Communication plays a significant role in our everyday life; we use words to express our fear, anger, happiness, sadness and, perhaps, disgust. It's the basis of human interaction. Without communication, our lives would've been much duller, and we'd never be able to read people's feelings. However, there's also an unspoken but a pretty intriguing part to our communication: our body language. The way we walk, our facial expressions, voice tones, etc. – every little movement could let our peers dig deeper into our inner emotions.
Now, many are familiar with the ongoing Johnny Depp-Amber Heard defamation trial. The case remains to be the number one discussion topic among netizens, but for those who have been living under a rock – Depp is suing Heard for $50 million over the op-ed she wrote in The Washington Post in 2018.
Every supporter is eager to know the truth, and a body language expert called Janine Driver, once again, took the matter into her own hands and analyzed Amber Heard's recent testimony. Moreover, Bored Panda has already covered Janine's previous examination concerning both Depp and Heard, so click here if you're interested to learn more.
More info: CourtTV
Body language specialist reviews Amber Heard's testimony and examines her nonverbal communication
Image credits: COURT TV
Janine Driver is a New York Times best-selling author and an award-winning speaker. The woman spent over 16 years working as a federal law enforcement officer, and is now focused on sharing her "people-reading" skills with the world. Driver has previously examined the physical behavior of both Johnny Depp and Amber Heard – however, she was once again invited by Court TV to share her opinions regarding Amber Heard's recent testimony.
Gestured signals are crucially important, as they can help determine the person's true emotions
Image credits: Entertainment Tonight
Whether you choose to believe in the body language phenomenon or not, understanding what hides behind a masked individual is not an easy job. There are many misconceptions regarding the people-reading process, for instance, every country has its own set of gestures and mannerisms, so what might seem like a misleading body signal could mean a completely normal thing to a person outside of your culture.
Nevertheless, the whole world is watching the seemingly never-ending trial of Johnny Depp and Amber Heard. The couple has an uneasy history together and their fans are hoping that this lawsuit will be able to clear the air, and let the ex-lovers finally move on from such an exhausting period of their life.
Image credits: COURT TV
Image credits: COURT TV
Janine Driver begins her analysis by examining Heard's first statement; at the very beginning, the actress shared her thoughts regarding the lawsuit and even mentioned that this process is the most "painful and difficult" thing she's ever gone through – Driver says that at the end of that sentence, Amber has sucked in her lip, sort of replicating a similar motion that we did when we sucked our thumbs, revealing that it's a comforting gesture.
The body language expert says that Amber Heard uses a lot of start-stop sentences, meaning that she's being deceptive
Image credits: COURT TV
Another issue with Amber's testimony is that she uses a lot of start-stop sentences. The body language expert says that this type of structure is congruent with someone who's being misleading. The woman also mentioned that Heard's "percentages" are off, which basically means that she's very talkative at the beginning, yet when it comes to the actual incident she barely says a thing. For instance, Driver has mentioned the infamous case of Jussie Smollett, who happened to stage a hate crime in Chicago in 2019. His percentages were similar to Amber's and they both gave a lot of irrelevant information.
Image credits: COURT TV
Janine says that liars often give a ton of truthful information at the start, to sort of distract the people from the actual events. When Amber Heard started speaking about the attack, she gets to about 15%, when in reality it should've been at least 50%, which is why the body language experts says that she's simply stacking the deck.
Image credits: COURT TV
Janine Driver mentions that Heard has dropped a pronoun when she spoke about her former husband, which suggests that the information is false
Image credits: COURT TV
Moreover, the expert also analyzed her actual statement. At one point, when the actress was talking about the attack, she said "he slapped me" – however, Janine encouraged everyone to re-listen to the clip because what Amber actually does is, she drops the pronoun and says "slapped me" instead. The body language specialist reveals that when people drop or change the pronouns it, once again, means that the individual is being deceptive. Besides, Heard is also guilty of changing her tenses, which is often a mistake that those who make stories up on the spot do.
Although, when Heard gave a statement regarding one of Depp's unpleasant comments, the expert believed it to be true
Image credits: COURT TV
Image credits: COURT TV
The next part of the analysis was focused on Amber Heard's description of one of Depp's comments which made the woman feel "dirty". The professional believes that this part is truthful, she says that when Heard talks about the unpleasant remarks that her former husband made, her upper lip comes up, which shows disgust, plus, the overall body language and her voice tone make it all congruent. Though, the problem is that when she talks about the attack, the body language and the story isn't harmonious.
Image credits: COURT TV
Image credits: COURT TV
Moreover, the actress was also noticed holding her nose up high, and Driver said that when people do that, it portrays their confidence, superiority, arrogance and indignation. These qualities are totally out of place for an abused woman, meaning that it's pure smugness.
The specialist says that the reason why Depp kept his head down was because he wanted to "alleviate that negative feeling"
Image credits: COURT TV
When it comes to Johnny, during Heard's testimony, his head was facing the table and he never seemed to make the eye contact with his former partner. Janine Driver says that the actor does it to ease the negative feeling. Moreover, the body language expert mentioned that people who break eye contact are usually the ones who have been abused.
Image credits: COURT TV
The victims will often avoid eye contact all together. Janine revealed that many people have this common misconception about the eye avoidance, thinking that the individual is being deceptive. However, when folks do that it's mostly connected with the fact that they simply want to avoid listening to the person's "obnoxious", as Janine said, talk.
Image credits: Entertainment Tonight
The defamation case is far from being done, and we're yet to hear all the details regarding the Depp-Heard relationship, but what do you think about the situation so far? Do you agree with what the body language expert has said?