I know very little about the science of body language. Actually, before tonight, I didn't realize that one could actually make a living as a body language expert. Imagine my surprise when Bill O'Reilly hosted Tonya Reiman on his show tonight, and introduced her as a "body language guru." I was intrigued, and, for the first time, willingly subjected myself to the O'Reilly Factor for awhile.
I tuned in just in time for her glowing approval of a recent Obama interview, and her affirmation that he was telling the truth, evidenced by his hand movements. She said, "Everyone practices speeches, but you can't practice hand motions." Really, Tonya? You can't?
I googled Tonya Reiman and found out that she appears regularly on the O'Reilly Factor and has bashed Hillary on more than one occasion.
As the show continued, and I resisted the urge to change the channel, Bill showed a video of Eliot Spitzer's apology speech. Tonya assured Bill that Spitzer was truly remorseful based on his lip movements.
Maybe I'm being overly skeptical, but this smells like B.S. to me. Either way, I think I'll go back to my anti-O'Reilly Factor policy.
"I know very little about the science of body language."
Should have stopped there.
Seems like every day they add a new former DI contributor.
Just thought it would be an interesting topic for conversation...
And I was never a DI contributor.
I believe in the power of body-language. We can say so much with our movements rather than words. Try living in a foreign country and conveying your need for...random things. People understand you.
Not only is body language important in detecting sincerity...but so are eye movements. This diagram shows how to detect truthfulness using a person's eye reactions.
Eye Direction and Lying
just fkin with you katie.
I also know very little, but I feel like throwing around some unsubstantiated guesses anyway :)
My guess is that there's something to what she's saying. Something useful and important, even. However, I find it hard to believe that her reads are as reliable as she seems to claim they are, for a few reasons:
1. I don't think everyone's body language is the same. You might be able to make a claim like "85% of the population makes motion X when they are telling the truth and motion ~X when they are lying. Therefore, in the absence of any specific knowledge about this particular person's behavior when lying, our best guess is that there's an 85% chance he's being truthful."
2. I, too, find it very hard to believe that body language can't be nearly fully controlled and manipulated.
3. If we're right about #2, I'd be shocked if top politicians weren't trained to avoid sending the wrong signals.
Could Todd (who knows about gambling) or Billy, Jay, or IlliniKC (who think they know about gambling) comment on the use of reading tells in poker and how effective they think it is?
Kofi - if you fuck with Katie I will shoot off your knee caps.
certain shh-shh agencies in our federal government rely on these sorts of "body language", "eye movement" and even "brain recognition "(I will explain if anyone has a remote interest)...to see if people are lying.
if that agency is using this sort of stuff...i'm sure it must be somewhat legit.
I played internet poker, not live poker. However, there are even some tells online. The most common sort of online tell is a "timing tell" - how long someone takes to make a decision.
For a while, I recorded some data about timing just to make sure that my brain wasn't just tricking me in to thinking I was seeing nonexistent patterns. I confirmed that, indeed, the amount of time someone takes to make a decision provides some information about their holding, but it's not extremely reliable information, and nor is it usually very specific information.
As the stakes increased and the players improved, the value of these timing tells decreased, because the other players were aware of them and used them to send mixed and misleading signals.
Also, though the tells were useful, fundamental knowledge of poker theory and mathematics was far more important.
My friends tell me that live poker is similar - tells become less useful as the stakes become higher and the players can better control their body language, and knowledge of the game is more important than knowledge of body language.
The brain recognition stuff sounds interesting.
A few years ago I was talking to someone who said his father was working for the government (Canada's, I think) on a device to very roughly measure brain activity remotely and without the subject's knowledge.
Is it anything like that? I wasn't sure how seriously to take this guy at the time.
I completely agree with Segen about the power of body language. In one-on-one conversation, it's often more reliable than the dialog itself.
All I'm saying is that this lady in particular seems to be incredibly sure of her predictions, most of which are absolute and without qualifiers. She reminds me of a phone psychic, who makes claims based on little fact. She doesn't know Barack Obama or Eliot Spitzer or most of the other famous people she makes claims about. Her assumptions about their body language seem to be nothing more than simple guesses that you or I could make.
Katie,
I've seen that woman before on O'Reilly. I agree: total quack.
Basic crux:
Instead of lie detector tests, there are brain test (more accurate)that go as follows:
1.) Brain device thingy hooked to your head that measures recognition.
2.) Questioner asks question about specific circumstance. For example, whether or not you know anything about Champaign, Illinois
2.) A series of words are scanned in front of you. Say "Red Porche", "Springfield", "William", and "217".
3.) Apparently if you recognize any of these words, probably the "217" a specific area of your brain is used.
4.) Basically, if you recognize and attribute any of the words to the question they asked you...your brain is going to signal that. This test is used for people who have the ability to pass standard lie detector tests because of their breathing, control of blood pressure, etc. They will then do follow-up questions regarding the ones that "light up".
5.) Problem: The questioners just have to figure out how to strap this thing to your head....which is a problem if you are an elusive foreign agent of some sort...
6.) Generally this technology is used on the shh-shh agency recruits. Everyone's subjected to a truth-test...It's easy for them to go along with the program.