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Purpose: This study first aimed to establish whether viewing specific parts of the speaker's face (eyes or mouth), compared to viewing the whole face, affected adaptation to distorted noise-vocoded sentences. Second, this study also aimed to replicate results on processing of distorted speech from lab-based experiments in an online setup. Method: We monitored recognition accuracy online while participants were listening to noise-vocoded sentences. We first established if participants were able to perceive and adapt to audiovisual four-band noise-vocoded sentences when the entire moving face was visible (AV Full). Four further groups were then tested: a group in which participants viewed the moving lower part of the speaker's face (Av Mouth), a group in which participants only see the moving upper part of the face (AV Eyes), a group in which participants could not see the moving lower or upper face (AV Blocked), and a group in which participants saw an image of a still face (AV Still). Results: Participants repeated around 40% of the key words correctly and adapted during the experiment, but only when the moving mouth was visible. In contrast, performance was at floor level, and no adaptation took place, in conditions when the moving mouth was occluded. Conclusions: The results show the importance of being able to observe relevant visual speech information from the speaker's mouth region, but not the eyes/upper face region, when listening and adapting to distorted sentences online. Second, the results also demonstrated that it is feasible to run speech perception and adaptation studies online, but that not all findings reported for lab studies replicate. Supplemental Material: https://doi.org/10.23641/asha. 14810523, We often interact with others in suboptimal listening situations, for example, in a crowded cafeteria, at a busy railway station, or when interacting online over a poor audio and/or video [...]

Purpose: The planning and execution of motor behaviors require coordination of neurons that are established through synchronization of neural activity. Movements are typically preceded by event-related desynchronization (ERD) in the beta range (15-30 Hz) primarily localized in the motor cortex, while movement onset is associated with event-related synchronization (ERS). It is hypothesized that ERD is important for movement preparation and execution, and ERS serves to inhibit movement and update the motor plan. The primary objective of this study was to determine to what extent movement-related oscillatory brain patterns (ERD and ERS) during verbal and nonverbal tasks may be affected differentially by variations in task complexity. Method: Seventeen right-handed adult participants (nine women, eight men; [M.sub.age] = 25.8 years, SD = 5.13) completed a sequential button press and verbal task. The final analyses included data for 15 participants for the nonverbal task and 13 for the verbal task. Both tasks consisted of two complexity levels: simple and complex sequences. Magnetoencephalography was used to record modulations in beta band brain oscillations during task performance. Results: Both the verbal and button press tasks were characterized by significant premovement ERD and postmovement ERS. However, only simple sequences showed a distinct transient synchronization during the premovement phase of the task. Differences between the two tasks were reflected in both latency and peak amplitude of ERD and ERS, as well as in lateralization of oscillations. Conclusions: Both verbal and nonverbal movements showed a significant desynchronization of beta oscillations during the movement preparation and holding phase and a resynchronization upon movement termination. Importantly, the premovement phase for simple but not complex tasks was characterized by a transient partial synchronization. In addition, the data revealed significant differences between the two tasks in terms of lateralization of oscillatory modulations. Our findings suggest that, while data from the general motor control research can inform our understanding of speech motor control, significant differences exist between the two motor systems that caution against overgeneralization of underlying neural control processes., The planning and execution of motor behavior require well-tuned networks of neurons that are established through synchronization of neural activity. This synchronization is driven by oscillations, resulting from coordinated electrophysiological [...]

This study examined the construct validity of nonverbal social aggression and the relation of nonverbal social aggression to dimensions of children's social status. Peer nominations of verbal social, nonverbal social, direct verbal, and physical aggression, as well as social dominance, perceived popularity, and social acceptance, were collected from 459 elementary students. Structural equation modeling with physical and direct verbal aggression items and verbal and nonverbal social aggression items yielded three factors of aggression: overt, nonverbal social, and verbal social. Subsequent analyses indicated that girls are more nonverbally socially aggressive than boys. Nonverbal social aggression was found to explain unique variance in social acceptance for boys and to offer equal contributions to girls' social dominance and perceived popularity, controlling for overt and verbal social aggression. Suggestions for future research are discussed., Considerable gains have been made in the study of indirect (Lagerspetz, Bjorkqvist, & Peltonen, 1988), relational (Crick & Grotpeter, 1995), and social aggression (Galen & Underwood, 1997; Xie, Swift, Cairns, [...]

