You Don’t Have To Say A Word

3 December 2008 | 7:51 AM

Depending on who you ask, non-verbal communication is either humanity’s secret weapon or our basest instinct. I tend to think that the things we don’t say often tell us more about ourselves than the things we actually do, and that certainly extends to our inter-verbular (look it up) mannerisms. Since I am prone to verbal diarrhea, when I need to vamp between words I just throw in, well, more words. Others, though, have more intricate non-verbal patterns, with lots of utterances, gestures and facial expressions which pretty much tell us what they’re saying even if we’re not listening to what they’re saying. To wit, it’s interesting to check out Basemotion’s video experiments along these lines:

Despite the fact that I know how to say only one phrase in Spanish, I found it illuminating that I had no trouble picking out what these test subjects were saying. But maybe that’s just me – I can read people like a book, which is how I can tell you want to give me thousands of dollars. Don’t worry: it’ll be our little secret.

Posted by Andy in Science (Not Scientology)