This year I gained certifications in Six Channel Analysis System (SCAnS™) and Facial Action Coding System (FACS), two scientific systems that can be useful in analysing human behaviour. This article focuses on explaining SCAnS™, while a separate article focuses on FACS. What is the Six Channel Analysis System (SCAnS™)? Developed by the Emotional Intelligence Academy (EIA), SCAnS™ is a behaviour analysis methodology used to code human behaviour. The Six Channel Analysis System helps to discern potential deception by identifying clusters of behavioural points of interest across multip ..read more

After gaining Facial Action Coding System (FACS) certification, a scientific system used to code and measure subtle facial movements in human behaviour research, I’m now studying CatFACS. If you’re wondering whether CatFACS is a coding system for cat behaviour, you guessed right, that’s exactly what it is!  This article focuses on explaining CatFACS, which, like other animal FACS, has its foundations in human FACS, developed in the 1970s by Ekman and Friesen. To learn more about human FACS, check out this article: Behaviour Analysis: What is Facial Action Coding System (FACS)? What i ..read more

This year I gained certifications in Facial Action Coding System (FACS) and Six Channel Analysis System (SCAnS), two scientific systems that can be useful in analysing human behaviour. I’m currently working on gaining CatFACS certification. If you’re wondering whether CatFACS is a coding system for cat behaviour, you guessed right, that’s exactly what it is! This article focuses on explaining FACS, while separate articles focus on CatFACS and SCAnS. What is Facial Action Coding System (FACS)? Facial Action Coding System is a method for scientifically measuring Action Units (AUs), unique anato ..read more

Guest Post I’m excited that Colin Ector, talented Statement Analyst and author of this article, has shared this article with me. Colin published the article on 30th June 2023 on his blog, Through the Lens of Statement Analysis. I hope you enjoy reading it. —Sophie   Dan Andrews Family Car Incident with Ryan Meuleman By Colin Ector 10 years ago, Dan Andrews and his family were involved in a car accident where 15-year-old Ryan Meuleman was seriously injured. Andrew’s wife is reported to have been driving when the teenager rode his bike into the side of their car when they were on their way ..read more

Emotions Emotions are involuntary, immediate and transient information-processing systems. They work below the surface of consciousness, triggering brain and bodily functions that drive behaviour, motivation, decisions and actions. Emotions create facial expressions, which provide moment-by-moment glimpses into the emotional state of others. Like emotions, expressions are immediate and transient, lasting only seconds. Emotions can continue if the trigger continues to trigger. Moods last longer–seconds, minutes, hours, days and sometimes years, for example, depression.  Typically, emotions ..read more

With the help of students from one of my public speaking courses for kids, here are four tips to help you become a more engaging and charismatic speaker. We talk about hand gestures, the voice and eye contact. A big thank you to my students for your part in this video presentation ? Approximate Transcript My name’s Sophie Zadeh, and here are four tips to help you become a more engaging and charismatic speaker, presented by students from my after-school public speaking course. Tip one, hand gestures. Hand gestures help communicate the meaning of your message. When you use hand gestures a ..read more

I'm grateful for an increased openness for individuals and organisations to communicate more via video conferencing technology since the COVID-19 pandemic. For me, it opened up opportunities to work with organisations globally, from the comfort of my home and without leaving a carbon footprint from travel—both of which are important to me. For others, it opened opportunities to relocate and work from home or abroad, meet family and friends from a distance, use healthcare and coaching services from around the globe, and interview from a distance. Brilliant! On the downside, it can be incredibly ..read more

I turn down most media requests these days as I rarely have time and most requests are last minute—or ultra cheesy! I care less about dishing the dirt on someone and more about people learning; most requests ask me to dish the dirt. This week, however, I was happy and able to again work with Shona Hendley from Body + Soul magazine on the topic of voice memos. As you can tell by the title, Why I think voice memos need to become extinct, Shona isn’t a fan. What do you think of them? Comment below. I don’t mind them—within reason. Some are so long that I need to set aside time to sit down a ..read more

In this article, I combine two areas—art and nonverbal communication. If you aren’t interested in art, you can still learn about facial expressions in the first part of the article and skip the challenges. Watch the video introducing emotion and facial expression, then read on and see the diagrams to learn about facial expressions. For creatives and those who are game for a creative challenge, Part Two is a tutorial on creating an emotional expression using clay.   Expression of Happiness in Clay Expression of Sadness in Clay Expression of Fear in Clay (Unfinished)   Step 1 Facial ..read more

Video Shorts Smile to Increase Feelings of Happiness and Positivity This short video explains why we should smile to feel happy and more positive.   Approximate Video Transcription One of the things that we can do to increase feelings of positivity is to smile. Not always like a buffoon, though. There are seven universal expressions, or at least depending on whom you ask, and they are innate within all of us regardless of culture. They're connected to our core emotions, the emotions important to us in terms of survival. We know that facial expressions' purpose is to act as a signalling sy ..read more