Power and dominance are widely recognized as fundamental concepts in the study of human relationships. A theory of power, Dunbar's dyadic power theory (DPT), was tested experimentally by manipulating power in interactions with confederate strangers. Participants' verbal and nonverbal dominance behaviors were coded from videotapes of their interactions. DPT proposes that individuals will display more dominance in equal power relationships than in unequal relationships and increasing an individual's relative power will increase that individual's satisfaction with the encounter. The results revealed that the equal-power and unequal high-power conditions displayed more dominance and were more satisfied than those in the unequal low-power conditions but those in the unequal-high power condition were the least affected by their partners and maintained the most control over the partnership's decisions. Implications for DPT and the relationship between microlevel dominance behaviors and the macrolevel impressions of dominant interactants are discussed. Keywords: Observations; Dyadic Power; Interpersonal Interaction; Interpersonal Dominance; Nonverbal Communication DOI: 10.1080/03637751.2010.520018

Paradoxically, improvements in emergency medicine have increased survival albeit with severe disability ranging from quadriplegia to 'locked-in syndrome.' Locked-in syndrome is characterized by intact cognition yet complete paralysis, and hence these individuals are 'locked-in' their own body, at best able to communicate using eye blinks alone. Sniffing is a precise sensory-motor acquisition entailing changes in nasal pressure. The fine control of sniffing depends on positioning the soft palate, which is innervated by multiple cranial nerves. This innervation pattern led us to hypothesize that sniffing may remain conserved following severe injury. To test this, we developed a device that measures nasal pressure and converts it into electrical signals. The device enabled sniffs to control an actuator with speed similar to that of a hand using a mouse or joystick. Functional magnetic resonance imaging of device usage revealed a widely distributed neural network, allowing for increased conservation following injury. Also, device usage shared neural substrates with language production, rendering sniffs a promising bypass mode of communication. Indeed, sniffing allowed completely paralyzed locked-in participants to write text and quadriplegic participants to write text and drive an electric wheelchair. We conclude that redirection of sniff motor programs toward alternative functions allows sniffing to provide a control interface that is fast, accurate, robust, and highly conserved following severe injury. locked-in | quadriplegic | soft palate doi/ 10.1073/pnas.1006746107

Although there is consensus about the importance of early communicative gestures such as pointing, there is an ongoing debate regarding how infants develop the ability to understand and produce pointing gestures. We review competing theories regarding this development and use observations from a diary study of infants' social development, focusing primarily on one infant from 6 to 14 months to illustrate a currently neglected view of the development of pointing. According to this view, infants first use their extended index finger as a manifestation of their own attention that emerges from their tactile exploration of close-by objects. Their gesture gradually becomes social in its use as infants become aware of the meaning of their action for adults. Key Words Gestures * Infancy * Pointing * Social development DOI: 10.1159/000315168

Purpose: In this study, the authors examined (a) whether children with specific language impairment (SLI) can implicitly compute the probabilities of adjacent sound sequences, (b) if this ability is related to degree of exposure, (c) if it is domain specific or domain general and, (d) if it is related to vocabulary. Method: Children with SLI and normal language controls (ages 6;5-14;4 [years; months]) listened to 21 min of a language in which transitional probabilities within words were higher than those between words. In a second study, children with SLI and Age--Nonverbal IQ matched controls (8;0-10;11) listened to the same language for 42 min and to a second 42 min "tone" language containing the identical statistical structure as the "speech" language. Results: After 21 min, the SLI group's performance was at chance, whereas performance for the control group was significantly greater than chance and significantly correlated with receptive and expressive vocabulary knowledge. In the 42-minute speech condition, the SLI group's performance was significantly greater than chance and correlated with receptive vocabulary but was no different from chance in the analogous 42-minute tone condition. Performance for the control group was again significantly greater than chance in 42-minute speech and tone conditions. Conclusions: These findings suggest that poor implicit learning may underlie aspects of the language impairments in SLI. KEY WORDS: specific language impairment, implicit learning, statistical learning, child language development, child language disorders, Specific language impairment (SLI) refers to a group of children who have difficulty acquiring and using language in the absence of hearing, intellectual, emotional, or neurological impairments. Several theories have [...]

White children show marked ingroup race preferences and a relative devaluation of Black people. The origin of these early interracial attitudes is to a large extent still unclear. The studies here test the possibility that preschool-aged children are particularly sensitive to the nonverbal behaviors performed by White adults during interracial interactions. In Study 1, children were shown a video displaying an interaction between a White and a Black adult. Across conditions, the White adult's verbal behaviors were either friendly or neutral, whereas his nonverbal behaviors showed either easiness (e.g., closeness, high eye contact) or uneasiness (e.g., distance, avoidance of eye contact). Results revealed that participants shaped their attitudes toward the Black target accordingly, independently from the White adults' verbal behaviors. Study 2 replicated the basic findings and demonstrated that the observed effects generalized to other Black targets. Results are discussed in relation to current approaches to understanding the formation of racial attitudes among children. Keywords: racial attitudes; nonverbal behavior; children

