A Good Lesson on Reading Nonverbals with David Kennedy

David Kennedy from Trusted Sec had the privilege of going on CNN today to discuss China’s hacking attacks against the US Government and corporations. He did a superb job and really came off intelligent and well spoken.

But we can’t pass up the opportunity to use a piece like this to look deep into human nature and see if the face tells us something else.

First off, the video was online but is no longer available, so lets take a closer look at a few things.

Dave’s interview starts at about 1:35 in the video and we see a really good expression.  At 1:48 Dave shows a true smile:

We can see it is a real smile because of the eyes being involved, the wrinkles on the side of the eyes and the whole face being engaged.  This kind of smile automatically puts people at ease and makes them feel sure of the what the person is about to say.  Good Job Dave.

Then he is asked a question, which Dave does a masterful job at answering.  But right after, and understandably so, he must have felt the nerves kick in and he shows a sign of high discomfort at 2:39:

Anytime we see someone pursing their lips or licking them we know this to be a sign of discomfort.  This reaction makes sense, being on CNN would make anyone nervous.  Plus he just said his first opinion and the normal doubts may kick in to cause fear and discomfort.

Using this as a baseline though we see something very interesting.  The newscaster starts talking about Obama’s new Cyber Security laws.  Anyone who listens to the Social-Engineer Podcast knows that Dave is not the biggest fan of the President’s laws.  What do we notice at 3:35?

 

If you think this is a copy of the above image its not, take a look at 3:35 and you will see.  He does a few things very quickly but first we see the signs of high discomfort kick in.  Dave is probably thinking, “I’m not on the podcast, I gotta watch what I say!”

 

3 seconds later at 3:38 we see Dave still contemplating how to answer and he now gives us a big old lip pucker movement.  This is not a kiss, no, instead lip puckering is a sign of disagreement.  This is his reaction to the newscaster mentioning Obama’s laws to help cyber attacks.  Notice also the slight look of anger in the eyes and forehead which is followed by this very subtle signs at 3:44

 

This is the facial movement that makes up contempt.  Contempt is made up when one side of our face raises and there can be slight lip furling.  Dave, why did you feel so much contempt?  No comment here 🙂

Dave finishes with another great real smile leaving the news caster and the audience on a high note.

Overall great job Dave and thanks for giving us something to analyze here.

Good work