Nonverbal communication

Nonverbal communication is the process of communication through sending and receiving wordless (mostly visual) cues between people.

Messages can be communicated through gestures and touch, body language or posture, physical distance, facial expression and eye contact, which are all types of nonverbal communication. Speech contains nonverbal elements known as paralanguage, including voice quality, rate, pitch, volume, and speaking style, as well as prosodic features such as rhythm, intonation, and stress. Likewise, written texts have nonverbal elements such as handwriting style, spatial arrangement of words, or the physical layout of a page. However, much of the study of nonverbal communication has focused on face-to-face interaction, where it can be classified into three principal areas: environmental conditions where communication takes place, physical characteristics of the communicators, and behaviors of communicators during interaction.

Importance

SymbolTable for Non-verbal communication with patients

Nonverbal communication represents two-thirds of all communication. Nonverbal communication can portray a message both verbally and with the correct body signals. Body signals comprise physical features, conscious and unconscious gestures and signals, and the mediation of personal space. The wrong message can be established if the body language conveyed does not match a verbal message. Nonverbal communication strengthens a first impression in common situations like attracting a partner or in a business interview: impressions are on average formed within the first four seconds of contact. First encounters or interactions with another person strongly affect a person's perception. When the other person or group is absorbing the message they are focused on the entire environment around them, meaning the other person uses all five senses in the interaction: 83% sight, 11% hearing, 3% smell, 2% touch and 1% taste.

History

The first scientific study of nonverbal communication was Charles Darwin's book The Expression of the Emotions in Man and Animals. He argued that all mammals reliably show emotion in their faces. Seventy years later Silvan Tomkins (1911–1991) began his classic studies on human emotions in Affects Imagery Consciousness volumes 1-4. Rudolf Laban (1879–1958) and Warren Lamb (1923-) raised body movement analysis in the world of dance to a high level. Studies now range across a number of fields, including, linguistics, semiotics and social psychology. Another large influence in nonverbal communication was Ray Birdwhistell, who "pioneered the original study of nonverbal communication—what he called 'kinesics.' He estimated that the average person actually speaks words for a total of about ten or eleven minutes a day and that the average sentence takes only about 2.5 seconds. Birdwhistell also estimated we can make and recognize around 250,000 facial expressions."

First impression

Main article: First impression (psychology)

A study revealed that students who rated a professor as highly likeable from only a two-second first impression found the class much more enjoyable throughout the semester versus the students who did not."

Posture

There are many different types of posture, including slouching, towering, legs spread, jaw thrust, shoulders forward, and arm crossing. Posture or a person's bodily stance communicates a variety of messages. Posture can be used to determine a participant's degree of attention or involvement, the difference in status between communicators, and the level of fondness a person has for the other communicator, depending on body "openness". Studies investigating the impact of posture on interpersonal relationships suggest that mirror-image congruent postures, where one person's left side is parallel to the other person's right side, leads to favorable perception of communicators and positive speech; a person who displays a forward lean or decreases a backward lean also signifies positive sentiment during communication.
Posture can be situation-relative, that is, people will change their posture depending on the situation they are in.

Clothing

Clothing is one of the most common forms of non-verbal communication. The study of clothing and other objects as a means of non-verbal communication is known as artifactics or objectics. The types of clothing that an individual wears conveys nonverbal clues about his or her personality, background and financial status, and how others will respond to them. An individual's clothing style can demonstrate their culture, mood, level of confidence, interests, age, authority, values/beliefs, and their sexual identity.

A study of the clothing worn by women attending discothèques, carried out in Vienna, Austria, showed that in certain groups of women (especially women who were without their partners), motivation for sex and levels of sexual hormones were correlated with aspects of their clothing, especially the amount of skin displayed and the presence of sheer clothing.

Gestures

Gestures may be made with the hands, arms or body, and also include movements of the head, face and eyes, such as winking, nodding, or rolling one's eyes. Although the study of gesture is still in its infancy, some broad categories of gestures have been identified by researchers. The most familiar are the so-called emblems or quotable gestures. These are conventional, culture-specific gestures that can be used as replacement for words, such as the hand wave used in western cultures for "hello" and "goodbye." A single emblematic gesture can have a very different significance in different cultural contexts, ranging from complimentary to highly offensive. For a list of emblematic gestures, see List of gestures. There are some universal gestures like the shoulder shrug.

