My first Secrets of Body Language video course is doing great so far on Udemy (still offering my 40% discount to my readers in the first month).

I wanted to get your feedback on what you wanted next.

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In this course, I will use body language videos to teach you everything you need to know about body language. Learn how to read body language and read the people around you while perfecting your own nonverbal communication.

Do you ever wish you could know what someone is thinking?

Body language is a great way to find out more about the person you are speaking with. Perhaps you also wish you could improve your own body language or wonder about what your nonverbal behavior is saying to the outside world. This body language course is based on scientifically backed research on the how to read people’s nonverbal behavior and improve your own.

Here are some topics the Secrets of Body Language course will cover:

• The Foundations of Body Language
• Nonverbal Communication and the Face
• Emotions and Body Language
• Human Lie Detection and Body Language

In celebration of the course’s launch, I’m offering up a limited time offer for the first 100 readers to enroll! Use the coupon code DedicatedReader for a 40% discount on the original price. Not too shabby, right?!

I’m looking forward to seeing how this goes, so don’t hesitate to let me know what you think!

And thank you in advance for your support and feedback!

What are you waiting for? Take the course now!

How to Get Someone to Tell You More:

Do Not Fill the Silence. Wait an extra beat after your subject finishes talking to make sure they do not have anything else to add. It is amazing how much liars will divulge in these moments.

Invade Their Personal Space: People get a bit rattled when you enter their personal space. Pull a chair closer, or take a step towards them. This makes them feel more transparent and will often encourage them to dig a little deeper.
*This is good if you are trying to get someone to divulge secret information.

Nod Your Head: Head nodding is a universal sign of agreement. Research shows that people will talk three to four times more than usual if the listener nods their head as the speaker talks. You can also do this when someone finishes speaking to get them to say more.

-When someone finishes speaking, stroke your chin (the body language for thinking)
-Nod your head three times to get them to keep talking. If they have anything they are holding back, this can unlock their thoughts by making you seem interested and agreeable.

How to Get Someone to Confess:

Change the Telling: 
This is one way to catch liars or get new information:
-Ask someone to draw their story
-Ask them to tell it backawards
-Ask them to start in the middle

Tell a Worse Version: Tell the subject a more damning version of what you think happened and see if they try to correct you. If they do, you get a confession. Let’s say you think your teenager took money out of your wallet. Start big by asking them if they took money and a credit card out of your wallet. Often times they will correct you and admit to the smaller crime.

Minimize the Significance: This is a classic technique used by TV show cops all the time. Empathize with the person you are speaking with and make the wrongdoing sound like no big deal. Often times the subject will latch on to this lenient line of thinking and either confess or give you a clue as to their thinking.

Vanessa Van Edwards is the author of  “Human Lie Detection and Body Language 101.”  She stopped by to show us to get people to tell us more….or even confess. 

You’ll find more great information from Vanessa on her Huffington Post blog and on her Science of People website.

Her case and behavior have been shrouded in mystery. Followers of the trial have wondered:

Did she really kill Meredith Kercher?

Is she hiding information about the murder?

Does she know more than she is willing to reveal?

Her interview with Diane Sawyer brought to light some new issues and her body language and nonverbal cues might have given us more information than what she actually said.

I wanted to go through the interview and point out which body language cues matched up with her verbal message of innocence and which nonverbal actions were red flags and did not match her statement of innocence. It is important to note that you cannot do accurate lie detection without the first step of deception detection: baselining. Baselining is when you take note of someone’s nonverbal behavior when they are telling the truth and not nervous. More on baselining here.

Since I was only able to watch Knox’s interview and was not able to baseline her, below I will point out a few of the red flags from the interview where I believe Sawyer could have dug a little deeper as her body language did not match her verbal answers.

Here are a few interesting body language clues from Knox’s interview with Diane Sawyer:

1. MATCH: Slow Blink Rate

Throughout the interview Amanda Knox had a noticeably slow blink rate, which is a good sign that she was not lying. Deception and high nerves can both cause a faster blink rate, so her slow blink rate was a good sign that her body language matched her statement of innocence.

