Your Confirmation Bias vs. Context

“How ARRROGANTLY she behaved! You should have been there just to observe your daughter.”*, “Unlike her husband, she didn’t express any respect towards the elders.”, “After getting married to a rich man, she isn’t caring about her own family.” [This is the most accurate and contextual (and not literal or word-to-word) translation of the original statements made in my native language.]

Three different persons made three different (above) statements in front a father about his beloved daughter. Certainly, such statements might have broken his heart that was already beating with a great muscular effort. He was already suffering from high blood pressure (hypertension) and under medication for years. Additionally, he couldn’t sleep well at night over a whole week after his daughter betrayed his trust by marrying the guy privately and above all - without giving any prior intimation.

While disregarding current mental and physical state of the father, the three persons shared their own assessments without any hesitation. Obviously, it was clear that they were ‘expertly’ confident about their assessments of the body language and behavioral cues the girl was subconsciously giving away as they were closely observing her. So, what was the exact context or overall situation? Also, exactly how I personally became a part of it?

A year ago (2024), I was selected as a member of a small committee. It was tasked to visit the newly-wed couple and the family of the boy who married the girl. The girl and the boy belonging to two different castes got married without taking a formal consent from their respective families. That’s why the committee was sent by the girl's parents to discuss about formalizing their marriage by a public ceremony.

When we entered the boy’s house, the boy and his family formally greeted us. According to the Indian cultural tradition, he touched the feet of all senior members from the visiting committee. We took our seats in the large hall and tea was served to us. Soon, we started discussing about the whole situation and how we should proceed ahead to formalize the marriage of the newly-wed couple.

After a few minutes, two senior committee members requested the boy to call the girl as they wanted to see her in person. After a few moments, she entered the hall. However, she didn’t touch the feet of the senior members from the committee. She straightly and swiftly walked up to the chair that was placed adjacent to the boy’s chair. That move was utterly shocking for many.

The girl maintained herself in the chair without any expressions or muscular movements on her pretty face, as if it was completely frozen or paralyzed. Additionally, she had maintained in an upright body posture with her chin head high. However, she kept her widely open eyes continuously hovering over the members of the committee. Some of them were her close relatives.

The discussion concluded amicably and formalizing their marriage was decided by both sides. As we (committee) were leaving the house, most committee members were discussing about the girl's unexpected behavior. Especially, three members concluded that the girl appeared extremely arrogant, uptight or rigid throughout the face-to-face interaction that lasted for 15 minutes.

Are you still trapped in the confirmation bias?

According to one senior committee member, the boy left a very good first impression by touching the feet of the senior members of the committee. According to the same member, “there was no guilt in the eyes” of the girl for betraying the trust of her family and parents. As he repeatedly had tried to convince her over the years, she had promised him of not marrying the same boy.

Another committee member once had a bitter argument the girl about her decision to marry the same boy a few months ago. As I personally noticed the same, he was the one who was staring at the girl with squinted eyes, tilted neck and dropped chin. Without any surprise, his body language stood out among all committee members. Also, he was the one who made the first statement.*

According to my own evaluation or assessment, the girl was hyper-vigilant and edgy during the whole interaction. She was under tremendous distress while closely interacting with the familiar persons with the very possibility of being shamed, blamed or questioned. I call this behavioural phenomenon as "Vigilance out of Distress" (VooD). Is there suitable phrase(s) for it than this one?

After a few days after formalization and acceptance of their marriage by both sides, I happened to meet and talk with the same girl's close friend. My assessment turned out to be right when she told that the girl going through an enormous distress as she was facing the familiar people. Unlike his own husband, she couldn’t behave and express normally in their presence.

This is one of the excellent examples that demonstrates exactly how most of us instinctively judge, access or evaluate the behavior and body language of another person. Without taking the context or overall situation into consideration, most of us firmly stick to their prejudices, firm beliefs, prior conclusions or confirmation biases. It locks them inside their own mental prisons.What about you?

Establishing the context accurately needs focus, attention (to details), patients and rationality. However, confirmation bias subconsciously helps a biased person reach on conclusions quickly while completely ignoring what doesn’t support her bias. Also, it saves both time and energy that is freshly required for the brain of the same person to even consider the variability in the context.

Like ignoring, bypassing or not establishing a context accurately, having a confirmation bias is damaging to the process of accurately reading, inferring, analysing or deciphering any kind of observed, recorded or detected cues let alone nonverbal ones. Also, it can lead to over-generalization of the cues. Confirmation bias and over-generalization are two sides of the same coin.

As majority of people’s assessment, appraisal or evaluation about others is completely paralyzed or hijacked by their confirmation biases, one might think that the machines might help us in reading, inferring, analysing or deciphering the body language more accurately than humans. However, machines with narrow intelligence don’t understand the social context (just yet!).

Artificial Intelligence (AI) reading Body Language

When Artificial Intelligence (AI) will be picking, detecting or recording the body language cues much timely, rapidly, clearly and precisely than the bare human eyes; the super-critical responsibility of establishing the context correctly will be left to the super-rational human brains. Are we ready for it?

[👉#Critical Input: It’s quite possible that a person consciously or subconsciously giving away a particular body language cue might choose to think or confirm that other people giving the same cue has the exact same meaning that she has been taught by somebody, learned or found by herself.]

Related Articles:
1) CONTEXT is the KING 2) Interpretation 3) Perceptual Bias 4) Being a Body Language Expert 5) Are you stuck with the same meaning?

Body Language and Lie Detection

Perhaps, the first ever and most interesting record of detecting lies or catching liars by checking the bodily or physiological cues or indicators goes back to 3,000 years ago. The process of lie detection inside the imperial courts of ancient China was entirely focused on salivation (secretion of saliva). What is the exact logic behind it? If a person produces less or no saliva inside her mouth then it's most likely that she is under stress while speaking with/to or answering the questions asked by another person.