Gestures can also be categorized as either speech independent or speech related. Speech-independent gestures are dependent upon culturally accepted interpretation and have a direct verbal translation. A wave or a peace sign are examples of speech-independent gestures. Speech-related gestures are used in parallel with verbal speech; this form of nonverbal communication is used to emphasize the message that is being communicated. Speech-related gestures are intended to provide supplemental information to a verbal message such as pointing to an object of discussion.

Facial expressions, more than anything, serve as a practical means of communication. With all the various muscles that precisely control mouth, lips, eyes, nose, forehead,and jaw, human faces are estimated to be capable of more than ten thousand different expressions. This versatility makes non-verbals of the face extremely efficient and honest, unless deliberately manipulated. In addition, many of these emotions, including happiness, sadness, anger, fear, surprise, disgust, shame, anguish and interest are universally recognized.

Displays of emotions can generally be categorized into two groups: negative and positive. Negative emotions usually manifest as increased tension in various muscle groups: tightening of jaw muscles, furrowing of forehead, squinting eyes, or lip occlusion (when the lips seemingly disappear). In contrast, positive emotions are revealed by the loosening of the furrowed lines on the forehead, relaxation of the muscles around the mouth, and widening of the eye area. When individuals are truly relaxed and at ease, the head will also tilt to the side, exposing our most vulnerable area, the neck. This is a high-comfort display, often seen during courtship, that is nearly impossible to mimic when tense or suspicious.

Gestures are "a necessary component to overall effective communication, gestures also play an integral role in communication that is specifically designed to persuade. A more expressive face, as discussed earlier is more frequently associated with greater persuasiveness, so too is a more expressive body, through the use of gestures." Not all gestures are seen as persuasive and this especially occurs when they are out of sync with what the speaker is saying.

Engagement

Information about the relationship and affect of these two skaters is communicated by their body posture, eye gaze and physical contact.

Eye contact is when two people look at each other's eyes at the same time; it is the primary nonverbal way we indicate engagement, interest, attention and involvement. Studies have found that people use their eyes to indicate interest. This includes frequently recognized actions of winking and movements of the eyebrows as well as indicating social behavior.

Men and women have different ways of eye contact. Men stare at the women they are interested in, whereas women tend to always keep their eyes roaming around the room to see who is there. Disinterest is highly noticeable when showing little eye contact in a social setting. Pupils dilate when they are interested in the other person. People, sometimes without consciously doing so, probe each other's eyes and faces for positive or negative mood signs. Generally speaking, the longer there is established eye contact between two people, the greater the intimacy levels.

According to Eckman, "Eye contact (also called mutual gaze) is another major channel of nonverbal communication. The duration of eye contact is its most meaningful aspect." Gaze comprises the actions of looking while talking and listening. The length of a gaze, the frequency of glances, patterns of fixation, pupil dilation, and blink rate are all important cues in nonverbal communication. "Liking generally increases as mutual gazing increases." Along with the detection of disinterest, deceit can also be observed in a person. Hogan states "when someone is being deceptive their eyes tend to blink a lot more. Eyes act as leading indicator of truth or deception," Eye aversion is the avoidance of eye contact. Eye contact and facial expressions provide important social and emotional information. Overall, as Pease states, "Give the amount of eye contact that makes everyone feel comfortable. Unless looking at others is a cultural no-no, lookers gain more credibility than non-lookers"

In concealing deception, nonverbal communication makes it easier to lie without being revealed. This is the conclusion of a study where people watched made-up interviews of persons accused of having stolen a wallet. The interviewees lied in about 50% of the cases. People had access to either written transcript of the interviews, or audio tape recordings, or video recordings. The more clues that were available to those watching, the larger was the trend that interviewees who actually lied were judged to be truthful. That is, people that are clever at lying can use voice tone and face expression to give the impression that they are truthful. However, there are many cited examples of cues to deceit, delivered via nonverbal (Para verbal and visual) communication channels, through which deceivers supposedly unwittingly provide clues to their concealed knowledge or actual opinions. Most studies examining the nonverbal cues to deceit rely upon human coding of video footage (c.f. Vrij, 2008), although a recent study also demonstrated bodily movement differences between truth-tellers and liars using an automated body motion capture system.

