26 posts tagged “verbal communication.”

Yesterday we discovered how the brain uses the mental lexicon to determine the literal meaning of the communication that is being presented to it. Today we will finish the segment by talking about how the brain fits that information into its own world to determine the interpersonal meaning of that communication to the listener. This begins with referencing against the categorical information stored in the brain.

Categorization:

As we stated previously, the lexical activation is dependant on all of the prosodic, syntactic, contextual and phonetic information/components we spoke about above. Once a literal meaning has been placed on the word/s and sentence/s the brain will “categorize” this information based on the existing reference memories/information in the brain.

Categorization is simply to process of referencing the meaning that has been assigned with the past experiences and knowledge that the listener holds to form abstract representations of what the speaker is conveying. These are basically summaries... or more specifically personal summaries of the communication.

There are several models that have been proposed for categorization in the brain. Suffice it to say that categorization is the grouping of “structurally/contextually/subjectively similar items” in the brain for further referencing in the future. Categorization is an evolved process that allows humans to quickly and efficiently “size up” a place or scenario for quick action.

For instance brain-imaging studies have shown that neurologically, language is organized by “semantic categories” and not according to just by individual words. For example, let’s say in an experiment participants are asked to name a number of animals, tools or people, specifically. When they do so, certain areas of the temporal cortex will light up as different examples of each one are named. This is a great example of categorization…

By referencing the literal meaning that has been established through the previous process against the existing categories in the brain of the listener, they are able to effectively make “sense” out of the communication. This “sense” that has been made will interact with the left and right hemispheres of the brain to develop a personally meaningful abstract representation and begin to develop their own personally meaning from the communication. This brings us to the complex equivalence…

The complex equivalence of the words and phrases to the recipient:

The term complex equivalence refers to your own personal attachment and meaning that is placed on abstract concepts. For instance, what does “protection” or “anger” mean to YOU. Your definition and conceptual activation of these words will be different than someone else’s who grew up in a war torn country (assuming that you the reader did not).

Once all of the above has taken place and actual words have been translated, it is the left hemisphere that interacts with the Wernicke’s area and the mental lexicon to determine the rational, pragmatic meaning to the listener of each word, phrase and sentence. It is the right hemisphere that determines the emotional connotation attached to each word, phrase and sentence. At this point, the communication that is coming in has been turned into abstract representation in your mind and both hemispheres of your brain can begin to assign your own personal meanings to the communication you are receiving.

This is where your belief systems, value systems, core drives, working memory and other cognitive functions come into play. You are now able to respond and act accordingly based on the information that you are receiving.

I know that took quite a bit out of you, but you are now officially an expert on how the brain “listens” to communication. To learn more about the neurology of listening and other information pertaining to effective communication, please visit my website The Communication Expert.

This one is a bit dense... So although it isn't terribly lengthy I decided to break it up into three parts so you don't fry your brain on it :) Although this is extremely foundational information, I believe it is important to know what exactly is going on in a person's brain while you are talking to them. Hopefully this will give you a different view of the neurology that is transpiring as you speak... So let's get right into it.

The most renowned and referenced model of the listener is known as the Geschwind-Wernicke model which proposes that there are distinct areas of the brain that handle specific functions. So perception, comprehension and speech production is by a specific model and each of these models is serially linked. This means that they have to happen in sequence. The “serial” component is the spark of much debate and many neurologists are leaning more toward a “parallel” and interactive functioning model. However, the locus of specific processing seems to be very accurate and this model is the basis of most research in language processing and production.

Initial sound stimulus processing:

When you hear a word spoken, you obviously initially pick the vibrations up with your ear drum. The auditory signal is the routed immediately to what is known as the primary auditory cortex. This is the hub of “sound” processing in the brain. Especially when dealing with language…. The neurons in the auditory cortex are tonotopically organized (meaning that particular neurons respond only to certain frequencies). Based on these frequency ranges, when voices/speech is detected, it is sent to the Wernicke’s area of the brain.

Between the primary auditory cortex and the Wernicke’s area, the sound that is being processed must be “made” into a representative “word” in the mind. So, how does this happen you ask? Allow me to explain…

One of the major difficulties is that speech doesn’t command an exclusive acoustic channel. Thus listeners first task is to separate speech from other auditory input which happens in both the auditory cortex and Wernicke’s area. There a few things happening to filter language out from the rest of the noise.

One of the most important aspects is that speech is periodic (occurs in regular intervals) in its delivery and noise is aperiodic. This means that the “regular structure” of speech will stand out against other background noise.