Before starting to speak or to give answers, an accused person or a suspect was ordered to keep a lump of dry rice in her mouth. As speaking or answering come to an end, the person was ordered to take out or spit the rice from her mouth for visual inspection. If the rice was found to be moist or wet due to normal secretion of saliva during the question-answering session then it was assumed that the person was telling the truth because she wasn't speaking without any stress or fear. Wasn't it simplest and straightforward? Obviously, chewing rice was much better than getting tortured.

We do lie verbally but we've set out on the mission to check the nonverbal cues of lying. From indirectly checking the saliva inside the mouth to detecting the cues, signs or indicators in body language, we look for fear, guilt, stress, anxiety or nervousness. There are several other ancient methods of lie detection. Surprisingly, some of them are still used, such as licking a red hot spoon in Bedouin tribal members of Arabia. Truth teller wouldn't get a scar or burnt mark on tongue, due to the normal level of saliva keeping it enough wet.

Although tongue is solely responsible for generating the deceptive speech, we can't stop ourselves from looking at each other's faces or into eyes look even while we aren't talking. That's why we've developed different (mis)beliefs around the face about the (reliable) cues, signs or indicators of lying, over the thousands of years. Some of them are universal e. g. a person not looking into your eyes or looking away is lying to you. However, it's not at all necessary that people of every culture and/or ethnicity exactly do the same.

Most of us are naturally inclined to blindly believe in and follow the tips, tricks or techniques that are shown in or shared by commercial movies, online videos and TV serials to catch liars in the real-time. Lie to me was a famous TV serial in which the central character Dr. Cal Lightman was depicted as an expert that could catch liars by detecting their facial micro-expressions. However, they can't be detected in the real-time without a formal training and rigorous practice.

(Image Courtesy: Fox Broadcasting Company)

"So, Exactly how GOOD (%) we are in detecting lies? Certainly, we aren’t 100% good. Even our technological tools aren’t 100% good/accurate in catching lies."
One of the 55 slides from my recent presentation
(Note: Please read #Special Note (below) for more details.)

Whenever it comes to determining if a person is lying or telling the truth based on the nonverbal or body language cues, signs or indicators; there's a little disagreement among people, especially between two tentatively different groups. First group (A) is mostly made up of academic researchers and/or scientists. Second group (B) is largely made up of the professionals such as (counter-)intelligence officers/agents, lie detection professionals, law enforcement officers, lie detection experts, forensic interviewers, interrogators and investigators who do face people.

On one hand, if not all but most studies that have been conducted so far were by the academic researchers from western cultures, countries, universities and/or institutions. They mostly involved the subjects of very specific backgrounds e. g. university students. Also, most experiments have been conducted in controlled environments or inside labs. Of course, conducting elaborate experiments or studies by involving the real suspects, criminals or offenders might be posing some difficulties, challenges and/or limitations for researchers.

On the other hand, it's only the professionals who ask questions or interrogate to get confessions from the real suspects or criminals. Unlike a limited amount of, chosen or specific subjects participating in experiments conducted in controlled environments or labs; they do face the real people belonging to different ages and genders with diverse social, ethnic, genetic, physical, cultural, educational, developmental, psychological and economical backgrounds, conditions and/or histories. They do matter a lot.

Both groups or even the members of any single group among themselves don't completely agree with each other about (some) nonverbal or body language cues as reliable and/or strong indicators of lying. Indeed, members of any single or both groups have their own conclusions that have been entirely derived from their own studies, findings, observations, experiments and/or experiences originating from entirely different sets of people they faced so far.

After going through the above facts or bitter truth, I'm quite sure that you clearly realize a great gap between both groups or parties i. e. A) Academics/scientists and B) Professionals/practitioners. Of course, there's a great difference in operating conditions, inclinations, obligations, challenges, exposures, limitations, thoughts, resources and/or methods of both groups or even among the members of any single group.

Despite of disagreements between both groups or even among the members of any single group, they do honestly share the single-most common goal or the greater challenge of bringing the criminals and offenders to justice by analyzing the different kinds of cues that suspects or criminals do subconsciously give away while lying or deceiving verbally.

Method of lie detection by analyzing of body language is repeatedly criticized as 'pseudoscientific' by (some) academic researchers and/or scientists. Hence, I really wonder if a truly 'scientific' lie detection method is strictly supposed to be capable of predicting beforehand, with a mathematical accuracy. Can any lie detection expert, interrogator or professional can predict a nonverbal cue or cues of lying, well before facing the person to be interrogated, interviewed, questioned or scrutinized? Or Is it always possible to anybody? Being an independent researcher, I've to challenge you to think over this.

If predictability of nonverbal or body language cues of lying is the sole qualifying criteria then it'll be satisfied in an ideal world in which every person's neural wiring, perception, personality, experiences, motivations, anxieties, ambitions, intentions, character, thoughts, ideology, memories and needs are exactly the same. What about the differences in social, ethnic, genetic, physical, cultural, educational, developmental, psychological and economical backgrounds, conditions and/or histories that subtly or overtly influence, govern or shape them in this world?

Still, most lie detection experts or professionals do agree that there's no single reliable, definite or universal cue of lying or verbal deception. Also, any single cue doesn't convey anything so multiple cues need to put in a cluster. However, a cluster of different cues doesn't help until it is timely and smartly capitalized by the investigator in search of the truth or reality. Actually, a suspect, a criminal or an offender needs to confess the crime or offense verbally or it needs to be proven in the court with evidences.

Hence, analysis of nonverbal or body language cues in the real-time is only a tool. It can and does help a questioner, an interviewer or an interrogator to dig deeper in the mind of the person under scrutiny. If the investigator is well trained and/or skilled in statement analysis and speech (para-language) analysis then it gives a huge advantage. Sometimes, mental smartness works much better or efficiently than pressure, confrontation, intimidation or physical torture.

Actually, determining if a person is telling a lie or a truth just by observing her body language with bare eyes is a little difficult and challenging for most of us, without a formal training. Also, some of the nonverbal or body language or cues are too small, swift or subtle, to be detected with bare eyes. For example, blinks can be detected with bare eyes but 4% to 8% pupil dilation can't be. That's why we need an electronic device or tracker for sure.

