The Ultimate Body Language Book

a good solid attempt should be made to do just that. If you accomplish this, the impression will be the
strongest possible. You never really know which people will yield the most constructive interactions at
the end of your presentation, so you will want to keep all avenues open.
While answering a question be sure to hold eye contact with the inquirer directly, rather than the
audience at larger, especially when you first begin to respond. If the material turns into something that
is of general audience interest, feel free to resume eye contact with the rest of the people. Eye contact
should be held with each audience member momentarily instead of shifting from person to person
hastily. Ideally, you will shift your view from person to person to emphasis points or transitions in your
speech. Your rate of speech should be slower than the rate at which you would speak to a friend since
any missed information can’t be easily or quickly clarified with questions. Also be sure to vary the rate
of your speech, the tone and the pitch thereby avoiding monotony.
Chapter 5 – Seeing Eye To Eye – A Look At The Language Of The Eye
Eye Direction, Thought And NLP
Eye movements are well known in neuro-linguistic programming abbreviated NLP, a system developed
to help induce behavioural changes and improve communication between colleagues as well as to
retrain thinking in business. It was developed in the 1970s by two researches in California, Richard
Bandler and John Grinder who noted that the predominant research into human behaviour focused on
problems rather than on solutions. NLP rather, focuses on the behaviour of successful people and is
thought that by copying them, others too, can be successful. “Neuro” refers to the fives senses (hearing,
touch, smell, sight, taste) “Linguistic” refers to the use of language to order thought and behaviour and
“Programming” reflects the way ideas and thought are organized into actions. NLP is driven by
defining positive outcomes, understanding how other’s perceive particular circumstances, and in
identifying the roots by which thoughts affect images, sound or feelings.
It was discovered through experiment that eye movement is related to that part of the brain people
where accessing. It began when researches noticed that the brain processed different information in
different hemispheres. It was found that right handed people tended to shift their heads and eyes to the
right during “left hemisphere” tasks such as logical and verbal processing and left handed people had
entirely opposite patterns.
A typical left-handed person would have the opposite meanings for their eye-directions. Therefore,
people tended to look to the opposite sides of the brains for the answers. Eye movements in this way, is
one of the most well known but also the most controversial discoveries of NLP. It might also be one of
the most valuable. The researches attached electrodes to subjects to track eye movement and brain
wave characteristics. They were then asked questions related to sight, hearing or feeling tasks that
involved memory or right brain processing and mental construction or left brain processing. Eye
movement was shown to be related to how people process information. For example, upward eye
movements reflected visual processing, lateral eye movements reflected auditory processing and
downward movements reflected either kinesthetic (touch) or an inner thought or feeling.