Assignment #6: Nonobvious Observation

I know this blog post is supposed to cover the various forms of non-obvious behaviour that can be observed through videos, but I have to comment about the Language Style Matching article. This article was very dry, and hard to read. The only really interesting part was when the in depth case studies were covered and this was only interesting because I did not have much background knowledge of any of the persons in question. On the other hand, I greatly enjoyed the first chapter of The Secret Life of Pronouns. I would not mind reading more of that book in the future.

Anyway, back on track... This post is supposed to cover the videos we created and the nonobvious things you might be able to take note of to determine more about a person.  The video that my group created involved us entering a bar, ordering a drink, and participating in one round of a game.

There are several things which the user can take note of, I will just start a list of the items and how they can be used:

1.     Height of camera (women are typically shorter than men)

2.     Range of motion (women are typically more flexible than men)

3.     Direction of view (how shy is the person in question)

4.     Amount of personal interaction (less interaction = more shy)

5.     Jewelry (women wear it, men don't)

6.     Looking people in the eye (more shy people won’t)

7.     What did they do? (women won’t do everything men will)

8.     Did they buy anything? (men can eat more than women)

9.     Did they appear to be outgoing?

10.  Was the person treated well or ignored?

11.  Did they draw attention to themselves?

12.  Did they play with their hair? (women yes, men no)

13.  Are they in charge or just there?

14.  Are you viewing things at an angle?

15.  Do they sit still or are they constantly moving?

16.  Do they care when other people look at them?

17.  How fast are they moving?

18.  Do they trip or fall?

19.  Do they look out or down as walking?

20.  Are hand motions prevalent?

21.  Do they constantly look at new things?

22.     Can you see their frustration?

While each of these things can be used to help identify the person in the video, I just want to point out that this blog assignment had absolutely nothing to do with the reading assignment and that annoyed me. So I included my rant about the reading assignment at the beginning of this blog.