Apart of the skill, training, practice and sharp eyes required to detect the subtle nonverbal cues; the success of a (counter-)intelligence officer/agent, lie detection professional, law enforcement officer, lie detection expert, forensic interviewer, interrogator or investigator depends on the ability to stay mentally calm, curious, focused and balanced. Sometimes, indirect questions and/or eliciting statements works like magic.

A scene from movie "Liar Liar" (1997)
(Image Courtesy: Universal Pictures)

Starting from finding the cues of deception in nonverbal behavior or body language, we've gradually developed several methods of lie detection. According to a paper published in 2023 by Dr. Tim Brennen and Dr. Svein Magnussen (Department of Psychology, University of Oslo, Norway), there're seven different (available) methods of lie detection at present that have been most likely adapted by law enforcement or investigative agencies across the globe. Perhaps, it's the first time that you're coming to know about them. I didn't know about some of them, before reading the paper.

Along with the analysis of 1) Nonverbal Cues (or body language), 2) Systematic Analysis of Verbal Cues, 3) Manipulation of Statement Production, 4) Polygraphic Analysis, 5) Brain-based (Neuroscientific) Analysis, 6) Strategic Interviewing and 7) Analysis using an Artificial Intelligence (AI) tool have been included in the same list. Currently, AI based cue analysis is a slowly evolving method. However, it can certainly find and reveal the (kinds of) patterns that haven't been identified yet by us humans with organic or biological brains or intelligence.

Ability of deceiving (nonverbally) is very common in many creatures, including human beings. However, ability of lying or deceiving verbally could be reserved to human beings because we're the only species on this planet that can produce pre-specified sounds through our mouths. However, further research needs to done if other creatures have developed an ability of lying while using their own languages. Although one person can lie to the other person, no human being can lie to or or deceive any other creature verbally. Can you?

One of the 55 slides from my recent presentation
(Note: Please read #Special Note (below) for more details.)

Today, majority of the current human population is living inside the modern techno-industrial world. However, there're a few percent of people who do still live their lives in small groups, just like our remote ancestors did, hundreds or thousands of years ago. So why don’t we study Exactly how today’s tribal-indigenous-aborigional people catch a person while lying? It'll be quite interesting to find if they still rely on the nonverbal cues of lying or verbal deceit, just like most of our own ancestors or forefathers did or used to do over last thousands of years. Perhaps, tribal-indigenous-aborigional people might be using other methods or ordeals for confession.

However, both frequency and severity of massively damaging or devastating lies in the tribal-indigenous-aborigional world could be way more less in comparison to the modern techno-industrial world. The exact reasons behind the same could be the ones that do reveal the darker reality of the 'brighter' world in which millions of people get hallucinated, brainwashed, manipulated, intoxicated, illusioned, tricked, fooled, robbed, hunted, addicted, hijacked, enslaved, devastated or destroyed by convincing truths, fancier fictions, false promises, elaborate myths, powerful propaganda and/or above all - the utopian dreams.

Minimal requirements for living the life, higher frequency of face-to-face interactions, lesser (or no) materialistic ambitions, lesser (or no) personal possessions, higher level of interdependence, higher level of cooperation, greater emphasize on relations, smaller geographical territories, harsher punishments upon lying, strict moral obligations, smaller group sizes and higher level of empathy might have conditioned the tribal-indigenous-aborigional people to be more honest, truthful, realistic, verifiable and transparent.

"Surprisingly, how easily, quickly or foolishly you get convinced by a lie is entirely dependent on YOU only. Yes! It’s you and nobody else i. e. your very own mental processing capacity, prior knowledge, awareness, perception, prejudices, urgencies, (mis)beliefs, biases and/or needs."
- Body Language Insights (Book)

[#Special Note: This entire article has been inspired by and is partially based on the overall content of the same PowerPoint presentation that was given by me to students pursuing bachelor, masters and doctoral (Ph. D.) degrees and faculty members of National Forensic Sciences University (NFSU).

The article related to the same lecture-cum-presentation can be read here - My lecture at an International university.]

Related Articles:
1) *From Common Signs to Spotting Lies 2) Entire body can’t lie 3) Nonverbal Advantage in Investigation 4) My career saving lie detection 5) Face of liar(?) 6) Truth about Lying 7) Inside Interrogation Room

Are human emotions really universal?

Dongria tribal girl
(Odisha, India)

The English word 'emotion' was adapted from the French word 'émouvoir' (pronounced as 'é-mou-vwa(r)'), back in 1579. The literal meaning of the original French word is "to stir up" or "to move". Emotions have a great power to stir us or move us inside out instantly. Having different emotions is a universal or the single-most common human quality. Expressions of some emotions do magically bridge the huge gaps, cross the international boundaries and bring millions of people together. Hence, we believe that everybody in this world has the exact same emotions as ours. Don't we? Almost everybody does, until an unexpected truth is told.

A few days ago, I watched a presentation on Big Think about human emotions. Among several insights shared by the presenting researcher, three were utterly shocking - 1) (All) Emotions aren't universal i. e. they aren't common across cultures. 2) Facial expressions of emotions aren't universal i. e. they aren't common across cultures. 3) There are no synonymous words for some emotions in the vocabularies of some languages e. g. 'fear'. Indeed, these are entirely upsetting or shocking facts for almost everybody of us who ardently believe in universality, enough to change facial expressions for a long time.

Dr. Paul Ekman (American psychologist) established universality of six basic emotional expressions through his observations with different groups of people, including members of Fore tribe located deep inside the forest of Papua New Guinea. After the same, training programs and tools have been developed on the basis of the same. Especially, those who have built their whole careers, courses, software applications and/or smartphone apps around it would find them very upsetting. Much to their surprise, Dr. Ekman himself agreed about cultural-specific emotions.

Dr. Paul Ekman walking along with
smiling tribal children (1967 - 1968)

These three facts totally disturb what has been taught over the last few decades to millions of people, including law enforcement, intelligence and security professionals around the world. While mentally adjusting with these scientifically proven facts, we need to investigate this deeply 'emotional' subject seriously. Are billions of people really divided into many groups that do experience emotions differently from each other? Or Is it only about the differences in labeling or describing emotions? Or Is it only a translation issue?