Across cultures

Nonverbal communication can have different meanings according to different cultures. Foreigners may even be confused about universal emotions. "In many cultures, such as the Arab and Iranian cultures, people express grief openly. They mourn out loud, while in Asian cultures, the general belief is that it is unacceptable to show emotion openly." In fact,Chinese people value silence more than verbal communication. Gestures, postures, haptics, clothing, eye contact and proxemics all can be understood differently across the world.

Gestures vary widely across cultures in how they are used and what they mean. Native Americans did not have a written language for a long time, so they relied heavily on nonverbal communication in which dances, rituals, and ceremonies were vital. Nonverbal communication can be divided into classes. “First there is body language which includes gesture, posture, distance, touch, and gaze. Second there is object language which includes signs, designs, and clothing. Finally, there is environmental language which includes color, lighting, space, direction, and natural surroundings.”

For example, "sticking out the tongue may be a form of mockery in the West, but in Polynesia it serves as a greeting and a sign of reverence. Clapping is our way of applauding, but in Spain and the Orient it is a means of summoning the waiter. Northern Europeans usually indicate agreement by nodding their heads up and down, and shaking the head from side to side to indicate disagreement. The Greeks have for at least three thousand years used the upward nod for disagreement and the downward nod for agreement.” In addition, laughter is a sign of amusement normally, but in Africa it is a sign of wonder or embarrassment. There are many manners of waving goodbye: Americans face the palm outward and move the hand side to side, Italians face the palm inward and move the fingers facing the other person, French and Germans face the hand horizontal and move the fingers toward the person leaving. Also, it is important to note that gestures are used in more informal settings and more often by children.

Chronemics, how people handle time, can be categorized in two ways: polychronic which is when people do many activities at once and is common in Italy and Spain, or monochronic which is when people do one thing at a time which is common in America.

Emotional expression varies with culture. The more individualistic a culture is, the more likely the people will show emotions that are disengaged or emphasize what the self is feeling (anger, disgust, and joy). Showing fear is less likely to occur in collectivistic societies because it shows social withdrawal. Joy is more likely to be expressed in individualistic cultures because it is an expression of one’s uniqueness and individuality, whereas in collectivistic cultures, it may disrupt the group with values of interdependence. In addition, Native Americans tend to be more reserved and less expressive with emotions. Finally, frequent touches are common for Chinese;however, such actions like touching, patting, hugging or kissing in western cultures such as America are less frequent and publicly displayed.

One common example in the United States, is the gesture of a finger or hand to indicate "come here please". This is the gesture used to beckon dogs in some cultures. Pointing with one finger is also considered to be rude in some cultures and Asians typically use their entire hand to point to something.

In mainstream Western culture, eye contact is interpreted as attentiveness and honesty. In many cultures, however, including Hispanic, Asian, Middle Eastern, and Native American, eye contact is thought to be disrespectful or rude, and lack of eye contact does not mean that a person is not paying attention. Women may especially avoid eye contact with men because it can be taken as a sign of sexual interest.

The acceptable physical distance is another major difference in the nonverbal communication between cultures. In Latin America and the Middle East the acceptable distance is much shorter than what most Europeans and Americans feel comfortable with. This is why an American or a European might wonder why the other person is invading his or her personal space by standing so close, while the other person might wonder why the American/European is standing so far from him or her. In addition, for Latin Americans, the French, Italians, and Arabs the distance between people is much closer than the distance for Americans; in general for these close distance groups, 1 foot of distance is for lovers, 1.5–4 feet of distance is for family and friends, and 4–12 feet is for strangers. In the opposite way, most Native Americans value distance to protect themselves.

