Members in the Media
From: The Economist

A handy tip

The Economist:

A POKER face. It is the expressionless gaze that gives nothing away. To win at poker, the face must be mastered, and master it is what the best players try their best to do. But a study just published in Psychological Science by Michael Slepian of Stanford University and his colleagues suggests that even people with the best poker faces give the game away. They do so, however, not with their heads but with their hands.

Mr Slepian made his discovery when he showed 78 undergraduate volunteers video clips of players placing bets at the 2009 World Series of Poker. (Bets in poker are placed by pushing chips into the middle of the table.) The clips were 1.6 seconds long, on average, and featured different parts of the players’ anatomies. Some showed everything visible from the table up: chest, arms and head. Some showed just the face. And some showed only the arms and hands. Each volunteer watched only one of the three types of video, but was shown several examples.

Read the whole story: The Economist

More of our Members in the Media >


APS regularly opens certain online articles for discussion on our website. Effective February 2021, you must be a logged-in APS member to post comments. By posting a comment, you agree to our Community Guidelines and the display of your profile information, including your name and affiliation. Any opinions, findings, conclusions, or recommendations present in article comments are those of the writers and do not necessarily reflect the views of APS or the article’s author. For more information, please see our Community Guidelines.

Please login with your APS account to comment.