Motus Mentis

The subset of our behavior, dispositions, reactions, and so forth that happens with our conscious awareness and endorsement is trivially small, and one of the areas where we respond most automatically and unconsciously is our interaction with others. We react subliminally to an enormous variety of cues: posture, gesture, tone of voice, choice of words, pupil dilation, odor, and many more. One of our most powerful automatic responses is the “read” we make of a person’s face, and now a pair of researchers from Princeton have done some quantitative research on just what is is we look for. Learn more here.