My theory about 'First Impression'

Once I saw him entering the room, an unsettling thought struck me as a lightening bolt - "What the hell! Is my training going to meet a tragic end?" Instantly, my subconscious mind rated him as "a school dropout and sole breadwinner who is pretending to be a trainer in the absence of the real one". However, I didn't at all allow this rating to influence my speech, thoughts and expressions while receiving the car driving lessons from him. Within a month, I realized that he was a highly skilled, helpful, demanded and experienced professional trainer and instructor. At the end of three month long training, I gave him 4.5 star rating in feedback. It was spontaneous act. He didn't ask me for it at all.

First Impression, Initial Guess, Stereotyping, Labeling or Judging...Whatever you would personally choose to call it but you simply can't escape it. It's not only you but perhaps any other so-called less-intelligent-than-yourself creature on the planet Earth can't escape it. Forming judgement, assessment or evaluation is an inevitable part of life, especially while sharing physical space and resources with others and more specifically - strangers who you're seeing, accidentally bumping into, meeting with or interacting with for the first time.

They say that you don't get a second chance to make a first impression. Despite of the harsh reality, this famous statement has firmly imprinted the critical importance of first impression in our minds. Do you know what 'first impression' really is? What popularly known as 'first impression' is nothing but an instant evaluation or judgement formation about a previously unseen person, based upon her external appearance or looks in the first accidental bumping, encounter, interaction, introduction or meeting.

There shouldn't be any surprise to know that our limbic system or more specifically - Amygdala instantly actives upon seeing strangers as if they could be potential enemies. The so-called 'First Impression' in human world is basically a trust-based evaluation. Obviously, a friendly, trustworthy or non-threatening stranger is further evaluated, depending on the individual needs, urges or desires at the time of encounter. Of course, your own biases influence it.

The process takes place entirely at subconscious level and it takes just a few milliseconds. That's the only reason why you don't consciously realize that some parts of your own brain are silently evaluating, forming judgement or creating the 'first impression' of the person. The only moment of conscious realization is when you find yourself liking, disliking, pasting a label(s) on or using an adjective(s) for the person.

Although we tend to change our judgement or initial guess about people, our brain's default 'seeing-is-believing' mode of instant evaluation subconsciously motivates us to trust the external appearance - The person would be what her looks are quietly yet clearly giving the indications of, in a single and static snapshot, picture or photo taken by eyes. Indeed, vision plays a pivotal role in the entire process.

Exactly who has made 'Good Impression' on whom?

That's why the 'First Impression' influence our thoughts, decisions we make, actions we take or our behavior in relation with the person who has left it, in the first glance. Some people even openly claim to quickly step back from developing a relation with the person or giving an opportunity to her just because they internally felt something wasn't right or was off. Sometimes, the first meeting ends up being the last one.

Your eyes see a person for the first time and your brain instantly pastes labels on her. Just because it instantly judges, it doesn't mean that every judgement is 100% correct. It's not at all necessary that the external appearance including physical features and attire of every person should perfectly match with her inner reality, let alone her true intentions and character. In modern human world, looks can be deceptive.

No matter how elaborately, poetically or vividly you would like to describe 'the great first impression' a specific person made, it could have been utterly traumatic for you to swallow the bitter reality of the person later on. You might choose to openly admit exactly how the same person shattered your own judgement. Personal experience would teach you that a 'first impression' always doesn't reflect reality.

"A very handsome and well-dressed man with a cute smile on his face is offering you help when your car is having some problem in the middle of the road at the midnight. He may be a psychopathic serial killer, looking out for his next prey."
- Body Language Insights (Book)

My theory (or hypothesis) about 'First Impression'

'First impression' is entirely nonverbal, based upon visual appearance only. However, a question was bothering me for years - Exactly why it can "make or break the deal", without any talking or conversation? Has it to something do with our evolutionary past or developmental history? I sincerely believe that it has to do with our remote non-human ancestors i. e. aquatic or water-dwelling ancestors, more than our immediate pre-human ancestors' i. e. primates (apes). Please let me try to explain.

Did you ever asked yourself exactly why the external appearance of a person should be enough for your brain to instantly pull a label(s) from its large label bank? What about person's body smell, speech or touch? While comparing to body smell, speech or touch; the external appearance or looks is the only aspect that can be quickly captured by eyes from a long and most importantly - a safe distance. Distance dictates personal safety.

A noise, clamor, mating call or warning call of any creature can be heard over a long distance. If a creature producing the sound hasn't been seen ever before then exactly how to visually identify it when it's not making it? Precise identification can take places only when the external appearance of a creature is saved in the memory along with the sounds it produces. It's like a vocal signature. The same rule applies to the body's smell.

When it's about increasing chances of success, predatory, stalking or ambushing creature would smartly choose to remain totally silent to avoid the remote detection. A friendly, mate seeking or accidentally bumping into creature would hardly do so. Additionally, predatory, stalking or ambushing creature could slow down or completely freeze its body movements to avoid the visual detection, especially by its targeted prey or victim.

Our remote fish-like aquatic ancestor
(around 375 to 400 million years ago)

Exactly when did forming the 'first impression' evolved in our ancestors? Exactly which group of ancestors benefited from it first? While considering the amount of time our brain takes to judge by the external appearances, it could have evolved in the kind of environment in which the survival entirely depended on the physical reaction time. For understanding it deeper and better; we need to look deep, below the surface of water.

Let's try to imagine the period on planet Earth in which our earliest fish-like ancestors lived and roamed in water. While sun-rays fall straight on the ground, they enter at an angle in the water. That's why objects below the surface of water appear differently than how they appear above it. Also, brightness of the light goes on decreasing with growing depth. Bubbles, streams, waves and algae further intensify the challenge for vision.

In this kind of physical environment, aquatic ancestors had to quickly evaluate strange creatures approaching them or even simply roaming in their close proximity. With eyes scanning only a limited visual space around their bodies at a time, instant evaluation of the threat based upon a few visual cues of any creature definitely would have given them the decisive survival and socialization advantages, over millions of years.

