CMN 122 Exam 1

Guerro’s definition of nonverbal communication

Involves all messages other than words or language, including aspects of the voice, body, movement, facial expression, space, time, smell, and the environment

Knapp definition of nonverbal communication

Refers to communication effected by means other than words, assuming words, are the verbal element

Channels of nonverbal behavior

Kinesics, appearance and adornment, vocalics, contact codes, and time and place codes

Kinesics

Nonverbal behavior and body movement. How we communicate nonverbally with the body. Such as gesturing or eye movement

Appearance and Adornment

Physical appearance, what is the size of my body, color of my hair, amount of hair, things like accessories like laptops or water bottles

Vocalics

Paralanguage, all about the way that we present the information. How do we know if someone is being sarcastic. Not just the words, but the way they are being said. How loud, pitch, speech rate, etc

Contact codes

Spatial communication, how do we occupy space? Are you letting people sit next to you or are you putting stuff next to you to prevent people from sitting next to you. How we may decorate our space like our rooms or homes. How we touch other people to communicate stuff such as affection or caring

Time codes

How we use time. How we use or don’t use time communicates aspects about is nonverbally

Monochronic

Very structured and find time as important,

Polychronic

Less organized and don’t find time as an important

Place codes

The larger context in which the communication occurs. How you would act at a party vs a classroom would be very different

Benefits of studying nonverbal communication

1. It will improve your accuracy in understanding others

2. It will improve your own ability to communicate information and to persuade others

3. It will enable you to make a more effective self-presentation

Aspects of meaning in nonverbal behavior

1. Intention (encoding)

2. Perception/interpretation (decoding)

3. Interactive

4. Shared encoding-decoding

Intention (encoding)

What are people’s intentions when they emit this behavior, did they make a facial expression because they are angry or sad. Understanding the intention means we can understand what they mean better

Perception/interpretation (decoding)

How do receivers of this behavior interpret it, we can get an idea of what people think of nonverbal communication means by how they understand or react to it

Interactive

Are there behaviors that have a reliable behavioral effect on others? Does it have a reliable response. If 9 out of 10 people respond in the same way, we have a good idea of what the behavior means. The consistent response tells us how majority of people think of it

Usage of nonverbal communication behaviors

External conditions, relationship to the verbal, awareness, intent, feedback, and type of information conveyed

External condition (context)

Certain contexts will ask for very specific nonverbal behavior

Relationship to the verbal

Most of our nonverbal behaviors come with verbal communication. The nonverbal or verbal can agree or disagree or they can reinforce or contradict

Awareness

Are we aware of the nonverbal behaviors that we are doing

Intent

Some nonverbals we do intentionally and some we do unintentionally.

Feedback

We may nod our head, shake our had, give a questioning look. We communicate we are participating and pay attention in the conversation.

Idiosyncratic information

Usage and meaning is peculiar to the individual

Informative

Shared encoding and decoding

Communicative

Enacted with clear, conscious intention to convey a message

Interactive

Influence or modify another person’s behavior (ex: if you get really close to them, they will most likely back away)

Sources of behavior

Innate neurological mechanisms, species constant experiences , and learning and socialization

Innate neurological mechanisms

We are born with the ability to do, we do not have to learn it. Something we can do right as we are born. Things like facial expressions like smiling, startle response we are born with

Species constant experiences

Nonverbal needs to originate with a context where we do what makes most sense with that context. Not something we are taught or shown but not something we are born with. EX: Putting food in front of a baby, they will most likely try to eat it with their hands because that is what makes most sense. They don't have to figure out that's what they should do

Learning and socialization

A lot of nonverbal behaviors are learned, especially those that differ across cultures. Those that are innate are much more likely to be universal.

Forms of coding nonverbal behavior

Arbitrary, iconic (metaphoric), and intrinsic

Arbitrary

There is no logically reason the behavior means what it means, we just decided that it is what it means. Hugh Jackman doing the peace sign

Iconic (metaphoric)

There is now a reason why there is a logical connection between why that message is connected to that behavior. Girl holding the phone or pretending to drive. You can see the action in our behavior

Intrinsic

Behavior represents the message and is the message. When we are closest to the actual message, we are trying to communicate EX: punching someone in the face. We are trying to communicate anger or aggression

Five categories of gestures

Emblems, illustrators, adaptors, regulators, emotion displays

Emblems

Nonverbal behaviors that communicate like words, they may co-occur with words but you can just do them and people will know what it means. Usually they are group dependent ex: Australia and the peace sign. Usually learned, we need to see people do them to learn.