Because of the periodic function our auditory system exploits grouping mechanisms which effectively assign acoustic signals to putative (commonly accepted) sources according to their frequency characteristics. This is a result of the tonotopically organized auditory cortex. What this means is that we have speech groupings that we “expect” based on frequency and pattern and we separate the speech coming at us from other noise based on those expecting groupings. (Periodic intonation, frequency, etc…)

Decoding of sound to create “words”:

Once the noise you are hearing is distinguished as speech, decoding can then begin… This occurs mainly in Wernicke’s area. Now the field of linguistics describes speech as a series of phonetic segments and each segment is a single phoneme. A phoneme is the smallest units in terms of which spoken language can be sequentially described). Ex. Key is |ki| or “kuh” – “ee” (two parts/sounds). The decoding begins by breaking out each phoneme and understanding what it is…

Decoding can be affected by tone, volume, placement of accent, pitch contour and frequency/timing of each “segment”. Our brain uses all of these aspects of the spoken language to determine word and syntactic “boundaries”. What all of this means is that there are “prosodic” structures (the rhythm, stress, and intonation of speech) that we have learned that are used to “fit” the sound waves into an expected order to “make sense” of them. Prosodic structures can constitute timing, stress based rhythm of syllables, vowel harmony, cues in pitch contour which signal a word break or an accent in a word.

Tomorrow we will talk about the mental lexicon and the development of meaning to the listener.

As always, please visit my website “The Communication Expert” to learn more about auditory neurology and other information pertaining to effective communication.

The Communication Expert | David J. Parnell

Yesterday we broke into presuppositions by defining the phrase and talking a bit about what they are. Today we are going to get into a bit more of a sharper focus and talk about some specific examples. First, let's talk about what they "DO" to someone when you use them...

Imagine that you wake up one morning and you find yourself in a room... no doors, no windows... nothing but a light at the top. You are hungry, thirsty, scared... What the hell happened? How did I get here? As you begin to gather your senses, you look around and there on the floor is a big sheet of paper labels with "DIRECTIONS FOR GETTING OUT OF HERE"...

You run and grab it and sure enough... this paper explains exactly what this room is, how you got here and how to get out... You follow them to a tee and BLAM... You are spit out as a sentence...

In this analogy, you are a "thought" and the paper is the battery of "presuppositions" that support you. Without this list of presuppositions, you are trapped for ever... As a result, the only way that anyone's thoughts will ever be processed and/or reach the surface is by "reading" this list of information.

In other words, thoughts and speech DO NOT WORK without presuppositions and this is actually of great benefit to us... If you know what you want to "happen" inside someone's mind, you do have control over achieving this... You can help to dictate what "list" of information they are reviewing at the subconscious level… This list is a huge part of the construction of the visual, auditory and somatic “experience” that our language creates inside someone’s head.

Although the exact amount of presuppositions is a debatable figure, there are 8 categories in particular that are of major importance in the realm of persuasion and effective communication. They are:

1. Existence - Certain characteristics or objects must "exist" in order for this type of phrase to be plausible.

2. Awareness - Certain pieces of information must be necessarily "known" and as such in your communication partner’s awareness for these phrases to be understood.

3. Possibility - The concept of choice OR necessity (lack of choice) is automatically present in order for these phrases to mentally "work".

4. Temporal - Certain expanses of time are "present" in these phrases (past, present and/or future) which indicate that something already happened, is happening, ongoing and/or will happen in the future.

5. Ordinal - Sequential occurrences are inherent in these phrases and indicate a predetermined order of events.

6. Exclusive/inclusive or - Strict categorization occurs in these phrases and inclusion or exclusion of certain information is necessary in order for your mind to understand these.

7. Cause-effect - These phrases will necessitate that your mind place things in either the action-origination category or the action-receiving category of a phrase.

8. Complex Equivalence - In order for a certain categorization or phrase to exist, certain qualities will be "understood" as existing for these to make sense mentally.

So when you are using presuppositions in your communication, you are basically forcing your recipient into a door-less, windowless room with a list of instructions... and they aren't getting out until they read that list of instructions, understand them and then follow them…

The list of presuppositions is very long so we will gloss over just a couple with some examples for you to see how they work.

Change of State Verbs - CHANGE, TRANSFORM, TURN INTO, BECOME. These are for the purpose of indirectly stating that a person, place or thing is and/or was "something". These are a great buffer if you are attempting to suggest something, gently. Two great areas are if you want to compliment someone indirectly or if you want to tell someone that they are in some negative "class" or “state”.

Ex. Let’s say I am looking to inadvertently compliment a woman:

1. Without presupposition – You are hot. (Caveman style…)
2. With presupposition – It would take some serious effort for you to BECOME an undesirable woman…

She needs to be desirable in the first place for her to turn into undesirable.

Ex. Let’s say I want to let my girlfriend know that maybe the dress doesn’t fit quite as well as she would like…

1. Without presupposition – That dress fits like the OJ glove…
2. With presupposition – I think with just a few changes we can TRANSFORM that into an amazing fit…

The dress needs to NOT fit for it to TRANSFORM into an actual fit.

Change of Place Verbs - COME, GO, LEAVE, ARRIVE, DEPART, ENTER. These presuppose that some place exists (otherwise how could someone be leaving it? Or how could someone arrive somewhere if it isn't there?) They can also presuppose that someone or something was AT a certain place at one time or another.

These are really great if you don't want to look like you are trying to hammer something home or really show that you are attached to the something. These can also make you look innocent in your knowledge of something.  If you are negotiating or persuading, it can be helpful to you if you don’t show all of your cards per se.

Ex. Let’s say I am asked by a colleague to meet them for drinks this Friday evening.

