A SCIENCE CALLED KINESICS

Within the last few years a new and exciting science has been uncovered and explored. It is called body language. Both its written form and the scientific study of it have been labelled kinesics. Body language and kinesics are based on the behavioural patterns of non-verbal communication, but kinesics is still so new as a science that its authorities can be counted on the fingers of one hand. Clinical studies have revealed the extent to which body  language can actually contradict verbal communications. A classic example is the young woman who told her psychiatrist that she loved her boyfriend very much while nodding her head from side to side in subconscious denial.

Body language has also shed new light on the dynamics of interfamily relationships. A family sitting together, for example, can give a revealing picture of itself simply by the way its members move their arms and legs. If them other crosses her legs first and the rest of the family then follows suit, she has set the lead for the family action, though she, as well as the rest of the family, may not be aware she is doing it. In fact, her words may deny her leadership as she asks her husband or children for advice. But the unspoken, follow-the-leader clue in her action gives the family set-up away to someone knowledgeable in kinesics.

A New Signal from the Unconscious

Dr Edward H. Hess told a recent convention of the American College of Medical Hypnotists of a newly discovered kinesic signal. This is the unconscious widening of the pupil when the eye sees something pleasant. On a useful plane, this can be of help in a poker game if the player is in the 'know'. When his opponent's pupils widen, he can be sure that his opponent is holding a good hand. The player may not even be conscious of his ability to read this sign, any more than the other person is conscious of telegraphing his own luck.

Dr Hess has found that the pupil of a normal man's eye becomes twice as large when he sees a picture of a nude woman On a commercial level, Dr Hess cites the use of this new kinesic principle to detect the effect of an advertising commercial on television. While the commercial is being shown to a selected audience, the eyes of the audience are photographed. The film is then later carefully studied to detect just when there is any widening of the eye; in other words, when there is any unconscious, pleasant response

to the commercial.

Body language can include any non-reflexive or reflexive movement of a part, or all of the body, used by a person to communicate an emotional message to the outside world. To understand this unspoken body language, kinesics experts often have to take into consideration cultural differences and environmental differences. The average man, unschooled in cultural nuances of body language, often misinterprets what he sees.