Cold reading is a technique often used by mentalists, fortune tellers, psychics, and mediums to determine details about a another person in order to convince them that the reader knows much more about a subject than he or she actually does. Even without prior knowledge of a person, a practiced cold reader can still quickly obtain a great deal of information about the subject by carefully analyzing the person's body language, clothing or fashion, hairstyle, gender, religion, race or ethnicity, level of education, manner of speech, place of origin, etc. Cold readers commonly employ high probability guesses about the subject, quickly picking up on signals from their subjects as to whether their guesses are in the right direction or not, and then emphasizing and reinforcing any chance connections the subjects acknowledge while quickly moving on from missed guesses.
Procedure
Before starting the actual reading, the reader will typically try to elicit cooperation from the subject, saying something like, "I often see images that are a bit unclear and which may sometimes mean more to you than to me; if you help, we can together uncover new things about you." One of the most crucial elements of a convincing cold reading is a subject eager to make connections or reinterpret vague statements in any way that will help the reader appear to have made specific predictions or intuitions. While the reader will do most of the talking, it is the subject who provides the meaning.
After ensuring that the subject will play along, the reader will make a number of probing statements or questions, typically using variations of the methods noted below. The subject will then reveal further information with their replies and the cold reader can continue from there, pursuing promising lines of inquiry and very quickly abandoning or avoiding unproductive ones. In general, while much information seems to come from the reader, most of the facts and statements come from the subject, which are then refined and restated by the reader so as to reinforce the idea that the reader got something correct.
Even very subtle cues such as changes in facial expression or body language can indicate if a particular line of questioning is effective or not. Combining the techniques of cold reading with information obtained covertly (also called "hot reading") can leave a strong impression that the reader knows or has access to a great deal of information about the subject. Because the majority of time during a reading is spent dwelling on the "hits" the reader is able to obtain, while the time spent recognizing "misses" is minimized, the effect is to give an impression that the cold reader knows far more about the subject than any ordinary stranger could.
Procedure
Before starting the actual reading, the reader will typically try to elicit cooperation from the subject, saying something like, "I often see images that are a bit unclear and which may sometimes mean more to you than to me; if you help, we can together uncover new things about you." One of the most crucial elements of a convincing cold reading is a subject eager to make connections or reinterpret vague statements in any way that will help the reader appear to have made specific predictions or intuitions. While the reader will do most of the talking, it is the subject who provides the meaning.
After ensuring that the subject will play along, the reader will make a number of probing statements or questions, typically using variations of the methods noted below. The subject will then reveal further information with their replies and the cold reader can continue from there, pursuing promising lines of inquiry and very quickly abandoning or avoiding unproductive ones. In general, while much information seems to come from the reader, most of the facts and statements come from the subject, which are then refined and restated by the reader so as to reinforce the idea that the reader got something correct.
Even very subtle cues such as changes in facial expression or body language can indicate if a particular line of questioning is effective or not. Combining the techniques of cold reading with information obtained covertly (also called "hot reading") can leave a strong impression that the reader knows or has access to a great deal of information about the subject. Because the majority of time during a reading is spent dwelling on the "hits" the reader is able to obtain, while the time spent recognizing "misses" is minimized, the effect is to give an impression that the cold reader knows far more about the subject than any ordinary stranger could.
No comments:
Post a Comment