After watching the presentation, I started to think really harder over a few days about the three facts. Through this short article, I'm trying to share with you what I've come up with after brainstorming. Especially, if you're a researcher (independent or academic) then I'd kindly suggest to consider the key inputs while conducting further research about this most critical yet complicated subject having global consequences.

Currently, a massive amount of facial data might be getting fed to many Artificial Intelligence (AI) systems for enabling them to recognize different emotions by reading facial expressions. If the same data has been selected by, for and of the members of a specific culture then Emotional AI (EAI) systems might misread the emotions of the members of other cultures by facial expressions. Isn't it totally wrong?

If you could just try to imagine this techno-tragic outcome personally affecting you in the near future then you'd realize exactly how serious are the implications of the belief in 'universality of human emotions (and their facial expressions)'. Actually, the dark rabbit hole goes much farther and deeper inside the ground. Perhaps, only neuroscientists might understand what I'm trying to say.

Facial Expressions of six basic emotions
identified by Dr. Paul Ekman

While trying to swallow the three utterly bitter facts very slowly and painfully, we simply can't deny the following possibilities (or realities?):

1) Some commonly shared experiences or inherited memories of some groups or communities have conditioned their members to experience some emotions more profoundly and frequently, in comparison to other emotions.

2) The neural connections and activation inside brains are slightly different in the people following different cultures, who don't experience, express and/or label the exact same emotional experiences.

3) Members of two entirely different types of cultures (e. g. collectivist vs. individualist) don't share the exact same reasons to invoke the exact same emotion e. g. anger (fight).

4) Some physical environments don't leave any reason to invoke some emotions in those who commonly share them e. g. an abundance doesn't lead to greed, envy or jealousy.

5) Some cultures have gradually succeeded in converting some emotional experiences into nonverbal expressions that don't involve facial muscle movements.

6) Some cultures systematically do encourage or educate their members to express some emotions through facial muscle movements, right from early childhood.

7) Some cultures systematically do train their members to completely suppress the nonverbal expressions of some emotions, right from early childhood.

8) Different cultural groups of people do use slightly different facial expressions to convey the exact same emotion e. g. happiness.

9) Some cultures systematically train their members to express some emotions in certain ways, right from early childhood.

For the languages that don't have the words synonymous to 'fear' in their vocabularies, a further investigation is required to prove or confirm if speakers of those languages really don't at all withdraw themselves nonverbally in the presence of a genuinely fearful stimulus e. g. a male tribal hunter accidentally confronting a tiger, a lion or a leopard in the close proximity while hunting wild animals for food.

Also, there's a great possibility that speakers of such languages have been describing the nonverbal expressions of fear graphically, in greater detail to help everybody in understanding the whole scene. How a person expressed nonverbally while experiencing fear might be worth describing for them than just saying "He was in great fear while encountering a tiger at a close distance".

Actually, it's almost impossible that fear (flight response) isn't a single-most universal or a commonly shared emotion. Hence, they might be expressing fear nonverbally and do recognize it as a genuine emotional response. However, they might not be labeling the same experience as 'fear' just like the speakers of other languages having the words synonymous to 'fear'.

An old shaman (spirit-man) from Waura tribe
living in Amazonian rainforest of Brazil

Try to imagine about people living deep inside a large tropical forest. They strictly follow an ancestral culture that greatly respects the territorial rights of the wild animals living in the same forest. How they do react upon sighting a tiger in a close proximity is labeled as 'a display of respect to the protector of forest'. However, the observers not following the same culture might simply label it as 'freezing in fear'.

Actually, screaming, making rapid body movements and running away does provoke some wild animals (big cats and bears) to chase and kill the runner. Hence, everybody is strictly trained by tribal elders to keep both hands steady, maintain total silence, hide weapons, stand still, keep looking ahead with wide open eyes while bending forward. Tigers don't attack them and just pass them by after doing so.

Some emotions could definitely be common across all cultures. However, other emotions or at least the triggering causes of emotional experiences aren't universal. Differences in cultures, conditioning, local environments and/or shared experiences might have led to shaping, modifying, recognizing, categorizing and/or labeling various emotional experiences slightly differently.

Indeed, emotion triggering causes, intensities of emotional experiences, physiological effects of emotional experiences and nonverbal expressions of emotions may not be commonly shared across cultures. Also, they may not evenly be shared, by all member of a family, a group, a culture, a society or a community. They're entirely context dependent or contextual.

Face masks showing different emotional expressions

As a human being, one of the greatest challenge for you is to recognize the different emotions of the people who matter you the most in your life. If you're doing it accurately and timely then you're a good 'mind reader' already. However, your attention to details, contextual awareness and level of empathy are the factors that determine the accuracy.

[#GLOBAL APPEAL: Irrespective of the slighter differences in our intelligence, perception, emotions, thoughts, priorities, motivations, perspectives and experiences; Compassion is the single greatest and universal human quality. It can ensure the continuation of our species while preventing the disastrous outcomes of our ruthless actions, decisions and creations. However, our passive optimism isn't doing anything for us and it never did. We need an active optimism.

While Artificial Intelligence (AI) systems are still growing, learning and developing within human control (hopefully!), it's a greatest moral responsibility of all whistle-blowers, organizations, governments, politicians, institutions, journalists, philosophers, agencies, academics, researchers, scientists, developers, futurists, influencers, thinkers, leaders and experts to unite for creating boundaries, regulations, rail-guards, brakes, limits, ethics, rules and/or laws.

We won't get a second chance to do the same in future. That's why we all need focused, resolute, unanimous, consistent, collective, committed, coordinated, transparent and accountable efforts taken at a global scale.

Are we not at all answerable to our own children and next generations?]

Related Articles:
1) Chicken and Egg Paradox 2) Basic Emotional Expressions 3) Would aliens have emotions? 4) Can body language reveal thoughts? 5) Is Human Communication 93% Nonverbal? 6) Artificial Intelligence and Body Language 7) Human Interactions in AI Era

Human Interactions in AI Era

Three months ago, I visited my friend’s house after a long time. We had met face to face a couple of times before but it was going to be an enlightening interaction for both of us. We had a long conversation at his house and we shared our experiences. We ate food together and laughed. We shook hands together and hugged each other before I left his house with a subtle smile on my face and a deep satisfaction in heart.

