Body Language in Business Part 12

As for the most disliked strategy, all executives apart from Singaporeans, Indonesians, Indians and Brazilians selected the "naive" strategy as their least preferred one. Thus, authors speculate whether such unanimous choice points to a universal agreement across cultures that such a degree of honesty is considered to be imprudent and hasty in negotiations.

Managers from the other four countries voted the seventh strategy as their most disliked, while eight other nations (the USA, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, Hong Kong, Taiwan, Malaysia and the Philippines) rated it their second most disliked one. This tactic involved asking for a part of the earlier concession back in order to manipulate the other party into conceding even more. Hendon and Hendon (1989) hypothesize that this choice among Asian nationals can be explained by their concern about losing face. Similarly, in the West, while face-saving might not be an overwhelming anxiety, revisiting an earlier agreed decision is considered unacceptable in business where, as Hendon and Hendon put it, "a deal is a deal".

Reaching agreement.

The final round is reached when both parties have settled all the terms of the future business contract. Note that some cultures place much importance on the honor of verbal agreements, and while a written contract inevitably has to be signed, rus.h.i.+ng it might come across as insulting. Explore and research the practices of the local culture: how is agreement usually expressed? Cultural variations are the subject matter of a section on cross-cultural differences in body language (see Chapter 4).

COMMUNICATION IN SALES.

Perhaps more than anywhere else, nonverbal behavior plays a part in sales. Consider the car showroom and what salesmen have been trained to do. Most showrooms have three different areas: the reception desk, the car display and the relaxation (soft) area. The customer meets the sales person behind the desk. This is a formal area where particulars may be obtained. Soon, however, customers are encouraged to inspect the vehicle. Salespeople encourage the customer to sit in the driving seat. But they leave the door open, go around to the other side of the car and crouch at the same height talking through the open door. Thus, both front doors are open. Experience has shown that customers, especially women, can take fright if the doors are closed. It has also shown that talking to people from a similar height position makes people more collaborative and questioning.

Salespeople rarely show customers the engine by opening the hood because this serves mainly to frighten and confuse, and remind customers of what can go wrong. Salespeople are trained to watch eye movements carefully to see what customers are "really" interested in boot s.p.a.ce, baby seats, wheel trims. Customers are encouraged to touch and later to drive the car: to mark it as theirs.

The third phase often takes place in the lounge area, where sofas are arranged in a semi-circle or at right angles. It is here that other discussions take place, covering any remaining questions the customer might have. The final signing, however, takes place at the desk.

Salespeople know not to touch customers, but encourage them to touch the product. They know the importance of the "new car smell" and of interpreting the customers' movements and glances. They have to know when "No" means "Yes" and vice versa; when one customer needs to be sold the product on its technical specifications and another on its family-friendliness.

In his popular, influential and comprehensive book on the science of influence, Cialdini (2007) set out six well-known and often used methods of persuasion. These have been doc.u.mented by psychologists and are familiar to all sales people. These persuasion techniques are types of heuristics and are concerned with influencing the decisionmaking of the other party.

There have been many studies about how people make up their minds. First, we make judgments rapidly and in a context of constant mental overload. Second, purchases might also be of high or low involvement. Thus a computer or a was.h.i.+ng machine would be a high involvement sale, while a chocolate bar or a was.h.i.+ng powder would be a low involvement one. The consequence of this differentiation is how much mental effort people are willing to go through before they are ready to buy. Low involvement purchases (fast-moving consumer goods, in particular) are usually mindlessly bought. n.o.body spends a half an hour at a shop determining which brand of chewing gum to buy. Even with expensive, durable goods there is only a certain amount of time you are willing to spend researching the product category before you choose the best option. Hence, time is a crucial ingredient in sales and one of the most powerful leverages of a salesperson. Third, these heuristics, or mental shortcuts, represent instant patterns of thinking. Their main appeal is in saving the most valuable commodity we have time. Therefore, when salespeople give arguments in favor of their product or brand, they try to press these cognitive b.u.t.tons by boasting the properties processed heuristically.

Below is a brief overview of these influencing strategies: 1. Commitment and consistency: people do not like to change their mind once a decision has been made. We have an internal story or script about who we are, how we ought to behave, and what we represent in life. Thus, people would go to great lengths to keep their word or stand by their position, especially if that position had been announced publicly. Changing one's mind too often is usually seen as indecisive or lacking in ability or vision, and thus must be avoided at all costs. A great way to use this tactic is to ask for a small favor, and once that has been agreed, to solicit a much bigger request. The purpose of the small demand is not profit, but commitment. This can be shown nonverbally.