Indigenous communities

In Indigenous Mayan communities of the Americas, children learn how to partake in adult activities through nonverbal communication. Children are able to learn in this manner due to their exposure to adult activities at a young age. At a young age, children intently observe and listen in on adult activities, and this helps provide them with a running knowledge on how to participate. As a result, when children take on adult activities for themselves the first time they do not need verbal communication in the form of directions from adults. They can learn how to do the adult activity themselves through physically participating in it. In fact, talk acts only as a supplement to engagement in an activity. For instance, when a child engages in adult activities, spoken communication can be used to explore ideas or discuss need-to-know information. Otherwise, caregivers and adults primarily help guide their children through an activity using non-verbal communication such as visual demonstration, gestures, gaze and touch.

In Indigenous Mayan communities, when a child needs assistance adults will primarily use illustrative acts in the form of nonverbal communication to guide the child in a successful direction for the activity. For example, a Mayan parent could demonstrate to their child how to hold dough in a manner which allows for smooth flattening when making tortillas. In effect, when the child sees that the dough was flattened from the demonstration, they could try it for themselves and learn first hand how to make it flat. In that sense, by observing a nonverbal demonstration of the activity and trying it firsthand, Mayan children learn how to participate in adult activities.

Nonverbal communication is important as a way of learning for children of Indigenous Mayan communities, because it allows for children's autonomy and for horizontal collaboration. Mayan parents do not need to give lots of forceful verbal directives to their children to make sure they are participating effectively. Instead, parents collaborate non verbally with their children to guide them through the activity, and doing so is enough to ensure children do the activity successfully. By communicating nonverbally, parents allow their children to have more individual development during their participation in adult activities. Furthermore, by having nonverbal collaboration, children benefit from the assistance of people who are skillful at the adult practice. The result is that on top of their initial knowledge of adult activities, children's understanding can be further be strengthened through the nonverbal guidance from adult expertise.

Nonverbal actions

According to Matsumoto and Juang, the nonverbal motions that different people indicate important channels of communication. The author states that nonverbal communication is very important to be aware of, especially if comparing gestures, gaze, and tone of voice amongst different cultures. As Latin American cultures embrace big speech gestures, Middle Eastern cultures are relatively more modest in public and are not expressive. Within cultures, different rules are made about staring or gazing. In some cultures, gaze can be seen as a sign of respect. Voice is a category that changes within cultures. Depending on whether or not the cultures is expressive or non expressive, many variants of the voice can depict different reactions.

Genetics

"In the study of nonverbal communications, the limbic brain is where the action is...because it is the part of the brain that reacts to the world around us reflexively and instantaneously, in real time, and without thought." There is evidence that the nonverbal cues made from person-to-person do not entirely have something to do with environment.

Other than gestures, phenotypic traits can also convey certain messages in nonverbal communication, for instance, eye color, hair color and height. Research into height has generally found that taller people are perceived as being more impressive. Melamed and Bozionelos (1992) studied a sample of managers in the United Kingdom and found that height was a key factor in who was promoted. Height can have benefits and depressors too. "While tall people often command more respect than short people, height can also be detrimental to some aspects of one-to-one communication, for instance, where you need to 'talk on the same level' or have an 'eye-to-eye' discussion with another person and do not want to be perceived as too big for your boots."

Proxemics

Proxemics is the study of how people use and perceive the physical space around them. The space between the sender and the receiver of a message influences the way the message is interpreted. In addition, the perception and use of space varies significantly across cultures and different settings within cultures. Space in nonverbal communication may be divided into four main categories: intimate, social, personal, and public space.

The term territoriality is used in the study of proxemics to explain human behavior regarding personal space. Hargie & Dickson (2004, p. 69) identify 4 such territories:

1. Primary territory: This refers to an area that is associated with someone who has exclusive use of it. An example is a house that others cannot enter without the owner's permission.
2. Secondary territory: Unlike primary territory, there is no "right" to occupancy of secondary territory, but people may still feel some degree of ownership of such space as they develop the custom of occupying it. For example, someone may sit in the same seat in church every week and feel irritated if someone else sits there.
3. Public territory: this refers to an area that is available to all, but only for a set period, such as a parking space or a seat in a library. Although people have only a limited claim over that space, they often extend that claim. For example, it was found that people take longer to leave a parking space when someone is waiting to take that space.
4. Interaction territory: this is space held by others when they are interacting. For example, when a group is talking to each other on a footpath, others will walk around the group rather than disturb their interaction territory.