1. Without presupposition – “No, I really am to busy…”
2. With presupposition – “I’ll be LEAVING JFK right around that time… sorry.”

If I am just LEAVING JFK at that time, I have to NOT be here in order for that to happen.

Ex. Let’s say that I want to tell my friend that his guitar playing is terrible.

1. Without presupposition – “Your guitar playing is terrible”.
2. With presupposition – “With more practice I think you will finally ARRIVE at the level of playing you want…”

For him to ARRIVE at that level, he must not be there in the first place.

Pragmatics is the study of the ability of natural language speakers to communicate other information than what they are explicitly stating. In other words, this is the study of other facets of communication that help us to reach our own communication goals.

One of the most powerful and influential tools for conversational directionalization that has arisen out of pragmatics is the usage of presuppositions. A presupposition is basically the information that is assumed to be TRUE and/or is assumed to EXIST in order for a sentence to be plausible.

When we communicate with someone, there are a vast number of processes and procedures constantly being executed in our minds. In particular, there is constant referencing of past experiences and stored data in order to make sense of the other person’s communication.

Linguistically, when you “hear” words, they are processed by a number of different areas in our brain (Wernicke’s area, Broca’s area, basal ganglia, etc…). Although each area has it’s own specific function, the most important part is the referencing of the recognized word with existing information in the brain. With out this, any word is just another sound…

Take this for example, say we are having a conversation about the picnic that I was at last week. I elaborate a story to you about how my drunk uncle was dancing around when he slipped and fell head first into a used “dweezlesnap”…

You would be clicking right along with me until I threw out the word “dweezlesnap”… this would throw you through a loop because you don’t know what the hell it is. WHY don’t you know what it is? Because you have nothing in your mind to reference this with… No data attached to it visually, phonetically or linguistically(data).

What if I told you that a “dweezlesnap” was white and had elastic on it? You would now have a larger battery of references to work with to make sense of this word… What if I told you it is something that babies wear? We have added more referencing information…Still don’t get it yet? How about I tell you that babies defecate and urinate in it? I think you now have enough information to know that “dweezlesnap” is just another name for a diaper.

The difference between the term “dweezlesnap” and “diaper” is that the term “diaper” has a vast number of underlying assumptions and attributes attached to it that help to make it meaningful.

1. It is plastic
2. It has elastic
3. It is generally white
4. Babies wear it
5. It can contain human waste, etc…

Now take this concept and apply it to phrases… Presuppositions are the underlying information that must exist and be held true in order for a phrase to “work” in our mind. When you talk to someone you naturally use presuppositions all of the time. Their strength and the power comes into play when you are able to use them on cue to help facilitate your own communication goals.

Almost conclusively, when you are attempting to persuade someone, you can’t simply come right out and say exactly what you want the other person to do… I can hear all of the idealists out there shouting “you should be able to just be open and let people know exactly what you want…” Yah, well I say “coulda, shoulda, woulda…” That isn’t how the real world works.

You can come outright with your request, but in most instances it will not result in the outcome you want… Either they just won’t do it, or they will do it begrudgingly and although this may win the “battle” for you, you will lose the proverbial war as it will do damage to your relationship (personal or professional).

So the question comes to bear, how can you convey your information in a manner that is below the “critical thinking radar” AND still effective? Aside from hypnotic language, presuppositions are another powerful tool to accomplish this…

Tomorrow we will talk about some specific examples of presuppositions and what they do for us… As always, please visit my website The Communication Expert to learn more about effective communication skills.

David J. Parnell | Communication Expert

Decision making has been an inherently interesting subject for the field of psychology. In understanding the process by which people make decisions, it is significantly easier to predict and direct their behavior…

The term “decision” is important to define and understand… When I say “decision”, many people are envisioning a buying decision which is fair enough. But decisions are involved at just about every single turn in our life. When you heard the noise to your right while reading this, you made a “decision” to look that way, or not. When you were walking toward a man on the street last week you made a “decision” to move left or right. When you were in Macy’s, you made a decision to NOT buy certain items...

The actual definition is “the passing of judgment on an issue under consideration” per the freedictionary.com. The question that comes to bear is, where is the judgment made. Traditionally (a long time ago…) it was thought that when a decision was made, you did this cognitively. In other words:

1. You want a red sports car BECAUSE it is red and you know it goes fast.
2. You purchase the sports car and THEN you feel good.

Well, this is a myth… Actually things do not occur like this at all.

Decisions are made at the subconscious level, well before they reach our awake/conscious mind.

Let’s take a look at what is really going on internally with the cliché scenario of the mid life crisis.

