Happiness is considered very important in life. Why is it difficult to define? What factors are important in achieving happiness?

Even high-tech lie detectors

don’t

detect lies as

such

; they merely detect the physical cues of emotions, which may or may not correspond to what the person being tested is saying. Polygraphs,

for instance

, measure respiration, heart rate and skin conductivity, which tend to increase when people are nervous – as they usually are when lying. Nervous people typically perspire, and the salts contained in perspiration conducts electricity. That’s why sudden leap in skin conductivity indicates nervousness -about getting caught, perhaps -which makes, in turn, suggest that

someone

is being economical with the truth.

On the other hand

, it might

also

mean that the lights in the television Studio are too hot- which is one reason polygraph tests are inadmissible in court. “Good lie detectors

don’t

rely on a single thing

”

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,

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says Ekma ,but interpret clusters of verbal and non-verbal clues that suggest

someone

might be lying.” The clues are written all over the

face

. Because the musculature of the

face

is directly connected to the areas of the brain that processes emotion, the countenance can be a window to the soul. Neurological studies even suggest that genuine emotions travel different pathways through the brain than insincere ones. If a patient paralyzed by

s

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a

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troke on one side of the

face

,

for example

, is asked to smile deliberately, only the mobile side of the mouth is raised. But tell that same person a funny joke, and the patient breaks into a full and spontaneous smile. Very few people -most notably, actors and politicians- are able to consciously control all of their facial expressions. Lies can often be caught when the

liars

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liar's

liars'

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true feelings briefly leak through the mask of deception. We

don’t

think before we feel, Ekman says. “Expressions tend to show up on the

face

before we’re even conscious of experiencing an emotion.” One of the most difficult facial expressions to fake- or conceal, if it’s genuinely felt - is sadness. When

someone

is truly sad, the forehead wrinkles with grief and the inner corners of the eyebrows are pulled up. Fewer than 15% of the people Ekman tested were able to produce

this

eyebrow movement voluntarily.

By contrast

, the lowering of the eyebrows associated with an angry scowl can be replicated at will but almost everybody. “ If

someone

claims they are sad and the inner corners of their eyebrows

don’t

go up,

Ekmam

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Ekman

says, the sadness is probably false.”