2. MATCH: Contempt

Another positive sign that Knox’s words matched her body language was when Diane Sawyer read out the nicknames the media had given to Knox, such as “she-devil with an angel face.” Knox listened to the names and then said, “I haven’t heard those,” while showing a microexpression of contempt–a one-sided mouth raise. This facial expression of hatred is in congruence with her verbal statement of being wrongly accused. See a full guide to microexpressions here.

3. MISMATCH: Nods

A big red flag and mismatched body language was during one of Diane Sawyer’s most important series of questions. Here is how they went:

First, Sawyer asked Knox, “Did you kill Meredith Kercher?” Knox says “No,” very directly, with eye contact, no odd facial tics and, most importantly, a side to side head shake–the nonverbal sign of “no.” This negative head shake matches her negative statement and the absence of facial leaks is also devoid of deception.

Second, Sawyer asks, “Were you there that night?” Knox’s verbal answer is the same, “No.” Yet, her nonverbal behavior at this question is different. She says “No” then flashes a microexpression of surprise and nods her head up and down–the position of “yes.” Here her nonverbal does not match her words. There are a number of reasons why she could have shown that surprise and head nod–she could have been lying, but this also could be an expression she uses for emphasis. Occasionally people raise their eyebrows as a verbal punctuator or exclamation point. Again, not a sure sign of lying, but a definite red flag in my book.

4. MISMATCH: Swallow

Another red flag came directly following Sawyer’s question about Knox’s whereabouts that evening. Sawyer asked, “Do you know anything else you have not told police, that you have not said in this book?” First, it takes Knox a beat longer to answer this question than previous questions–never a good sign. Then she deeply swallows showing intense nerves. This question would not make an honest person nervous. So, why was this question so hard for her to answer? Another red flag.

5. MATCH: Posture

For most of the interview Knox’s posture and the way she held her hands was quite relaxed. This matches her stance of innocence and that she has nothing to hide. The only time she showed extreme nerves was during the intense swallow following Sawyer’s question about withholding information.

6. MISMATCH: Lack of Indignation and Sadness

Several times during the interview Knox verbally expressed sadness and outrage, but did not show these microexpressions. For example, Knox says that “it could very well have been me,” when referring to what could have happened had she had been home. Yet during her comments she shows absolutely no sadness or anger. When she makes the strong statement: “My friend had been murdered and it could just have easily been me,” Her face is completely devoid of emotion. She goes on and sighs, but still no facial emotion of this traumatic event. This lack of emotion does not match her strong words. Again, we don’t know if this is because she is numb from the events or because she has rehearsed these lines so she no longer shows emotion, but it is still a red flag.

Knox’s behavior over the past 4 years has been radically different. After all, we have watched her grow from a college girl into a woman all on the news and in court. She notes in the interview that she wishes she could have handled it all in a more mature way. Our biggest challenge is to differentiate immaturity from guilt.

Could the future of animation be Ethnographic Animation?

Co-authors Vanessa Van Edwards, Behavioral Investigator and Body Language Expert and Kate Ertmann, President and Executive Producer at Animation Dynamics endeavor to find out.

A Brief History of Animation:

Back in 1937, the first full length animated film arrived in movie theaters: “Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs”. Audiences loved the characters because they could identify with them. We don’t mean that kids felt they could see themselves as a princess – though of course that’s true for many of the viewers – but rather that audiences could look at the “Grumpy” dwarf and say “Wow, he reminds me of my Uncle Joe” or look at the evil step-mother Queen and say “She reminds me of my teacher!” and because of that, viewers were able to suspend their belief and forget that they were watching a hand-drawn storybook. Instead, just like when watching any other film of that year – “Heidi” with Shirley Temple, or “The Prince and the Pauper” with Errol Flynn – they were engaged with the storyline because of the believable acting by the characters; their actions, their facial expressions and the emotions that they elicited from the audience.

The Shift of Animation: From Imaginary to Reality

Alas, animation isn’t just animation anymore, it’s about portraying aspects of reality.