Movement and body position

Kinesics

The term "kinesics" was first used (in 1952) by Ray Birdwhistell, an anthropologist who wished to study how people communicate through posture, gesture, stance, and movement. Part of Birdwhistell's work involved making films of people in social situations and analyzing them to show different levels of communication not clearly seen otherwise. Several other anthropologists, including Margaret Mead and Gregory Bateson, also studied kinesics.

Kinesic messages are more subtle than gestures. Kinesic messages comprise the posture, gaze, and facial movements. American looks are short enough just to see if there is recognition of the other person, Arabs look at each other in the eye intensely, and many Africans avert the gaze as a sign of respect to superiors. There are also many postures for people in the Congo; they stretch their hands and put them together in the direction of the other person.

Haptics: touching in communication

Main article: Haptic communication

A high five is an example of communicative touch.

Haptics is the study of touching as nonverbal communication, and haptic communication refers to how people and other animals communicate via touching.

Touches among humans that can be defined as communication include handshakes, holding hands, kissing (cheek, lips, hand), back slapping, high fives, a pat on the shoulder, and brushing an arm. Touching of oneself may include licking, picking, holding, and scratching. These behaviors are referred to as "adapters" or "tells" and may send messages that reveal the intentions or feelings of a communicator and a listener. The meaning conveyed from touch is highly dependent upon the culture, the context of the situation, the relationship between communicators, and the manner of touch.

Touch is an extremely important sense for humans; as well as providing information about surfaces and textures it is a component of nonverbal communication in interpersonal relationships, and vital in conveying physical intimacy. It can be both sexual (such as kissing) and platonic (such as hugging or tickling).

Touch is the earliest sense to develop in the fetus. Human babies have been observed to have enormous difficulty surviving if they do not possess a sense of touch, even if they retain sight and hearing. Babies who can perceive through touch, even without sight and hearing, tend to fare much better.

In chimpanzees the sense of touch is highly developed. As newborns they see and hear poorly but cling strongly to their mothers. Harry Harlow conducted a controversial study involving rhesus monkeys and observed that monkeys reared with a "terry cloth mother," a wire feeding apparatus wrapped in soft terry cloth that provided a level of tactile stimulation and comfort, were considerably more emotionally stable as adults than those with a mere wire mother.(Harlow,1958)

Touching is treated differently from one country to another and socially acceptable levels of touching vary from one culture to another (Remland, 2009). In Thai culture, for example, touching someone's head may be thought rude. Remland and Jones (1995) studied groups of people communicating and found that touching was rare among the English (8%), the French (5%) and the Dutch (4%) compared to Italians (14%) and Greeks (12.5%). Striking, pushing, pulling, pinching, kicking, strangling and hand-to-hand fighting are forms of touch in the context of physical abuse.

Functions of nonverbal communication

Argyle (1970) put forward the hypothesis that whereas spoken language is normally used for communicating information about events external to the speakers, non-verbal codes are used to establish and maintain interpersonal relationships. It is considered more polite or nicer to communicate attitudes towards others non-verbally rather than verbally, for instance in order to avoid embarrassing situations.

Argyle (1988) concluded there are five primary functions of nonverbal bodily behavior in human communication:

• Express emotions
• Express interpersonal attitudes
• To accompany speech in managing the cues of interaction between speakers and listeners
• Self-presentation of one's personality
• Rituals (greetings)

In regards to expressing interpersonal attitudes, humans communicate interpersonal closeness through a series of nonverbal actions known as immediacy behaviors. Examples of immediacy behaviors are smiling, touching, open body positions, and eye contact. Cultures that display these immediacy behaviors are considered high-contact cultures.

Criticism

An interesting question is: When two people are communicating face-to-face, how much of the meaning is communicated verbally, and how much is communicated non-verbally? This was investigated by Albert Mehrabian and reported in two papers. The latter paper concluded: "It is suggested that the combined effect of simultaneous verbal, vocal, and facial attitude communications is a weighted sum of their independent effects - with coefficients of .07, .38, and .55, respectively."

