This is one of the ways cold readers hone in on all kinds of things about the person they are reading. It is a very effective way to guess someone's mother's or

This is one of the ways cold readers hone in on all kinds of things about the person they are reading. It is a very effective way to guess someone's mother's or grandmother's name or sister's name. if the audience is a group of mostly 30 to 50 year old women the reader has a good starting point. It goes something like "Is there a Laura or Lisa here?" There is a high probability there will be one of those. Once a woman acknowledges their name is Laura the reader can see what her approx. age is and make a guess about what their mother or grandmother or grandfather's name is. They use other cues to figure out which dead relative the woman is there to "hear" from and then say something like "Someone with a M or K is coming forward" if the target reacted to one of those letters the reader guesses "Mar.... Marg... Mary...Margeret... Margeret... Is that your mother?"... You get the idea.