- The ability to work out what is really happening with a person is simple - not easy, but simple. It's about matching what you see and hear in the environment in which it all happens and
Here's a story to demonstrate the point: Two men were walking through the woods when they came
across a big deep hole. 'Wow ... that looks deep,' says one. 'Let's toss a few pebbles in and see how deep it is.' They threw in a few pebbles and waited, but there was no sound. 'Gee - that is a really deep hole. Let's throw one of these big rocks in. That should make a noise.'They picked up two football-sized rocks and tossed them into the hole and waited, but still they heard nothing.
'There's a railway sleeper over here in the weeds,' said one. 'If we toss that in, it's definitely going to make some noise.'
They dragged the heavy sleeper over to the hole and heaved it in, but not a sound came from the hole.
Suddenly, out of the nearby woods, a goat appeared, running like the wind. It rushed towards the two men and ran right between them, running as fast as its legs could go. Then it leaped into the air and disappeared into the hole. The two men stood there, astonished at what they'd just seen. Out of the woods came a farmer who said, 'Hey! Did you guys see my goat?' 'You bet we did! It was the craziest thing we've ever seen! It
came running like the wind out of the woods and jumped into that hole!' 'Nah,' says the farmer. 'That couldn't have been my goat. My goat was chained to a railway sleeper!'
- Most men and nearly half of all women don't know what they look like from the neck down.
- It's how you looked when you said it, not what you actually said. Anthropologist Ray Birdwhistell pioneered the original study ofnon-verbal communication — what he called 'kinesics'. Birdwhistell made some similar estimates of the amount of non-verbal communication that takes place between humans. He estimated that the average person actually speaks words for a total of about ten or eleven minutes a day and that the average sentence takes only about 2.5 seconds. Birdwhistell also estimated we can make and recognize around 250,000 facial expressions.
- Magnetic Resonance Imaging brain scans (MRI) clearly show why women have far greater capacity for communicating with and evaluating people than men do. Women have between fourteen and sixteen areas of the brain to evaluate others' behaviour versus a man's four to six areas.
- Cultural differences are many but the basic body language signals are the same everywhere.
her body away from him to protect her breasts. Is this an inborn female reaction or has she learned to do this by unconsciously watching other females?
- Shaking the head from side to side to indicate 'no' or negation is also universaland appears to be a gesture learned in infancy. When a babyhas had enough milk, it turns its head from side to side to
- By a man's fingernails, by his coat-sleeve, by his boots,by his trouser-knees, by the calluses of his forefinger andthumb, by his expression, by his shirt-cuffs, by his movements - by each of these things a man's calling is plainly revealed. That all united should fail to enlighten the competent enquirer in any case is almost inconceivable.-SHERLOCK HOLMES, 1892
