From infancy, even before we learn to speak, we absorb how to infer people’s emotions from their behaviors: Their body language, vocal inflections, glances and grimaces, sighs and laughs. As we grow older, however, this capacity can atrophy. We start to pay increasing attention to what people say rather than what they do, to the point where we can fail to notice nonlinguistic clues. Spoken language is so information rich, so easy to rely upon, that it lulls us into ignoring hints that someone might be, say, upset—crossed arms, creased brow, downcast eyes—and instead focus on their words when
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