Let Me Hear Your Body Talk

The five candidates tried to sound confident and decisive in their first mayoral debate at the Museum of Tolerance last Thursday. But body-language experts saw it a different way.

“Words are planted and edited,” said Peter Andersen, author of “The Complete Idiot’s Guide to Body Language.” “But it’s hard to control our emotions.”

We asked Jason Davidson, a debate instructor at USC, and Steven C. Combs, who teaches communication at Loyola Marymount University, to read the hidden meanings behind the smiles, frowns, grimaces, stares and pointing fingers.

The hunch and the swagger

Mayor James K. Hahn’s hunched shoulders made him look like “a basketball coach of the losing team during the press conference,” Davidson said. “Instead of looking centered, Hahn looked beleaguered,” Combs observed.

Jabbing with his pen and bobbing his head, former Assembly Speaker Bob Hertzberg “was almost taunting. He was itching for a fight. It’s like someone with a weapon, saying ‘Come on, you want some of this?’ ” Davidson said. Hertzberg’s nodding head reminded Combs of a salesperson “asking a question so you’ll give him a ‘yes’ answer.”

The steeple

City Councilman Bernard C. Parks kept his hands folded tightly throughout much of the debate, his two thumbs forming a steeple. Research suggests that steeplers rarely lie. According to Davidson, the former police chief’s clasped hands “make him feel more safe.”

The grin

City Councilman Antonio Villaraigosa, in an exchange with Hahn, grinned as he delivered Ronald Reagan’s famous debate line: “There you go again.” “I hate that so much,” Davidson said. “That slight grin says, ‘I got it in.’ ” Villaraigosa’s excessive eye-blinking revealed to Davidson that the councilman was “trying to speak to the camera like a news anchor. But he’s unable to control his eyes.... Blinking is a way of him trying to stay on track.”

The comfort zone

Only state Sen. Richard Alarcon (D-Sun Valley) appeared to our experts to be truly comfortable. “He was more animated in his gestures,” Combs said. “His arms arced like little rainbows.”

-- Ava Chin