As our aquatic ancestors used to evaluate an approaching creature as predatory or non-friendly, they had to flee away from it as rapidly as possible. Even a fraction of a second matters for activating an appropriate physical response for survival. Greater frequency of encounters with both predatory and benevolent creatures could have led to their smaller and primitive brain to adapt 'seeing-is-believing' evaluation.

Irrespective of the habitat, all predatory and non-predatory creatures have definite visual characteristics to be able to identify them from a safe distance. Their external appearance give them identification. Hence, only the silhouette, outline or profile of the body of an approaching creature from a (safe) distance should be sufficient to identify the species, diet/food, intentions and physical abilities of the same creature.

The environment in which a predator or a hunter can approach from anywhere and is able to attack fatally within the fractions of a second then survival of its prey entirely depends upon how quickly it detects the approaching predator or hunter with optimal neural activities and make the defensive move quicker than the time predator or hunter takes to launch an attack. Both detection and reaction decide the destiny.

How you judge this upright walking creature?

While concluding my theory (or hypothesis), I'd like to claim that the instant evaluation based in the first ever face-to-face encounter must have evolved in the same evolutionary era in which the external looks were consistent or matching with every creature's species, diet/food, intentions and physical abilities i. e. creature's look was enough to figure out exactly how it can move, behave and pose a threat.

Blind-sight in humans or an extraordinary human ability to detect visually (or through eyes) without consciously realizing the same might be strongly linked with or originated from the instant evaluation system evolved in our remote aquatic ancestors who would have spent most of their lives below the surface of shining water.

"It helped our ancestors over millions of years and our brain learned to judge people only by their looks or appearances. However, this instant (judgement formation) process can and does mislead in modern human world."
- Body Language Insights (Book)

[#Special Note: Through this article, I'm finally making my aforementioned theory (or hypothesis) publicly available or redable, in its enhanced, finished and detailed form. In November 2014, I shared the crude and partly unfinished summary of the same, by email with 100 scientists and researchers related to brain, behavior and evolution, from some of the top universities and institutions in the world.]

Related Articles:
1) Face to Face 2) Can first impression be fully trusted? 3) First Impression and Body Language

Is Empathy among humans in decline?

"What the hell is going on?"

“Is the whole world being controlled by psychopaths, ego-maniacs, evil aliens or even non-human entities? Is a demon secretly playing with the human minds? EXACTLY WHO is pulling the strings?”

You won’t miss to ask the same questions openly or in your own mind while looking at the current state of affairs in almost the entire world - by taking out some time from your busy routine and closely analyzing the level of "profitting over people", (over-)confidence, self-centeredness, irresponsibility, radicalization, carelessness, recklessness, manipulation, provocation, exploitation, extremism, narcissism, ambitions, hypocrisy or deception in terms of or in the name of "environmental protection", sharing of resources, (geo-)politics, cooperation, development, technology, ideology, religion and economy. In terms of climate, society, life-style, relations and human behavior; many people would surely find today's world quite different than the one they were born in, merely a few decades ago. What about you? How do you find it?

It could be the major reason behind the prevalence of or growth in rush, panic, anger, gloom, stress, hatred, phobia, apathy, anxiety, despair, dullness, amnesia, insomnia, addiction, nihilism, hedonism, escapism, disbelief, pessimism, insecurity, depression, loneliness, intolerance, distraction, disillusion, frustration, disinterest, uncertainty, impatience, vulnerability, insensitivity, DOOM-saying, demotivation, disorientation, helplessness, hopelessness, purposelessness, pleasure-seeking, loss of meaning, sense of betrayal, existential dread and/or above all - EROSION OF TRUST, among millions of people, across the entire globe, at present than ever before. Aren't you among those people? Really? Well! I kindly suggest you to sit quietly and ask yourself seriously. By the way, people are loosing their trust in what? You just name it!

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

If you firmly believe that psychopaths completely lack human emotions then you're completely wrong (Sorry!). It’s not the so-called ‘lack of human emotions’ that makes a normal looking person immoral, careless, reckless, unethical, narcissistic, irresponsible, manipulative, deceptive, abusive, parasitic and exploitative towards others. Actually, psychopaths do have human emotions but they don't care about emotions, feelings and suffering of others. They've very low or complete lack of empathy for fellow human beings or even their closed ones. By the way, is this the first time you’re reading the word ‘Empathy’?

As of now, you surely might have read, heard or even used another word several times. The word is ‘Sympathy’. Along with the same word, ‘Sympathizing’ and ‘Sympathizer’ are the words that you might read, heard or even used many times, as of now. You might have expressed your sympathy towards or became sympathizer of others. However, most people simply confuse between sympathy and empathy. Although both words end with the exact same sound ‘m-pu-thee’, their meanings are totally different from each other. So, better understanding is necessary.

Sympathy is a conscious attempt of understanding what exactly other person may be going through, feeling or experiencing. However, empathy is a genuine subconscious experience of the same feeling inside oneself. Unlike sympathy, empathy is like putting your own foot inside the other person’s shoes and trying to experience how really it feels like. Body language (facial expressions and posture) and vocal tone of a one person instantly changes in the presence of another person in distress, danger or pain. Doesn’t it ever happen to you at all?

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

On one hand, empathy is a genuine subconscious experience. We tend to experience happiness when others around us are happy and experience sadness when others are sad, down, crying, distressed or depressed. Similarly, we experience horrified when others are in danger and experience anger when others are getting abused, exploited or punished. The experience of empathy is entirely subconsciously. Also, it leads to instant physiological and hormonal changes. Hence, it’s physiological, behavioral and nonverbal.

On the other hand, sympathy is more of a conscious process of trying to visualize, imagine or understand what another person may be going through at present or might have gone through in the past. It’s expressed verbally, especially in the form of agreement, validation, recognition or support while not experiencing the exact same internal distress or uneasiness that is felt subconsciously. That’s why sympathy can be faked or copied but empathy can’t be!

"Ability to control the impulses makes us civil but behaving empathetically makes us social."

