially where such machines are intended such as airports (stress of travel, stress of being subjected to searches, or inconvenient interviews, etc) or in a police setting."
After this poor person getting downvoted six levels deep while asking reasonable questions, finally a comment that answers the question. I was wondering the same thing as u/bufferoverflow: sure, polygraphs don't work, but I've never heard of microexpressions being pseudoscience before. Everyone acts as if it's a given that whatever possible lie detector you come up with, it has to be snakeoil.
Quote: "Looking for cues to deception merely from ephemeral facial micro-expressions is questionable and likely fruitless. Micro gestures may be indicative of internal emotional turmoil that is being suppressed, but that is it. The distinguished Paul Ekman, who in fact coined the term micro - expression has stated in his book Telling Lies that micro expressions are rare and they "don't occur that often" (Ekman 1985, 131, 165). Plus as others have said, there is no single behavior indicative of deception (Matsumoto et. al., 2011, 1-4). I am concerned that machines that focus solely on the face will no doubt miss other information from the body (sweating, jittery hand, etc.) or generate lots of false positives because negative emotions abound especially where such machines are intended such as airports (stress of travel, stress of being subjected to searches, or inconvenient interviews, etc) or in a police setting."
[1] https://www.psychologytoday.com/ca/blog/spycatcher/201203/th...