Illustrators

nonverbal behavior that illustrates. Something that adds a visual dimension to what we are saying. Also means that they can't occur unless there are words

Adaptors

Manage our emotional arousal. You don't want to be under or over aroused. EX: bite their nails, deep breathing

Regulators

about controlling the flow of our conversations. Like our traffic signals for our conversations, how do we know if its our turn to speak or not

Emotion displays

Our face and our voice. Face because we have facial expressions. Facial blends = multiple emotions simultaneously. Voice, communicating sadness through the way we speak and our voices

Substitute relationship

Nonverbal that substitute for the verbal, we may choose a nonverbal instead if a verbal isn’t practical

Complement relationship

The two are going together, they are sending the same message. When we get the message multiple ways, it gives us better odds of deciphering it correctly.

Accent relationship

Is about adding emphasis or add highlight on things that are important. Adding gestures on certain words, adding emphasis, or speaking louder. Adding emphasis to the verbal with the nonverbal

Regulate relationship

Regulations between nonverbal and verbal, traffic signals

Repeating Relationship

If the nonverbal occurs after the verbal, they cannot happen at the same time. The nonverbal has to happen after the verbal

Conflicting relationship

The nonverbal and verbal can conflict and send two different message. Nonverbal is more accurate as it is hard to control so we tend to trust that when the two are conflicting.

Gesture

Movement of the body, or any part of the body, that is considered to be expressive of thought or feeling

Practical action

Things that we do with our body that are not meant to be symbolic in any way (ex: grabbing a pencil, taking a top of a bottle off)

Difference between practical actions and gestures

Practical actions are not symbolic, but gestures are

Origins of gestures

The first book about gestures was published in the 17th century, but it wasn't until the 20th century that research and interested started. Hewes proposed that gestures came from the same area of the brain that speech comes from, Hewes was correct.

Beats and Batons

Regulators that add flow or rhythm to the conversation. Bill Clinton pointing.

Self-adaptors

Self touching, running our hand through our hair or chewing our nails

Object adaptors

Playing with your keys, phone, or pencil to help managed our emotional arousal

Object focused gestures

Expressivity, outgoing, related to speech. We are referencing things that are not part of us, ex the chair. Similar to illustrators.

Body focused gestures

Discomfort, nervousness, and attention. Continuous body movements on the body. Like self adaptors from Eckmen

Inclusiveness/Noninclusiveness dimension

Inclusive body movement suggests we are open and including other people. Non inclusive, means we are not open to others.

Face to Face/Parallel dimension

You and the person you are interacting with are face to face. Parallel is if we are shoulder to shoulder and looking in the same direction.

Congruence/incongruence dimension

When we interact with others, we may have the same posture when speaking to them or if we dislike each other or we are in different groups

Children and gestures

Children’s capacity to gesture expands in conjunction with their capacity for language use, parents produce gestures simultaneous with speech when interacting with their infants, between 12-18 months, children show intensive development of gestures decoding skills, particularly response to pointing.

Pointing infant study

Infants show an increase in utilizing pointing gestures between 14 and 18 months, demonstrates that understanding of gestures increases with language and age

Gestures and the brain

Parts of the brain overlap when hearing meaningful words and seeing gestures they understood

Social aspects of gestures

People seem to have a strong desire to use gestures as it is helpful to them. Gestures aid in communication, they contribute to the redundancy of the uttered message. They enable listener comprehension and speech production of the sender

Pirate study

Gesturing resulted in more correct information compared to children not allowed to gesture. Offloading mental effort allows for easier retrieval of the correct information

Gestures and word retrieval

Quickest response with congruent gestures, slowest response with incongruent gestures, in the middle with control

Tower of Hanoi task

The more the person’s gestures depicted moving the smallest disk one handed, the worse they performed the second time. When gestures are no longer compatible with the action constraints of a task, problem solving suffers.