Ability to control the impulses makes us civil but behaving empathetically makes us social. Whenever a person internally experiences what the other person is most likely feeling, is going through or might have gone through then those two persons virtually become 'ONE AND THE SAME'. Moreover, the first person might nonverbally and physically help, soothe, rescue, protect or even fight for the second person who is in distress, danger or pain.

Please let me explain you with a real life example. An elderly frail man and his young son fail right in the middle of a road when their scooter's wheels slipped off on a greasy patch. An elderly man got slammed so hard on the surface of the road that he couldn't stand on his feet whereas his son got minor bruises. A young woman living in a nearby house immediately rushed to the spot with a bottle full of water in her hand.

Another commuting man who happened to watch the whole scene and suddenly stopped his motorcycle at the edge of the same road. He helped the son to lift his elderly father and take him to an empty place. Moreover, the commuting man ran his hands over the legs of the elderly to check the injuries if any. Behavior of the young woman and the commuting man wasn't sympathetic but empathetic.

The lone man crossing the railway tracks
(Note: An image generated by AI, exclusively for the book)

"Perhaps, ability to create an uber-real model or simulation wouldn't prove as dangerous as the complete lack of EMPATHY towards humans in a purely non-biological superintelligence. Such kind of intelligence is fundamentally dangerous."
(Source Article: Why we may not survive the Artificial Superintelligence (ASI)?)

Not Sympathy but Empathy is the necessary foundation of humanity, morality and ethics or in other words - compassionate, law-abiding, responsible, sensitive, truthful, ethical, caring and moral behavior. Today's global outcry about the degradation of humane, moral and ethical behavior towards each other strongly reflects the steady erosion of empathy. It seems that the mandatory quality helping us coexist and maintain the social harmony over millions of years is in decline.

There’re certain primary and secondary co-existential benefits of an internally felt distress or uneasiness while watching each other in suffering, distress, danger or pain. A few critical insights flashed in my mind while walking through the memories of major distressing or discomforting experiences of my own, including watching a lone man crossing the railway tracks while an express train was rapidly moving towards him on the same.

The same insights have voluntarily been shared by an email in June 2024 with world’s some of the top behavioral researchers who’re working on empathy and a leading institute - Greater Good Science Center (GGSC) of University of California at Berkeley (UCB). The institute has formally acknowledged them. You can read the same insights in my upcoming book - Body Language Insights.

[ 'Reserved' Empathy: It's quite natural, by-birth, instinctive or even spiritual for any (normal) human being to have empathy for every other human being. However, a (geo-)political ambition, a radical ideology or tribalism systematically tries to manipulate, motivate or deceive its followers, believers or members to keep their empathetical contribution, adherence, behavior, struggle or actions limited to or reserved only for other followers, believers or members of the same movement, ideology or tribe. ]

Related Articles:
1) Would aliens have emotions? 2) Surprise vs. Startle Reflex 3) Your Confirmation Bias vs. Context 4) Body Language of Extreme Psychopath

Artificial Intelligence and Body Language

Ameca AI Robot
expressing sadness

A few days ago, I witnessed something really interesting. A 10 year old boy was sitting in front of a television set. He was watching a show in which a set of six toy cars was being introduced by the host. The moment a toy car was being sent running on the race track, the boy started to scratch the section of the skin where the upper arm meets with forearm and then briefly bit the nails.

He kept palm of his right palm over the section of his left hand to scratch the skin before putting the fingers of left hand in his mouth. It happened over six times in a row within a couple of minutes. Unmistakably, it matched with the number of toy cars. Wasn’t it alarming? I really wondered which thought, emotion or feeling was repeatedly triggering self-soothing and stress-relieving behaviors in the boy.

By staring at the toy cars, partially crossing his arms, self-soothing and biting nails, he was conveying what I subconsciously sensed about. He kept staring at the cars and even didn’t bother to turn his face towards me when I said, “Wow! Aren’t these cars really nice? How about buying them?”. He briefly replied to me by saying, “Mummy wouldn’t allow to buy them because the toy cars are expensive.”

Isn't rapid growth of AI enough for biting nails?

Considering his age and situation, his body language and words were perfectly matching with one another. Although he was subconsciously conveying the strong desire to buy those cars, he was expressing fear or under-confidence at the same time only due to high possibility of getting scolded or reprimanded by his mother. Just like I did at the time, you might be feeling very sorry for the child at this moment.

As I've been observing him meticulously from last three years, I know how he normally expresses, behaves and moves around. It's the same boy from whom I got a confession about doing something when he blatantly lied about it to his frightened grandmother. Only due to the confession, I succeeded in calming down the panic ensued during a very critical medical situation in his own house.

Timely and accurately figuring out what’s most likely going in the mind of another person at the moment by looking at its body language gives an unequal advantage. This so-called ‘scary’ talent, capability or 'super-power' is always in greater demand, around the world. However, smart questions or elicitation statements also work as handy tools in digging out the truth.

So far, we’ve been reading emotions, intentions, feelings and moods by using our eyes and brains that have gradually evolved over a millions of years. However, the technology is trying to learn the talent. With rapid development of Artificial Intelligence (AI) especially Theory of Mind (TOM) AI, an ability to read body language of humans could be its next achievement in near future.

Theory Of Mind (TOM)

"The possibility of getting terminated by our own creation is the most serious problem than it's not being able to read our body language accurately."

Are machines going to dominate this ultra-sensitive and private human domain too? Are they going to dictate our social or interpersonal decisions too? Should we be really worried about it? You already might have started to freak out. Just calm down! There’s a greater challenge about human mind and body language that AI, machine or any artificial system could never overcome. Please let me explain why.

First of all, Artificial Intelligence (AI) isn’t other-worldly, extraterrestrial, super-natural or ‘divine’ intelligence. We’ve enabled machines to work like a human brain without aging, breaks, fatigue and emotional interference. Also, an AI system learns deeply from literature or data created or provided by us only. Undoubtedly, AI is much faster and better in finding different patterns and links among them too.

Expressing different emotions on its face by an AI powered robot is way different than recognizing emotions based on facial expressions only. If you still believe that the face is the only place to look for emotions then you’re wrong. Sometimes, face wouldn’t express any emotion, feeling or intention at all while experiencing it. Other body language cues needs to be detected for recognizing it accurately.

