Cold reading

This article is about the communication technique. For the theatrical training technique, see Cold reading (theatrical). For the Stone Sour song "Cold Reader", see Stone Sour (album).
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Cold reading is a set of techniques used by mentalists, psychics, fortune-tellers, and mediums.[1] Without prior knowledge, a practiced cold-reader can quickly obtain a great deal of information by analyzing the person's body language, age, clothing or fashion, hairstyle, gender, sexual orientation, religion, ethnicity, level of education, manner of speech, place of origin, etc. during a line of questioning. Cold readings commonly employ high-probability guesses, quickly picking up on signals as to whether their guesses are in the right direction or not. The reader then emphasizes and reinforces any accurate connections while quickly moving on from missed guesses. Psychologists believe that this appears to work because of the Barnum effect and due to confirmation biases within people.[2]

  1. ^ Dutton, Denis (1988). "The cold reading technique". Experientia. 44 (4): 326–32. doi:10.1007/BF01961271. PMID 3360083. S2CID 2382430. Archived from the original on January 14, 2020. Retrieved June 30, 2009.
  2. ^ Forer, BR (1949) "The fallacy of personal validation: A classroom demonstration of gullibility". Journal of Abnormal and Social Psychology. 44, 118–23