1. You are sitting in your house at 45 years old and feeling lonely because you are now divorced and have no girlfriend…
2. Deep down in side your have “lonely” labeled as “bad” due to social norms established in your subconscious.
3. Your subconscious goes to work figuring out how to get rid of “lonely”…
4. It knows that “lonely” is due to NOT having a woman around, so how do you get a woman?
5. It knows that Don Johnson in “Miami Vice” always had women. He lived on a boat and drove a sports car.
6. You know NOTHING about boats, but cars… yes. Sports car = getting women.
7. Your subconscious MAKES THE DECISION to get a sports car and sends back up to you (your cognition) a visual of a sports car with you driving it and picking up women.
8. This visual causes the other parts of your brain to release a mixture of hormones that cause certain sensations that feel “GOOD”… These break the lonely feeling.
9. NOW, your cognitive mind begins to place overt and logical reasons AROUND this pre-made decision to pacify “you” (your conscious, awake mind is “you”, your personality…) regarding purchasing it.
10. You begin to say things internally like “I really deserve to get a sports car, I worked hard…” or “I just need some fun and then I will be back to normal”…
11. WE NOW CALL THESE RATIONALIZATIONS OUR DECISION.

Like it or not, this is what is going on… Do we have conscious control over the actual decision? Yes, of course, should you decide to control it. Most people have very limited control over this though and exercise it in only the direst of circumstances…

Back to our post… which has to do with cognitive decisions. Although they are not necessarily the most important part of general decision making, they are an important part. Understanding someone’s rationalization strategy is an extremely important part of the persuasion process.

If someone is not able to place rational reasons or logic around a particular decision, it can become extremely difficult to make that very decision. So it is really important to understand what belief systems someone uses to dictate their behavior around a certain subject.

There are a number of different cognitive belief systems, too many to get into in just one post. Let’s take a look at a couple surrounding “relationships”… You are sitting down to breakfast with your newly acquired girlfriend (a direct result of the red sports car J ) and you want to understand her better to make this relationship work. After some rapport building you launch into the following two questions:

BROAD ELICITATION

“What do you think a guy SHOULD do in order to make a relationship work?”

This word “should” is a very powerful and illuminating word. When people use the word “should” in their terminology, you are getting a look at the tip of a very influential iceberg in their mind.

By asking this question, she will communicate a list of “rules” that she has set in her subconscious and are showing up in her cognitive thinking process. You NEED to know this if you are going to satisfy her needs…

One of her answers what that “a man should always let the woman do what ever she wants without recourse…” (Sounds like you picked a winner here…) To hone in on this, you will elicit another one of her “rules” in the following focused elicitation:

FOCUSED ELICITATION

“So… EITHER the man let’s the woman do what ever she wants, OR what happens…?”

Her response may be “OR the woman leaves him never to return”, or it may be “OR the woman will whine about it for 3 days…” Regardless of the response, you have elicited two extremely telling RULES that govern her action on a relationship setting.

Either OR phrases again are extremely telling statements. These are the result of dichotomization occurring due to our minds drive to categorize information for instant recall.

In knowing what a person’s “shoulds” and “either-or’s” are, you have a powerful tool in persuading them. You can now tailor your communication to match up with their cognitive rules. This will help them to better accept the decisions you are persuading them to make.

There are a vast number of rules and sets of elicitation strategies that are necessary to know if you want to have a successful relationship, whether business or personal.

Please visit my website The Communication Expert to learn more about eliciting other cognitive rules and other forms of effective communication.

David J. Parnell | The Communication Expert

Hypnotic Language can be broken up into two overlying categories based on how exactly each is working with your brain’s natural function. Traditionally hypnotic language has been solely confined to what is termed the “Milton Model”.

Although hypnosis dates back to the 1700’s with Franz Mesmer drawing people into a trance through the rhythmic movement of objects such as his hands, its practical usage was really developed by Milton Erickson. Milton was an American psychiatrist and developed the language patterns, unknowingly, while working with his own patients.

In dissecting and understanding how each pattern works, it has become evident that there are a number of other “patterns” that fit the mold of hypnotic language. Some of which we have covered in other posts. Fallacies, cognitive biases and evolutionarily developed attentional biases are some of the others. Today we will only talk about the Milton Model…

The two categories that each pattern can be placed into are:

Cognitive dissonance / confusion. In this category, the language patterns are working within the neurologically/psychologically predetermined rules that our mind sets up naturally or developmentally. We generously discussed this yesterday to understand how exactly the brain works.

These patterns will do two things. They will either take advantage of these rules or use ambiguity. They will take advantage of the rules by placing desired information into them and thus make it more acceptable to the recipient. Ambiguity will give the recipient’s mind a ton of leeway to either more easily accept the information you are communicating or cause temporary confusion which actually places the mind into a suggestible state.

AMBIGUOUS INFORMATION: When ambiguous information is given to someone, their mind performs what is known as a “transderivational search”. This is their brain’s attention turning inward briefly to find past experiences so as to make sense of what is being said. This process does two very important things:

1.      It allows us a much broader basis on which to connect with people.

2.      It gives us short frames of time in which the people we communicate with are more susceptible to our suggestions.

Some examples are:

• Comparative Deletions - These are statements that do not specifically state what or how a comparison is being made to. Eg. “Working with us is just so much better for your career… just wait and see.” Better than what? Their mind will fill this in for us. If we are too specific, we may use information that they don’t care about and as a result, fire off their “pattern interrupt” detectors.

