Derren Brown investigates

[gorgeousgertie]

Good recovery Mr Brown!!!(Thats Derren,not Gordon!)

Interesting programme (in as far as programmes about mediums who do 'messages' can be!),looking forward to the others!

Like to think that Derren didnt 'hot read'....and had just overheard conversations earlier in the day and spotted cat hairs so was basically improvising from 'natural' situations he'd been in..........

Although it was funny to watch the medium having his tantrums (and his face when Derren was doing the 'reading' for the lass from Hollyoaks,and her seemingly natural 'uncomfortableness' to what arose from it)its all too easy to pick mediums like that and basically 'give them enough rope'............like to have seen someone who would have presented/conducted themselves in a more professional manner,ie not 'reacted' and given more explanation regarding some of the wuestions.....and fired some for Derren too!

I'm also very interested in words,tone and body language,both the deliberate and unconcious use of.Find it interesting that as easy as it is for a medium to 'influence/get information' from a sitter,its also just as easy for a 'sitter' to deliberatly 'misfeed' a medium directly through body language and tone.....would have liked to have maybe seen that on the show,my interest would have been whether the medium would have taken the 'bait', or not bitten.......and the implications that could present!

Might have been a more revealing way of indicating how the medium was 'working'...and how easily influenced they could be from the sitter!

[Harryprice]

Find it interesting that as easy as it is for a medium to 'influence/get information' from a sitter,its also just as easy for a 'sitter' to deliberatly 'misfeed' a medium directly through body language and tone.....would have liked to have maybe seen that on the show,my interest would have been whether the medium would have taken the 'bait', or not bitten.......and the implications that could present!

IS it easy to misfeed body language? I thought the whole point of body language was that it was unconscious and tends to reveal what you truly think even when, verbally, you are lying.

[gorgeousgertie]

course it is,actors do it all the time!One might spot 'giveaway' clues if 'looking' for 'signs of deception'......and councillors/therapists/coppers etc deliberatly try and influence body language (leading and pacing etc).....

I've deliberately 'misfed' information through use of words,tone and general other types of non verbal communication to indicate an 'excited but trying not to seem excited' reaction to certain information which meant nothing to me or anyone else,and each time the other persons involved have been influenced by it.

[Harryprice]

course it is,actors do it all the time!One might spot 'giveaway' clues if 'looking' for 'signs of deception'......and councillors/therapists/coppers etc deliberatly try and influence body language (leading and pacing etc).....

I thought the point of acting was to 'become' the character you are playing, temporarily, and think as they do. In this way you would naturally 'convince' your unconscious to produce appropriate body language. Similarly, confabulation is undetectable by psychological methods because you genuinely believe it.

I'm not convinced that someone trying to 'misfeed' another mechanically (ie. thinking about what gesture to produce ar any given time) could ever do it for long without making a mistake.

I've deliberately 'misfed' information through use of words,tone and general other types of non verbal communication to indicate an 'excited but trying not to seem excited' reaction to certain information which meant nothing to me or anyone else,and each time the other persons involved have been influenced by it.

What were the results of these experiments?

[gorgeousgertie]

regarding acting dont think theres a right or wrong was as to how its achieved,but think the main thing is to get others to believe in the character being acted,rather than necessarily believe it yourself (as the actor)and different people use different ways to achieve this,athough for me that would be the method of choice for myself!

Thats what I did though each time,they werent 'experiments' as such,no 'controls',they were spur of the moment decisions made by me to see what happened if I deliberately altered myself as though 'accepting/leading to' certain information.And each time the other persons involved 'reacted positively' to this.Others who know me have been present have not realised I've done this until I've told them,I do it very subtly.And the main reason it works is that the people involved are not looking for any 'deception' on my part.Hence why I think that would have been interesting to have observed on the DB programme (to keep it back on topic!)

i agree that under scrutiny and done over a period of time thats substantial any deception would become obvious.....but only if it was 'looked for'.Our physiological responses would show something if measured.....(one of my interests is if you could train yourself to control to a high degree this and pass all tests,but thats another topic!)

