Glenn Wilson

How it reinforces and contradicts spoken language and betrays feelings we might prefer to cover

All of the emotional signalling that animals use is still present in humans and registers importantly with us. After all, we cannot always trust what someone tells us: they may have reasons for wanting to be deceptive. Some things, like cold facts and statistics, are best communicated by words and numbers – but attitudes and intentions are better read through body language.

It is widely said that 93% of our communication is through body language, while only 7% is based in the words themselves. Although Albert Mehrabian, the researcher on whose work in the 1960s this assertion is based, has said this is a simplification of his findings, others have produced data suggesting that around 60–70% of our communication is non-verbal.