Learn · Unit 1: Notice
Baseline, cluster, change
The observation method: baseline, several independent cues, change after one small step of your own, and the honest "Insufficient information".
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Lessons
- Baseline firstDescribe how someone behaves with others before reading anything into how she behaves with you.
- Clusters beat single cuesExplain why several independent cues are better evidence than one, and still not proof.
- Your wishes color what you seeRecognize how your own hopes can color your reads, and what the average tendency of men to rate interactions as more flirtatious does and does not say about you.
- Step gently, then watch for changeUse one low-pressure increase in engagement as a small step, and classify the response as increased, stable or decreased.
- "Insufficient information" is an answerChoose "Insufficient information" when the evidence is thin, and name what would change the read.
Video summary
Exercises that go with these lessons
Go further
Talks, videos and pages by the people whose ideas these lessons discuss, matched to the topics the lessons cite. They are outside this site, and nothing from them loads until you follow a link. A link is not an endorsement; read the note under each one.
Vanessa Van Edwards: Why Women Never Make The First Move!
Van Edwards on who tends to initiate in courtship and the small opening signals that precede an approach; read the video before linking to confirm the claims shown.
Keep in mind. Popular-science framing; check any quoted statistic against the primary study before the app repeats it.
Jeffrey Hall (University of Kansas): Flirting hard to detect, researcher says
University summary of Hall's study of first conversations: partners were far less accurate at detecting flirting than at noticing its absence, and observers were no better.
Keep in mind. News release; student samples and one lab setting.
Vanessa Van Edwards: 28 Science-Backed Body Language Signs of Attraction
Catalogue of cues said to signal attraction (leaning in, mirroring, proximity, eye contact), with the useful advice to look for clusters of signals rather than one gesture.
Keep in mind. Mixes research with popular lists; the gendered framing and some involuntary-signal claims (pupils, blushing) are weakly sourced. Cues never authorise touch.
Marni Kinrys: She's Playing With Her Hair. Here's What Her Body Is Actually Saying.
Kinrys's short presents touching hair, clothes or jewellery as an unconscious sign that a woman wants to look attractive to the viewer specifically. Useful as a case study of reading certainty into one ambiguous cue.
Keep in mind. Commercial coach; the video treats a single self-grooming cue as a definite signal, which the evidence on cue inference does not support (nonverbal-inference-limits). Cues are never consent and never authorise touch.
Vanessa Van Edwards: The 5 Flirting Styles: Which One Do You Speak?
Summary of the five flirting styles from Jeffrey Hall's research (physical, traditional, sincere, polite, playful) and how style mismatch can cause missed or misread signals.
Keep in mind. Secondary summary of academic work; the app should cite Hall's research directly.