During our conversation, my friend made a kind of statement that I wasn’t at all expecting to come out from his mouth. Although he’s not highly educated, I know that he reads a lot. He said, “Interacting face to face is a hormone altering experience.” Indeed, a face-to-face interaction is capable of altering hormones of the persons involved in it. His educational statement has partially inspired this article.

While most of us are very busy in our occupations, professions, enterprises and daily activities throughout the day, frequency and duration of face-to-face interactions have decreased. Now, most of our interpersonal interaction and communication takes place electronically i. e. phone calls, video calls, text chats or emails. Being social animals, we’re losing a lot and it might do more damage to us in future.

A face-to-face interaction is the default mode of our communication. A face-to-face interaction goes beyond exchanging or listening to words by staying close to each other. We do silently exchange a broad range of nonverbal cues, along with the spoken words if any. Over the millions of years, we’ve communicated with each other face-to-face, even while facing some limitations.

"In this AI era, it’s not only about reading the body language of a person that you’re interacting with face-to-face but also ensuring that you’re interacting electronically with a real or living person..."

Electronic communication has undoubtedly helped us in bridging the huge time and space gaps. However, it brings the greatest nonverbal disadvantage in the human interactions. Especially, text messaging or chatting has completely robbed us off the richness of nonverbal cues that can be exchanged during a face-to-face interaction, a video call or an audio call. Aren’t we utterly deprived?

Although a video call allows us to see each other, it doesn’t allow us to touch each other as we can do during a face-to-face interaction. Also, we mostly can see the face and the upper body of the other person. Additionally, a lot of physical, nonverbal and environmental cues are absent during electronic communication. For example, we can’t detect each other’s body smell.

As most of us are getting more and more involved in audio calling, text chatting and writing emails with each passing days, it clearly appears that most of us are rapidly losing the natural ability to quickly recognize and accurately decode the variety of nonverbal cues, even in a regular and normal face-to-face interaction. Silently, we’re heading towards a greater crisis.

Today, having an account on different social media platforms is very common in all age groups across the globe. There’re several applications installed on our smartphones to fulfil the need to connect and communicate with thousands or millions of people at the same time. One can chat in real time with a person who is living a thousand miles away.

A need of the time or an addiction?

With the rapid development of Artificial Intelligence (AI) systems, we’re most likely entering an unprecedented phase of interactions in which separating reality from illusion could become harder or even impossible. Most of us already have an unimaginable amount of personal data uploaded on the internet and various social media platforms. It has already made us vulnerable to huge social damage by tailor-made deepfakes images and videos.

Due to large language models (LLMs) and AI chatbots, knowing if someone you are text chatting with privately for days is a real human being will be harder or even impossible in near future. Even there’re a great chance that an AI chatbot would perfectly mimic the words, phrases and syntaxes of somebody you know very well for many years. Such level of deepfaking has an unimaginable deceptive, manipulative and persuasive influence.

Deception, manipulation and persuasion by deepfaking or perfectly mimicking somebody is extremely dangerous for us as a society that is being divided by many factors. The worst side of deepfaking is that we simply can’t catch and punish a digital being for the crime it has committed or manipulated us to commit. Hence, we simply can’t imagine the amount of damage that could be done to us by digitally deepfaking entities.

"We need to create stronger social bonds within our families, relatives, friends, colleagues, neighbors and communities by spending more time in face-to-face interactions than ever before."

Many researchers and experts are trying to tame the AI systems to prevent them from working against us. As of now, it’s not 100 % certain that it can be done in the first place while witnessing the wild growth of the AI systems. Nevertheless, the great possibility of deepfaking for deception, manipulation and persuasion can’t be denied because anti-socials would certainly take an advantage of it.

Especially, if a person feels socially disliked, deprived, unheard or undervalued then there’s a great possibility that such person could easily fall prey to the silent anti-social brainwashing. After developing a strong rapport, the person can be easily convinced, disinformed or manipulated by an extremely persuasive deepfake entity to do anything against the society.

Perhaps, it’s the need of this socially challenging era that we avoid electronic interactions without any serious necessity and engage more and more in regular face-to-face interactions, discussions or conversations as much as possible. It would certainly give us back the real social benefits and people reading ability that most of us have been strongly lacking for years.

Are you interacting with a deepfake entity?

While exchanging and detecting various nonverbal clues (subconsciously or consciously), greeting, smiling, laughing, touching, mirroring, gesturing at, making eye contact with, sitting/standing along and reciprocating each other during a face-to-face interaction leaves deeper effects on our brains and minds. Indeed, it can't be achieved through electronic interactions.

In this AI era, it’s not only about reading the body language of a person that you’re interacting with face-to-face but also ensuring that you’re interacting electronically with a real or living person and not a digital deepfake, an invisible or an intangible entity that you simply can’t catch, question and/or punish for its damaging deception, manipulation or persuasion.

We need to create stronger social bonds within our families, relatives, friends, colleagues, neighbors and communities by spending more time in face-to-face interactions than ever before. Are we going to achieve the same? This greatest question will persist if Artificial Intelligence wouldn't enslave and/or destroy us.

Potentially damaging DeepFake relations can be greatly avoided, only by creating close, functional, trustworthy, constructive, empathetic and DeepReal relations.

[#GLOBAL ALERT: Under the rapidly growing influence of Artificial Intelligence (AI) chatbots or agents, the continuation of democracy or the existence of democratic institutions can only be guaranteed by getting involved in talks, debates, discussions or conversations with the real or living people, irrespective of the differences in opinions. So, if we don't spend our time in doing the same consciously then society is destined to doom.

Provoking narratives, social media trolls, hate speech, deepfake images, deepfake videos, misinformation, disinformation and fake news have already made it a little harder for most of us to engage in constructive, sympathetic and factual talks, debates, discussions or conversations on a regular basis, even with the people we know for years.]