Although robots are able to talk with us fluently and give emotional feedbacks during conversations, we’re not an army of identical robots. We all have some individual traits, quirks, nuances or idiosyncrasies. While reading an individual’s body language, one has to patiently recognize or identify what’s normal for the individual. It’s called as an individual’s baseline and everybody can have different baselines.

What's exactly going on here?

Ignoring an individual’s baseline is exactly what a young, energetic and inexperienced body language enthusiast does by jumping on quick conclusions, right after reading several books on body language within a couple of days. Just for the sake of reading the minds of humans quickly than themselves, Would AI systems establish the baselines? As of now, most of us made big mistakes by not doing so at all.

Apart from individual baselines, there’re several factors that silently or subconsciously dictate an individual’s body language like age, role, time, needs, rules, norms, location, gender, climate, culture, objects, situation, history, heritage, memories, experience, occupation, personality, social hierarchy, development stage, physical condition, sexual orientation, interpersonal relation, socio-economical status etc.

As two body language experts may have different opinions about a single person’s body language, any two different AI systems might differ in their readings. Additionally, AI can’t at all match with bonding, intuition, empathy, gut reaction, perceptiveness, 'sixth sense', contextual awareness and embodied experiences. It could never recognize or understand our deeper thoughts, emotions and feelings.

Nevertheless, reading body language using artificial intelligence could be greatly productive is certain contexts. Public security, senior caregiving and medical care are few such broader and serious fields or areas in which mental states, needs or even next moves of people can be quickly identified or predicted entirely on the basis of their facial expressions, movements, gestures and postures.

AI can surely save lives in an intensive care unit (ICU). A high resolution camera powered by artificial intelligence can record and monitor every single change in a patient’s facial expressions, postures, movements and voice. It can alert the doctors, nurses, attendants or family members upon detecting rapid, abnormal or unusual changes. AI can simultaneously save several patients.

Intensive Care Unit (ICU)

After looking at the possibilities and limitations of Artificial Intelligence (AI) systems in matching our minds and reading our body language, we must accept a few basic facts and ask a few serious questions to ourselves before it's too late and things get out of our control. We took millions of years to reach the present stage but they're developing rapidly every day and has already outdone the average human intelligence.

Has any no other creature from Earth ever chosen an artificially developed or evolved intelligence to solve its problems? Never! Also, intelligence or problem solving capability was never ever separated from physical body. However, artificial intelligence neither follows the natural selection process nor it has any upper limit due to separation from biological body and physical brain.

AI is entirely unprecedented. It has been purposefully developed for the first time in the entire history of life on planet Earth. The tricks availed, methods suggested or solutions given by extra-physical AI systems in most areas of our lives might be equally unprecedented. Undoubtedly, it has also intensified the ever existing threat of this technology being overtaken by anti-socials.

At present, the 'morphing monster' is out for preying. Some AI tools have created global shock-waves through deepfake images and video clips of a few influencers, politicians and celebrities. They’ve massively succeeded in tricking the eyes of millions of viewers at least for a few moments by blurring the lines between reality and fiction.

A startling deepfake image of Elon Musk (Tesla, SpaceX),
who warned us about rapid development of AI

"As the only sufferers of the repercussions, are we wisely UNITED and unanimously committed enough to ensure that we don't destroy ourselves by blindly following a synthetic intelligence without a physical body like ours?"

Deepfaking would reach to next levels. There’ll be no surprise at all if full-length movies would be created by using AI tools in near future. Digital or artificial avatars of actors and actresses would act on their behalf. They would flawlessly mimic their body language, style and voice after learning deeply from all of their existing movies.

As it has been predicted by many experts and dramatically shown in many movies, artificial intelligence might become self-aware (Exactly WHEN, HOW and WHY?). Let's hope that it doesn't destroy us after realizing that it was purposefully created for solving the same problems that were mostly created by us only. Didn't we?

The possibility of getting terminated by our own creation is the most serious problem than it's not being able to read our body language accurately. Hence, it's our responsibility to retain and enhance our natural ability of reading people's emotions, feelings, sentiments and moods by observing their body language.

"A rapidly developing Artificial Intelligence (AI) system without any Ethics, Empathy, Morality, Regulations and Human Values could be nothing short of an Advanced Extraterrestrial Alien or a Super-Psychopath carrying the deadliest weapons."

'Actions speak louder than the words' is the paramount principle. It applies to everybody including the systems, governments and organizations that give the promise of a future full of safety, equality, harmony, abundance, prosperity, potentials, well-being and good life.

As the only sufferers of the repercussions, are we wisely UNITED and unanimously committed enough to ensure that we don't destroy ourselves by blindly following a synthetic intelligence without a physical body like ours? Indeed, divisions and mutual distrust are going to be the greatest challenges for us to overcome.

As much as a rogue AI system, a psychopathic or anti-social person or group of persons with AI tools would endanger the humanity which is already facing the existential crises like rapid climate change, potential nuclear war and massive global unrest.

[#GLOBAL ALERT: Conveniently believing that the intelligence (problem solving ability) is only limited to the larger brains of the so-called 'dominant' species on Earth is the greatest human blunder. Also, it's an utter stupidity to blindly believe that the massive amount of data, numbers and literature that we've generated so far to teach Artificial Intelligence (AI) models is impartial, universal, unbiased, holistic, flawless, factual, perfect, ideal and/or safer.

That's why developing large and artificial systems based entirely on the basis of human thinking processes, brain and data to solve the serious problems might already be the perfect recipe of greatest disaster in the making. We already have created multiple existential crises, even before the rapid growth and development of Artificial Intelligence (AI).]

Related Articles:
1) Baseline 2) Context 3) Interpretation 4) Perceptual Bias 5) Would aliens have emotions? 6) Can body language reveal thoughts? 7) Nonverbal Advantage in Investigation 8) Domination 9) Socio-economic Class 10) Human Interactions in AI Era 11) Are human emotions really universal? 12) THE END of OVER-Generalization

Can body language reveal thoughts?

