Pickpocket - Aug 2012

In the last six issues, I have already introduced to you the basic techniques to read others’ behaviors and to decode them. Most of the people do not believe such reading others’ thoughts or psyche thing. But let me tell you, there is no such thing like reading your mind with special ability like those psyche claims. But only induction and psychology science support.

The Recognition of Reading Non-verbal Behavior

A Case of America (Terry v. Ohio, 392 U.S. 1 (1968))

On October 31, 1963, a 39-year-old senior detective of Cleveland Police Department in Ohio, Martin McFadden noticed there were two men meandered around in front of a shop. They took turn to peek inside the shop then walked away. After few times, they went to a corner of the street and talked to a third party while they kept looking around.

Image: stus.com

Detective McFadden was worried about they were gathering the shop’s information and planning to rob it, so he went to them and did body search to them. They were under arrested after guns were found.

The painstaking observation of McFadden at last became a base of the judgment of the case and the influence from it: If the officer has reasonable suspicion that the person is armed, the officer may perform a search of the person's outer garments for weapons.

For the reasonable suspicion, because of the result of the case, Supreme Court of the United State recognized NVB can foresee crimes with suitable observation and interpretation of NVB.

The Lying Brain and Honest Brain

The Honest Brain

Photo: conwaypsychology.webs.com

Computer has CPU as a control unit to make all different components work smoothly. In human, brain is human’s control unit. All behaviors and reaction, no matter true or fake, conscious or unconscious, are under the command of the brain (except involuntary muscles), like from you scratch your face to you compose a song.   

In our brain, there is a part called limbic system which is the origin of behaving. Limbic system will react reflectively without thinking (especially amygdala and hypothalamus), so the reactions come from this part of the brain are most truthful to the surrounded situation. Also limbic system is the emotion center.

Table: minnesotamedicine.com

The signals are transmitted from this part to other parts of the brain and then coordinate our behaviors. The behaviors are related to our emotion and survival and they are presented though our legs, arms, hands, trunks and faces, so we can observe, induct and explain. The point is, unlike language, they are presented without thinking, so limbic system is recognized as “honest brain” when we are discussing NVB.

This time I put out a lot of evidences to let you know reading NVB is not only a bluff but a tool. I will introduce you about another part of the brain which called “Lying Brain” and more cases!

Practice makes perfect!

Pick their thoughts! They cannot hide their expression and hold their intentions from your eyes!

Jason Lam

References:

392 U.S. 1, 88 S. Ct. 1868, 20 L. Ed. 2d 889 (1968)

Navarro, J., &Karlins, M. (2009).What every BODY is saying an ex-FBI agent's guide to speed reading people (Kindle ed.). S.I.: William Morrow Paperbacks