Related Articles:
1) Importance of Touch 2) Social Footsteps 3) Face to Face 4) Can body language reveal thoughts? 5) Nonverbal Advantage in Investigation 6) Artificial Intelligence and Body Language 7) Are human emotions really universal?

Body Language of Extreme Psychopath

Just a 'bad child' or
A Psychopath?

Can you tell that Who is a Successful Predator? A successful predator is the not just the one who kills for living but the one who knows very well that who its preys are and where they are found in the first place. To succeed in hunting, a successful predator detects the weakness in its prey quickly, alienates the prey from others tactically, kills it mercilessly, satisfies its hunger peacefully and leaves behind the carcass calmly.

We can easily and quickly identify the wild predators just by looking at their physical features, traits and characteristics like extremely acute sensory organs, muscular limbs, wider jaws, sharper teeth, retractable claws and camouflage. By knowing their characteristics and key behavioral patterns, we can manage to stay away from them and save our lives. Our remote ancestors achieved the same and that’s why we are here.

What if you face a predator putting on a mask of a human? What if an ordinary looking individual turns out to be an abuser or a criminal? Can you identify such individual who might be moving around you in the same room at present? How quickly and accurately you can identify such social predators? Until you don’t know what kind of the person is exactly, these questions cannot be answered at all.

Like cruel, cunning and calculative predators; a very few of us are quite untruthful, unethical, deceptive, careless, cruel, irresponsible, impulsive, emotionally detached and also lacking remorse, guilt or empathy. An individual having this serious anti-social personality disorder (ASPD) is called as a Psychopath (Psycho). Fundamentally, the extreme psychopaths view other individuals as their preys, pawns, puppets or slaves.

Empathy is the critical pro-social quality.
(Image Courtesy: American Psychological Association)

Basically, what makes an individual an extreme psychopath is higher sensitivity towards rewards and lesser or complete lack of sensitivity towards pains, sufferings and distress in others which include both humans and non-humans. Deep inside their brains, Amygdala (emotional center) shows lesser or no electrical activities when psychopaths are exposed to emotional stimulus especially the fearful ones.

Although only 1 individual out of every 100 person is a psychopath, psychopaths make upto 25% of prison population in North America. Thus every psychopath isn't always a murderer or a serial killer but all psychopaths are involved in anti-social activities, actions and decisions which pose serious threats to individuals, groups, families or communities they belong to or they stare at as predators.

Following are the body language clues given by extreme psychopaths:

1) They don't give emotional/affective reactions to situations, scenes and also the words which induce emotions in others.

2) They keep on adding up anger inside themselves for many days and suddenly break down into abuse and violence.

3) They are very bad or worst in mimicking the emotional facial expressions that are seen on faces of other individuals.

4) They try to find a weakness or a vulnerability in other individuals, by carefully watching them for several days.

5) They act to express one emotion on behalf of the other i. e. a smile or a scorn on behalf of a sad face.

6) They express no timidity, fear, shame, shyness, stress and nervousness through their body language.

7) They touch to dominate, control or hurt others than empathizing them in stress, pain or suffering.

8) They are highly accurate and quick in picking fear on the faces of other individuals.

9) They appear very charming, confident, bold, attractive and persuasive publicly.

10) They are very poor and sloppy in picking negative emotion like sadness.

11) They stare for a very long time without any emotions on their faces.

12) They appear very calm and cool while facing stressful situations.

13) They don't feel the emotions but they do try to act like they do.

14) They make no or a very few head movements while talking.

15) They appear bored in absence of any arousing activities.

16) They mostly speak very smoothly and in neutral tone.

17) They tactically separate their preys from the others.

18) They flirt with the individuals of opposite genders.

19) They express no anxiety for the sad individuals.

20) They do make a very good first impression.

Although both narcissist and psychopath share some common behavioral traits, a psychopath is mostly born but a narcissist and a sociopath is mostly made. While narcissists demand a great amount of attention and special treatment due extremely higher sense of self-worth, psychopaths seek enormous amount of power, control and prestige. They also have the 'Final Solutions' for serious social issues due to over-generalization of people.

Predatory Stare is common among psychopathic killers.

Although psychopaths feel the physical pain themselves, they don't express emotions even while watching a scene which normally causes the distress in all other individuals at varying levels or upsets their stomachs at worst. Laws, morals values, rules, regulations and rights of others are barriers on the path of achieving success, dominance, power and wealth for psychopaths in the first place so they disregard them.

Following are the overall behavioral characteristics, patterns and clues of extremely psychopathic individuals:

1) They are involved in promiscuous sexual relations or have multiple sex partners (outside marital/committed relation).

2) They have the egocentricity or the extremely higher sense of self-worth in comparison to all other individuals.

3) They have very poor or lack of control over their behaviors due to absence of fear about the consequences.

4) They are very glib individuals who have a shallow or superficial charm. They are highly intelligent.

5) They lack the kind of emotional intensity, depth and vividity which most of us experience.

6) They are naturally prone to boredom. Also, they can’t hold frustration for a long time.

7) They are the pathological liars and they possess mastery in deceiving the others.

8) They have a parasitic lifestyle i. e. they do keep on sucking others for living.

9) They are the con-artists, irregular, insincere and unproductive in work lives.

10) They are very irresponsible so they easily get away with wrongdoings.

11) They have a history of theft, bullying or setting fire in early childhood.

12) They have a poor sense about What is wrong and What is right.

13) They take credit for the work that others have done for them.

14) They are very careless about the well-being about of others.

15) Their behavior changes drastically after establishing rapport.

16) They dump individuals after their need(s) is (not) fulfilled.

17) They lack realistic and long-term plans in their own lives.

18) They inflict pain and harm to animals in early childhood.

19) They manipulate others into fulfilling their own desires.

20) They fail to establish strong and long-lasting relations.

21) They are extremely bold and risk-taking individuals.

22) They over-admire somebody in very first meeting.

23) They put blame on others for their own failures.

24) They lack intellectual depth in their thoughts.

25) They like to see other individuals in trouble.