The present research examined whether the recognizable nonverbal expressions associated with pride and shame may be biologically innate behavioral responses to success and failure. Specifically, we tested whether sighted, blind, and congenitally blind individuals across cultures spontaneously display pride and shame behaviors in response to the same success and failure situations--victory and defeat at the Olympic or Paralympic Games. Results showed that sighted, blind, and congenitally blind individuals from >30 nations displayed the behaviors associated with the proto-typical pride expression in response to success. Sighted, blind, and congenitally blind individuals from most cultures also displayed behaviors associated with shame in response to failure. However, culture moderated the shame response among sighted athletes: it was less pronounced among individuals from highly individualistic, self-expression-valuing cultures, primarily in North America and West Eurasia. Given that congenitally blind individuals across cultures showed the shame response to failure, findings overall are consistent with the suggestion that the behavioral expressions associated with both shame and pride are likely to be innate, but the shame display may be intentionally inhibited by some sighted individuals in accordance with cultural norms. emotion | innate behavioral response | nonverbal expression | self-conscious emotion

Touch procedures have been shown to increase the likelihood of compliance with requests. But the effect of subsequent touches following a classical touch procedure has not been investigated. It was predicted that two touches would lead to more compliance than one touch. 180 male and 180 female bystanders were asked to fill in a short or long questionnaire by a female confederate. They were touched by the confederate either once, twice, or not at all. Results showed that there was more compliance in the two-touch than in the one-touch condition, and when the participants were touched by the confederate. These findings support the hypothesis. Moreover, whereas participants were less likely to fill in the long questionnaire in the no-touch condition, touch procedures led to more compliance whatever the questionnaire length. Also, touch was more effective when a female confederate made the request to a male participant.

Previous research suggests that automatic prejudice directly manifests in nonverbal behavior. The authors offer a more complex picture of the relation between automatic processes and nonverbal behavior by suggesting that any discomfort that appears in nonverbal behavior stems not from negative attitudes per se but from discordance between automatically activated attitudes toward Blacks and the specific evaluations being expressed. White participants for whom estimates of automatic prejudice were available provided videotaped evaluations of several individuals, including two matched Black and White males. Discordance between general racial attitudes and evaluations of specific targets manifested in discomfort-related nonverbal behavior. Moreover, naive Black judges, but not White judges, doubted the sincerity of individuals characterized by discordance. The nature of the nonverbal 'leakage' that automatic prejudice produces is discussed. Keywords: intergroup anxiety; implicit social cognition; prejudice; nonverbal behavior

Many experimental studies have shown that touch increases compliance with a request; however, the difference between the effect of touch on compliance between participants who notice and those who do not notice such contact remains in question. An experiment was conducted in which a female confederate asked 368 female smokers to give her a cigarette. In the Touch condition, when making her request, the confederate slightly touched the participant on her forearm. Analysis showed the touch was associated with significantly higher compliance to the request, and a difference was evident in the Touch condition between subjects who had noticed the tactile contact and those who had not.

Two research questions were posed on the homophily theory of customer-vendor interactions: (a) do vendors show any nonverbal preference for Euro American or African-American customers?; (b) do vendors demonstrate any nonverbal preference for customers with which they share racial homophily? The results supported the homophily theory for Euro-American customers in that there were significant interaction effects by race in facial expression (F=5.33, p

The plural pronouns they and them are used to refer to individuals with unknown gender and when a random allocation of gender is undesirable. Despite this apparently felicitous usage, 'singular they/them' should raise processing problems under the theory that pronouns seek gender- and number-matched antecedents. Using eye-tracking, we investigated whether there was any processing cost associated with using singular they/them. There was a clear cost of number incompatibility for they/them. Thus, although singular they/them is in current usage, it does not appear that they/them is immediately tolerant of a plural antecedent, though such may be rapidly accommodated. The data are consistent with the search account of pronoun resolution and preserve the semantics of they/them as denoting plurality.

For a study of modality differences in deception detection accuracy, groups of graduate students judged segments selected from videotapes of criminal confessions. Twenty brief utterances were presented in four ways: content only transcript, verbatim transcript, audio only, and audio/videotape. No modality difference in unbiased truth hit rate was found, but unbiased lie hit rate varied by modality, with judges of transcripts stripped of pause indications, word repeats, and umms and uhhs less accurate than verbatim transcript judges, audio judges, and audio/video judges. The 62% overall accuracy and 61% lie detection accuracy of audio judges was highest and, in contrast to other judges, audio judgments did not display a response bias. The results remain consistent with the presence of valid visual cues but suggest that at least in some situations focus on valid vocal cues may offer more accuracy. Keywords Criminal confessions * Deception detection * Nonverbal cues * Presentation modality

How sensitive are we to mimicry in speech and gesture, and to what extent does observing mimicry affect our behavior? We addressed this question by asking whether participants who watched a video stimulus containing subtle instances of mimicry would adopt the mimicked features when describing the stimulus. Our participants watched one of four different video clips. The clips showed two people interacting, and contained varying degrees of verbal and gestural mimicry. Participants then described the stimulus, and their speech and gesture were analyzed. Participants who observed more mimicry reproduced more of the mimicked features in their descriptions--despite the fact that these cases of mimicry were quite subtle--indicating a high degree of sensitivity to mimicry. Keywords Gesture * Mimicry * Syntactic Priming