2. Reciprocation: we are social animals that have survived the gene race through our ability to cooperate and share. Teamwork or cooperation depends on all members of the group a.s.sisting and backing each other up. Thus, if someone shares his or her food with you, or pays a restaurant bill, you feel obliged to return the favor. In sales, making a small, but conspicuous, concession or giving a discount will most definitely work to your advantage, as your client will feel a compulsion to reciprocate.

3. Social proof : we often look to others to decide what to do, especially in ambiguous and novel situations. That is why advertising claims such as "That is why moms go to Iceland" or "On average, 236 eHarmony members marry every day in the United States" appeal so much. Consider which cafe you would prefer to eat at while on a trip to a foreign country: one buzzing with people, or an empty one? The former is the visual, social proof of quality.

4. Authority: an infamous experiment carried out by psychologist Stanley Milgram in the early 1960s demonstrated the power of authority. Partic.i.p.ants were willing to knowingly give electric shocks to another person when told to do so by a powerful and demanding doctor, even up to lethal levels. While this would be an extreme example of authority abuse, it shows how much blind trust we put in credentials and expertise. The implication of this research is obvious: look appropriate and suitable for the occasion.

5. Liking: we are more willing to part with our hard-earned cash if we like the cause, the product or the salesperson. Most of all, we like people who are similar to us, as it reinforces our own self-image. Liking is also easy to increase through body language. Note how friends and family members often sit in similar positions or adopt similar postures. The process of mirroring often happens unconsciously, but relentlessly. Thus, subtly matching your nonverbal behavior to that of your customer will increase liking and, ultimately, sales.

6. Scarcity: scarcity creates desire and value. Think antiques, think collectables. This is perhaps one of the most frequently used strategies in business: "limited offer", "two items only per person", "three days of sales only". Make sure your client knows what they are missing if they do not agree to the deal or make a purchase on the spot.

More important, these strategies of influence each have a relevant nonverbal component. They are summarized in Table 6.4. below. Of course, the given examples cannot work in all situations at all times and should be used when appropriate, with good judgment.

TABLE 6.4 Strategies of influence and their relevant nonverbal components Neuro-linguistic programming (NLP) experts propose sales techniques based on clients' preferred sensory modality. While NLP is not by any means a science, research seems to support that the idea of different people have different preferences when processing information. In brief, people's processing styles tend to be more: * Visual; * Auditory; or * Kinaesthetic.

However, it would be erroneous to conclude that once a customer's preferred channel of communication has been established, the salesperson should concentrate on it exclusively. A much better approach would be to include information influencing all the modalities simultaneously, regardless of the apparent favorite.

This idea of concurrent influence fits well with research on body language. As we have already mentioned in this book, nonverbal behaviors rarely happen in isolation from each other. On the contrary, it is the cl.u.s.ters of several behaviors that let us attribute mental states to physical body changes. Thus a happy person not only smiles, but also speaks cheerfully and loudly, gesticulates a lot and adopts an open, upright posture. In a similar fas.h.i.+on, a customer with a visual preference choosing a car (if we stick with the automotive examples) would most certainly appreciate the clarity of your purchase rates graphs and the visual impact of the car's interior design. However, they would be just as likely to want to touch its leather finish, or hear its engine running.

Another area of applied body language research concentrates on rejection signs and signals. People who are not convinced by the salesperson's arguments would exhibit, among other nonverbal behaviors, a s.h.i.+fty gaze pattern. They would cover their mouths with their hands or fingers, or clench their hands in front of their face. Some suggest that an easy strategy to "unlock" the person is to give them something to hold: a drink, a booklet, a pen. But is this really true?

This tactic works on the a.s.sumption that a physical change in the person's position is likely to lead to a change in mental att.i.tude. Interestingly, it is backed up by experimental investigations. In one of these, partic.i.p.ants were asked to rate their mood at the beginning of the study. Then one group was asked to hold a pencil between their teeth (creating a movement of facial muscles approximating a smile), the other was instructed to suck on the tip of the pencil (thus generating a simplified version of a frown); the third group had no manipulation. After doing as asked, all the partic.i.p.ants indicated their mood again. Not surprisingly, more people in the "smile" condition felt happier, and more people in the "frown" condition felt sadder compared to the control group.