In an interview with Charlie Rose, John Lassetter was asked about animation becoming “more and more real” – Lasseter interrupted and said “It’s making it more believable. I like to use the word believable because I never want to produce a world that people think really exist.” What will it take to make animation more believable?

With the rise of reality television and the advancing quality of screens we believe that more and more people are going to demand more realistic animation to make it believable. Animation will have to more closely mirror their real world or they will not believe it, especially if we are relying on animated characters to sell a product, explain a process, or simply share an emotion.

Combining Science and Animation

Since technology has allowed animation to mature, animated characters can now better mimic the emotions and body language of real people. Animation may be even more believable than a reality show contestant trying to feign happiness after losing because at least animators are in complete control of characters–unlike directors for actors or producers on reality TV.

If animators want their characters and stories to be truly believable in today’s mature environment, they might have to use new tools–using Ethnographic Animation.

Ethnographic Animation is fact-based animation. It is animation based on how real people interact with their environment. Ethnography is studying and gathering data about human cultures. How do you share that data with others? You can do this by visualizing the data, and using the technology of animation to quite literally give a face to it. But animators have to be true to the science in every way. Audiences are now better able to know the difference between a guessed animated expression of anger and a science based animated depiction of anger. Luckily, as animation, technology and audiences mature, so does body language science.

Researchers are finding that more and more of our nonverbal behavior, facial expressions, body language and the way we move is innate, rather than learned. This is important for animators because if they learn the universal nonverbal expressions they can use them to make accurate Ethnographic Animations, which in turn makes animation more believable.

Partner in Studio AKA and Cartoon D’or winner, Marc Craste said in a recent interview with Tim Lindsay, “A real face with its infinite subtleties can absorb an audience and tell them all they need to know. It’s not so easy with animated characters, which often need help from whatever else is filling the screen.”

This does not have to be the case. Yes, the face is complex, but animators can capture that complexity if they use body language science. For example, Dr. Paul Ekman has discovered that there are seven universal facial expressions–people in all cultures make these faces when feeling the corresponding emotions. Fear is when we raise our eyebrows, flash the whites of our eyes and pull our lips away from our teeth as if to yell. This looks the same whether you are American, Asian or African.

Audiences used to reality television are now accustomed to seeing more genuine emotion on screen, as opposed to feigned emotions through acting. To keep animation believable, animators can use body language science to reality-ize their characters.

Our brain also knows when something isn’t right in just segments of a second. As Malcolm Gladwell discussed in his book, Blink, humans naturally ‘thin-slice,’ or quickly judge what’s true and false around us quite accurately. He shows us that we can know what emotions a person is feeling just by looking at his or her face. What a powerful tool for animators–to use universal body language science to display a character’s emotions.

More Than Just Cartoons

Animation is now being used by companies, teachers and institutions who are hoping to teach as well as entertain. Corporations often produce complicated products and processes, which need to be explained to others. Animation has helped tremendously give users clear visualizations of how a product is used.

Ethnographic Animation is not only essential to make animation more believable, but also in order to get past multi-cultural barriers. For example, if an international company has an animated video demonstrating use of their product, they need it to appeal to users from all cultures, in all shapes, colors and sizes. Ethnographic Animation helps animators boil down universal body language to its essence, so users can understand without getting distracted with cultural differences. Cultural characteristics of the human and the environment can be muted while details that specifically project the emotion and experience that is important to the storyline can be rendered fully to stand out.

Animation of the Future

That we know that quick flashes – a segment of a second – can emit a true emotion based on scientific studies, and that certain facial expressions and body poses are universal, character animators can refer to these breakdowns and reflect this back in their art. They can truly use science as a way to guarantee effectiveness in the messaging – be it storyline or product branding.

Using Ethnographic Animation benefits the animator, the audience, and potentially, the client if animation is being used for demonstration purposes. For animators, using body language science takes the guesswork out of facial expressions and a character’s body. For audiences, they can focus on the story since they are not being distracted by unrealistic character behavior. And for companies, mobile app developers and websites using animation, they can appeal to a wider audience by using universal body language science.