Women's tendency to outperform men on measures of accuracy in interpreting the meaning of nonverbal behavior might be due to such measures being more congruent with women's interpersonal goals than men's. The present study examined undergraduate men's and women's (N = 41) nonverbal judgment accuracy on the Interpersonal Perception Task-15 (IPT-15; Costanzo & Archer, 1993. The interpersonal perception task-15 (IPT-15). Berkeley: University of California Center for Media and Independent Learning) when the purpose for using their judgment skills was manipulated to be either congruent or incongruent with stereotypic 'masculine' and 'feminine' interpersonal goals. Results showed that each gender was at a relative disadvantage in judgment accuracy in the gender-incongruent goal conditions: women were relatively less accurate when they thought the IPT-15 measured judgment skills of use to interrogators in the military, whereas men were relatively less accurate when they thought the IPT-15 measured judgment skills of use to social workers in the social services. Discussion centers on the importance of matching individuals' interpersonal goals to the purpose goals of the measure when using measures of interpersonal sensitivity. Keywords Gender * Goals interpersonal sensitivity * Nonverbal judgment

Schizotypal personality disorder is characterized by interpersonal and verbal communication deficits. Despite the important role of gesture in social communication, no published reports examine the use of gesture by individuals with SPD. In this study, raters code gesture from videotaped interviews of unmedicated adolescents with SPD, other personality disorders, or no Axis II disorder. Results indicate that SPD adolescents show significantly fewer gestures but do not differ from the other groups in overall rate of movement. The findings are discussed in light of brain regions involved in dysfunction, parallels to schizophrenia, and treatment implications. Keywords: gesture, schizotypal, schizophrenia, nonverbal

Human infants can discriminate visual and auditory stimuli solely on the basis of number, suggesting a developmental foundation for the nonverbal number representations of adult humans. Recent studies suggest that these language-independent number representations are multisensory in both adult humans and nonhuman animals. Surprisingly, however, previous studies have yielded mixed evidence concerning whether nonverbal numerical representations independent of sensory modality are present early in human development. In this article, we use a paradigm that avoids stimulus confounds present in previous studies of cross-modal numerical mapping in infants. We show that 7-month-old infants preferentially attend to visual displays of adult humans that numerically match the number of adult humans they hear speaking. These data provide evidence that by 7 months of age, infants connect numerical representations across different sensory modalities when presented with human faces and voices. Results support the possibility of a shared system between preverbal infants and nonverbal animals for representing number.

Purpose: This article reports a study in which referential communication in 11 individuals with Asperger syndrome (AS) and 11 controls was compared between text chat and telephone, using a route-solving task. Method: Participants deduced routes by asking closed questions, and the dependent variables were (a) accuracy in working out the route, (b) number of questions posed (turns taken), and (c) time taken to complete the task. Results: Generally, individuals with AS were equally competent in solving the task in both media but less efficient than the typically developing comparison group. Individuals with AS who had higher measured executive ability adopted a similar approach to the comparison group, asking about landmarks on the map to deduce the route taken. In contrast, AS participants with lower executive ability used an inefficient left/right questioning strategy, which occupied more time, required more conversational turns, and was associated with a higher rate of error. Conclusion: Individuals with AS, who also have problems of executive functioning, may have difficulty communicating with others to use a route-solving task. KEY WORDS: Asperger syndrome, referential communication, computer, text chat, telephone, Asperger syndrome (AS) is a neurodevelopmental disorder that is part of the spectrum of autistic disorders. It is a diagnostic label that has been used synonymously with higher functioning autism [...]

This study investigated whether brief segments of nonverbal behavior or 'thin slices' would be representative of behavior across a longer interaction. It was hypothesized that behavioral slices would correlate with behavior across a full 15-minute interaction. Five commonly investigated nonverbal behaviors were coded: gazing, gestures, nods, smiles, and self-touch. The findings showed moderate to high positive correlations between the thin slices (1-minute slice, total of two 1-minute slices, total of three 1-minute slices) and the full interaction for all five behaviors. In regards to behavioral coding, the thin-slice methodology proposed could save nonverbal researchers considerable time, energy, and money by decreasing resources dedicated to coding behavior in some types of interactions. Such results suggest that thin slices could represent an individual's behavior across a longer length of time. KEY WORDS: thin slice; coding; reliability.

