A cue is something you notice in your experience or interactions that may carry information or point to information you don’t have yet.
I distinguish between two sources of cues. Other-Cues are things we notice in others’ verbal, paraverbal, and nonverbal communication – what they say, how they say it, their facial expressions, posture, gestures, and so on. Self-Cues arise in our own felt experience – gut feelings, bodily sensations, impulses, a sense of certainty, hesitation, or enthusiasm.
Other Cues may be intentional or unintentional. Intentional cues, which I call signals, are meant to communicate something. Unintentional cues may reveal something not intended to be communicated. Either can be informative, but what a cue first seems to mean may not be what further inquiry reveals.
It’s useful to separate self-cues and other-cues analytically, even though they’re harder to tell apart phenomenologically (in lived experience). You notice others’ cues through your own experience – in Self-Cues which arise in the course of interactions. Distinguishing them helps you examine both what you’re noticing in others and what you’re experiencing yourself, and how closely the two are bound up. How to use them together is central to the Cue Method.
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