Ethnographic Animation is the future of bringing stories to life.

Vanessa Van Edwards runs the ScienceofPeople.org. She writes, researches and speaks about body language, human lie detection and the behavior of people.

Kate Ertmann became a partner at Animation Dynamics in 2000, and sole owner in 2008, leading the company to produce innovative animation for a variety of marketing, advertising, educational and training needs.

Citations:

http://www.charlierose.com/view/interview/12024

http://www.psfk.com/2013/03/animation-storytelling-advertising.html

Gladwell, Malcolm. Blink: The Power of Thinking without Thinking. New York: Little, Brown and, 2005.

Ekman, Paul, and Wallace V. Friesen. Unmasking the Face. Cambridge, MA: Malor, 2003.

To find out more about Vanessa’s work, visit: ScienceofPeople.org.

Her nonverbal behavior book: Human Lie Detection and Body Language 101

Her parenting book: Do I Get My Allowance Before or After I’m Grounded

References:
Paul Ekman (1999). Basic Emotions. In T. Dalgleish and M. Power (Eds.). Handbook of Cognition and Emotion. Sussex, U.K.: John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
“The lie detective: San Francisco psychologist has made a science of reading facial expressions” by Julian Guthrie, San Francisco Chronicle, Monday, September 16, 2002.
Book: Why Kids Lie: How Parents Can Encourage Truthfulness

This was originally posted on Vanessa’s Huffington Post Column, read it here: Ethnographic Animation: How Reality and Animation Collide

After studying human lie-detection and then implementing the principles while working with thousands of teens, parents and families, I wanted to give a few pointers for adults, teachers and parents.

The clues below are some of the statistical signs of deceit — meaning they most often show up in people who are lying. Lie detection and body language is a complex science, but I have simplified it here for immediate application. If you want to dig deeper into the science, I lay out the entire method in my book, Human Lie Detection and Body Language 101.

The most important thing to remember about lie detection is that one clue alone does not guarantee lying — if you see some of the clues listed below, it is simply a red flag to get more information.

1. Verbal Nuance

If the timing is off between gestures and words, lying or hidden emotions are most likely lurking. For example, if your teenager is talking about how angry they are about something, but their facial expression is one of sadness or neutrality, they are most likely forcing the emotion even though they do not feel it. Verbal nuance can also show up as a delayed reaction to the emotion. They might say, “Yeah, I am angry about it,” pause and then display an angry expression. This is not genuine emotion because their words are not matching their expressions.

2. Relief

A liar almost always shows great relief when the subject is changed. If you are talking to your teen about an issue you are suspicious of and then move on from the topic, notice their reaction. If they show great relief or a total change in behavior, they were most likely tense or hiding something.

3. Fear vs. Surprise

In my presentations and articles on nonverbal behavior, I often reference microexpressions. A microexpression is a brief, involuntary facial expression that is shown on the face of humans according to the emotions that are being experienced. Unlike regular prolonged facial expressions, it is difficult to fake a microexpression. They often occur as fast as 1/15 to 1/25 of a second. There are seven universal microexpressions: disgust, anger, fear, sadness, happiness, surprise and contempt. In terms of lying, I believe that fear and surprise are the most important ones for parents to recognize. After all, if you ask your child, “Did you know about the cheating incident at school?” A fearful microexpression will tell you something very different than if they look surprised.

Surprise:

• The brows are raised and curved
• Skin below the brow is stretched
• Horizontal wrinkles across the forehead
• Eyelids are opened, white of the eye showing above and below
• Jaw drops open and teeth are parted but there is not tension or stretching of the mouth

Fear:

• Brows are raised and drawn together, usually in a flat line
• Wrinkles in the forehead are in the center between the brows, not across
• Upper eyelid is raised, but the lower lid is tense and drawn up
• Upper eye has white showing, but not the lower white
• Mouth is open and lips are slightly tensed or stretched and drawn back

4. Verbal Clues

If you are speaking with your child and they begin responding to an accusation by offering a belief in general instead of the specific instance (i.e. ‘Do you smoke pot?’ ‘I believe pot is dangerous’) they are subconsciously avoiding answering the question. They also might add in additional details until you believe them to fill silences. Liars often use phrases like “to tell you the truth,” “to be perfectly honest,” and “why would I lie to you?” Another clue to deceit is when teenagers have answers that sound extremely rehearsed, even if it is about a casual event.