Another curious observation has been made about the temperature of the drink offered. An experiment was carried out to check whether people's feelings about their encounter with a stranger might vary as a function of an offered drink's temperature. Partic.i.p.ants were met by a confederate in the hall and taken to the laboratory. While in the elevator, they were asked to hold a plastic cup of either an ice-cold cola drink or a hot coffee for a few seconds. They then proceeded to talk with another researcher in the lab and, before they left, filled in a questionnaire indicating how much they had liked their chat. Astonis.h.i.+ng as it sounds, partic.i.p.ants exposed to the warm drink gave much higher liking ratings. One of the speculations explaining the reason for such a result links physical warmth with emotions of affection and love. It is suggested that such an a.s.sociation is an unconscious response to a basic stimulus that we learn in very early childhood.

The lesson is simple. Nonverbal clues, processed both consciously and unconsciously, influence our decision-making.

INTERVIEWS.

A great deal of nonsense is spoken about interviews. But one, somewhat disarming, "factoid" has proven to be half true. The surprise is not so much that people make up their minds about candidates in the first 10 seconds after meeting them, but rather that their estimation can be quite accurate in that short time.

In research terms this is called " the validity of thin slices of behavior". Early researchers were impressed by very trivial features of a person leading to erroneous judgments. For example, a celebrated study conducted in the early 1970s demonstrated that interviewees who were seen wearing spectacles in a 15-second video clip were judged to be significantly more intelligent than those without gla.s.ses. However, if the tape clip was extended to five minutes, this effect (fortunately) disappeared.

Various studies have examined the ratings of strangers with "zero acquaintance" of others to see how accurate they are. This is the procedure. Certain individuals are targeted as "experimental stimuli". They are tested so that their ability level and personality test scores are known. In the best of these studies the test scores are validated by people who know them well. These typical targeted individuals may also rate themselves; for example, on a 10-point introversionextroversion scale, or the extent to which they worry or are stress-p.r.o.ne.

Thus, the researchers know if their targets are bright extroverts, average neurotics, conscientious dullards or whatever. Then a video-tape is made of them. Most often they are giving a talk, reading from a test card or just answering interview questions. The video may last up to 10 minutes and, from that, typical or interesting, 10-, 15- or 20-second segments are extracted.

A group of people who have never met the video-taped person and know nothing about them are then shown the short clips. The question is how accurate the viewers' opinions are. Do they rate extroverts as introverts, dim impression managers as being bright, and quite conscientious people as inadequate? Do the self-ratings of the video-taped people concur with those who have seen them only for a matter of seconds?

The first serious study in this area was undertaken in 1966. It showed, as have many others with different groups in different countries since then, that there is a surprising and significant amount of agreement between observer ratings and target self-ratings, and between these ratings and test scores. In one study, people rated either a photograph, heard a short audio recording, watching a silent video clip or watched a clip with sound. Naturally, they were most accurate with the latter, but surprisingly, they could quite accurately rate extroversion, agreeableness and conscientiousness from simple photographs.

Clearly, some attributes are more observable than others. Also, some people are more perceptive than others; and some tasks are more revealing than others. So telling a joke, talking about hobbies and inventing a neologism seem to yield richer data than doing a role play or describing how one overcame a frustrating problem.

But there are some worrying implications. One study looked at the correlation between students' ratings based on "thin slice" video exposure of one of their lecturers, and the average rating of the lecturer after the full course involving many lectures, seminars and so on. They saw first a 10-second clip and rated the lecturer on such attributes as "accepting", "competent" and "enthusiastic". If they were shown a 30-second clip the correlation was very high indeed (r = 0.89).

So students' ratings before the course, based on first impressions, were virtually identical to those elicited after a long, thorough and revealing set of lectures which presented many different features of teaching quality.

These researchers then showed, amazingly, that after being shown only a 6-second, silent clip of the lecturer, the rating correlated highly with post-course ratings.

What are the implications of this? You learn everything you want to know about a teacher in six seconds? Or, in the jargon: there is high validity of the inferences people make about complex performances based on minimal, thin-slice data? Or could it be that students' ratings are based on superficial, possibly trivial, criteria? Do bouncy extroverts do the best even if they are poorly prepared, badly organized and moderately incompetent?

So, what is the moral of the story? Speedy judgments of others based on very short meetings can be surprisingly accurate, though the accuracy depends somewhat on what those being judged are asked to do, and the criteria used. What you see is what you get!

The average interview may easily reveal social skills, self-confidence and articulation. However, it says little of job att.i.tude, technical skills and specific abilities. Those, alas, takes a little longer to understand.