But its easy to deliberately misfeed people information....we will all do it to different degrees naturally anyway in certain circumstances!

[Harryprice]

Since it is said that most people who go to mediums WANT to believe, they will probably unconsciously feed information that helps the medium through body language, even if they don't say anything.

[gorgeousgertie]

Exactly!!!!!!

See if the mediums reading the person........ or conversing with the dead!

[tolman]

I'm not convinced that someone trying to 'misfeed' another mechanically (ie. thinking about what gesture to produce ar any given time) could ever do it for long without making a mistake.

Reading that, I wonder how likely other people would be to pick up on occasional mistakes?

Assuming that much of the processing is generally subconscious, would people tend to take an 'average' impression, or would even occasional mistakes flag up as wrong enough to subconsciously or even consciously ring alarm bells?

[smudge]

Reading that, I wonder how likely other people would be to pick up on occasional mistakes?

Assuming that much of the processing is generally subconscious, would people tend to take an 'average' impression, or would even occasional mistakes flag up as wrong enough to subconsciously or even consciously ring alarm bells?

Isn't this what happens all the time when you meet + like someone but get a sneaky feeling they are lying? (Or is it just me?!)
We are all hard wired to 'read' people...but also hard wired to 'deceive' at times.
Cold reading is learning to polish the 'reading' skills. Acting to polish to 'deceiving' ones.
Would be interesting to run a trial to see which won out....

[tolman]

Isn't this what happens all the time when you meet + like someone but get a sneaky feeling they are lying?

Is it?
If I get that feeling, how would I know if it's down to them making occasional mistakes, or making loads of mistakes, if the noticing is subconscious?

[smudge]

Is it?
If I get that feeling, how would I know if it's down to them making occasional mistakes, or making loads of mistakes, if the noticing is subconscious?

You wouldn't. Because it's subconscious and we are all different we will all pick up and receive and interpret the same signals differently.
Someone I immediately consider a lier, another may believe every word of.

[tolman]

But that's the question I was asking - how 'occasional' would mistakes have to be in order to pass unnoticed, or alternatively, how 'good' would someone have to be to consciously fake signs which would fool some/most people, while knowingly lying to them rather than simply [temporarily] convincing themselves they were telling the truth.

[smudge]

But that's the question I was asking - how 'occasional' would mistakes have to be in order to pass unnoticed, or alternatively, how 'good' would someone have to be to consciously fake signs which would fool some/most people, while knowingly lying to them rather than simply [temporarily] convincing themselves they were telling the truth.

Yes, I was not disagreeing with you or answering your question. I was suggesting that it it unanswerable as these things are subconscious. Instinctive. And we are all different in this respect.
Some are fooled easily, some never. Some pick up on body language cue's quickly, others seemingly never.

[gorgeousgertie]

Yes, I was not disagreeing with you or answering your question. I was suggesting that it it unanswerable as these things are subconscious. Instinctive. And we are all different in this respect.
Some are fooled easily, some never. Some pick up on body language cue's quickly, others seemingly never.

Agreed!

However some people are conciously and deliberatly,trained or otherwise to read (interpreting,not saying 'accurately!) peoples non verbal communication as much as they are taking in what is said and how it is said.

Regarding 'occasional mistakes' (not my choice of words!), its easy to influence people through deliberatly and conciously altering ourselves,we all naturally do this anyway!

In the context of deliberatly altering oneself to mislead a medium I think its a genuinely interesting experience,and would love to see some controlled experiments done on this,but would be suprised if they havent been already,does anyone know of some such things,I'm interested in the whole process as well as the results!

Might even do this myself if I can be motivated enough!Simple enough to do!

[bindeweede]

Anyone see tonight's prog? Derren seemed rather more challenging to this nonsense than in last week's show. But I laughed so much, my uro-genital energy left a nasty stain on the carpet.