[RajT88]

I have a friend who is a bit like the author here. He picks up on a lot of little things and seems to intuitively understand what those things mean.

For example, I invited him to a BBQ at my friend's parent's house. (He was my roommate at the time, and had met my other friend a few times so this was not a random thing)

He talked to my friend's mother for maybe 15 minutes at the BBQ. She is a cheerful and loopy sort of person, and that was exactly the sort of conversation they had. On the drive home he asked me, "that family has been through a lot of tragedy, haven't they?". Indeed, it would break your heart to hear about them.

[levocardia]

Sounds more like cold reading. Find me a family that hasn't been through a lot of tragedy!

[bruce511]

I mean, I guess it depends on what you mean by tragedy. On one hand people get old and die, and that's sad, but not tragic.

Burying a child is tragic.

But to answer your question, I would say most families have not suffered tragedy. Mine certainly hasn't.

[dijit]

It’s like the someone said recently.

If your psychologist asks you if you’ve ever thought about suicide: it is not being as in touch with humanity as you think to say; “Hasn’t everyone”.

[Bjartr]

In the sense of thinking about it as a serious option. No, not everyone has.

[RajT88]

> Burying a child is tragic

Yes. This. And much more.

[xparadigm]

In my experience, it comes down to matching patterns.

Here's what I think likely happened: your friend talked to other people who went through tragedy. He noticed something common in their behavior. It can be something so subtle that it's invisible to most people, but your friend notices these kind of things. Then when he talked to the current person, he found the similar pattern.

[RajT88]

Ah, but some people have more attitude for perceiving those patterns in the first place.

I imagine the author of this article is describing something along the lines of my friend's cognitive capabilities.

[Nopoint2]

I believe that this comes from the exact opposite of what the author does. People like this can discard the irrelevant details, and find what can be put together to create a clear picture.