MEETINGS.

Meetings frequently do, as the old adage has it, "take minutes and waste hours". Fully three-quarters or more of a senior manager's day may be taken up with meetings. However, despite deep cynicism about their productivity and usefulness, they remain sacrosanct. Many a caller has been fobbed off with the simple phrase "He's in a meeting".

Most of us know that meetings have little or nothing to do with the quality of decision-making or the communication of information. Their two major functions are, quite simply, first, the diffusion of responsibility, and second, decision acceptance. That is, they are there to ensure that all present take equal blame and responsibility for the decision taken (particularly if it goes wrong).

Frustration with the time-and-effort-wastefulness of meetings has led various organizations to attempt to implement certain strategies to improve them. Some follow a structure. Thus all meetings begin with expectations and end with benefits and concerns. Some try to shock with efficiency by calculating a return on investment on meetings by working out the real cost (in money) of holding a meeting. This involves calculating the salaries of the people present per hour and totalling it all up.

A recent fad is to color code meetings beforehand to indicate the type and amount of acceptable and unacceptable verbal and nonverbal behavior at the meeting. Some like to follow the black to red alert categories used by police and security services. Others like a simple traffic light system. But the trouble with both of these arrangements is that they bring conceptual a.s.sociations. So a simple one-to-five with varied colors works best.

The system starts with some criterion such as level of contribution or level of support. The color or number chosen for the meeting indicate the desired behavior. Thus a high number might indicate the expectation that everyone will "chip in" regularly. A low number means the meeting is more about receiving information.

This system is usually used for three types of issues. The first is about process, not content. That is, how attendees treat each other. In brainstorming, there are very clear rules about not criticising others' ideas; about valuing quant.i.ty over quality; about acceptable piggy-backing on somebody else's ideas. The same applies here.

Some process prescriptions are about politeness, while others are about simple things such as for how long one may speak, or indeed how to get the floor in the first place. So a green meeting may indicate that what is required is short, crisp interjections. A blue meeting might indicate that it is acceptable to develop an idea.

Some meetings may prescribe while others proscribe humour always a dangerous issue. Jokes can lighten the mood, but can also offend. They may introduce inappropriate levity where seriousness is required. One useful rule is about criticism. A blue meeting may indicate no criticism; green, a criticism of certain features; yellow, that no criticism is allowed unless a feasible alternative is apparent; and red, anything can be said.

But, more important, the system can be applied to content. Thus the rule may be about rule-breaking about really thinking outside the box; about radical reformation, not just adaptation. The color-indicated rules might put certain things out of bounds. One of the advantages of the system is that it sets expectations beforehand. It's a bit like a dress code black tie, smart casual, dress-down. The rule says a lot about how the meeting is expected to go, and therefore also its outcome.

The nonverbal behaviors at meetings are particularly important. These are often a function of the physical features of the meeting room and s.p.a.ce. Is the meeting conducted standing up or sitting down; is there a table; can the partic.i.p.ants all see each other; what are the ranks of people present; what topics are being discussed; what are the hidden agendas and so on? Behaviors are most interesting when they change, and indices of anxiety are also attention-grabbing. First there is eye contact: who looks at whom the most and the most frequently, and when do parties avoid eye contact. This is usually an index of discomfort. Next there is posture, reflecting how tense or relaxed people are. Third, meetings can show a lot of displacement fidgeting such as foot tapping, hair touching and so on when people are bored, frustrated or trying (unsuccessfully) to look relaxed and as if they are concentrating. Also look out for displacement yawns. It is known that people, faced with a tedious task, often yawn or suddenly feel extremely tired or sleepy. Desmond Morris (1982) reports on a curious case of soldiers feeling a tremendous urge to sleep immediately after they were told to go into an attack. He explains that this behavior was not a product of physical weariness but rather a displacement response to a threatening situation.

Orientation can change during meetings when people push back their chairs or turn them to face one person while turning their backs on someone else. Make sure you chose your seat strategically when trying to push your agenda across in a meeting. We know that sitting opposite the other party implies compet.i.tion and antagonism. Cooperation can, conversely, be instilled by physical proximity and seating side by side. The person who is being persuaded in a meeting is more likely to agree if s/he is physically surrounded by the members of the other "camp". Certainly, while literally pus.h.i.+ng your case through, you should be aware of the other party's behavior. If the other party is growing uncomfortable with the setting, an attempt would be made to move away from it.

