Darwin in 1872 put forward the idea that emotional expressions are innate, involuntary manifestations of a person's inner state (1). Darwin developed this ideology further and proposed what is today called the inhibition hypothesis (1). This two-pronged theory describes the relationship between emotion and activation of facial muscles, more commonly known as facial expressions (1). The theory states that (a) specific facial muscles cannot be intentionally engaged when authentic emotion is lacking and (b) certain muscles cannot be inhibited when authentic emotion is experienced - it has been noted that this emotion must be particularly intense (Porter and ten Brinke, 2008; Porter, ten Brinke and Wallace, 2011).(8) suggested that the inhibition hypothesis is linked to what is currently known about cognitive processes. Primarily, the limited cognitive resources that the brain possesses can only be distributed among a limited number of tasks; as cognitive demand increases beyond a particular point [i.e. through high emotional intensity/complex lying], emotional flight will occur as the individual attempts to be deceptive (8). It is this concept of emotional escape, stemming from the inhibition hypothesis, that has been of great interest to researchers because it offers insight into the subject's internal affective state (8). Applied applications of the concept have been particularly useful in areas concerned with deception detection – particularly as it relates to high-stakes lies (8). In the discussion of emotional escape and deception detection, it is relevant to examine what Ekman (1992; 2006) calls “micro-expressions.” A micro-expression is defined as a brief flash of emotion that escapes volitional control and occurs through low or high...... middle of paper ......l leakage. Through this process, evidence of the threshold at which emotional leakage peaks could also be found. A methodological paradigm employed would be a combination of that described in (5) and (6). Using a video varying in nominal emotional intensity would be used as a stimulus in the same way as (6), the methodology would then follow that described in (5) [with video stimuli inserted in place of images]. EEG recordings would be made while participants viewed the stimuli and subsequently analyzed appropriately. Analysis of the late positive potential (LPP), occurring at [approximately] 500 ms, of the ERP would be useful as it has been linked to neuronal engagement. emotional regulation (*****); this time frame parallels the upper limit of Ekman micro-expressions, at [approximately] 500 ms (Yan, Wu, Liang, Chen, and Fu, 2013).