To investigate the influence of different kinds of gesture on children's memory, 60 6- to 7-year-old children participated in an event conducted by the experimenters ('visiting the pirate') and were interviewed to assess memory for the event approximately 2 weeks later. Children were assigned to 1 of 4 conditions; in 3 conditions, gesture was possible (gesture-instructed, gesture-modelled, gesture-allowed) whereas in the fourth condition (gesture-not allowed), children's hands were constrained. The amount of gesture engaged in was limited but was greatest in the gesture-instructed condition. Children in the gesture-instructed condition, who were asked to gesture during the interview, recalled more than did those in the other conditions. Further, relative to children in the gesture-modelledand gesture-allowed conditions, children in the gesture-instructed condition conveyed significantly more information in gesture that had not also been reported verbally. Although further research is necessary to understand the underlying mechanism, the findings suggest that instructing children to gesture as well as verbally recall an experience has cognitive and communicative benefits. KEY WORDS: children; event memory; instructed gesture; spontaneous gesture.

Previous research has shown that individuals unintentionally adjust their behavior to others by mimicking others' actions and by synchronizing their actions with others. This study investigated whether individuals form a representation of a coactor's task when the context does not require interpersonal coordination. Pairs of participants performed a reaction time (RT) task alongside each other, responding to 2 different dimensions of the same stimulus. Results showed that each actor's performance was influenced by the other's task. RTs on trials that required a response from both participants were slowed compared with trials that required only a response from 1 actor. Similar results were observed when each participant knew the other's task but could not observe the other's actions. These findings provide evidence that shared task representations are formed in social settings that do not require interpersonal coordination and emerge as a consequence of how a social situation is conceptualized. Keywords: corepresentation, task sharing, perception-action link, social understanding, joint action

The vertical dimension of interpersonal relations (relating to dominance, power, and status) was examined in association with nonverbal behaviors that included facial behavior, gaze, interpersonal distance, body movement, touch, vocal behaviors, posed encoding skill, and others. Results were separately summarized for people's beliefs (perceptions) about the relation of verticality to nonverbal behavior and for actual relations between verticality and nonverbal behavior. Beliefs/perceptions were stronger and much more prevalent than were actual verticality effects. Perceived and actual relations were positively correlated across behaviors. Heterogeneity was great, suggesting that verticality is not a psychologically uniform construct in regard to nonverbal behavior. Finally, comparison of the verticality effects to those that have been documented for gender in relation to nonverbal behavior revealed only a limited degree of parallelism. Keywords: nonverbal behavior, expression, status, dominance, power

Purpose: This study compared the influence of speaker-implemented iconic hand gestures and alphabet cues on speech intelligibility scores and strategy helpfulness ratings for 3 adults with cerebral palsy and dysarthria who differed from one another in their overall motor abilities. Method: A total of 144 listeners (48 per speaker) orthographically transcribed sentences spoken with alphabet cues (aided), iconic hand gestures (unaided), and a habitual speech control condition; scores were compared within audio-visual and audio-only listening formats. Results: When listeners were presented with simultaneous audio and visual information, both alphabet cues and hand gestures resulted in higher intelligibility scores and higher helpfulness ratings than the no-cues control condition for each of the 3 speakers. When listeners were presented with only the audio signal, alphabet cues and gestures again resulted in higher intelligibility scores than no cues for 2 of the 3 speakers. Temporal acoustic analyses showed that alphabet cues had consistent effects on speech production, including reduced speech rate, reduced articulation rate, and increased frequency and duration of pauses. Findings for gestures were less consistent, with marked differences noted among speakers. Conclusions: Results illustrate that individual differences play an important role in the value of supplemental augmentative and alternative communication strategies and that aided and unaided strategies can have similar positive effects on the communication of speakers with global motor impairment. KEY WORDS: speech therapy, cerebral palsy, intelligibility, augmentative communication, alphabet supplementation, Cerebral palsy is a nonprogressive, neurologically based, motor impairment that is usually diagnosed within the first 18 months of life (Pellegrino & Dormans, 1998; Rosenbaum et al., 2000). Demographic research [...]

Purpose: This study examined the effects of expressive and receptive language levels on initiated and repaired communication acts by prelinguistic children with developmental disabilities. Method: In this descriptive study, participants were 45 children between the ages of 3 and 6 years who had severe delays in expressive communication. Some children communicated with 12 or fewer spoken words; others communicated exclusively with gestures and vocalizations. Participants also had delays in receptive language, and 41 of the 45 had below average IQ scores. The children participated in a scripted interaction with examiners that was designed to provide opportunities to initiate requests and comments, and to repair communication breakdowns. Videotapes of these interactions were later coded for analysis. Results: Regression models indicated that differences in children's expressive communication levels and receptive language scores significantly predicted children's commenting communication acts during the scripted interaction, even after the authors accounted for child IQ. Expressive communication level was also a significant predictor of initiated requests when the authors controlled for IQ. Expressive communication level contributed to the variance in children's repairs following communication breakdowns; however, this contribution was not significant. Conclusion: Differences in levels of prelinguistic communication development predict commenting abilities in children with developmental disabilities but do not appear to predict likelihood to repair communication breakdowns. KEY WORDS: communication breakdown, communication repair, gestures, prelinguistic communication, developmental delay, Before children communicate with words and sentences, they communicate with gestures and vocalizations (Bates, Benigni, Bretherton, Camaioni, & Volterra, 1979; Bruner, 1975; Butterworth & Grover, 1988; Sugarman, 1984). Many children [...]