The use of gestures may be particularly telling where speakers use repet.i.tive, inappropriate or clumsy gestures to indicate signs of agreement. Some signals can also be in conflict with each other. For example, smiling a general sign of joy and accord that is accompanied by the aversion of the head and a pus.h.i.+ng away of the, let's say, report on the desk, sends a mixed message. We know that people who agree display a cl.u.s.ter of certain gestures to indicate their community, and each of the behaviors from this cl.u.s.ter reinforces the same message. If there is a sign that does not fit the general pattern, it might signal ambivalence or, in fact, inner contradiction to what is being said.

As well as nonverbal gestures, we get a lot of information from vocal cues: changes in voice quality or accent, or coughing. A change to a shrill voice may indicate frustrated attempts to persuade, while the use of a low-register, warm voice attempts to seduce.

ADVERTISING AND POLITICAL MESSAGES.

The amount spent on a 30-second commercial appearing halfway through a 30-minute TV programme may well "consume" the same budget as the programme itself. Television as well as magazine advertising is essentially nonverbal that is, visual. Some advertis.e.m.e.nts may have as little as three phrases in them, often not even mentioning the product.

Equally, politicians and political parties spend billons on advertising and conference design, not to mention the cost of training politicians to be better communicators: all to put across their message.

Advertising, from soap powder to political parties, wants us to notice, remember but most important of all, to act on our awareness by buying the product or voting for the candidate.

Consider the task of selling a new chocolate bar, or a financial product or a holiday destination. The questions are endless: should one use actors, and if so, male or female; young or mature, black or white, "posh or common"? Should one use children or animals, or both or neither? Should one confirm or disconfirm stereotypes the male scientist/expert, the female homemaker? Should one use humour or s.e.x to attract attention? Should there be music or not, and if so which, why and when? What should the location of the advertis.e.m.e.nt be? And what are the effects of close-ups?

The party-political advertiser wants to know how to make its candidate maximally appealing and believable. How to portray energy and ability as well as confidence and approachability, and more important, sincerity. It is an amusing oxymoron that politicians have to learn to fake sincerity. They are trained in how to sit and stand, point and smile. Researchers have been able to infer the training leaders and lawmakers have had by playing back video clips of their behavior over the years. It is startling to see how some nonverbal behaviors have been accentuated or "removed", how gaze patterns and smiling have changed, and how quirky mannerisms have been adopted or erased.

The clothes they wear, their preferred hairstyles and even how closely they shave are all considered in detail to understand the message they send. Speeches are carefully scripted but also regularly rehea.r.s.ed, and they are ch.o.r.eographed to reduce less favorable camera angles and accentuate open gestures.

A candidate can be "destroyed" in a television interview by looking down or away; freezing or hesitating and making rapid, jerky, nervous movements all convey negative messages. Make-up artists know candidates with "mature" faces are preferred over those with "baby faces". The size of the eyes and hips also give clues to maturity. However, older candidates need to have a youthful and healthy look.

Compared to the average of many of their age, politicians are less often bald or balding; wear gla.s.ses less often; are taller, slimmer and appear fitter. They tend to try to epitomize and accentuate the values of their society. This is, of course, less important in non-democratic countries where people are unelected to political positions.

OBSERVATION AND IDENTIFICATION.

Could you accurately identify the person who sold you a newspaper this morning? Are you sure you would pick the right person in a cla.s.sic ident.i.ty parade? How many people languish in prison because of confident, but wrong, identification just because they looked like "a criminal type"? And how many people escape punishment for serious crimes because they were not identified by one or more witnesses?

The psychology of eyewitness identification is one of the most important areas of applied psychology. It bridges the intersection of psychology and the law. We know that jurors overestimate the importance of eyewitness reports: conviction rates rise from 20 percent to 70 percent with just one witness testimony. However, most people are unaware of how many different factors can falsely influence our recollection of events. Poor viewing conditions, brief exposure and situational stress are all established and well-researched factors, yet expectations, biases, personal stereotypes and leading questions can all intervene to create erroneous reports. The question here is, how does the body language of people influence recall? How does the memory connect to the system of nonverbal communication? The answer has to consider several factors.

First, several variables affect the formation and successful retrieval of any memory. These issues can be broadly divided into four categories: individual, contextual, social and interrogational. Table 6.5 provides examples for each of the categories.