• Nominalizations – This is when a process or a verb is being spoken about as if it were a thing, an object or a static event. Eg. “But you know that I would never do that to you because we have that kind of RELATIONSHIP where those things don’t happen…” Relationship can mean a million different things, their mind will fill in all of the positive things associated with the term relationship on it’s own.

RULES BASED INFORMATION: When someone uses hypnotic language to take advantage of mental rules, they will simply place the information that they want the communication recipient to “accept” and weave it into the rule structure. Since the rules are already hardwired into the person’s brain, the information will generally be readily absorbed. Some examples are:

• Single Binds – A single bind is a statement that links one cause to one effect, inextricably. Cause and effect is a powerful rule that our brain follows religiously. Eg. “The more you practice your hypnotic language patterns the better you’ll get”. (The more – the better). This pattern causes the mind to simply accept, without critique, that practicing the patterns will be good for you…

• Negative Statements – Our brains are not capable, literally, of representing the lack of an object without representing it first. The classic example is “don’t think of a blue polar bear”. Your mind MUST first think of the blue polar bear and THEN erase it or cover it with something else. By saying “don’t” or “I’m not going to tell you”, the critical mind will accept this for what it is, however the actual representation that is occurring in their mind is the very thing you are telling them “not” to do… Eg. “Now I’m not telling you that your girlfriend is cheating on you with Chuck, but…” This guy is going to now have the thought of her cheating in his head without laying any blame or ill will on the speaker.

This is far and beyond the largest and most often used group of patterns. Many of these actually happen in one way, shape or form during regular communication without cognitive thought. It is the direct and volitional application of them at the right times that makes them so powerful.

Rapport building / pattern. Naturally we are walking around in Beta mode (neurologically) because as we move from one environment to another our brain needs to be able to search for and find “predictability”… To do this it needs to be alert. While communicating with someone in a strong Beta mode, their critical thinking is very strong… Like trying to speak with someone who is angry, they are not easily persuaded. In order to get out of that Beta mode and move toward the Theta mode, it is necessary to create a calming atmosphere… one that offers pattern and predictability and safety. Hypnotic language patterns can do this…

In this case, what is happening is that you are utilizing pattern and establishment of predictability to create rapport. This will draw their brain waves to leave Beta level and reach Beta-Theta levels and thus relaxing them. In some cases you may even reach Theta level which is complete relaxation. When in this state, the person’s critical thinking really is taken down and the result is a much more suggestible person. Examples of this are:

• Linkage – This is the grouping of statements or concepts with a conjunction (and), implied causatives (as you… you will) and simple cause / effects (X will make you Y). What this does is causes a continuous rhythmic flow of information. Eg. “And as you listen to my story you will begin to realize that all of the anxiety that you once had just fell right out of your body because the relaxing tone will make you slow everything down and your breathing will become softer and softer and your smiling face will grow as you finally begin to understand…”

• Pacing current experience - These are statements that describe the current and ongoing experience of the communication recipient while conveying your message. Basically, by verbalizing both the surroundings and/or their internal thought you create pattern and comfort to their mind. Eg. “As you are sitting hear, listening to the traffic outside go by and feeling the strength of the chair supporting your weight I realize that you are feeling a bit confused as to why we are hear talking and that is alright because that is just your mind telling you that you want to learn and understand and feel better about taking in all of the information I am about to give you…” What this is doing is basically telling the mind that everything is as it should be…

It is important to understand that this is just a sampling of the vast amount of hypnotic patterns available to us. The real magic happens when these are used at the right time and ESPECIALLY when they are used in conjunction with one another. How to do this takes some skill but is a HIGHLY ACHIEVABLE task. With some practice, pattern usage is easy…

Please visit my website The Communication Expert to learn more about hypnotic language patterns and other forms of effective communication.

David J. Parnell | The Communication Expert

When I talk about hypnotic language, I am talking about utilizing verbiage and phraseology that simply bypasses our critical thinking and gently, smoothly floats right into the subconscious workings of the brain. This is PRACTICAL, REAL LIFE USAGE OF HYPNOTIC LANGUAGE.

We really need to let go of the urban legend-esk stories and look at the psychology and science of this to see the unbelievable power behind it. The most successful sales people use this. The most successful politicians use this. The mega marketing firms use this… I don’t care what you do… In all areas of your life, this is useful.

Before you get into the nitty gritty, it is necessary for you to understand some specific areas of how the human mind works in order to comprehend how exactly hypnotic language is effective. Our evolved brain is set up to do a few things really well and the concepts we are going to talk about are routed in evolutionary and cognitive psychology.

There are three major processes that I want to talk about that pertain to our brain’s readiness to accept and respond to hypnotic language.

1. Prediction: The quicker that a brain was able to size up an environment and/or different scenarios for the purpose of prediction, the better that brain’s chances were for survival and the propagation it’s genes.

As a result of this, we have brains that are naturally coded to instantly, constantly and vigilantly seek out predictability and pattern, subconsciously. And when I say subconsciously, I mean that our conscious minds really have no idea as to what is going on.

Take for example a study performed by Pawel Lewicki, Thomas Hill and Elizabeth Bizot. In this, participants had to watch a computer screen that was divided into 4 quadrants. Each time an X showed up in a quadrant, they had to hit it… Where the X was going to show up was actually laid out in a complex 12 step pattern unbeknownst to the participants… Now as time went on, the participants grew increasingly efficient at predicting the arrival of the X.