Generally, males are known to be extremely psychopathic by most, due to high levels of testosterone. However, a very few percentage of females or women too are extremely psychopathic. Female psychopaths are mostly involved in love bombing, gaslighting, pretending, playing victim card, developing relationship with victims, deceiving, insulting and abusing their partners, gossiping excessively and excluding or forming alliances against their victims.

All extreme psychopaths always don’t end up behind the bars but they have a greatest potential of devising, planning for and inflicting serious and permanent damages to individuals, families, groups, communities, entire humanity and also its overall future if they are allowed to behave, operate, manipulate and make decisions as they like to with lack of conscience, morality, responsibility, empathy and remorse.

"Every psychopath is a (extreme) narcissist but not every (extreme) narcissist is a psychopath."
Clinical psychologist Dr. Ramani Durvasula
(World leading expert on Narcissism)

Ted Bundy (Psychopath)
Charming Serial Killer

What sets apart an empathetic and pro-social person from a psychopathic one is the great sense of consequences if another person is hurt or if a rule is broken etc. The psychopaths have poor or lack of connectivity between Amygdala (emotional center for fear and anxiety) and Prefrontal Cortex (PFC) which is responsible for social and emotional/affective decision-making (executive) functions such as inducing empathy and guilt.

Unlike the wild yet easily identifiable predators from a distance, the looks, appearance and impression can be deceptive in human world. There are quite chances that you face a psychopath in your entire life at least once or multiple times. Perhaps, you might end up falling into a trap set by a psychopath.

Psychopathy in children can be detected at an early age, as early as 3rd year of age. So if you are a parent, a custodian and a caretaker then you must pay very close attention to your own children's social behavior, actions and activities around other children. Also, children born to the narcissistic parents can turn into psychopaths.

Almost everybody of us share at least one or multiple behavioral traits out of above 25 behavioral traits/clues of the extreme psychopaths so the next great questions are How one can find if a person you think is a psychopath (psycho)? and How psychopathic the person is exactly?

Is Dexter Morgan a typical serial-killing psychopath? Most of the audience conviniently believe he is the one. However, Dr. Todd Grande has analyzed him or profiled his fictional character thoroughly. Just patiently watch what exactly he has found about him.

If you are really interested, curious or even anxious to know the same then you can use this online tool to find if an individual you think is psychopathic and how much psychopathic he/she is exactly. If the score goes above 30 then it's a truly danger sign and a wakeup call.

By the way, there are some common or shared behavioral and psychological traits among Narcissists, Sociopaths and Psychopaths. Also, sociopaths are often called as 'angry psychopaths'.

[Special Note: World's renowned expert in Psychopathy, Canadian forensic psychologist and professor emeritus of University of British Columbia Dr. Robert D. Hare created the checklist (PCL-R) with 20 different traits put under the same to decide the total psychopathic score.]

Related Articles:
1) Body Language of Extreme Narcissist 2) The Face of Liar(?) 3) Confident Body Language 4) Truth about Lying 5) Are you a 'flying' terrorist? 6) Fear Factor 7) Body Image and Social Communication 8) Body Language of James Bond 9) Amygdala Hijack: Irrational Physical Reactions

Is Human Communication 93% Nonverbal?

Myths are scientifically incorrect and false stories, beliefs and ideas but they sound amazing and amusing. Moreover, myths are used for massive marketing too, just by adding their credible origins while making confident claims. Especially the one which has been gracefully given birth to in 1967 has taken the whole world by storm and quite essentially the small community of body language enthusiasts, aspirants, analysts, experts, speakers, instructors, coaches and trainers. It is The Convenient Myth of 93% share of nonverbal clues in human communication. Unfortunately, it's widely cited by academic institutions too.

Mehrabian 7-38-55 Rule

Prof. Dr. Albert Mehrabian conducted two separate studies at University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) with only 37 female psychology students about Which clues are emphasized, prioritized or given weightage to while understanding EMOTIONS, FEELINGS and ATTITUDES of a speaking individual by the audience. Based upon the answers given by the participants, only 7% emphasize was given to words while 93% emphasize was given to body language, facial expressions and the different tones of voice of the speaking individual.

According to the conclusions derived from Prof. Dr. Mehrabian's study, an emotionally charged interpersonal message is or can be identified almost nonverbally i. e. 93% out of both verbal and nonverbal clues. As the study suggested, an emotionally charged message conveyed by an individual can largely and precisely be identified by the individual's para-language and body language including facial expressions. These two components roughly made up to 38% and 55% of the message respectively in the 7-38-55 rule.

Prof. Dr. Albert Mehrabian

It's critically important to keep in mind that Prof. Meharbian's brief study was related to emphasizing the clues while understanding EMOTIONS, FEELINGS and ATTITUDES of a speaking person. Nevertheless, the rule is misinterpreted, misrepresented, widely (mis)referred and conveniently cited by many.

As the three numbers of the rule are easy to remember and recite, many people started boldly claiming the total percentage of nonverbal clues in any kind of human communication as 93%. Importance of words was greatly undervalued.

Prof. Dr. Mehrabian himself has humbly clarified at many times that his famous rule is overly generalized. It has never ever been his conclusion that any human communication in general follows the 7-38-55 rule or has 93% share of nonverbal clues. He only believes that it was applicable within the context of interpreting the affect or emotional state of a speaking individual by the audience. However, nonverbal share is entirely relative in human communication and I'm going to prove the same.

Although Mehrabian Rule was simply the rough estimation, we get totally different shares of nonverbal clues in different situations, circumstances and conditions if we strictly adhere with the numbers from the same rule. If audience can see only the face but not the body of the speaker then the share of nonverbal clues would be less than 55% due to detectable facial expressions. If only voice of the speaker can be heard then the share of nonverbal clues would be roughly 38% due to detectable para-lingual clues.

"The bottom line of this myth debunking or myth busting article is that nonverbal share in any human interaction isn't always or absolutely 93% (or any fixed number) at all but entirely relative. The nonverbal share and/or its percentage can and/or does conditionally change and even reach up to 100%."

