Now this exciting gesticulation can be very easily observed, but the
observation must not come too late. If the witness is once quite lost in
it and sufficiently excited by the concomitant speeches he will make his
gestures well and naturally and the artificial and untrue will not be
discoverable. But this is not the case in the beginning; then his
gestures are actually not skilful, and at that point a definite force of
will and rather notable exaggerations are observable; the gestures go
further than the words, and that is a matter not difficult to recognize.
As soon as the recognition is made it becomes necessary to examine
whether a certain congruity invariably manifests itself between word and
gesture, inasmuch as with many people the above-mentioned lack of
congruity is habitual and honest. This is particularly the case with
people who are somewhat theatrical and hence gesticulate too much. But
if word and gesture soon conform one to another, especially after a
rather lively presentation, you may be certain that the subject has
skilfully worked himself into his alarm or whatever it is he wanted to
manifest. Quite apart from the importance of seeing such a matter
clearly the interest of the work is a rich reward for the labor
involved.
In close relation to these phenomena is the change of color to which
unfortunately great importance is often assigned.[77] In this regard
paling has received less general attention because it is more rare and
less suspicious. That it can not be simulated, as is frequently asserted
in discussions of simulation (especially of epilepsy), is not true,
inasmuch as there exists an especial physiological process which
succeeds in causing pallor artificially. In that experiment the chest is
very forcibly contracted, the glottis is closed and the muscles used in
inspiration are contracted. This matter has no practical value for us,
on the one hand, because the trick is always involved with lively and
obvious efforts, and on the other, because cases are hardly thinkable in
which a man will produce artificial pallor in the court where it can not
be of any use to him. The one possibility of use is in the simulation of
epilepsy, and in such a case the trick can not be played because of the
necessary falling to the ground.
Paling depends, as is well known, on the cramp of the muscles of the
veins, which contract and so cause a narrowing of their bore which
hinders the flow of blood. But such cramps happen only in cases of
considerable anger, fear, pain, trepidation, rage; in short, in cases of
excitement that nobody ever has reason to simulate. Paling has no value
in differentiation inasmuch as a man might grow pale in the face through
fear of being unmasked or in rage at unjust suspicion.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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