The interesting part was that they had no idea how or why they were becoming good at it, they “just were”. Their cognitive mind didn’t even realize that a patter existed… Their subconscious mind had done a pretty good job of figuring it out. To test this proctors then decided to interrupt the pattern to see what would happen. Just as they suspected, the performance “magically” went back to zero predictability…

This incessant drive to establish the ability to predict causes our brain to establish huge quantities of heuristics (rules of thumb), cognitive biases, attentional biases, etc… so that we can “size up” a new environment immediately. We talk about this further below…

2. Creation of Mental Imagery: We also have an amazing ability to create scenarios in our mind to help us create, sort through and predict the outcome of an event based on past experience. One of these processes is our ability to visualize, with great clarity and reality, possible or remembered events.

As an example of this, take a study involving piano players… Three groups were formed. One group was to play a piano randomly for a predetermined amount of time per day for a few weeks. Another group was to play a particular piece of music for the same amount of time. The last group was to IMAGINE that they were playing the same piece of music, without actually playing with their fingers, for the same period of time…

They then took all of participants and ran them through an FMRI (brain scan…) to check the outcome. The first group had no change in their neural makeup. The second group had produced a relatively strong and functional neural net that corresponded with the playing of the piano. The third group… They too had developed a neural net that was literally almost as strong and the second group’s… They did this simply through focused attention. Amazing… the more “real” an imagined event becomes the greater the effects on the mind and body are.

3. Expansive filing and recall capacity of language: Unlike all other animals on the planet, we have the amazing ability to label visions, feeling, events, etc… with a single sound. This process is so powerful that it is difficult to understand the scope of how much it affects our lives. As an example, we can combine strategy, violence, death, hatred, murder, dissonance, pillaging, pain, sadness along with a million other concepts and sum it all up as “WAR”. One simple, easy to find and use sound…

Language gives us the ability to act on our drive to establish predictability and encode the predictable patterns we see. Based on the comparison of other experiences through our mental imagery, we establish these patterns as “rules” that can then later be instantly accessed to “predict” how things will likely play out in any circumstance. These rules show up in our thinking in a number of different ways including:

1.            Cognitive Biases – These are patterns of deviation in judgment that occurs in particular situations.

2.            Heuristics – Rules of thumb… Basically informal rules used in solving problems.

3.            Frequency Representations – Decisions based on how many times B occurred as a result of A.

4.            Ecological Rationality – The observance of statistical regularity in outside occurrences. 

So, to sum that big mess above up in an elevator pitch… Our brain searches for pattern and predictability and when it finds it, it will process this internally and either categorize it into an existing rule or create a new one in order to use in the future for the purpose of quickly sizing up and predicting the outcome of a situation or environment. Once recalled, these rules will use mental “re-animation/visualization” to create a hormonal cocktail that creates an actual feeling (kinesthetic)… This feeling dictates our decision in any and all instances…

So, in understanding all of this, the natural next question is “how does hypnotic language work within this structure?” Well I am glad you asked…

From a persuasion stand point, we are not looking to hypnotize someone in the clinical sense. What we want to do is use language that will bypass their critical thinking so that we can either:

1. Place information into their mind without resistance, or
2. Create visualizations, sounds, feelings, etc… to direct their mood or state.

For the most part, bypassing critical thinking can happen in one of two ways. You can create cognitive dissonance through confusion or utilize intense pacification by creating extreme subconscious comfort. This is the usage of language and rapport to create complete comfort and acceptance at the subconscious level so that their mind will more readily accept the information we are feeding it.

The patterns that I am talking about work so well because they create subconscious patterns, mental imagery, rapport, develop internal sensations, etc… and they do this by leveraging all of the mental rules that our brains have naturally set up for our survival over the millennia.

Tomorrow we will introduce some actual hypnotic language rules and put them under a microscope for immediate usage in your own endeavors.

Please visit my website The Communication Expert to learn more about effective communication.

The definition of Hypnosis given by Webster’s dictionary is: Noun - a trance-like state that resembles sleep but is induced by a person whose suggestions are readily accepted by the subject. The hypnotist uses communication that is governed by a set of rules to produce this trance-like state...

The exact neurological process by which hypnosis “works” is still up for debate, but the physiological processes that follow an induction are quite clear.  There are three main areas that receive strong change during induction and hypnosis.

1. The Nervous System: Your Autonomic nervous system is the main system for transmitting signals from the central nervous system to internal organs and systems such as the pulse, heart beat, glandular activity and digestive tract, etc… The Autonomic is broken into two parts, the sympathetic which increases activity and parasympathetic which decreases activity.  During hypnosis, the parasympathetic system is activated and slows all of the above processes including a few others. The helps achieve the relaxed, trance like state.

1. Hemispheric brain activity: The brain has two hemispheres, the left serves the purposes of active selective attention and dealing with logic, language, raw information and reason. The right hemisphere deals with spatial ability, facial recognition, visual imagery, creativity, etc… During induction and throughout hypnosis left hemisphere activity is decreased and right hemispheric activity is increased.

