Sometimes I wish I had some sort of hidden camera system

Post Reply New Topic

That followed me whenever I go into any sort of social situation so I could figure out exactly what is wrong with my gait, posture, eye contact, and movement dynamics in general. In addition, I might catch all those subtle body expressions I miss because I don't really look at people when I talk to them.

I videotaped myself walking around for a few minutes and it was mildly terrifying to realize how awkward and unconfident my gait and posture are. I'm going to try to get my brother to give me feedback regarding what I need to correct in my gait and posture sometime, record myself walking 'correctly' for 5 minutes, and watch that to sort of internalize the my 'correct' way to walk. Has anybody ever heard of the treatment method known as video self-modeling? That's exactly what I'm trying to do here.

I'm wondering if this sort of treatment could be done with eye contact.

I have a feeling I know pretty well how to talk to girls (I've received the compliment "you've got to be the funniest person I know" more than once from a few different girls), but the only end of it I really get is the linguistic end. That's not really the level that any sexuality really resides in for most girls. I think that if I can knock the kinks out of my gait, posture, and eye contact, I might get a lot further because all of those sorts of things are the real signals for confidence and social status. There might be a gait, eye contact pattern, and posture combination that lands you square in the not relationship worthy zone with a girl you would otherwise be able to attract.

While I can easily imagine (and have seen) ugly dudes with cute girls, I have NEVER seen a clumsy, truly awkward ugly dude land a cute girl. Regardless of their physical appearance, it seems like very awkward, clumsy men rarely land anything. In fact, I have run into a few guys who look fitness models yet cannot land a girl to save their lives, and guess what they all have in common? Their gait, posture, and eye contact are all qualitatively awkward as hell. It seems like the way people move is a part of attractiveness, and it has been rarely looked into scientifically from what I can see.

I've heard of things like this being used in mock job interviews to help the person applying for their first job...

Very interesting topic, keep us updated and good luck.

I'm pretty sure it has been studied, I'm sure I read something about this recently, if I remember what it was I'll post it up.

e2a: this is what I was thinking of http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg2 ... nsref=life not quite what I though but interesting nonetheless.

Last edited by Hmmmn on 10 Jul 2009, 3:03 am, edited 1 time in total.

I'm doing a similar experiment with one of my Asperger's support groups, we're going to videotape ourselves interacting normally, then analyze the tapes to see what our body language looks like to other people. I'm hoping this will help me gently encourage some of our members to examine their own behavior and it's effect on others in a non-confrontational way, as well as simply being an interesting discussion on body language and our awareness of it. I'm thinking of doing a meta thing by also taping us analyzing the earlier tape, and editing the two together into a unified presentation on non-verbal communications in adult Aspies, then seeing if I can interest our local autism service providers in the tape as an educational tool. The second part might be reaching a bit, but the taping and analyzing will be happening quite soon, and I'll be posting my thoughts on it as soon as I have the results.

Oh wow, that is interesting. Even if evolutionary psychology is kind of bunk, this is the kind of experiment I'm looking for. Their study lacked controls, though, which is problematic. They didn't even talk about the dynamics that characterized (of course that would mean that the psychologists would have to understand some physics, oh no) the attractive dancers' dances. Experience with dancing in the past would be a huge confound here. What I'd like to see is something that actually teased apart the interaction between how physically strong a man is, the dynamics of some kind of movement that isn't as stereotyped or consciously rehearsed as dancing (perhaps the walk on the way to approaching another person), and the actual physical attractiveness/assertiveness of the actors. You might get to understanding what women call "confidence", or what some women much less accurately label as "personality." Although teasing apart personality from confidence indeed seems pretty tricky.

Oh, there's been plenty of study on it, and from what I've read in body language books, body language (posture, arm position, leg position, etc.) is upwards of 65% of the actual message being sent, and a mixed message (body not matching the verbal) can easily torpedo good intentions.

Get yourself several (more than one) body language books, even if you just P2P them from somewhere. I did this, and they were extremely helpful. You might also want to take up a martial art, ballroom dancing, or modeling classes -- all will pay close attention to posture and help build the muscles that support good posture.

This is good advice. I'd like to add the suggestion of acting classes.

You could always get someone to follow you around with a camera. And you could talk to random people with 'interview questions' to see about the eye contact and such when you talk to people. You'd get away with it because they'd think it was a documentary. Sorry, it's an oddball suggestion, but you'd get a good idea of how you look while you're interacting with people and learn what to be more conscious of.

That's actually pretty clever.

Also, I tried doing the gait analysis with my brother, and there are these very small details that end up making a huge impact on the way I walk. From what I saw on film, my ankle and arm sway are doing something really odd. I suppose I have no swagger to my walk. I also "don't pick up my feet", but that euphemism barely describes the complexity of what is going on with my feet.

I'm going to have to agree with this. You could also use it to really hone your flirting skills. If you can pull it off on camera, you can pull it off in privacy. (Similar to the 'if you can dodge a wrench, you can dodge a ball' saying. It's true!)

I remember the first time I saw myself on video tape in a crowd of other people. It was horrifying, and changed my life forever, in some ways for the better, but it really shook me up.

I think that was the moment when I truly realized how different I moved and acted from everyone else. Terrible, terrible coordination, very un-graceful and wooden.

I think the video also caught some sort of seizure or something, too, where I kind of "blacked out" for a minute or two - I didn't remember anything that happened during that time, and my expression when blank, my eyes glazed over, my body stiffened up, and I sat completely motionless, "staring off into space". I do remember now how many of my teachers since kindergarten complained about the "staring into space" thing, and how I'd always taken that as their way of saying I was being rude and disrespectful or something; maybe they were saying that, but I could see then why someone might be concerned.

Listening to my own voice on tape is also disturbing - my voice is softer than I usually think of it, and fairly monotonous. And the accent is weird. I think of my voice as being more dynamic and expressive, but instead it's thin, dull, and emotionless.

I bet that studying recordings of myself would be an amazing tool, but I fear I could not bear it.