Since then, other studies have analysed the relative contribution of verbal and nonverbal signals under more naturalistic situations. Argyle, using video tapes shown to the subjects, analysed the communication of submissive/dominant attitude and found that non-verbal cues had 4.3 times the effect of verbal cues. The most important effect was that body posture communicated superior status in a very efficient way. On the other hand, a study by Hsee et al. had subjects judge a person on the dimension happy/sad and found that words spoken with minimal variation in intonation had an impact about 4 times larger than face expressions seen in a film without sound. Thus, the relative importance of spoken words and facial expressions may be very different in studies using different set-ups.

Interaction of verbal and nonverbal communication

When communicating, nonverbal messages can interact with verbal messages in six ways: repeating, conflicting, complementing, substituting, regulating and accenting/moderating. Conflicting Verbal and nonverbal messages within the same interaction can sometimes send opposing or conflicting messages. A person verbally expressing a statement of truth while simultaneously fidgeting or avoiding eye contact may convey a mixed message to the receiver in the interaction. Conflicting messages may occur for a variety of reasons often stemming from feelings of uncertainty, ambivalence, or frustration.[23]When mixed messages occur, nonverbal communication becomes the primary tool people use to attain additional information to clarify the situation; great attention is placed on bodily movements and positioning when people perceive mixed messages during interactions

Complementing

Accurate interpretation of messages is made easier when nonverbal and verbal communication complement each other. Nonverbal cues can be used to elaborate on verbal messages to reinforce the information sent when trying to achieve communicative goals; messages have been shown to be remembered better when nonverbal signals affirm the verbal exchange.

Substituting

Nonverbal behavior is sometimes used as the sole channel for communication of a message. People learn to identify facial expressions, body movements, and body positioning as corresponding with specific feelings and intentions. Nonverbal signals can be used without verbal communication to convey messages; when nonverbal behavior does not effectively communicate a message, verbal methods are used to enhance understanding.

Clinical studies of nonverbal communication

From 1977 to 2004, the influence of disease and drugs on receptivity of nonverbal communication was studied by teams at three separate medical schools using a similar paradigm. Researchers at the University of Pittsburgh, Yale University and Ohio State University had subjects observe gamblers at a slot machine awaiting payoffs. The amount of this payoff was read by nonverbal transmission prior to reinforcement. This technique was developed by and the studies directed by psychologist, Dr. Robert E. Miller and psychiatrist, Dr. A. James Giannini. These groups reported diminished receptive ability in heroin addicts and phencyclidine abusers was contrasted with increased receptivity in cocaine addicts. Men with major depression manifested significantly decreased ability to read nonverbal cues when compared with euthymic men.

In some subjects tested for ability to read nonverbal cues, intuitive paradigms were apparently employed while in others a cause and effect approach was used. Subjects in the former group answered quickly and before reinforcement occurred. They could not give a rationale for their particular responses. Subjects in the latter category delayed their response and could offer reasons for their choice.The level of accuracy between the two groups did not vary nor did handedness.

Freitas-Magalhaes studied the effect of smile in the treatment of depression and concluded that depressive states decrease when you smile more often.

Obese women and women with premenstrual syndrome were found to also possess diminished abilities to read these cues. In contradistinction, men with bipolar disorder possessed increased abilities. A woman with total paralysis of the nerves of facial expression was found unable to transmit or receive any nonverbal facial cues whatsoever. Because of the changes in levels of accuracy on the levels of nonverbal receptivity, the members of the research team hypothesized a biochemical site in the brain which was operative for reception of nonverbal cues. Because certain drugs enhanced ability while others diminished it, the neurotransmitters dopamine and endorphin were considered to be likely etiological candidate. Based on the available data, however, the primary cause and primary effect could not be sorted out on the basis of the paradigm employed.

Child comprehension

An increased emphasis on gestures exists when intonations or facial expression are used. "Speakers often anticipate how recipients will interpret their utterances. If they wish some other, less obvious interpretation, they may "mark" their utterance (e.g. with special intonations or facial expressions)." This specific emphasis known as 'marking' can be spotted as a learned form of non-verbal communication in toddlers. A groundbreaking study, from the Journal of Child Language has concluded that the act of marking a gesture is recognized by three-year-olds, but not by two-year-olds.

