The NonVerbal vs. the Unsaid

Post Reply New Topic

That may not be true.. if all the body language/nonverbal communication you use is feigned, then it makes sense that you do it purposefully, and therefore can control it. But if for NTs it's subconscious both to use and to interpret, if course they wouldn't be able to control it much. Anytime you use it, whether it conveys your real emotion or not, it's still feigned. So for you, it's no harder to use a fake one than a real one. does that make sense?
Otherwise everybody would be a professional poker player.

I understand what you're trying to say. However, I wouldn't trust someone's nonverbal message any more than I trust their words. I see people feigning in both at the same rate. To give one more example: phoniness is NOT solely verbal. It's in the false smile, the false eye smile, the false tone of voice and gestures. Not to mention that the women of old were artists at feigning shyness. I'm surprised you guys don't realize all this.

Yes.. but it's usually sociopaths that fake the nonverbal, too. And they tend to be believed.
It may be part of an NT unwritten rule that unless you're acting or playing poker, it's very, very bad to fake nonverbal signals. Lying is one thing, but lying with expression as well as with words is worse.

Same here! Sometimes the visuals get to be so entertaining that I lose track of what is being said.

Managers do that often. Mine certainly has. The thing is, that attempt at lying with body language doesn't actually work. The actual body language that the manager has overrides the simulation of body language that is attempting to lie. "The smile that doesn't reach the eyes" is an example of this. Perhaps a better way to put it is that many people TRY to lie with body language but few succeed. Their true body language gives them away.

I think there are two levels of body language. There is the overt level: "This is what my body is saying" that people can attempt to lie with by deliberately using particular body language.

But underneath that is the true level of the body language that is subconscious which is very hard to fake. So hard that sociopaths and professional poker players are the few able to actually pull it off. Anybody can hold out their hands, palms up, in the "I am harmless" gesture even though a gun is tucked under their shirt. It takes a sociopath to get people to BELIEVE that they are harmless when they do that gesture with a gun tucked under their shirt.

Lots of people can do the "smile that doesn't reach the eyes" as an attempt to lie. But people don't believe it. It takes a true sociopath to get their fake smile to actually reach their eyes in a convincing manner that won't read as "fake smile".

So you are right that people can lie with body language. The catch is, nobody will believe that lie unless they are sociopaths or have practised very, very, very often. So the lie remains at the silly level of saying "my hair is on fire" when it obviously isn't. Sure, it isn't true and therefore a lie. But nobody believes it.

Ah yes. For one thing, you will pretty much always be caught and therefore held in contempt unless you are a sociopath (you'd be held in contempt- but not caught), a professional poker player or one of the more talented professional actors. (I think Robert DeNiro could get me to believe his body language lie but Lindsey Lohan couldn't.)

Greentea is absolutely right that the fake smile, the fake "we're friends" handshake and other non-verbal lies get used with frequency. I guess I wasn't even thinking of those wen I wrote my first "most people can't lie with body language" post because I wasn't counting them as lies. But of course they are. What I was thinking of was that very, very few people can use body language to convey a lie that other people believe. So in one sense they are lying. But in the other sense, their subconscious body language sends a message that overrides the feint pretty thoroughly. Anybody can do a fake smile. It takes a sociopath to get that fake smile to reach the eyes so it reads as real rather than "I am fake smiling".

So I guess it's "wait, you're both right". Yes people can lie with body language. And no, they can't REALLY lie with body language because their subconscious body language will give them away. Sometimes I watch professional poker on TV. There is one player who plays with a bandana over his nose and mouth so that these features won't give him away with subconscious body language (I can't believe the rules allow that). Sometimes people wear sunglasses to be unreadable since they know they don't have the skills to override what messages their eyes send. And therefore anybody who demands the truth will also demand that the person remove his sunglasses because telling a lie with your eyes is unbeleivably difficult and few people can actually do it.

The interesting thing about these body language feints is that they can actually change the perception of the people doing them so that the act of doing them makes them not be lies. Feigning confidence with a firm handshake and an upright stance actually increases confidence so that doing it makes it not be a feint. Eleswhere on here is a thread called "can a smile change your life?" (it might be in the dating section) where somebody linked a study about how fake smiling actually made people feel truly happier so that it siopped being fake. However, these studies about how a feint can create a true feeling that makes it no longer be a feint were all done on NT people.

