Reading the signs

Press, 20 February 1988, Page 20

Reading the signs

The Australian author and talk show host, Allan Pease, has done for the interpretation of gestures what Dale Carnegie did for making friends and influencing people. The acknowledged guru of body language published his definitive text in 1980, after 10 years of research on the subject. “Body Language: How to Read Others’ Thoughts by their Gestures,” has been a best-seller in many countries and has been translated into 16 languages. Pease travels internationally giving seminars and talks for company executives. In his capacity as a body-language expert, he has appeared on talk and variety shows throughout the world and now hosts his own TV programmes.

On Sunday, the first of two one-hour specials, “Body Language,” screens at 7 p.m. on Two. Pease invites the studio audience to see if they can recognise the signs which suggest people do not always mean what they say. This involves members of the audience taking part in demonstrations of day-to-day examples of body language.

The shows also use film inserts featuring prominent people to illustrate common body language, such as Prince Charles’s “in public” gesture of tugging at his shirt cuff and the tell-tale gestures of Michael Parkinson during interviews.

The ebullient host looks

at the origins of body language in humans by examining the gestures in primates such as chimpanzees, baboons and gorillas. An example is the smile, which seems to have evolved from a fear gesture in primates.

Pease tackles situations from the repertoire of body language, including the man-meets-woman courtship process, con-

frontation and fighting, and the psychology of chocolate advertisements. In the United States, body language practitioners are now giving admissible evidence in court, as would a forensic expert. Pease presents body language for beginners, with the emphasis on informative fun and audience — and viewer — participation.