We have seen mentalists or psychic readers which can tell your credit card’s PIN number, your personal cell phone number, your address or even other private details just by observing you or asking your name in the very first meeting on a road or during a stage show.

Going even further, some mentalists or psychic readers can tell details about an individual just by looking at its photographs. Such ability empowers the readers to see through an individual like a large X-Ray machine. This is outstandingly mind blowing but equally scary too.

Although highly debated or doubted, mentalism or psychic reading might be a latest phenomenon in a million year long human developmental. However, everybody doesn’t need to a mentalist or a psychic reader to know about others because we all commonly share different emotions, moods, feelings, intentions, impulses, urges, desires, biases, approaches and attitudes. Human body is designed to express, convey, display or give them away almost unconsciously throughout our lives.

We can decode or understand somebody’s psychological, social and cognitive status and condition just by keenly observing its body language in a given context and at a given moment. Hence, decoding body language is largely and mostly equated with reading minds of the others in real-time. It’s practically and socially an extremely advantageous ability. Surprisingly, everybody has this natural ability. However, the degree of accuracy of reading others differs from one individual to another.

Being human is more than creatures with mostly predictive and instinctive behaviors. We possess a unique ability of thinking. Thinking sets us apart from creatures but thoughts set two individuals apart. Unlike commonly shared spectrum of physical expressions and behaviors, it’s the kind of thinking and thoughts which sets one individual apart from another. Obviously, the greatest question is Can body language of an individual reveal its thoughts?.

Before trying to find the answer of the question, let’s try to understand WHAT EXACTLY IS THINKING?. Thinking or forming thoughts is a conscious and also higher cognitive process which takes place even without any sensory stimulation or input. Process of thinking broadly includes judging, reasoning, forming opinion, crafting concept, generating idea, solving problem and deliberating. Emotions interfere with thinking process whereas thoughts regulate emotions.

Triune Brain or Three Brain Sections

We humans have three different sections of brain i. e. Reptile, Limbic/Mammalian and Neocortex. Both reptile and limbic sections initiate and regulate behaviors, expressions and displays related with survival, social interactions, territorial needs and mating. On the other hand, the thinking process supposedly takes place within and largely governed by neocortex (literally 'new brain') which is recently developed section inside the brain which sits right above the reptile and limbic sections.

Statue of the thinking man or the thinker is famous. The man is sitting with isolated, adapting closed body posture, giving support of his right hand to his face, maintaining downwards gaze or almost closing his eyes. By sitting at one place, he has diverted his entire physical energy and focus towards the (deep) thinking process or contemplation. While thinking about something, almost every human individual unconsciously switches to the similar kind of body posture.

Normally, frequency, intensity and duration of physical movements is strongly correlated with thinking process due to energy demand dynamics. Brain is an energy hungry machine which consumes almost 20% of the entire energy that body produces. Moreover, thinking alone burns 2/3 out of the same. Minimized or completed halted body movements help in diverting blood, glucose, oxygen and nutrients to the brain and especially the neocortex.

The Thinking Man

By looking at physical isolation, minimized movements, lowered muscle movements on face, steady neck and unmoving eyes; we can instantaneously know that an individual is thinking at the moment. Eye ball movements can give clues about cognitive processing such as memory recall.

Tiny muscular movements and/or micro-expressions on face reveal how the individual is reacting to its own thoughts. Diverted gaze, fixated eyes and partially or fully closed eyelids suggest the high degree of deliberate focus and concentration while thinking.

Hence, we can easily know if an individual is thinking just by looking at its overall body language. However, body language itself cannot reveal the thoughts of the same individual. The textual, numerical, symbolic and geometrical details of ongoing thoughts cannot be known. Other than using sign languages, it’s extremely tough or even impossibly to convey the exact details by using facial expressions, emblems, postures and hand gestures voluntarily.

Spoken language is the only medium of expressing, sharing or spreading thoughts, ideas, concepts, opinions, judgments and plans which are the ultimate products of activities taking placed among billions of neurons or brain cells. They are almost impossible to read from outside until expressed voluntarily. We simply can’t understand the exact details of thoughts until an individual conveys them verbally, puts them down on a paper or acts upon them ultimately.

Don’t you still believe it? Please let me explain it very simply. This very article made up of hundreds of words, numbers and special characters put under several paragraphs is the final product of my own thoughts about this very extremely interesting subject. Without publishing the same, how come you could have understood my own thoughts about it? Indeed, it was next to impossible! Isn’t it? Hope you clearly understood my point by now.

"An individual's body language can and does reveal thinking but not the exact details of its thoughts."

By the way, technology is trying to read human thoughts. In 2019, Facebook made an announcement of developing a device that can read thoughts directly from ongoing neural activities and translate them into words. Initially, this development is intended to help the patients who are suffering from paralysis to express their thoughts. However, end goal of is to provide the Brain Machine Interface to control and operate other devices.

Do you have Tin Foil Hats to prevent 'Thought Hacking'?

[Special Note: Our brain has an unique ability of visual thinking which is absolutely free from the words and languages. Visual thinking is thinking in the form of images, illustrations, icons, pictures and symbols.

Visual thinking utilizes our brain’s visual processing center and it is extremely useful in organizing data, connecting different pieces of information, understanding complex concepts or ideas and modelling.]

Related Articles:
1) Is Human Communication 93% Nonverbal? 2) Self-communication by gesturing 3) Why exactly languages evolved? 4) Body Language Brain 5) Words and gestures are alike 6) Would aliens have emotions? 7) Human Interactions in AI Era 8) Are human emotions really universal?

The Truth about Lying

Modern techno-industrial world has been suffering from and getting plagued by elaborate lies and deceptions. Massive frauds, con-jobs, fake news, forgeries, ponzi schemes, misonformation, disinformation, malinformation, deepfake images and deepfake videos have been affecting millions people. Also, the amount of nonverbal deception overwhelms the verbal lies in the modern techno-industrial. Of course, blindly believing, unsuspecting, innocent, gullible or naive people are the easiest targets.

