What holds: facial-expression families travel across cultures (with debate on extent); tone carries emotional content reliably; nonverbal channels dominate when channels conflict. What doesn't: posture-as-emotion dictionaries, eye-direction mind-reading, and universal deception cues — decades of research find human lie-detection barely above chance. NLP's calibration practice sits on the right side of this line when it stays sensory-based.
Nonverbal Communication: What Holds
Nonverbal research supports more-than-words emotional signalling and universal expression families — and firmly rejects the lie-detection and body-language-reading claims sold in its name.
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ShriViral Manek, Institute of NLP India · reviewed 30 Sept 2026