I don't even understand how you can say anything with your eyes. The expresion 'the smile that does not reach the eyes'. It makes no sense to me since the eyes are for seeing.

WARNING: ADULT CONTENT. IF YOU'RE UNDER 13, READ ON AT YOUR OWN RESPONSIBILITY.

Janissy, everyone's read about the smile that doesn't reach the eyes giving you away, so nowadays everyone smiles with their eyes too (me included). And smiling warmly at your boss doesn't cause you to suddenly start liking him. Even after 10 years of eye-smiling to him. Same goes for any whore and their client - they can feign passion or orgasm for 30 years and still it won't make them feel passionate for the idiot or make them cum. Feigning body language, tone of voice and face expressions is extremely easy and highly effective. If you don't believe me, ask your air-hostess after a flight if smiling at you and talking to you in a warm, caring voice, caused her to start loving you after a few minutes of doing it.

Let me explain tge smile that odes not reach the eyes. It basically just a smile that only muscle around mouth move, while a real smile also affect muscle around eye. Simple has that.

Now don't ask me to be able to read that through I am unable most of the time, just know it is this way.

That could likely end up with a slap. (But shrug no idea really)

Hi Iniudan, and welcome aboard! Well, I said that figuratively. What I meant was - it's likely air-hostesses don't really start caring for you because their bodies feigned caring for you for a few minutes. I don't think they'd slap you for asking, though. They'd just not understand the question and let it slide, I guess.

Bwahhaha. (Good thing I'm "of age"). Ok, I concede. This is a pretty good argument against my position.

Grasping at fake straws topic

I was so naive that I thought if a man my own age (years ago in my 20s) was nice to me I thought he was wanting to get to know me better, as in starting a relationship!! !!

I am still clueless about verbal, (due to CAPD), non verbal and the unsaid. The only difference is that I have no interest in relationships at my age, and experience has finally got through to me.

Good thread, Greentea. The comments here are a real eye opener. Pardon the pun.

i can not easily differentiate "non verbal" from "unsaid".
all non verbal communication is unspoken communication and therefore "unsaid".
it is communication by facial expression and gesticulation and bodily posture etc.
nonverbal communication is coupled with verbal communication which consists of words that themselves have unspoken elements to their meaning.

various inflections and deliberately altered pronunciations "color" the delivery of words.
(by "deliberately altered pronunciations" i mean when someone says something like "he's soooo nice" (meaning "he is a wolf in sheep's clothing"(i learned(which led to another confusion))) or "puhleeze" ("please" in a derogatory way. i do not understand how it fits ).

i do not at all understand what is going through people's minds if they do not state it.
even when they do, they must state it in a clinical and uncolored way before i am confident that i partially understand.

if someone says to me non factual but just colorful words like "he's an uber dude you know? huh? you knooow?" then i will not know. i can not get anything from innuendo.
(someone said that to me about a man who was at the tavern who was talking loudly and everyone seemed to dislike him. i asked why people did not like him and i was told that.
i still had no idea but i did not ask for clarification because i did not really care anyway).

as far as gesticulation is concerned, i remember when i was little and i thought gesticulation was a valid way of expressing language. i thought it was like sign language is for deaf people. i studied the swirls and sweeps of peoples hands, and i tried to see a correlation between what their fingers and hands were doing and what they said.
i found no correlation at all. i still tried to find one, but i gave up after a few years.

i can find relationships many seemingly unrelated strains of data, but there was no instances of repeating functions in gesticulation that correlated with any words at all.

i do not gesticulate when i talk. i can not think of what hand movements to make and i have no instinct to wave my hands while talking either.

the only time i ever seemingly gesticulate is when i trace designs in the air according what i am talking about. sometimes when i am describing a flow chart process of one of my programs to a boss (for example), i will use my index finger to point at imaginary points on my mental superimposition of the flow chart. i am sure it means nothing to the listener because i do not bother to reverse the image so it is correct from their view point.

when i am simply talking idly, i do not gesticulate.

i do not know what instinct drives people to wave their hands in abandon when they talk. italians do it most. when they describe food for example, some of them make a circle with their thumb and index finger and then aim it at their nose as if they are going to pinch the tip of it off, and they say "bellissimo" . i bet there is no book in the world that contains the explanation for that hand signal.

many women "wave" their hand at themselves when they see a good looking man walk by. i have no idea why. i thought it may mean something like they are saying goodbye to themselves as if they are imitating the mans perceived disinterest in them but i am not sure. i am not really interested to find out either.

