A person may move forward when interested and away when bored or frightened. Changes in its pitch, volume, or speech rate convey the same things that changes in eye contact or body language do. People differ in their reactions to the same stimulus . Verbal underlining is giving louder volume and increased vocal emphasis to certain words and short phrases. Speech hesitations and breaks are another signal of confusion or stress.
People tend to change topics when they aren t comfortable.
Selective attention is when we tend to listen to some things and ignore others. Take whatever the client has said in the immediate or near past and direct attention the through a question or brief comment. You can facilitate the interviewing process by the failure to maintain eye contact, subtle shifts in body posture, vocal tone, and deliberate jumps to more positive topics. As you become more interested you may be tempted to over involve yourself and intervene too much. The most important gift you can give a client is attending .