Lying is a very natural, yet dangerous occurrence. Unfortunately it is part of growing up, but parents need to be aware of teens lying habits to keep them safe. I share these tips and hope they will be used in the right circumstance.

To find out more about Vanessa’s work, visit: ScienceofPeople.org.

Her nonverbal behavior book: Human Lie Detection and Body Language 101

Her parenting book: Do I Get My Allowance Before or After I’m Grounded

References:
Paul Ekman (1999). Basic Emotions. In T. Dalgleish and M. Power (Eds.). Handbook of Cognition and Emotion. Sussex, U.K.: John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
“The lie detective: San Francisco psychologist has made a science of reading facial expressions” by Julian Guthrie, San Francisco Chronicle, Monday, September 16, 2002.
Book: Why Kids Lie: How Parents Can Encourage Truthfulness

This was originally posted on Vanessa’s Huffington Post Column, read it here: How to Tell When Your Child Is Lying

Be sure to tune in tomorrow to the Today Show at around 8:15am for a segment I will be doing on Promposals–the new teen trend of asking people to Prom via YouTube and other such grand technology gestures.

Be sure to tune in!

Best,

Vanessa

It is very important for interviewees to not only think about the verbal answers they want to give in an interview, but also what their nonverbal answers are saying. Up to 93% of our communication is nonverbal–our body language, facial expressions and voice tone. So, have you thought about what your body language is saying when interviewing for your dream job?

Here are just a few tips for you to ace your interview using body language:

1. One Bag

Studies have shown that people who carry more than one thing–like a purse and a briefcase or a briefcase and a coat are perceived to be less organized and more forgetful. So, before going into an interview be sure to consolidate your bags, leave coats and extra things in the car and give your coat to the receptionist to hang so you do not have to carry it into the interview.

2. Check the Back of Your Shoes

The last thing your interviewer will see when you walk out the door is the back of your shoes. No need to go out and buy new shoes, but make sure the ones you have are polished and not too scuffed up–it shows you take care of yourself and pay attention to detail.

3. Smile Right

Women are told to smile when they are nervous, but studies show that the more people smile the lower their perceived intelligence. Also smiling over nerves gives off a disingenuous attitude because your smile is a cover up. So smile when you sit down, when you leave and when you are truly passionate about something, but do not smile just to hide your nerves.

4. Think About Your Physical Space

When women are nervous, they tend to take up as little space as possible–crossing their legs, tucking their arms into the chair, but this looks weak and lacks confidence in an interview. When men are nervous they try to claim space by spreading out their legs and draping arms over nearby chairs and couches. However, taking up a lot of space is seen as aggressive by female interviewers and competitive by male interviewers. So be careful about your physical space–be confident in your movements, don’t tuck in your legs or overly spread out. This makes you look collected and balanced.

5. Sit Right

The best way to sit in an interview is in slightly angled chairs. If you have the choice, try to sit at a slight angle because studies show that when chairs are directly across from each other there is less recall of what is said, more negative answers and more close-mindedness.

6. Start in the Parking Lot

Your interview actually starts in the parking lot. You never know who you might meet in the elevator or if the receptionist reports on what she sees in the waiting room. Get in the mentality of your interview the second you pull into the lot.

7. Read Your Interviewer As Well

Remember if you are interviewing, be sure to know when your interviewer is lying to you by reading their nonverbal behavior.

Don’t forget how important body language is in an interview–practice your nonverbal communication as well as your verbal answers. If you want to dig a little deeper into body language and human lie detection, check out my book: Human Lie Detection and Body Language 101