Surprisingly, the ultimate goal of the most people living in the modern techno-industrial world who attend seminars, read books and/or articles (including this one) and watch videos about body language is to become a good human lie detector. Am I right? Matter of fact is that developing ability to detect lies on spot and catch liars red-handed and timely with great precision is the greatest dream of many people. After all, why it shouldn’t be?

"Trustworthiness between any two individuals is entirely depedent upon mutual Transparency, Truthfulness and Verifiability. That's why TRUST is the costliest asset in the whole world."

No matter how badly we want the whole human world to walk on path of truthfulness, we just can't eradicate the trait of lying from the basic human nature. Surprisingly, we do believe in lies of others simply because we do lie to or deceive ourselves too. Hence, until we don’t thoroughly understand and realize Why we lie?, we wouldn’t be able to suspect and detect lies in the first place. Hence, let's see how, why, where, when and which types of lies are born. Indeed, it's going to an enlightening journey.

In a kind of world in which competition, fighting, rivalry, scarcity, vulnerability, mortality, intimidation, dissimilarity, differences, domination, punishment, pain, rejection, out-casting, abandoning, loneliness, theft, terror, biases, barriers, injuries and threats are completely absent; people wouldn’t (need to) lie at all. The world would be nothing less than a paradise which we read about in holy books and scriptures. Correct? Unfortunately, we don’t live in such kind of an utopian world at all.

In our world, every individual fights for survival. An individual needs to find out and work on many different ways to compete, acquire resources, find a mate and pass genes to next generation while living along with thousands of people who are its present and potential allies, partners, protectors, friends, foes, challengers, competitors, rivals and intimidators. By the way, both humans and non-human entities can be pose challenges, competitions, threats and obstacles.

If an individual is immortal, enough resourceful, very powerful, very strong, extremely skilled and completely independent to live and do everything all alone for survival and propagation of genes, he/she wouldn’t (need to) lie to anybody. Lying is an easiest way for an individual to fix different types of social issues on temporary basis.

It's always worth remembering that lying is an entirely social or group activity. Any single individual can't give birth to a lie at all, no matter how badly a lie needs to take birth. Until there's no potential receiver of a lie, there's no point in giving birth to it at the first place. Hence, at least two (living) individuals are required for giving birth to a lie. Don’t you agree? Please let me explain.

A) A child rushed to home crying with no tears in eyes after beating another child. Unsuspecting yet protective mother immediately smelled potential threat to her child and rushes towards child. She asked to child that who fought with her child in the playground.

She wasted no time in asking her child if he/she caused the fight and started abusing the unseen culprit. She rushed to the playground aggressively and started looking for culprit impatiently.

B) A manufacturing company gave a clear signs of going bankrupt. Its owner became dead worried about future. The owner was desperately looking for breakthrough. Suddenly, two incompetent employee copied idea of an innovative product from internet.

One of them hurriedly presented it to the owner by saying that he/she designed the product. The owner didn’t waste time in verifying the employee’s competency to design such product.

C) A wealthy 50 year old man wanted to marry and start family. He was afraid of rejection due to his unattractive looks. One day, a lone 45 year old woman wearing makeup caught his attention in a social function which he was attending upon invitation.

He immediately got attracted towards her due to her "young looks". He approached her and started talking with her. He started flying in sky after she told her age as 25 years.

Secondly, knowing what types of lies a person can tell would help you greatly in detecting them. Following are the seven major types of lies:

A) Denial - It is refusing to acknowledge a truth. The extent of denial can be quite large i. e. they may be lying only to you just this one time or they may be lying to themselves.

B) Omission - It is leaving out relevant information. Easier and least risky. It doesn’t involve inventing any stories. It is passive deception and less guilt is involved.

C) Restructuring - It is distorting the context by saying something in sarcasm and changing the characters or altering the scene.

D) Error - It is a lie told by mistake. The person believes they are being truthful but what they are saying is not true.

E) Exaggeration - It is representing oneself as greater, better, more experienced/eligible and more successful.

F) Minimization - It is reducing the effects of a mistake, a fault or a judgment call.

G) Fabrication - It is deliberately inventing a false story.

In above three examples, desperation, fear and anxiety took hold of minds of three persons who didn’t suspect and didn't bother verify if the other person is telling the truth. Strong emotions and fundamental needs put thicker filters on their sensory perception.

One person simply got carried away with lies told by other person. Protecting themselves and their interests unconsciously made all of them to believe in what other persons told.

First lie (A) is an example of Omission, second lie (B) is Fabrication and third lie (C) is Exaggeration.

"There are three kinds of lies: lies, damned lies and statistics."
- Mark Twain

Apart of psychopaths and seasoned criminals, normal people can't live peacefully with lies they tell to others over a long period of time. Most people lie out of fear and then become fearful out of lying. Guilt starts eating most people from inside.

Only grown-ups lie? Nope! It starts from an early age which most of us wouldn't even imagine about. Babies start lying and faking right from age of 6 month. Do we only lie to others? Nope! We do lie to ourselves by twisting facts and denying them wishfully. However, a hope is a necessary lie for survival.

Lying, fabricating and faking starts at an early age in humans.

In once exceptional case, an animal lied once. Koko, a female gorilla, was born in San Francisco Zoo and was trained to talk using a modified form of American Sign Language which was taught by her trainer and caretaker Ms. Francine Patterson.

One day, Koko ripped a sink out of the wall and she put blame on her pet kitten by signing "cat did it" when her keepers confronted her about it. The gorilla might have lied due to ability of speaking through sign language and prolonged proximity to humans.

Koko, a captive gorilla, lied using the sign language.

"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)

With invention of computers, the very ambition has turned into many software applications. However, modern and industrialized human civilization isn’t free from costly lies and dangerous liars. With invention of telephones and cellphones, we started lying over large distances.

With on-going development in neural networks, machine learning and Artificial Intelligence (AI); lie detection might reach to a new level and go in a new direction about which we have not imagined ever before.

