The Book of Tells (Peter Collett)[unlocked]

THE BOOK OF TELLS
used to show that the speaker is prepared to relinquish
the floor. Equally, the expression can take on a 'search
function', helping the speaker to remember the next
word or phrase. This is often what's happening when 'you
know' is preceded by a pause.
Posture Tells
The way people use their bodies often provides clues to
their commitment to a conversation. When two people are
talking to each other, they spend some of the time looking at
each other and the rest looking elsewhere. People who
spend a lot of time looking away give the impression that
they are not interested in the other person. Knowing this to
be the case, even when we find someone extremely boring
we try not to look away too much, for fear that we will reveal
our feelings. Instead, we watch the other person politely,
creating the false impression that we find them interesting.
The three main sources of information provided by the
body are the eyes, the torso and the legs. People are
generally aware of what they're doing with their eyes, so
gaze doesn't always prove to be a very reliable source of
information about individuals' feelings towards each
other. Because people are far less aware of where their
torso is facing, it's often a much better indicator of
their feelings. However, when it comes to gauging someone's
commitment to a conversation, the best place to
look is at their legs and feet.
There are two reasons for this. One is that people are
often quite unaware of these parts of the body. In fact, if
we produced a scale of body awareness, we'd find that
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