Sentence:  "..., we meet someone and want to find out a little more about him/her ..., so, completely without conscious thought, we begin to <WSD>cold read</WSD>. [http://www.skepticfriends.org/forum/showquestion.asp?faq=6&fldauto=198] 
Meaning of the word marked with <WSD> tags:  To make inferences about a person using the practice of cold reading.