1. Brainwaves: There are four levels of electrical activity emerging from the brain’s function.

i)        Beta (14-30cps) This is normal conscious activity… We experience arousal states here such as anger, fear, worry, etc…

ii)      Alpha (8-13cps) This is considered a non-arousal state. It is indeed normal consciousness but this is where pleasure and tranquility are experienced.

iii)    Theta (4-8 cps) This is deep relaxation. In this state we can experience uncertainty, daydreaming, deep tranquility and creativity. Theta has two sub-states:

(1)   Class I – This is a relaxed drowsy state and is experienced on the way to the next stage which is Class II.

(2)   Class II – This is a deeply relaxed state and full blown hypnosis. In this state you experience automatic efficiency and sustained mental performance. It is great for solving problems, processing perceptual experience and retaining memory.

iv)    Delta (.05-4cps) cycles per second. Sleep. No emotional sensation. Hypnosis cannot reach this…

As an illustration, hypnosis is a great example of how communication can have a powerful impact on people. Let’s bring the reins in a bit for a second and come back to "persuasion-reality. Regardless of what you have seen on TV, people can not be forced into hypnosis and instantly mesmerizing someone with communication is probably an urban legend. Is it possible? I suppose… Just like it is possible that you can win the lottery. Is it probable? NO!

I have read a number of "stories" that purport instances of instant induction and there are a number of professional who claim the ability to do so. To the best of my knowledge though, they have all been debunked... As far as clucking like a chicken or feats of strength, these are generally stage acts.

Clinical hypnosis though is a thoroughly examined and studied field and although it's effectiveness is generally patient dependent, it has proven to be effective. Also, the above mentioned physiological changes are undeniable... Hypnotic language is very powerful with regard to lulling the mind into a state of "suggestibility" and thus giving you more control over the communication.

How does it do this? We will discuss this in the next post... Please visit my website The Communication Expert to learn more about effective communication.

Today we are going to add some foundational information to your communication arsenal. When I talk about “foundational” information, this means information that is global in nature… In other words, this is applicable to almost everyone in the class that it represents.

Any foundational information I present is always either evolutionarily/biologically or culturally/developmentally propagated. Everything is backed by empirical data derived from academic or institutional studies…

What we are going to talk about today is Mate selection… This may or may not be old news to you the reader; however, it is so important to know that I find it necessary to affirm its presence.

I am comfortable in saying that if you DON’T see this as being valuable in your EVERYDAY communication, that you have been and are completely deluding yourself and have NOT been as effective as you might have been while persuading/influencing. Regardless of the style or subject matter, this is important! Business, personal, friends, colleagues, dating, whatever your talking about, these concepts play a role in how you are perceived during your communication. This post is NOT comprehensive, however does supply a good amount of necessary information.

The concept that evolution is driven by mating selection rather than simply survival is well documented by reams of data. While attempting to avoid any religious debate, let it be sufficient to say that “mating”, aside from eating and ensuring safety is the most important function to us as a human. As a result, whether you would like to admit it or not, the cold hard truth is that your ability to mate… with the “best” mate that you can acquire underlies basically everything you do, especially your communication.

There are three processes of selection that are going on continually:

Intrasexual competition – This generally occurs in males and involves them engaging in competitive battles. The winner mates and the loser master-… well you get the gist. Battles are not always physical though. Status and dominance hierarchy can and were obtained through other means… deception, strategy, territory access, etc… The qualities that win are passed along genetically…

Intersexual competition – This occurs when one sex PREFERS qualities in the other sex and solicits those in particular… Darwin called this “female choice” because this is generally driven by the female side. In theory, particular quality interests can and do predict the emergence of certain attributes over time as the sexes will work to achieve these attributes.

Parental Investment: Females who display a greater propensity for maternal investment are generally more appealing to men. As a result of the significantly lower time investment in conception by men, this usually carries less importance. Alternatively, in internally gestating mothers (humans) it is quite an investment just to carry and bear the child, much less rear it… As a result potential parental investment is HEAVILY SCRUTINIZED on the end of the female. This directly interacts with Intersexual competition and generally dictates many of the “desire” qualities.

The end result of parental investment and inter/intrasexual competition is that the high investing sex (women) are naturally much more selective in mate choice and the lower investing (men) are naturally more competitive….

So what is the result?

Because of the long term commitment of BOTH conception AND rearing by women, the qualities they look for are geared toward long term goals. Not just the ability to impregnate them, but also rear the children and better their chances for success.

The qualities they look for are:

1. The ability to invest resources in a family.
2. The willingness to invest resources in a family.
3. The ability to physically protect them and their offspring.
4. The ability to employ good parenting methods.
5. Sufficient compatibility in goals/values for strategic alignment in rearing.

Because of the relatively short term commitment by men, the desired qualities are really geared toward fertility and health (immediate indicators). Men are interested in “good looking” and “physically attractive” as their indicators. These are the easiest to detect cues to a woman’s health, fertility (immediate probability of conception) and reproductive value (future reproductive potential). So what do they look for?

