"Mind reading" - how is this done?

CWG

I just want to burn him at a stake and watch his witch's heart bubble. It’s extraordinary. Great trick. - Stephen Fry

Derren Brown does many amazing tricks - I want to focus here on his "mind reading". This is way beyond any cold reading I've seen, but he insists that he uses no actors or stooges. He's also a skeptic, very clear about not being psychic. He does reveal some of his tricks, but maintains a lot of mystery.

Reading David Frost's mind - unusually, he struggles and gets the first one wrong, and seems to reveal tiny glimpses of his technique. Then at the end he gives more hints about his technique than usual.

Pet name - getting someone on the street to read another person's mind. In the full version (from the DVD of Trick of the Mind, series one) the segment starts with Derren telling the guy (the pet owner) that sorry, it won't work on you, then later changing his mind and bringing him in.

Creepy clown - the detail here is extraordinary.

Watch the videos then scroll down, if you want to watch it without being influenced by me... I have a few thoughts, but they don't go very far in explaining it...

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Whatever he's doing, he's extraordinarily good at it. Some speculations:

Derren Brown uses suggestion and "subliminal" messages very heavily in his tricks. Often he will have written down the person's choice long before they've chosen, and subtly gets them thinking about what he wants. In the examples above he doesn't have much opportunity to direct the thought, I think... except that in the case of David Frost choosing a place, Frost is looking in the direction of the city scape behind Derren, which presumably influences his choice.
Micromuscle reading: When he or a participant tries to read a thought, there's often something about picking up the sound of a letter. Perhaps he reads involuntary micromuscle movements related to the mouth and throat that happen while saying something loudly in one's head, but suppressing it. (I would have guessed that was impossible... it still seems unlikely, but much more likely than "he's psychic".)
He narrows down the field of possibilities, often through suggestion, or sometimes (as with David Frost) asking them for something more specific.
He usually selects the participant, making sure he's got someone suitable. Perhaps all TV show hosts are suitable. (Except in his stage shows, where he throws a teddy bear into the audience, and asks the audience to throw it again. Perhaps if you've bought an expensive ticket to his show, you're invested in it and ready to go along with him, and that's enough for those particular tricks.) He says that a few things increase suggestibility, including the presence of a camera.
He's extremely observant and good at making connections - in one trick, he tells a man a lot about himself, by holding his hands through holes in a panel, but not able to see the man. E.g. by the roughness of the man's hands, he guesses what sport he's interested in. He pulls his hands back, smells them deeply, then declares that he has terriers (correct - he attributes that to having learnt to tell the difference between breeds of dogs by their smell), probably 3 of them (correct - no idea how).
Any of these things might be misdirection.
He may be lying, and actually using actors & stooges in some of his tricks. But that doesn't explain everything very well (e.g. I doubt that David Frost, Jamie Oliver or other celebs were paid to go along with him, but again, it's more believable that they're all lying than that he's psychic.)

I think he's using a lot of different methods at once, with great skill... but I'm sure my speculations are a long way short of explaining what he does. I'd love to hear any further insights on his mind-reading.

I just want to burn him at a stake and watch his witch's heart bubble. It’s extraordinary. Great trick. - Stephen Fry

Creepy clown - the detail here is extraordinary.

Watch the videos then scroll down, if you want to watch it without being influenced by me... I have a few thoughts, but they don't go very far in explaining it...

- - - - - -

Whatever he's doing, he's extraordinarily good at it. Some speculations:

Derren Brown uses suggestion and "subliminal" messages very heavily in his tricks. Often he will have written down the person's choice long before they've chosen, and subtly gets them thinking about what he wants. In the examples above he doesn't have much opportunity to direct the thought, I think... except that in the case of David Frost choosing a place, Frost is looking in the direction of the city scape behind Derren, which presumably influences his choice.
Micromuscle reading: When he or a participant tries to read a thought, there's often something about picking up the sound of a letter. Perhaps he reads involuntary micromuscle movements related to the mouth and throat that happen while saying something loudly in one's head, but suppressing it. (I would have guessed that was impossible... it still seems unlikely, but much more likely than "he's psychic".)
He narrows down the field of possibilities, often through suggestion, or sometimes (as with David Frost) asking them for something more specific.
He usually selects the participant, making sure he's got someone suitable. Perhaps all TV show hosts are suitable. (Except in his stage shows, where he throws a teddy bear into the audience, and asks the audience to throw it again. Perhaps if you've bought an expensive ticket to his show, you're invested in it and ready to go along with him, and that's enough for those particular tricks.) He says that a few things increase suggestibility, including the presence of a camera.
He's extremely observant and good at making connections - in one trick, he tells a man a lot about himself, by holding his hands through holes in a panel, but not able to see the man. E.g. by the roughness of the man's hands, he guesses what sport he's interested in. He pulls his hands back, smells them deeply, then declares that he has terriers (correct - he attributes that to having learnt to tell the difference between breeds of dogs by their smell), probably 3 of them (correct - no idea how).
Any of these things might be misdirection.
He may be lying, and actually using actors & stooges in some of his tricks. But that doesn't explain everything very well (e.g. I doubt that David Frost, Jamie Oliver or other celebs were paid to go along with him, but again, it's more believable that they're all lying than that he's psychic.)

I never said that you have to assume various facts. I said that you have to assume various facts ''for there to be a puzzle''. Nor did I say that these tricks must be fair puzzles. I said that ''if'' it is a fair puzzle, ''then'' there are certain assumptions that must be true. This is quite likely not a fair puzzle. If it's not a fair puzzle, then trying to "figure it out" strikes me as not being a worthwhile endeavor.

And if it's not a fair puzzle, then pretty much any explanation is unfalsifiable. If we proceed with the assumption that he's trying to fool us, then we ''shouldn't expect'' it to make sense. We should ''expect'' there to be mysterious and arbitrary details, and any such details can be presented as support for the explanation, while any details that aren't mysterious or arbitrary under the proposed explanation can be presented as confirmation as well. For instance, him having the woman touch the face of the man is, under your explanation, arbitrary, and supports your explanation because it shows that he's introducing elements that have no inherent purpose as misdirection. The woman being shorter than the man, on the other hand, you claim is evidence for your explanation, because it serves a direct purpose in his plan.

If Derren is operating through camera cuts in video three, there is little need for the clown costume. We need four things to dismiss this hypothesis:

Derren makes a specific claim.
We have a clear shot of his mouth, and can lip-read him as saying that.
The woman clearly and explicitly states that the claim is true.
We have a clear shot of her mouth.

Not only do we need these four things, we need them ''all in the same shot''. It's hardly difficult to arrange the editing such that there is no shot with all four, even without a clown costume. And that's about a satisfying explanation as if I had seen a magician on TV get in one box, then instantly appear in a box across the room, and the explanation is that the magician actually climbed out of the first box, walked over to the second box, and got in it, and then edited the video so we wouldn't see him walking from one box to the other. If I see a boat blow up in a movie, I might idly wonder "I wonder how they did that? Maybe they had a miniature. Maybe it was CGI. Maybe they actually bought a boat and blew it up." But that would simply be an issue of movie trivia. It wouldn't be a "puzzle". And if someone were filming miniatures being blown up and presenting it as a "magic trick", I'd consider that pretty lame. There's a difference between an illusion and a hoax. It doesn't take any skill to pull off a hoax, only chutzpah.

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"Mind reading" - how is this done?

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"Mind reading" - how is this done?

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