In the study, two and three-year-old toddlers were tested on their recognition of markedness within gestures. The experiment was conducted in a room with an examiner and the test subjects, which for the first study were three-year-olds. The examiner sat across from each child individually, and allowed them to play with various objects including a purse with a sponge in it and a box with a sponge in it. After allowing the child to play with the objects for three minutes, the examiner told the child it was time to clean up and motioned by pointing to the objects. They measured the responses of the children by first pointing and not marking the gesture, to see the child's reaction to the request and if they reached for the objects to clean them up. After observing the child's response, the examiner then asked and pointed again, marking the gesture with facial expression, as to lead the child to believe the objects were supposed to be cleaned up. The results showed that three-year-old children were able to recognize the markedness, by responding to the gesture and cleaning the objects up as opposed to when the gesture was presented without being marked.

In the second study in which the same experiment was preformed on two-year-olds, the results were different. For the most part, the children did not recognize the difference between the marked and unmarked gesture by not responding more prevalently to the marked gesture, unlike the results of the three-year-olds. This shows that this sort of nonverbal communication is learned at a young age, and is better recognized in three-year-old children than two-year-old children, making it easier for us to interpret that the ability to recognize markedness is learned in the early stages of development, somewhere between three and four years of age.

Boone and Cunningham conducted a study to determine at which age children begin to recognize emotional meaning (happiness, sadness, anger and fear) in expressive body movements. The study included 29 adults and 79 children divided into age groups of four, five and eight year olds. The children were shows two clips simultaneously and were asked to point to the one that was expressing the target emotion. The results of the study revealed that of the four emotions being tested the 4-year-olds were only able to correctly identify sadness at a rate that was better than chance. The 5-year-olds performed better and were able to identify happiness, sadness and fear at better than chance levels. The 8-year-olds and adults could correctly identify all four emotions and there was very little difference between the scores of the two groups. Between the ages of 4 and 8 nonverbal communication and decoding skills improve dramatically.

Comprehension of nonverbal facial cues

A byproduct of the work of the Pittsburgh/Yale/ Ohio State team was an investigation of the role of nonverbal facial cues in heterosexual nondate rape. Males who were serial rapists of adult women were studied for nonverbal receptive abilities. Their scores were the highest of any subgroup. Rape victims were next tested. It was reported that women who had been raped on at least two occasions by different perpetrators had a highly significant impairment in their abilities to read these cues in either male or female senders. These results were troubling, indicating a predator-prey model. The authors did note that whatever the nature of these preliminary findings the responsibility of the rapist was in no manner or level, diminished.

The final target of study for this group was the medical students they taught. Medical students at Ohio State University, Ohio University and Northest Ohio Medical College were invited to serve as subjects. Students indicating a preference for the specialties of family practice, psychiatry, pediatrics and obstetrics-gynecology achieved significantly higher levels of accuracy than those students who planned to train as surgeons, radiologists, or pathologists. Internal medicine and plastic surgery candidates scored at levels near the mean.

See also

• Asemic writing
• Behavioral communication
• Chinese number gestures
• Desmond Morris
• Doctrine of mental reservation
• Forgetfulness
• Intercultural competence
• Albert Mehrabian
• Metacommunicative competence
• Microexpression
• Joe Navarro
• Neuro-linguistic programming
• Nunchi
• People skills
• Regulatory Focus Theory
• Semiotics
• Ishin-denshin
• Silent service code
• The Twilight Language
• Unconscious communication

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• Stubbs, K. H. (2003). Can't Get Through: 8 Barriers to Communication. Gretna, LA: Pelican Publishing Company.
• Navarro, J. (2008). What Every Body is Saying. New York, NY: HarperCollins Publishers.
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External links

• "Credibility, Respect, and Power: Sending the Right Nonverbal Signals" by Debra Stein
• Online Nonverbal Library with more than 500 free available articles on this topic.
• The Nonverbal Dictionary of Gestures, Signs & Body Language Cues by David B. Givens
• "Psychology Today Nonverbal Communication Blog posts" by Joe Navarro
• "NVC Portal - A useful portal providing information on Nonverbal Communication"