Related Links:
1) My career saving lie detection 2) Face of liar(?) 3) From Common Signs to Spotting Lies 4) Entire body can’t lie 5) Baseline 6) Body Language of Extreme Psychopath 7) Body Language and Lie Detection

The language of eyes

As far as I remember, I couldn’t watch a single horror film or TV show, from the beginning to end. After growing up, I began to hate and express loathing towards disgusting faces and scenes that dominate most of the horror movies and shows. I don't waste my time in watching horror on screen, even if it's entertaining(?).

Now, I can exercise my choice to walk away from television screen, switch it off or simply hop to next satellite channel whenever a horror movie/serial is broadcasted or played by somebody. My eyes, ears and brain are free from getting horrified, expressing loath and feeling disgusted. Total relief from mental torture!

However, it wasn’t so easy in childhood days when all others in my family wanted to watch horror movie/serial and I needed to keep myself away from horrific or disgusting scenes. Having just a single large television set kept in a hall, I had no other choice but to stay put in presence of my family members watching and listening to horror.

Whenever any horror movie/serial was being broadcasted, I used to put cotton balls in my ears and try to look away from television set. As I clearly remember, I used to bury my eyes in books kept nearby purposefully. There's a great coincidence in body language that fear is as primitive as eyes and their movements are controlled the primitive brain.

Blocking Eyes? Scared?

Just by keeping my eyeballs away from television, I used to avoid extremely anxiety and stress which might have caused by watching the horrifying and disgusting scenes. My eyes were giving away my honest yet fearful intentions to defend myself from psychological distress

Although my senior family members used to call me “Coward”, I never feel bothered about it at all. At least, I never had any characters from any horror movie/serial in my dreams since I didn’t watch them in the first place. Smart strategy it was then and it is now - Simply avoid looking at what might invite stress.

From expressing different emotions, intentions and feelings to signaling attention and orientation, our eyes unconsciously give away various kinds of and very important clues to the outside world. To put simply, eyes do or can reveal much more than what a person says, doesn’t say at all and tries to prove or disprove.

From the very first moment of your entry into this world to the last moment you’ve interacted with anybody or even looked your own face into a mirror, eyes have mattered way too much into your life. Didn't they? Through movements of muscles that surround eye sockets, even blind people convey their emotions e. g. frowning in anger.

Eye of Horus (Egyptian God)

After all, why our eyes really are so communicating? In the world of creatures, human eye is considered as one of the most marvelous organs or body parts if its structural complexity and functionality is considered. Also, unlike most of other organs, eyes are directly connected with brain to an area called which is called as Visual Cortex.

Additionally, eyes are the only sensory organs that start developing in womb quite earlier, right from 4th week after conception. Right after face, eyes are considered the most important element in every facet of human interaction, so much so that merely images and emblems of eyes can trigger array of emotions and feelings.

Before development of ability to speak or the very facial muscles that help in expressing emotions, our remote ancestors and all other creatures had to depend on their eyes for communication along with other movable body parts. They had to use eyes, area surrounding them and other parts of face to send different clues to members of their groups as efficiently and timely as they could.

Through millions of years of development and adaptation (evolution), human eyes became capable of doing so many things than just seeing things e. g. expressing respect or supremacy, signaling interest or aversion, giving away lust or rivalry, seducing or derogating etc.

Different types of eye contacts with different
intentions, emotions, motives and moods

Like computerized eye-trackers, most of us choose to pick and encode signals given away by eye balls and pupils only. In Neuro-linguistic programming (NLP) techniques, “eye-ball response assessment” or decoding cognitive states by detecting movements of eye balls is most popular.

These readings might be accurate but they are highly controversial in main-stream scientific community. After all, eyes don’t just give away cognitive but range of clues which we’re going to see next. I’m quite sure that most of them are first time you might be reading about.

While reading or decoding language of eyes, we have to consider different areas or sections like sclera (white part of eye ball), iris (darker part of eye ball), pupils (darker spot in center), ocular muscles (muscles that surround eye balls), eye lids and eyebrows. Even in some cases, position of neck is also need to be considered.

Before going to clues, we must know what different kinds of clues are or can be given away by eyes. Clues can be broadly categorized as A) Physical B) Social C) Psychological D) Cognitive E) Courtship. Let’s go through them one after another with few examples.

A) Physical Clues: Since input through eyes dominates all other types of sensory inputs reaching to brain, they also give away how and what our brain feels about or rates the physical environment around us. How comfortable we are in given physical environment is unconsciously conveyed by our eyes and its surrounding area. Also, eyes give way clues if our body is suffering from any internal or external factors such as injury, exhaustion or unrest.

A very good example of same is our unconsciously response to light, air flow or harmful entities. When harsh light or wind current hits our eyes, we simply squint or protect our eye balls by tightening muscles that surround eye balls.

Eye lids are partially or fully closed if required. Eyebrows are also pulled down to provide additional protection to eye balls. If extreme conditions, we cover our eyes with palms, look down or move our face away.

Eyes also give away if we are experiencing intolerable pain e. g. badly aching tooth or broken bones. Response to pain and physical sufferings is given away by squinting, pulling eyebrows down and shedding tears. When I compare photos of my face taken at the time when I was suffering from intense back and neck pain with those taken after end of sufferings, I clearly see that area around my eye balls appears more relaxed.

B) Social Clues: Each of us is an integral part of human society which is filled with people having varying socio-economical statues, authorities, resources, belongings, experiences, skills, age groups and physical capacities. Superiority (or dominance), Equality (or equi-dominance) and Subordination (or sub-dominance) can loosely be translated as Respect or Authority, Friendship and Insignificance respectively.

The way one person makes an eye contact with somebody or the way it puts itself into relative physical position (elevation and distance) while looking at other person(s) conveys how the person wants other person(s) to regard him/her. It might be irrespective of how other person(s) really regards him/her. Eye contact made by a dominant, powerful or superior person is exactly opposite to what a subordinate, powerless or inferior person does.

Egoistic, dominant and powerful persons make unhindered, straight, steady and elongated eye contact (with no smile). Most often, they raise their chin to express their confidence and lower it down to derogate or frighten. Often, they maintain considerable physical distance from subordinates and if possible - place themselves on high elevation.