it is all these little unspoken things that look as un-innate to me as a peacock shivering it's tail that makes me glad i am not involved. (the only reason i know that gesture is associated with "hot guys"is because i asked).

there is the downward punching gesture that people do when they lose a bet in a race. there is the upward punch that they do when they win one. where did they learn it? how do they know that these gestures are appropriate.

some people i see when i am at the airport are waiting for people to arrive from overseas.
when they first see them come through the gates, they outstretch their arms even though they know it will be 20 seconds before they can hug the arrival. i asked "why do they open their arms when they are out of reach?" to my female boss once and she said "oh it's just a gesture". uh huh.
where is this book on gestures and why did i never attend any classes where they were taught?

as for facial expressions, i can not really see accurately what they are signifying unless they are plain and simple. i do not look at faces much, but i will glance at their face for about 1 second in every 30. (i never look at their eyes because eyes are just balls they look through and can not change shape. i look at a persons eyes once and i remember what they look like so i do not have to look there again because i have already seen them).

when i glance at their face it is always different looking than when i glanced at it previously. i see faces as just bundles of muscles (covered by skin) that are in varying states of flex.

i can not discriminate a "smile" from an expression of "OUCH!! !!" after hitting a finger with a hammer. also, people who are given very bad news (like news about the death of a family member) seem to suddenly go into fits of what seems like "laughter" to me.

if i was with someone who just got a telephone call (which i did not hear the content of), and they burst into a fit like that after hanging up, i may ask them what the joke is.

people think i am too smart to be blind to such obviously easy things to understand, and they think i am somehow maliciously cold hearted. they think i play with people like toys for my amusement.
they are wrong. people are subject to blame their embarrassments on the maligned "attitudes" of others. my "attitude" is not maligned. it is not existent. they embarrass themselves to themselves. i am not in the circuit and i wish they knew it.


i think "non verbal" and "unsaid" are equal but for one exception.
that is "sentence completion".

someone may say a sentence to me but not say the last bit. example: "she was dancing like a slut the other night and that guy over there came in, and soon after they were both gone......say no more".

well who knows how to complete that sentence. how do sluts dance? did they both get tired and go home? did he give her drugs? were they thrown out by bouncers?
who knows.

i was given many sentence completion tests in my assessments that were ongoing throughout my childhood. i could not imagine what to insert into the spaces.

eg: when jane ran back to her neighborhood after the firestorm and found that her house was burned to the ground but her family had survived, she felt _______

i answered "sad".

or maybe she was "tired" (?) she had to run a long way and she would have been running fast.

i never got many of those questions correct.

one test that i thought was funny when i saw the results was the eye laser focus tracking thing that i was tested in many times.

i wore a helmet with little stalks (with bright red lights in the tips) pointing at my iris's. they reflected onto screens set out around the room and i was asked to watch many video clips. there was some interferometric analysis, and a line plotting the scan points of my attention was superimposed against the video i was watching and saved for replay and analysis.
they thought that it was possible to identify particular mind types with this method and i also thought it was a very useful tool for investigation. i do not know why it is not used still.
an example of an autistic "revelation" that my doctors seemed to glean from one video i watched, was that when in a scene where a person got excited and pointed at what they were excited about, my visual track was along their arm and then to the tip of their pointing finger, and then down to the floor and i did not follow the line of expected visual attention.
after my focus got to the end of the pointing finger, it dropped to the floor level and showed that i looked at all the power outlets in the room, and it showed that i looked for the appliances that were plugged into them.
all the while, a man is screaming "oh my god!! ! look ! !! it's astounding!! !!" on the video, and my visual track of attention in the video was not related to the theme of the emotional and affective aspect of the video at all.

my doctor who was a psychiatrist said that she could discern ADD from ASD using this method because ADD people tended to look for windows or bright spots, ahere as ASD's tended to drop their gaze to the floor before looking higher.

she was a smart lady but her ideas and research seem to have been buried under the sands of time.

i have to stop now because i have overshot the runway and my post is far too long and banal.

i did read the first few replies but they got rapidly into philosophical discussion and i am not interested in "philosophy" (although i "love to think"), so i replied in unconnected isolation from the general sentiment of this thread.

Sue, that happened to you at 20 years old ?????

I was about 40 when I still believed that.