Para-Pyschology , Psychometry if you will. Cold reads are simple hell man i've done this too people who i only know for two weeks. I remember reading somewhere that our ancestors (Kemetians) had this ability to established this....dont remember where i read it though. Cold reads are simple ive done them to women i know, i.e. an ex-girlie. I should say it has alot to do with info a person indirectly fed you (IMO) rather than the stuff i see folks like John edwards do-----the cat that claims he can talk to the dead (bunch of nonsense imo). Alot of it has to do with body language (if you study body language you could learn alot about a person and they dont really had to say anything). sometimes you can look at a person for example in see a certain amount of sorrow and you could established sorrow=pain, or lost.