Speech and gesture

Body movements tend to bunch up at the beginning of phonetic clauses (your speaking turn). There are fewer body movement during fluent phonetic clauses and there are more body movements during dysfluent clauses

How does a familiar environment affect illustrators

It decreases the amount of illustrators. We are more likely to see illustrators the more unfamiliar we are with an environment and less the more familiar we are

How does a complicated environment affect illustrators

It increases the illustrators. The more complicated something is, then we would see an increase in illustrator use. The gestures will help us if we are trying to describe something complicated

How does a face to face environment affect illustrators

It increases the amount of illustrators. People still gesture while they’re on the phone, but they are less likely to do illustrators. More common when we are face to face.

Decoding emblems

Typically easy, but you have got to have the cultural understanding of that gesture. They are informative because they are easy to decode

Decoding illustrators

Not usually as clear as emblems, tend to be more iconic, which means its closer to the meaning we are talking about. The more iconic the easier to decode

Decoding adaptors

Hardest to to decode, more much more likely to be idiosyncratic and more likely to done unintentionally

Gesture aid in listener comprehension

Study demonstrated there was a medium effect on comprehension of speech with vs without gestures. Most effective when gesture depicted motor actions instead of abstract concepts, gestures are not just redundant with speech, and listeners are children

Children with gestures reading math problems

Children performed best when there was speech and a gesture to demonstrate a problem

Postural congruence

Withhold the same body posturation

Strong sensitivity to behavioral mimicry

We like to mimic what other people are doing when we are talking to them

People we have less mimicry of

People in our outgroup and disliked people

People we have more mimicry of

People in our in group and liked actors

Mirror neurons

Could explain why people engage in body matching, brain does not know the difference between seeing and doing, cells respond the same way. May also help us with empathy, may be why kids with ASD struggle

Discrete body movement

Something we do once or purposefully. Emblems, eye contact, smile, nod, head shake, arms akimbo. Function in a code like way, but it does not contain syntax. Most language like and closest to being language

Continuous body movement

Some we do constantly. Gesture that accompanies speech, posture shifting, forward and backward lean, body orientation, adaptors. Are not symbols

Gaze is

salient, arousing, and involving

Salient

Gaze stands out. We notice eye gaze when we are being gazed at

Arousing

Physiological arousal. Our heart rate may change, our breathing patterns change, skin conductance changes

Involving aspect of gaze

Draws us into interaction with others. Precursors to conversation

Gaze or face directed gaze

When one person is looking at another person in the face area, usually in the eyes. We are looking at someone in the face but they are not looking at us

Mutual gaze

When we are both looking at each other in the eyes. Not as common as it is intimate

Gaze aversion

We choose to not look at them in the face, we could be looking anywhere

Range of human gaze

Gaze varies widely in conversation. People tend to do more looking while listening and less when we are speaking

Function of gaze

regulation of information, conversation regulator, attraction, and dominance

Regulation of information input

Primary function of eye gaze, we may avert our gaze in order to regulate the information we are getting from our eyes as we get a lot from there.

Conversation regulator

Depending on the point in the conversation, our gaze may change function. If we don’t wnat to give up the floor, we may ignore eye gaze to hold, if we want a turn we may gaze of them to try to get it

Attraction

Communicate interest in someone with gaze, but too much might be creepy

Dominance

Fighters stare at their opponent down when they go to fight

How does gaze start a conversation

Eye contact primes the brain to process language, mutual gaze produced activation in inferior frontal gyrus and anterior rostral medial prefrontal cortex regions of the brain. These regions are responsible for speech production and speech comprehension start firing when we do mutual eye gaze with someone

Differences in age regarding gaze

Younger adults and older adults gaze more than middle aged adults. Might be related to attraction and older adults might be related to hearing loss

Extroversion/introversion

Extroverted people are more likely to gaze compared to introverted people. Extroverted people would want to gaze for social interactions

Self-monitoring

About looking towards environmental cues and modifying our behavior to be consistent with the context, high self monitors gaze frequently, low self monitors gaze less frequently

Dominance

People who are more dominate, gaze more. Less dominate gaze less. Dominate do less looking while listening and more looking while talking, reverse for less dominant people.

Need for affiliation

Strong desire to be with other people, want to be included and don't like to be alone. People who need affiliation engage in more eye gaze