How impressions of credibility are formed in trial type settings is examined using 173 participants. It is hypothesized that the severity of the penalty faced by an accused individual will increase participant involvement with the accused's testimony. Involvement is predicted to interact with verbal and nonverbal cues associated with deception to influence jurors' honesty judgments. Although penalty severity did not influence participant involvement, results indicate that involvement moderates the effect of verbal cues, but not nonverbal cues, on perceptions of deception. Keywords: Deception; Nonverbal Communication; Verbal Communication; Involvement

Following the gaze direction of conspecifics is an adaptive skill that enables individuals to obtain useful information about the location of food, predators, and group mates. In the current study, the authors compared the gaze-following skills of all 4 great ape species. In the 1st experiment, a human either looked to the ceiling or looked straight ahead. Individuals from all species reliably followed the human's gaze direction and sometimes even checked back when they found no target. In a 2nd experiment, the human looked behind some kind of barrier. Results showed that individuals from all species reliably put themselves in places from which they could see what the experimenter was looking at behind the barrier. These results support the hypothesis that great apes do not just orient to a target that another is oriented to, but they actually attempt to take the visual perspective of the other. Keywords: gaze-following, social cognition, joint attention

A total of 176 computer-generated mannequin figures were produced from descriptions of postural expressions of emotion in order to investigate the attribution of emotion to static body postures. Each posture was rendered from 3 viewing angles and presented to participants in a forced-decision task. Concordance rates for attributions of 6 emotions (anger, disgust, fear, happiness, sadness, and surprise) ranged from zero for many disgust postures to over 90 percent for some anger and sadness postures. Anatomical variables and viewing angle were shown to predict participants' responses. Analysis of the confusion matrix suggested a circumplex solution with happiness and surprise sharing a similar position, and few confusions between the other four emotions. The means by which emotions may be attributed to static body postures are discussed, as are avenues for further research. KEY WORDS: emotion; expression; posture.

This paper introduces a test of the ability to decode emotion of varying intensity in the voices of children. Construction of the measure, the Diagnostic Analysis of Nonverbal Accuracy Child Paralanguage (DANVA2-CP), is described. An initial study using elementary-school-aged children found that accuracy scores increased with age, were internally consistent, and were correlated, as expected, with indices of personality and social competence. Data from 20 additional studies, using participants from across the age range, provided further evidence of construct validity for the DANVA2-CP. Based on the results, it was concluded that the DANVA2-CP may be an appropriate measure of the ability to identify emotion in children's paralinguistic presentations. KEY WORDS: emotion identification; voices.

Cognitive models of social anxiety provide a basis for predicting that the ability to process nonverbal information accurately and quickly should be impaired during the experience of state anxiety. To test this hypothesis, we assigned participants to threatening and non-threatening conditions and asked them to label the emotions expressed in a series of faces. It was predicted that social anxiety would be positively associated with errors and response times in threatening conditions, but not in a non-threatening condition. It was also predicted that high social anxiety would be associated with more errors and longer response times when identifying similar expressions such as sadness, anger, and fear. The results indicate that social anxiety was not associated with errors in identifying facial expressions of emotion, regardless of the level of state anxiety experienced. However, social anxiety scores were found to be significantly related to response times to identify facial expressions, but the relationship varied depending on the level of state anxiety experienced. Methodological and theoretical implications of using response time data when assessing nonverbal ability are discussed. KEY WORDS: attribute-treatment interaction; nonverbal ability; nonverbal communication; response time; social anxiety.

The present study examined the impact of conflict over emotional expression on the nonverbal communication process between romantic partners. Fifty-four romantically involved female undergraduate students who scored within the upper or lower 30th percentile range on the Ambivalence over the Expression of Emotion Questionnaire (AEQ; King & Emmons, 1990) were recruited along with their romantic partners. The facial expressions of these women were examined during a conflict resolution task. Analyses indicated that highly ambivalent women expressed a greater number of negative facial expressions and shorter lasting positive facial expressions (measured with FACES; Kring & Sloan, 1992) than less ambivalent women. These expressions were not entirely explained by current mood, as ambivalence predicted a greater number of negative facial expressions, and a briefer display of positive facial expressions, above and beyond current levels of negative and positive affect. Furthermore, analyses indicated that the number of women's negative expressions predicted significant increases in men's dysphoria and marginal increases in men's anxiety, suggesting potential negative interactional patterns between ambivalent women and their partners. KEY WORDS: ambivalence; conflict over expression; emotional expression; facial expressions; nonverbal communication.

