Where Do You Look First When You See Someone | @TED Talks

we can be contagious in three different ways. The first one is non-verbally. Now, to test this idea, I did a very simple experiment in the streets of Portland, Oregon. Stood in the street, and I looked up at nothing. And I wanted to see if people would catch or mirror my non-verbal. So you can see in this video, I stand in the streets, looking at nothing, and slowly, one by one, I infect people walking by. And slowly, we begin to gather a crowd. This poor woman, you know, she was standing there with me, and we're standing there, and remember, we're looking at nothing. I just want to improve. And we're standing, and I'm going, how long are we gonna stand here? Who's gonna break first? And after about 40 seconds, and she leans over and she says, is he gonna jump? And this experience taught me that we catch emotions, and then we create rationales for why we've caught that emotion.