TABLE 6.5 Factors affecting the formation and successful retrieval of memories Witnesses vary in their ability to recall an event correctly. Women notice different things than men. Older people may have both worse sight and memory, while young adults perform best at this task. People tend to be better at identifying people from their own racial group. This may be because of the amount of exposure we have to different racial groups, or to racist att.i.tudes.

The situation also influences one's recall and recognition faculty. The more stressed the eyewitness, the less they recall accurately. One experiment showed that stressed witnesses made around two in three false identifications while unstressed witnesses only made only one in ten errors. Also, there is an established "weapon-focus effect", so that if a gun or knife is involved in an incident, this seems to command a lot of attention and the chances of an accurate eyewitness identification decline.

Next, there are the social factors a.s.sociated with the very particular constraints and regulations of the courtroom and the social status of the interrogator. The language used in court can have a powerful effect. In a famous study (Loftus & Palmer, 1974), different words were used to describe a car accident: b.u.mp, collide, contact, hit and smash. The choice of words influenced later recall. Thus, if the word "smash" was used, people were more like to say erroneous that they saw broken gla.s.s than when the word "b.u.mped" was used.

There are also a host of important factors a.s.sociated with the interrogational methods and tools. These have also been called "police procedures" or system variables. Consider something as simple but important as the "line up". Should the suspected culprit be in the line up or not? We know from evidence that when the actual perpetuator of the crime is not present, a suspect has a significantly higher chance of being incorrectly identified. If the witness is told the guilty person may or may not be present, the likelihood of a mistake sharply decreases compared to the situation when the witness a.s.sumes the guilty person must be there. The "line-up administrator" may easily "leak" information and influence the witness, by perhaps lingering for longer near the criminal, or has a different pattern of gestures or eye contact when looking at the suspect. This is often done unconsciously by the administrator but picked up by the identifier. To avoid such "leaks', it is recommended that the procedure is carried out by someone not connected to, or ignorant about, the case.

Feedback on witnesses' errors aid the identification, especially if they choose "known innocents". Errors are more likely to occur if people are shown the full line-up (all the people are seen at the same time) rather than the people being seen one at a time. A sequential parade reduces problems of relative as opposed to absolute judgments.

What does this information tell us about the influence of body language on memory? First, identification happens on the basis of salient physical features. The descriptive reports of fugitives always involve details of their height, weight, hair color, skin tone, facial features and clothing.

Memory is, however, fallible, flexible and fragile. It is fragile in the sense that we do not remember everything that happens to us: sometime it is just the details that escape, while at other times we lose the memory gradually by not refres.h.i.+ng it often enough. It is flexible in the sense that it is changeable. Indeed, even fake memories can be created and planted in our minds. Memory is fallible in the sense that it is p.r.o.ne to all types of errors. Indeed, things that we remember do not always reflect the truth.

Memory can, for example, easily be influenced by the type of question asked. One example of early experimental work showed partic.i.p.ants a clip of a car crash and then asked them to estimate the speed of the vehicles when they either "contacted" or "smashed" into each other. The estimation people gave was directly related to the force implied by the verb used, ranging from 32 mph to 41 mph. Leading questions have had many replicable findings with just a subtle change to the wording leading to a dramatic effect on testimony; "Did you see a ..." compared to "Did you see the ..." being just one example of how changing one seemingly insignificant word can influence respondents' answers.

Jurors, like other people, may be unaware of the factors that can interfere with eyewitness perception, such as the weapons focus effect, or factors that interfere with memory storage, such as the effect of prior exposures on suspect identification. This may explain why a review of 205 cases of wrongful arrest found that 52 percent of these cases were a.s.sociated with mistaken eyewitness testimony.

Thus, lawyers and jurors are often encouraged to consider a range of issues before giving much attention to an eyewitness testimony. These include: * Did the witness get a good opportunity to observe the person (for how long, at what distance and angle, and in what light)?

* Was the witness's capacity hindered by alcohol, drugs or injury?

* Do the witness and accused know each other?

* Are they of the same race?

* How long ago did the event happen?

* How was the accused identified (photographs, line up)?

* How confident was the witness at the initial identification?

It is been established that any testimony given in an a.s.sertive and positive matter is considered to be more accurate and truthful. We know the longer ago an event happened, the less we remember. We also know that scenes that are vivid, striking or novel are always better recalled than the mundane. Thus various techniques such as the cognitive interview have been formulated to improve eyewitness recall. This encourages various specific acts: recount the story both forward and backward, and from different points of view; reporting all remembered details, however trivial.

BODY LANGUAGE AND MEMORY.

Memory for names.