1. Full lips
2. Smooth skin
3. Lustrous hair
4. Low hip to waist ration
5. Clear skin
6. White teeth
7. Symmetry
8. Sprightly gate
9. facial and vocal femininity
10. Clear eyes

Universally sought after traits among both sexes are:

1. Intelligence
2. Kindness
3. Understanding
4. Dependable
5. Healthy
6. Mutual attraction/love
7. Similarity in political/religious orientation.

Now how is this important in communication? I’ll get right to the point. In 99% of  CONSTRUCTIVE communication you NEED rapport to have any real shot of being influential or persuasive. Whether you like it or not, every person you interact with is constantly, incessantly and vigilantly scanning and evaluating you on all of the parameters listed above at the UNCONSCIOUS level.

Married, in a relationship, single, young, old, working, unemployed, housewife, CEO… I don’t care who, what, where, when or why… This process IS going on and is a part of how you are perceived by the person.

My intent is not to scare you or set up unrealistic goals… You can’t instantly become a millionaire with gorgeous features, a mansion and a charity fund in your name… BUT, you can maximize the potential of what you DO have and HOW you interact with people.

Example for a man communicating to a woman:

If you are talking to a woman in your business… you will do better to keep my conversation away from my conquests of the opposite sex (lack of commitment) or how you had to leave a restaurant because my ex girlfriend was getting hit on by some other guy (lack of physical prowess). It wouldn’t hurt to talk about how you helped one of the younger guys in your office with some advice (good parental methods) or how you took your niece to the zoo last weekend (parental investment).

Example of a women communicating to a man:

I you are going to a meeting, do your best to invest increase your physical attributes. Accentuate your lips, wear clothing that maximizes the appearance of your waist to hip ratio, wash your hair, do your best to present clear skin… well you get the idea.

Is this comprehensive? No. Is it a solid foundation for you to work with? Absolutely… Visit my sight The Communication Expert to learn more about communication skills.

David J. Parnell | Communication Expert

As we go about our business on a daily basis, our body is feeding our brain with tons of information… Through our different senses we are able to accumulate and processes vast amounts and from many different sources. Light waves through our eyes, air movement through our ears, temperature change through our skin, chemical changes through out mouth and nose, etc…

We have 5 "sensory systems" of importance to our discussion here. Sight, sound (auditory), touch (Kinesthetic – tactile/motor), taste (olfactory/gustatory) and auditory digital (raw information). These are the literal methods of input for information into our brain and also the verbal filing system that we use to label, store, access and then re-represent out to the world all of the information our brain decides to keep. Verbally, each one of these systems is considered a "predicate system".

So how is this important to you as an effective communicator?  In building rapport, it is incredibly important to speak someone’s “language”. So what does it mean to speak someone’s language? Well, there are several components, but one major area to cater to is "predicate matching". Let me show you….

First, let’s take a look at some examples of each predicate system and the verbiage that represents it.

Visual: See, saw, look, stare, bright, dim, brown, gray, bright blue, green, hazy, etc…

Auditory:  Heard, hearing, ringing, chirping, vroom…, schrill, tune, melody, sing, etc…

Kinesthetic:

            Tactile – Felt, smooth, sharp, rough, warm, cold, scratchy, etc…

            Motor – Bend, picked up, pushed, working, typing, sitting, etc…

Taste:

            Olfactory – Pungent, odor, scent, sweet smelling, sulfur, wreaks, etc…

            Gustatory – Sweet, sour, tangy, buttery, rich, salty, etc…

Auditory Digital: 2+2 = 4, “drive two miles and take your second right after the light”, etc…

So what do we have here? This is yet another piece of the puzzle in gaining a clearer view into what is going on in someone’s mind. When we communicate with each other, what is really going on is that we are using verbiage to represent the pictures, sounds and other senses that we are experiencing internally to the outside world.

In listening to the predicate systems that people are using, we can much more accurately “see” what the representation actually is in their head. By understanding this, it is much easier to “speak their language” when communicating with them. Let me give you and example:

I will make these OVERT so as to make it easier for you to see…

Visual - I was walking in the park and all I could see was beautiful foliage… The browns and the oranges were so bright… It took me back to my childhood; I could envision my brother’s face, smiling as I watched him jumping into the big round pile of leaves. Do you see what I am saying?

Kinesthetic – As I realized that she might leave me, my stomach became nauseous and a flood of regret took over my body… I could only drop to my knees and cry because the knot that was squeezing my chest just wouldn’t give… The pressure hurt so badly…

If you are looking to develop rapport with either of these people above and/or influence them in any way, it is NECESSARY for you to speak in their current predicate systems… If you do not, they will nonconsciously detect this and will have more difficulty processing your communication.

If you are detecting mostly visual, respond with visual predicates yourself, If kinesthetic then respond with kinesthetic predicates. The predicate systems that they are using at any given moment are the ones that are most readily available in their working memory. By matching these, your communication will most certainly be more palatable to their nonconscious processing.

Please visit me at The Communication Expert to learn more about predicates and other forms of influential communication.

David J. Parnell | Communication Expert