It has long been recognized in the nonverbal communication literature that individual differences in extraversion are expected to be most clearly evident in expressive forms of nonverbal behavior. Although several studies designed to examine the correlation between extraversion and nonverbal behavior have been conducted, most attempts to summarize these studies reflect the inconsistent nature of the research findings. Indeed, correlations range from--.36 to .73. The extant literature summaries are limited to narrative reviews, however, which tend to be highly selective. The purpose of this study was to meta-analyze the relevant studies. Results indicated that the mean correlation coefficient weighted for sample size was .13 for the entire sample of studies. Although 63% of the variance was attributable to sampling error, the distribution of correlations was heterogeneous. The remaining variance was due to two methodological artifacts: sample size and the number of nonverbal behaviors coded. For example, hierarchical breakdowns by moderator indicated that the mean correlation was .50 for highly focused studies--those in which researchers concentrated on a few behaviors and limited coding to 40 or fewer subjects. A cognitive-overload model for these findings is offered and corroborated by findings from other research domains. Implications for communication research and theory are discussed. In addition to clarifying the empirical relationship [TEXT INCOMPLETE IN ORIGINAL SOURCE]

The present studies investigated the effects of dyadic context on judgments of nonverbal behavior associated with rapport. As predicted, the task performed by a dyad, the visible presence or absence of both dyad members, and the sex of the observer affected observer judgments of responsiveness, friendliness, dominance, critical scrutiny, polite sympathy, and high status. The results suggest that dyadic context affects judgments of dyad members' facilitation of rapport by both constraining dyad behavior and affecting observer perception: (a) Dyad members received higher judgments on person-focused behaviors when engaged in a discussion as compared to a puzzle; (b) Visible presence of an interaction partnerled observers to see a dyad member, on the whole, as inhibiting rapport in the interaction; and (c) Female observers perceived dyad members to exhibit more rapport-facilitating behavior. These results have major implications for the way rapport and person perception research is conducted and for understanding interpersonal perception in everyday life. KEY WORDS: context effects; interpersonal sensitivity; methodology; person perception; rapport.

This article showed that television viewers' perceptions can be altered by providing images of talk show hosts and/or talk show reactions that supported, contradicted, or otherwise provided contradictory non verbal cues toward an issue being discussed in that show.

We report evidence for nonverbal 'accents,' subtle differences in the appearance of facial expressions of emotion across cultures. Participants viewed photographs of Japanese nationals and Japanese Americans in which posers' muscle movements were standardized to eliminate differences in expressions, cultural or otherwise. Participants guessed the nationality of posers displaying emotional expressions at above-chance levels, and with greater accuracy than they judged the nationality of the same posers displaying neutral expressions. These findings indicate that facial expressions of emotion can contain nonverbal accents that identify the expresser's nationality or culture. Cultural differences are intensified during the act of expressing emotion, rather than residing only in facial features or other static elements of appearance. This evidence suggests that extreme positions regarding the universality of emotional expressions are incomplete.

Digital immersive virtual environment technology (IVET) enables behavioral scientists to conduct ecologically realistic experiments with near-perfect experimental control. The authors employed IVET to study the interpersonal distance maintained between participants and virtual humans. In Study 1, participants traversed a three-dimensional virtual room in which a virtual human stood. In Study 2, a virtual human approached participants. In both studies, participant gender, virtual human gender, virtual human gaze behavior, and whether virtual humans were allegedly controlled by humans (i.e., avatars) or computers (i.e., agents) were varied. Results indicated that participants maintained greater distance from virtual humans when approaching their fronts compared to their backs. In addition, participants gave more personal space to virtual agents who engaged them in mutual gaze. Moreover, when virtual humans invaded their personal space, participants moved farthest from virtual human agents. The advantages and disadvantages of IVET for the study of human behavior are discussed. Keywords: human representation; proxemics; nonverbal behavior; computer-mediated communication; virtual reality

Based on the premise that human head tilt is homologous to animal dominance displays, we hypothesized that when a head is bowed, the face should be perceived as submissive, sad, displaying inferiority emotions (i.e., shame, embarrassment, guilt, humiliation, and respect) and, paradoxically, as contracting the zygomatic major muscle. Conversely, a raised head should be perceived as more dominant and displaying greater superiority emotions (i.e., contempt and pride). We conducted two experiments showing 3-D models of faces to 64 participants. The results confirmed our hypotheses and also showed that a raised head connotes happiness. In addition, we found a significant influence of the actors' sex on participants' perception, such as a bias towards perceiving stronger upward contraction of the mouth in female than male actors when the head is tilted. We discuss these findings within the context of evolution and social behavior. KEY WORDS: dominance; facial emotion displays; head angle; sex; smile.