If it was only about communicating emotions, feelings, sentiments, attitudes and different psychological states then we wouldn't have transformed ourselves into the present form at all. Unlike other creatures, we're a highly technological, knowledge sharing and imitating species. Our journey began in small tribal groups and ultimately ended up in spreading or dominating globally with further plans to colonize the outer space. Amount of verbal usage by us has gradually increased in our daily lives with increment in complexity, distance and interdependence.

Human communication significantly and frequently includes facts, locations, directions, dates, time stamps, geographical coordinates, measuring units, measurements, quantities, equations, findings, formulae, logical arguments, assumptions, algorithms, frameworks, concepts, hypotheses, theories, (abstract) ideas, routes, processes, stages, workflows, results, conclusions, plans, alerts, precautions, suggestions, strategies, instructions, commands, warnings, definitions, rules, regulations, requirements, (legal) contracts, (legal) agreements, treaties, testimonies, pacts, policies, norms etc.

They can be published, presented, explained, displayed or described with the help of words, numbers and characters. Graphical characteristics of printed or written text such as position, decoration, highlighting, fonts, font sizes and colors do arrange, organize, distinguish, emphasize and draw attention at some details. Therefore, graphical characteristics of written or printed text used are entirely nonverbal in nature. However, its calculable share is much less in comparison to the entire text.

Also, verbal and numerical data, information and facts can also be converted or compressed into and represented by many visual forms for better and readily understanding. Therefore, using sign-languages, sketches, paintings, drawings, photographs, graphs, charts, animations, images, signs, symbols, icons, 2D models, 3D models etc. in the human communication is entirely nonverbal in nature with its calculable share depending upon the amount of usage.

Additionally, if an individual is involved in talking about them then para-lingual clues and illustrating hand gestures do help a lot for emphasizing, drawing attention and visually explaining some details. Undoubtedly, vocal emphasizes and hand illustrations are also nonverbal in nature. However, its calculable share is much less in comparison to the content.

Some of the common traffic signs

The true purpose of this article isn't only to share critically important details and facts about Prof. Dr. Mehrabian's study and to debunk or bust The Convenient Myth of 93% or the over generalized 7-38-55 rule/equation/formula originated from the same study. My explanation and arguments simply don't end here because there's much more in our real lives.

After critically thinking over this seriously scientific topic over many days, I'm deeply interested and highly motivated to share my honest, sincere and meticulous insights and views about the percentage of nonverbal share in (face to face) human communication, considering different kinds of possible situations and circumstances in daily life.

Try to assume yourself in four different situations in which you’re interacting or you need to interact with four different kinds of individuals i. e. an infant, a man fatally injured after meeting an accident in front of you, an old man communicating only through a sign-language and a foreign lady tourist speaking in her language.

Surprisingly, the true nonverbal share or its percentage during (face to face) encounter, interaction, exchange and reciprocation taking place between you and the four different individuals would be much greater and most likely to be 100%, from either or both sides.

Please let me explain exactly how, with details as following:

1) The Infant: Due to absence or lack of verbal articulating ability at its age, the infant's body language, facial expressions and different tones of voice would convey what exactly it is trying to convey or 'say' to you in your presence.

2) The Injured Man: Due to fatal injuries, the man might not be able to speak clearly, continuously and loudly or at all. His vocal clues (if any), eyes, face, collapsed posture and visible wounds would convey his grim condition.

3) The Sign-language User: Due to absence of spoken words, you must rely only on your own knowledge about the specific sign-language. Otherwise, you’d need to communicate with him only by using commonly known hand gestures, facial expressions, head movements and para-lingual clues only.

4) The Tourist: As you're unfamiliar with her language, you both need to communicate with each other only by using commonly known hand gestures, facial expressions, head movements and para-lingual clues only. Otherwise, you need to find a translator.

In all above situations, only nonverbal, physical, visible, vocal and observable clues would play the greatest role in understanding, interacting, exchanging, sharing, suggesting and reciprocating. When and/or If an individual isn't (capable of) talking (in a known language) then his/her body does (try to) communicate the same. In short, body definitely speaks when, what and/or if words can't or don't.

To my best knowledge, both spoken and written words help a lot but only if the two interacting individuals know the language and also the meanings of the words very well in the first place. If either one doesn’t know the language and/or doesn't understand the meaning of the words then irritation, confusion and perplexity is clearly seen in body language esp. eyes, eyebrows, mouth and hands.

When and/or if words aren't present, familiar, complete, appropriate, audible, readable and/or sufficient while communicating then (entire) body, orientations, movements, gestures, expressions, adaptations, stances, vocal tones, actions, reactions and responses of either or both individuals are the only reliable sources for the firm conclusion because nonverbal is the default mode of human communication.

On the other hand, if familiar, complete, appropriate, audible, readable and/or sufficient words are being used during (face to face) communication, interaction, encounter, exchange and reciprocation then congruence between the cluster of words and corresponding nonverbal clues (available if any) is the determining factors for reliability and truthfulness in the given context. Prof. Dr. Mehrabian’s study too emphasized congruence.

The bottom line of this myth debunking or myth busting article is that nonverbal share in any human interaction isn't always or absolutely 93% (or any fixed number) at all but entirely relative. The nonverbal share and/or its percentage can and/or does conditionally change and even reach up to 100%.

Next time if anybody publicly writes and/or speaks about 93% of nonverbal share in human communication then you'll confidently explain the nonverbal relativity of human communication with a few best supporting examples, including some of the aforementioned ones.

[Critical Note: Although every human communication isn't always and/or entirely nonverbal, our bodies, physical conditions, movements and actions do keep revealing a lot about ourselves automatically, unmistakably and reliably throughout our lives, which is just beyond our imagination.

Even when we're not actively communicating (with anybody), our bodies continuously do keep receiving and sending different kinds of nonverbal data, clues, hints, signals and messages.]

Related Articles:
1) Context 2) Congruence 3) Clusters 4) What is Nonverbal Communication? 5) Evolution of Nonverbal communication 6) "Nonverbal" is alien way of communication? 7) Unlimited potentials of Nonverbal Knowledge 8) Can body language reveal thoughts? 9) Why exactly languages evolved? 10) Are human emotions really universal?