How Well Do You Know the Back of Your Hand?

Sometimes we say we know something 'like the back of our hand' but experiments prove that less than 5% of people can identify the back of their hands from a photograph. The results of a simple experiment we conducted for a television programme showed that most people are generally not good at
reading body language signals either.
We set up a large mirror at the end of a long hotel lobby, giving the illusion that, as you entered the hotel, there was a long corridor going through the
hotel and out the back of the lobby.  We hung large plants from the ceiling to a distance of 5 feet above the floor so that, as each person entered the lobby, it looked as if another person was entering at the same time from the other end.

The 'other person'  was  not  readily  recognisable  because  the  plants covered their face, but you could clearly see their body and movement. Each guest observed the other 'guest' for five to six seconds before turning left to the reception desk. When asked if they had recognised the other 'guest', 85% of men answered "'o'. Most men had failed to recognise themselves in a mirror, one saying, 'You mean that fat, ugly guy?' Unsurprisingly, 58% of the women said it was a mirror and 30% said the other 'guest' looked 'familiar'.

Most men and nearly half of all women don't know what they look like from the neck down.