I've discovered some great blogs on body language and facial expressions on the Merrill Research site. Merrill is a marketing research company. Here's the link to the page: https://merrillresearch.com/category/news/ And here is an example of the content: By David M. Schneer, Ph.D. Anyone who knows me well knows that I don’t play cards. Poker? No way. Not only do the suits confuse me, but poker parlance is pretty peculiar: from flops, flushes, and folds to tilts, trips and turns. Gutshots and under the gun? Muck? I’ll pass. But while I know nothing about poker, If I sat and watched you play, chances are I’d be able to “tell” whether you have a weak, marginal, or strong hand—not only by your face but by your body movements. “Remember, “ says former FBI Profiler and Behavioral Analyst, “while there may be some poker faces, there is no such thing as a ‘poker body.’”[1] In our last blog we discussed the micro expression of surprise. Today, we examine the neutral micro expression—A.K.A. the “poker face.” When one poker player evaluates another, he or she tries to determine if they can match their opponent’s body language with their probable hand. The same is true when you are trying to decipher someone’s body clues in a business meeting. For example, is the behavior you’re seeing (a tic, twitch, touch) typical (something the person always does?). Or is this behavior atypical (only seems to occur intermittently)? To determine what is your opponent’s typical versus atypical behavior, one must take a baseline read of your subject’s “neutral” face. But if the face is neutral, how can you read anything, you might ask? Plenty, if you look carefully. What is the difference between a poker face and neutral face? Careful examination will reveal that a neutral face appears naturally relaxed, as if the person either is disinterested or lacks an opinion about the topic being discussed. But a poker face appears more tense— almost as if the person’s face displays a “mask” to hide their emotions. A genuine neutral micro expression is shown below:
I was baffled to realise how unfamiliar I was with my own body language after attending a course/training on speech & presentation. The trainer there - god, he was a character on his own right - insisted that he films us presenting, not to store the footage but simply to let us watch it directly afterwards, ourselves. So many small things you only ever notice while re-winding your own actions. Frequent hand gestures, favourite "look at" targets. Worst was the realisation that /not one attendant/ could keep their hands truly idle. Another note. Unsure if there's an article on it on the blog; I merely glazed over titles yet. A note must always be taken on regional (and species) variations of body language and their meanings. My ever-favourite example is cats interpreting a smile as aggression (as teeth are shown), and squinted eyes as friendliness (which we humans associate with suspicion). A unique flavour for worldbuilding is to create your own dictionary of body language. Perhaps your world is more comparable to Japanese gestures and expectations than southern European. Who knows?
Larry Niven uses this in his Kzinti stories (the Kzin were an aggressive cat-like race featured in Larry Niven's Known Space universe).