The three papers in this special issue provide novel applications of an evolutionary approach to nonverbal behavior. While each analysis of reactions to nonverbal cues has merit, it also is valuable to place these separate phenomena within a broader framework than can encompass them all. The ecological approach to social perception provides such a framework. It conceptualizes all of the reactions as overgeneralizations of responses that are adaptive in their original context, and it suggests proximal mechanisms that can predict ecological variations in these reactions. KEY WORDS: overgeneralization, anomalous appearance; babyface; emotion; attunement; ecological; evolution.

The hypothesis that babyish-looking adult faces would elicit help was tested in a field experiment using the 'lost letter' technique. Digitized images of African-American and European-American adult male and female faces were made to look babyish (neotenous) by substituting enlarged eyes and lips for normal ones. Eyes and lips were reduced in size to make faces look mature. As expected, neotenous features made adults appear submissive, weak, naive, feminine, compassionate, and honest, but not more or less attractive, relative to mature features. Neotenous or mature faces were printed on (fictional) resumes, attached to stamped, addressed envelopes, and 'lost' in the US (n = 408) and Kenya (n = 176). 'Helping' was indexed by whether resumes were posted (returned) or not. Most results supported predictions; across nations, resumes depicting neotenous, white and black female faces and neotenous, white male faces were returned more often than were resumes displaying the mature versions of these faces. Returns for neotenous and mature black male faces, however, were not significantly different. Overall, support was found for the hypothesis that neotenous, submissive-looking facial characteristics cue social approach and elicit help while mature, dominant-looking facial traits cue avoidance. KEY WORDS: cross-cultural; evolution; faces; helping; neoteny.

The majority of nonverbal communication research and pedagogy reproduces heterosexist and sexist ideologies, normalizing and naturalizing gender and sexual binaries, and sanctioning an exceedingly narrow range of gendered and sexualized subjects, practices, and relationships. This essay proposes that nonverbal communication scholarship and pedagogy need to address these issues. First, I provide a brief summary of the history of the field of nonverbal communication. Second, I critique the conspicuous absence of the queer subject, the rigid essentialism, and the pervasive heterosexism in nonverbal communication textbooks in particular. Finally, I discuss three examples of communication research that avoid these pitfalls and herald what queering nonverbal communication might look like. KEYWORDS. Communication, heteronormativity, heterosexism, non-verbal communication, queer theory, sexual identity

The current study examined the role of conflict over emotional expression for subjective and interpersonal functioning. The Ambivalence Over the Expression of Emotion Questionnaire (AEQ) was administered to female students who were videotaped while engaging in a conflict-resolution and feedback task with their boyfriends. External ratings showed ambivalent women to be less positive in their verbal statements and to be more constricted in their nonverbal expressions. When mood and other personality constructs were controlled for, ambivalence entailed greater overt submissiveness. Ambivalent women also displayed lower congruence between their verbal and nonverbal communication, irrespective of depression and other personality variables. These data suggest that conflict over emotional expression entails less congruent communication, less positivity in close relationships, and a subordinate stance for the ambivalent individual. Keywords: ambivalence over emotional expression; verbal communication; nonverbal communication

When we perceive the emotions of other people, we extract much information from the face. The present experiment used FACS (Facial Action Coding System), which is an instrument that measures the magnitude of facial action from a neutral face to a changed, emotional face. Japanese undergraduates judged the emotion in pictures of 66 static Japanese male faces (11 static pictures for each of six basic expressions: happiness, surprise, fear, anger, sadness, and disgust), ranging from neutral faces to maximally expressed emotions. The stimuli had previously been scored with FACS and were presented in random order. A high correlation between the subjects' judgments of facial expressions and the FACS scores was found. KEY WORDS: emotions; FACS: Facial Action Coding System; facial expressions; face perception; static pictures.

The present study investigated whether preschool children could use the conventional 'actions speak louder than words' principle (or the verbal-nonverbal consistency principle) to process information in situations where verbal cues contradict nonverbal cues. Three-, 4-, and 5-year-olds were shown a video in which an actor drank a beverage and made a verbal statement (e.g., 'I like it') that was inconsistent with her emotional expression (e.g., frowning), and were asked whether the actor liked or disliked the beverage. If children used the verbal-nonverbal consistency principle, they should respond according to the information conveyed by the actor's emotional expression. Results showed that when the message was more naturalistic, the majority of children tended to respond based on the actor's verbal message. However, when the inconsistency between the verbal and nonverbal messages was made salient, more children appeared to rely on the nonverbal cue. Younger children's reliance on verbal cues reported in previous research may be partly explained by the salience of the verbal message. KEY WORDS: display rules; emotional expression; inconsistent communication; nonverbal communication; preschool children; verbal-nonverbal consistency principle.