From the GD thread on phychics, wherein the protagonist suggests a cold reading experiment be set up. Let’s give it a try here.
I’m going to volunteer to be the target, rather than the “psychic” because, althought I understand how cold reading works, I don’t think I would be very good at it. Hopefully one of the other GD thread participants will step up to the plate .
I’d like to contact my grandfather. Can anybody help?
I’m not sure but I don’t think you can be that specific with a cold reader. The “Reader” starts out with very general questions and plays on the audience response.
Reminds me of Stan on “South Park” who explained over and over how cold reading works only to have someone stand up and say "Yeah but how did he know how old my grandfather was! :smack:
He’s busy. Apparently heaven is full of busty supermodels. Try back in 6 months.
I see someone dead. Could that be him?
If not, then that must be someone else in your family. I’m sure.
I see a “B” – Bob, Robert, maybe he was once a Boy?
If you don’t see the connection, think harder.
Attrayant-I am by no means an expert “cold reader”, or even a very good one. In fact this would be the first time I’ve done it. I am also not a psychic, I have no psychic abilities and further more, I don’t even believe in psychics. That being my qualifier, let me begin:
Here are my predictions.
You are a male, around 30 years of age.
You went to college and recieved a degree.
You are not married.
You live in the eastern states.
You have brown hair.
Your name starts with one of the first letters of the alphabet (A-H).
Recently someone in your family has passed away.
They were very close to you; but not your mother or father.
Your parents are still alive.
The dead family member is a female.
She was old when she died, and she died within the last 4 years.
She died of either cancer or a heart problem.
Whoops! I missed the last line:
“I’d like to contact my grandfather. Can anybody help?”
Did your grandfather serve in the military?
Did he die of a heart problem?
You were close to him.
Hit! (38)
Hit! (Went to college, but received my degree from a tech school. Since you didn’t say that I got my degree from the college, this is a sure hit.)
Hit!
Hit! To be fair, it says Washingtoon DC next to my name. But this can be allowed, since if we were face-to-face you’d certainly have some visual clues to lean on.
Hmm. I’ve always called it dirty blonde. Hang on a sec…
I just asked six coworkers and two said light brown, 1 said blonde and 3 said “brownish blonde”. But since I personally like to call it blonde, I don’t think that’s a hit.
Hit! (B)
Miss. This doesn’t mean you’re not right. There are aunts & uncles all over the place and one of them could have expired in the past few years without me knowing. So gthis could be an unverifiable hit, until I have time to go home and contact relatives to see who’s still breathing.
Well, since you say you didn’t see where I specified grandfather, I guess this can be a hit.
Hit!
Miss.
Hit! (Hmm… What does “old” mean? I was much younger than my grandfather so pretty much any age he died at would have seemed “old” to me.)
Miss. But since both statements were combined into a single sentence, does the whole sentence count as a hit?
Miss.
Foul! No fair asking questions. Of course if I’m a typical vulnerable target, I willingly cough up the answer: Yes! (Seems like a hit.)
Hit!
Your grandfather was an older man when he died… he loved you very much… did he have a garden, did his wife have a garden, did he ever help her in the garden, did his neighbor have a garden, did he ever help with the neighbor’s garden, did he ever tow mulch for anyone, did he ever visit a greengrocer, had he ever eaten fruit… ah yes, he was a man who loved all green and growing things… did he ever have a heart attack, did he have heart disease, was there a history of heart disease in the family, did his wife ever have any heart problems, did he have high blood pressure, did he enjoy fried chicken… yes, I can see that he wants you to watch your heart, so that what happened to him doesn’t happen to you…
(I had a better one, but the hamsters ate it.)
Hi, attrayant.
I wrote the book on cold reading (literally) and last Halloween demonstrated how it works on ABC’s Primetime. I’m not trying to zap your thread, but it doesn’t really have anything to do with cold reading since it isn’t inter-active.
Yes, being able to think of generalized statements that are likely to be hits is part of cold reading, but that’s all it is, and it’s a very small part. This kind of generalised guessing game is plainly not hard to do, and for that reason even when the guesses work nobody is very impressed.
Cold reading gets far more involved, and difficult, when one is actually giving a reading, and doing so interactively. I would have said more about this in the GD thread that you cited, but the dicussion there rapidly reached amoeba level so I felt it probably wasn’t worthwhile.
Hit! 
Attrayant -So out of 18 I got 10. I’d reckon that’s better than some psychics!