Annie Murphy Paul reports in October's issue of "Psychology Today" on psychologist William Ickes of the University of Texas at Arlington, research in mind reading. Even though I learnt from my beloved Language bloggers that a journalist can accurately report scientific research only by accident, there is still a lot of food for thought.

It's astonishing that we can peer into each other's minds at all -- but in truth we generally don't do it all that well. Strangers (who are videotaped and later report their second-by-second thoughts and feelings, as well as their assessments of their counterpart's thoughts and feelings) read each other with an average accuracy rate of 20 percent. Close friends and married couples nudge that up to 35 percent. And "almost no one ever scores higher that 60 percent," reports psychologist William Ickes, the father of emphatic accuracy, who is based at the University of Texas at Arlington.

She then names most important components of mindreading: meaning of the words being spoken, facial expressions and body language, the tone of voice and the cadence of speech.

Reading body language is a core component of mind reading. it can reveal a person's most basic emotions. Researchers have shown that when watching a body's movement reduced to points of light on a screen, observers can still read sadness, anger, joy, disgust, fear, and romantic love. We're primed to read emotion into movement -- even when there's very little to go on.

We know even more about someone's mind from the way the components of conversation fit together -- someone's words, gestures, and pitch of voice may seem either aligned or incongruous. But despite all we glean from body language and voice tone, Ickes finds, it's the content of speech that contributes most to our success at mind reading. Words matter.

Among other findings are the facts that women aren't better mind readers than men, and more sensitive people are not either. "Neither are professional listeners: A study of psychics found that they were no better at mind reading that the rest of us. Psychoterapists proved no more accurate than laypeople in making inferences based on facial expressions; however, they're significantly more accurate in making inferences based on language."

And the conclusion:

So what does matter to effective mind reading? Advanced education, hight intelligence (especially verbal intelligence), open-mindness, and good mental healt abet emphathic accuracy.

What does all this have to do with online communication?

I often hear complains from my fellow JavaRanch moderators that it's hard to discern somebody's emotions from their posts. I agree, partly, yet I always felt uneasy about their complains. Here is why: after several years of living in this country, these are my online friends I feel really close to and care most about. How is it possible?

Body language and facial expressions, as well as the tone of voice and the cadence of speech work well only if you share the cultural code, and if you are an immigrant, you do not. Neither facial expressions nor intonations are universal among cultures, or, rather, only most basic are, while subtleties are lost on newcomers. I didn't realize that I tend to dismiss my interlocutors gestes, facial expressions and intonations until I became better in interpreting them.

With online communication, I do not feel inferior because we all are equally lost.

On the other hand, to compensate for lost modes of input I worked hard to develop positive attitude, patience and unconditional love for fellow online communicators. Does all this compensate for lack of clues available in normal communication? I can say that I don't miss them.