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Humans automatically follow eye gaze… sometimes.

If one person looks up, you often see others follow suit. We are hardwired to do this, unconsciously, automatically, but there are times when we don’t need to react to someone’s eye movement - and our brains know the difference. “The brain is reading people’s minds, not just where they are looking,” says Brian Scholl, a professor of psychology at Yale University and the senior author of a new study published in ‘Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences’. Our brains can derive meaning from looking into another person’s eyes. We know when we might need to see what they are seeing (a potential threat or point of interest) or whether they are just breaking eye contact. People look off to the side, up or down all the time. They may be breaking contact to relieve tension or eye accessing, perhaps looking up and left to recall a memory, or maybe they have been caught looking somewhere they shouldn’t have been. On all these occasions there’s no need for us (the observers) to look wh...
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Nonverbals of a Zoom meeting

The Body Language of Zoom - Tips Sit Still Chair-swivellers and seat-squirmers can appear nervous (ready for escape) or predatory (ready to attack). Appearing ‘grounded’ can signal that you’re in control and mean what you say: in essence, that you’re not a pushover. This rigidity should apply to the lower body, seat and trunk, and not the face (if you look like a still image you may look frozen in fear). Movement, especially fast movement,  can look jerky on many devices.   Sit up An erect spine can make a speaker look attentive and prepared. If you’re slumped in a seat or hunched over, it can appear that you’re not making an effort, and looking bored can reflect this feeling onto your audience. Shoulders down Shoulders should be square to the camera and kept low/relaxed. When feeling anxious the shoulders have a tendency to raise up for protection with the head lowered (turtle effect). Avoid this to look more confident. Hand gestures Limit the use of gestures. Hands...
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Facial Expressions – are they universal?

The human interest in faces may have originated, as Konner (1982) suggests, from a need to unravel kinship as we looked for shared ancestry or not (friend or foe); but for millions of years, the main reason people have looked at one another’s face is to read emotion and attend to messages.  Humans produce over 20,000 different facial expressions but how many are shared? Back in 1872 Charles Darwin wrote in his ground-breaking book, ‘The Expression of the Emotions in Man and Animals’, of there being several universal facial expressions. In the 1960s, Paul Ekman sought to prove or disprove Darwin’s theory. Ekman travelled to Papua New Guinea to study the isolated Fore people. People who had never previously had any contact with outsiders, not even viewing pictures of them (still or moving). Staying with the group as he studied them, Ekman discovered what their facial expression would be in different circumstances, such as if they were preparing to fight, witnessing a child dyin...
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Coronavirus & Body Language

Coronavirus is changing human behaviour. We are all becoming more aware of proxemics and are washing our hands more frequently. But another piece of advice is proving more difficult to follow: the warning ‘don’t touch your face’ is easier said than done.  Dr Sara Cody, Director of the Santa Clara County Public Health Department, said “Today, start working on not touching your face — because one main way viruses spread is when you touch your own mouth, nose, or eyes.” Within a minute, the health officer had licked a finger.  Many behaviours are performed automatically (unconsciously). Done thousands of times before, these actions have been passed to System 1, and this makes overriding them a conscious act. Take a look at HRH Prince Charles struggling to change a handshaking routine that’s become deep-set. He does, eventually, replace the handshake with a namaste gesture but for how long.      Most of our actions are performed beyond our awaren...
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Hh - Dictionary of Terms

H Habitual behaviour Many behaviours have become habits. They may become part of a neutral baseline, a trait behaviour, or be the person’s ‘go to’ adaptor. Brains have many habitual pathways some of which result in damaging thinking. It’s easier to maintain habits (and pathways) than carve new ones, and our minds limit choices – for efficiency - making habitual behaviours and thoughts easily performed. Hair play This can be a self-comforter (pacifier), especially when raking nails through hair or pulling at it, but it may also signal flirting, as if to show the receiver ‘you could be doing this’ whilst also directing attention to the sender’s hair. Removed hair from a face, such as a hair flick, lets onlookers admire the face, another preliminary courtship signal, as too may be preening. Ruffling another’s hair is a teasing act often done by an older sibling. When ruffling their own hair, as Boris Johnson often does, the performed is saying ‘I’m your pal’ whilst it’s als...
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The Language of Lying

I’m often asked about the body language tells that signal deception, and my answer often disappoints. The problem is there’s no one thing done that gives a liar away, much of the things we think we know are wrong, and we are much better liars (and much worse at detecting a lie) than we think. This article will focus on how the words we use (and avoid), and how we say them, may indicate deception.  Before turning specifically to the verbal sounds of lying, I must note that body language is also important to consider, especially as liars are more likely to rehearse their words than their gestures, but I’ll save the tells for another day. Most people may be better off listening to liars and not looking at them if they want to detect deception, as what comes out of a liar’s mouth is often more important than their body language. When questioning a liar, it’s useful to first get a vocal baseline, asking safe questions and attending to responses. When hearing those responses, h...
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The Art of Status

When it comes to body language, portraits paint an interesting picture. Decisions are made, but by whom? Is it the artist that chooses each pose, picks the expression and choregraphs gestures, or the artist's sitter? And, if the latter, are these decisions made consciously or not? Whilst we don’t usually have the answers, we do know that these decisions reveal much about status and how it is projected. Art can tell us something about the body language of that time. It may be culturally interesting or shine a light on the era’s attitudes, and it’s likely to have been created to represent the sitter in a manner that they (or the artist) wants them to be seen, often this is as a person of high status. Having a quality portrait painted was usually the privilege of the upper classes and artists had ways of representing this position, using the subject’s nonverbals to tell a story. Dominant, high status people take up space, and this includes vertically through an erect posture, a...
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