Open thread, February 15-28, 2013

David_Gerard

If it's worth saying, but not worth its own post, even in Discussion, it goes here.

How much do actors know about body language? Are they generally taught to use body language in a way consistent with what they're saying and expressing with their faces? (If so, does this mean that watching TV shows or movies muted could be a good way to practice reading body language?)

In which case would this be preferable to live human interaction? It lacks the immediate salient feedback and strong incentives of a social setting. The editing and narrative would be distracting and watching a muted movie sounds (or rather, looks) quite boring.

15shaih13y

I do not believe it would be a good way to practice because even with actors acting the way they are supposed (consistent body language and facial expressions) lets say conservatively 90% of the time, you are left with 10% wrong data. This 10% wouldn't be that bad except for the fact that it is actors trying to act correctly (meaning you would interpret what it looks like for a fabricated emotion to be a real emotion). This could be detrimental to many uses of being able to read body language such as telling when other people are lying. My preferred method has been to watch court cases on YouTube where it has come out afterword whether the person was guilty or innocent. I watch these videos before i know what the truth is make a prediction and then read what the truth is. In this way I am able to get situations where the person is feeling real emotions and is likely to hide what there feeling with fake emotions. After practicing like this for about a week i found that i could more easily discern whether people were telling the truth or lying, and it was easier to see what emotions they truly felt. This may not extremely applicable to the real world because emotions felt in court rooms are particularly intense but i found that it allows me to get my mind to the point of being used to looking for emotion which has helped in the real world. I should also note that i have read many books from Paul Ekman and have used some of his training programs. If it is important to you how to learn to read faces I largely recommend SETT and METT where if its simply a curiosity you're unwilling to spend much money on i recommend checking out "emotions revealed" in your local library

2Tenoke13y

They get some training and it depends a lot on what you are watching but you can learn a bit if you don't forget that this is not exactly how people act. A show like 'lie to me' will probably do more good than other shows (Paul Ekman is involved in it) but there are also inaccuracies there. Perhaps you can study the episodes and then read arguments about what was wrong in a certain episode (David Matsumoto used to post sometimes what was inaccurate about some episodes iirc).