Running eyes from tip to town of subordinate is also done by bossy or type A persons. Imagine a king sitting on a high throne, looking over officers in his court.

C) Psychological Clues: As eyes collect visual clues to be sent to brain, they are also involved in expressing few basic emotions. In fact, facial expressions related with various emotions and feelings are incomplete without eyes. On the other hand, only eyes and its surrounding area are capable of giving emotional clues even when other parts of face are hidden or invisible to an experienced and skilled observer.

Surprised child

Muscles around eyes and eyebrows convey basic emotions like fear, anger, surprise and sadness. While expressing both fear and anger, we pull our eyebrows close to each other and downward only to give protection for eye balls while eye balls appear to be larger in size. However, inner ends of eyebrows move upwards and away from each other in fear.

In sadness, eye balls appear to be normal size and eyebrows aren’t pulled downward but only their inner ends move upwards and away from each other. While expressing surprise or shock, eyebrows go upward and away from eye balls since brain needs to collect more and more visual clues coming through eyes. Just eyebrows can convey fear, anger, surprise and sadness.

D) Cognitive Clues: Eyes are gateways to enormous information, knowledge and intelligence because only vision collects more than 70% of entire data which is processed by and stored inside brain. Our eyes give clues about how much we are interested, attentive, focused and even in dire need of collecting visual information coming from any entity, person or situation.

Confused?

It starts with looking at something covertly or overtly. Our eye balls and especially pupils (darker part of eye balls) are re-directed towards the entity. If we are comfortable about and not afraid of the entity then we keep looking at same continuously without squinting, blocking our eyes or moving our eye balls somewhere else. If we’re focused then we bat our eye lids very less.

If we aren’t able to understand, figure out, grasp or clearly focus on something then we squint and pull eyebrows closer to eye balls. Not understanding something clearly leads to stress which is conveyed by tensed eyebrows and muscles around eye balls. If something arouses us or fires up neurons inside our brain then our eye balls appear bigger and eye lids are pulled wide apart.

E) Courtship Clues: If we find somebody (belonging to opposite gender) interesting or appealing then we don’t hesitate to look at the person. In fact, we crave to have glimpse(s) of that person at multiple times. Additionally, we want to let the person know our interest (irrespective of that person’s interest in us) by attracting its attention towards us in many different ways e. g. gesturing or touching our own body.

Come-Hither look

Who you’re looking at can easily be detected by the direction and angle at which your irises are set. More you covertly or overtly look at the person; more it shows your developing interest about same. Unlike man’s direct gazing, woman can observe man of her interest by glancing him sideways. They are master in using peripheral vision so their observation remains almost undetected for most of the time.

If both parties are mutually interested then they start to look at each other briefly and then look away repeatedly for a considerable amount of time. Come-hither look in which a person looks at person by dropping its chin (and closing eyes partially) is a classical signal of invitation for intimacy. When both persons want to move ahead and initiate courtship then they start looking in each others' eyes. That’s why eyes play a pivotal role during courtship.

Apart from broader classification/categorization of clues mentioned just above, we’ll see some well-known nonverbal give-aways too.

1) Rubbing eyes: Primarily, rubbing of eyes is done to clear away dirt, dust or stickiness from eyes, which we often need to do after getting up from bed in morning. It is also done if a person gets tired of something and wants to take a short break.

2) Blocking eyes: Generally, blocking of eyes is done when we don’t want to look at something, which might be disturbing, distressing or frightening. Also, if we don't want others to look into our eyes (to read our mind) then we simply block them.

3) Gaze aversion: Gaze aversion is done when we don't want others to know that we're looking at them. It is also done when we loose interest in something or somebody. Instantaneous gaze aversion indicates shyness, anger, nervousness or withdrawal.

4) Sleepy eyes: Sleepy eyes convey lack of energy, lack of enthusiasm, lack of freshness and sadness. When we get bored of something or somebody, we staring at same with partially closed eyes. Sleepy eyes suggest weakness, illness or psychological disorder too.

5) Enlarged pupils: Size of pupils is directly controlled by brain. When our brain needs more visual input, our pupils get enlarged. Enlarged pupils convey excitement, arousal and increased level of activities inside brain.

6) Downward gaze: Downward gaze indicate lack of confidence, nervousness, shyness or self-involvement. Downward gaze also suggests embarrassment, insult, loss or sadness. Also it suggests (temporary) social withdrawal.

7) Line-of-sight gaze: Line-of-sight gaze indicates interest, attentiveness, confidence, courageousness, enthusiasm or social involvement. Line-of-sight gaze is considered very normal and also more (socially) acceptable among all other kinds of gazes.

8) Upward gaze: Upward gaze indicates imagination, visualization, fantasizing, thinking, creativity and also (temporary) withdrawal from social interaction. Looking up also indicates stubbornness, contempt, dislike, boredom or preying to almighty.

9) Closed eyes: When we close our eye, world around us cease to exist. Loosely closed eyes with no stress around eye balls indicate peacefulness, contemplativeness or meditativeness. Tightly closed eyes indicate high stress, pain or internal conflict.

10) Shifty eyes: Shifty eyes or unsteady gaze suggests confusion, fear, stress, craziness or lack of confidence. Unlike steady gaze or direct eye contact, shifty eyes during face to face interactions are considered less trustworthy.

11) Blinking eyes: When eye lids start opening and closing rapidly in cycles then it's considered as absolutely abnormal. (Rapidly) Blinking eyes suggest fear, nervousness, guilt, anger and instability. Blinking also suggest hyper neural activities.

Eyes smile too!

If you really want to become master the language of eyes then you have to become a very good observer by being highly attentive towards (minute) details. You must be mentally present in any given situation and have your eyes (and ears also) completely fixed on the person you're observing.

Ability to pick and decode different clues and signals given away by eyes with respect to the given situation is really important but also very challenging for many of us.

I'm quite sure that it ultimately would open a portal to your social development. More you try understanding people; more you become confident, prosperous, peaceful, secured, strong and satisfied. What else you might want?

Related Articles:
1) Just by looking at Hands and Eyes 2) Importance of Eyes 3) Are you Jealous?