Have you ever had the feeling that you are so close to a friend that you can tell what they are thinking? If you did, you have basically experienced hot reading. Hot reading is used when a mentalist can reads someone’s mind because they already know that person very well, their background, their habits and their interest etc. Cold reading on the other hand is similar to hot reading except the subject can be completely a stranger, and the mentalist is still able to tell the personal information about the subject without knowing the subject beforehand. It includes a collection of different techniques and often involves all the other mind-reading techniques mentioned in the other pages of this website. Here we will focus on cold reading techniques related to the use of language.

 

The easiest is to start with general statements. We see general statements a lot from personality tests and online memes. Most people have times where they are outgoing and active, and times where they are in quiet and going into deep thinking. Most people always have something on their mind to worry about – money, relationships, career, dreams, health,…(Anonymous, 2009). By using generalized statements, also called Rainbow Ruse Statements, the subjects feel what is being told by the mentalist is truly specific to them even though these statements apply to almost everyone around them (Brown; Dutton, 1988; Barry). On the other hand, general statements that seem to even more personal and specific are referred to as Barnum statements… and again, these statements are to be used together with observations of eye movements, gestures and tone of voice etc. (see the other pages of this website for related techniques) In addition, the time and location of where this is performed (is it during the day or night; on the street or at the bar?), the overall appearance of the subject (the colours the subject is wearing), and other cues like a presence or even removal of a wedding ring are good indications of the recent happenings of the subject (Daniel 2014).

 

When mentalists see a hit for the rainbow ruse or Barnum statement they commented, they open up more statements of the related topic as if they read the minds of the subject. The way of how a question is being asked is also useful. Asking a question with a negative term is more likely to get you to a yes or no answer (Brown, n.d.; Daniel, 2014). ‘You haven’t been going out a lot lately, have you?’ By restricting the possible answers to either yes or no, it is easy for the performer to prepare for how the following response and follow-up question should be, such as ‘I thought not’ or ‘I thought yes’ depending on the given answer (Daniel, 2014). This can also be explained by the Forcer effect, also sometimes called Barnum effect since it also involves beginning with general statements in which we all have the tendency relate neutral comments to ourselves (Brown).

 

Another useful trick is not to reveal everything you know about the person, leaving a slight sense of mystery rather than simply telling a fact. In an interview of a Derren Brown, a well known cold reading performer, he mentioned how his friend was amazed by a simple statement related to the name he gave his car (Brown, n.d.). A woman simply came up to him saying the name of his car and how it is waiting for him somewhere, and when Derren’s friend checked his car outside, it was snowing. The comment would have been dull and interesting if the woman simply said his car was waiting for him outside, but instead she only used the name of his car without stating she knew it was a car. In fact she referred to the name as something more like a character or person. Derren commented that no one knew what actually happened, but it is possible that she found out about the name of the car from somewhere and worded her comment carefully (Brown, n.d.). The sense of mystery leads us to feel there is some special ability in the performer.

 

There are also cases in which these techniques won’t work well on certain people. Therefore mentalists usually try to set up a sense of cooperation between him or herself and the subject, such as asking subjects to think in their minds there is something they want to convey to the mentalist. If the techniques do not lead to answers, the mentalist may just make up for it by saying the strength of spirit in the subject to convey his or her thought is not strong enough (Daniel, 2014).