Springer Science and Business Media LLC

Previous research has shown that iconic gestures are effective at communicating semantic information, particularly about the size and relative position of objects. However, the conclusions of these experiments have been somewhat limited by the fact that the methodology has typically involved presenting gesture–speech samples on video rather than in an actual face-to-face context. Because these different viewing conditions can impact on addressees’ behavior and perception, and therefore potentially impact on the amount of information they receive from gestures, the present study compares the communicative effectiveness of iconic gestures when viewed in a face-to-face context compared to when viewed on video. The results are quite striking in that gestures seemed at least as effective, and in some cases even more effective at communicating position and size information when they occurred in the face-to-face condition compared to video.

Adults rate vocalizing 3-month-old boys as more socially favorable (pleasant, friendly, fun, likeable, cuddly, cute) than girls when they are producing syllabic sounds. Is the preference due to gender bias or to actual sex differences in the acoustical quality of early vocalizations? In Experiment 1, 59 adults rated videotaped segments of 4 vocalizing boys and 4 vocalizing girls who were dressed identically in white gowns, and labelled with a name representing their sex or a name of the opposite sex. Two infants of each sex produced syllabic sounds, and 2 produced vocalic sounds. Adults rated boys producing syllabic sounds more favorably even when the boys were labelled with the names of girls. Therefore, the preference was not due to gender bias. In Experiment 2, 3 groups of adults (N = 50, 49, and 50, respectively) each viewed and rated 1 of 3 different sets of videotaped infants. The videotapes contained segments of 8 infants (4 boys, 4 girls, 2 of each producing syllabic sounds, and 2 producing vocalic sounds); infants appeared dressed in identical white gowns and were identified only by number, not by name or sex. In addition to the social favorability ratings, adults guessed the sex of the infant. Adults rated syllabic boys more favorably even though gender was disguised, and even though their guesses of gender were no better than chance. In Experiment 3, the vocalizations of the infants who were heard in the 3 videotapes were subjected to spectrographic acoustic analysis. The acoustic quality of boys' syllabic sounds differed from that of girls' only on the feature of nasality. As expected, syllabic, as compared with vocalic, sounds of both boys and girls were similarly longer in duration and differed in frequency characteristics, but these differences were related only to sound category and not to sex. The variance in adult social favorability ratings due to sex of infant was explained by the less nasal acoustic quality of the boys' voices. These results have implications for early socialization, because we know that mothers respond more to less nasal vocalizations. These results parallel the less nasal quality of men's voices as compared with women's voices, and suggest continuities from early vocalizations to speech.

In the present study subjects acted as senders and receivers of deceptive and nondeceptive person descriptions. From receivers' ratings of these messages measures of their deception accuracy and leakage accuracy were derived, together with a measure of their accuracy in decoding pure (honest) affect. Corresponding measures of each subject's sending abilities were also derived. One aim of the study was to assess the effect on decoding of prior encoding experience; this was achieved by a manipulation of the order in which subjects acted as senders and receivers. A second aim was to assess the effect on decoding of differential access to communication modalities (audiovisual, audio only, and video only). Correlations among sending measures, among receiving measures, and between sending and receiving measures were also examined, as were the relationships between these measures and (a) gender, and (b) Machiavellianism. Send-before-receive subjects obtained higher decoding accuracy scores than did receive-before-send subjects. The modality manipulation did not affect the decoding of deceptive messages, but pure affect accuracy was greater when audio cues were present. As expected, correlations among sending measures were rather greater than those among receiving measures, but the relationships between sending and receiving measures were stronger than anticipated. None of the sending or receiving measures was related to either gender or Machiavellianism. These findings are discussed in relation to previous research on the verbal and nonverbal communication of deception.

Eighty-two younger and older adults participated in a two-part study of the decoding of emotion through body movements and gestures. In the first part, younger and older adults identified emotions depicted in brief videotaped displays of young adult actors portraying emotional situations. In each display, the actors were silent and their faces were electronically blurred in order to isolate the body cues to emotion. Although both groups made accurate emotion identifications well above chance levels, older adults made more overall errors, and this was especially true for negative emotions. Moreover, their errors were more likely to reflect the misidentification of emotional displays as neutral in content. In the second part, younger and older adults rated the videotaped displays using scales reflecting several movement dimensions (e.g., form, tempo, force, and movement). The ratings of both age groups were in high agreement and provided reliable information about particular body cues to emotion. The errors made by older adults were linked to reactions to exaggerated or ambiguous body cues.

Aspects of 47 preschoolers'emotional competence—their patterns of emotional expressiveness and reactions to others' emotion displays—were observed in two settings, with mother and with peers, and their general social competence was rated by their preschool teachers. Intrapersonal and interpersonal (i.e., socialization correlates of children's emotional competence were identified, and a causal model incorporating direct and indirect influences on social competence was evaluated. Maternal patterns of expressiveness, reactions to children's emotion displays, and self-reported affective environment were associated with children's emotional competence in the preschool. Children's emotional competence with mother predicted their emotional competence in the preschool somewhat less strongly, suggesting that emotional competence may differ according to the interpersonal relationship studied. Taken as a whole, findings reassert the importance of the domain of emotional expression to the development of social competence.

Selecting the appropriate size of measurement unit in nonverbal research requires empirical as well as conceptual analysis. A definition is offered to distinguish macroscopic from microscopic measurement. Merits of each measurement approach are reviewed briefly in terms of cost, efficiency, precision, and analysis flexibility, and four additional criteria are advocated as central considerations in choosing measurement units: (1) isomorphism between the form of measurement and the phenomenological experience of interactants, (2) reliability, (3) concurrent validity, and (4) predictive validity. These criteria are applied to the analysis of 20 vocalic and kinesic nonverbal behaviors measured microscopically and macroscopically. Reliability and validity results demonstrate that either approach may be acceptable for many behaviors, but that relatively molecular coding may be preferable for highly dynamic and “objective” behaviors, while relatively molar coding may be preferable for static behaviors and perceptual judgments.

The aim of this study was to investigate the effect of conversational role (speaking versus listening) and conversational agreement (agreement versus disagreement) on eye gaze toward the interlocutor in the context of controversial, political conversations. Previous studies have only examined these variables independently of one another and typically not in face-to-face conversations. Participants briefly discussed four historically partisan social issues with an experimental confederate posing as a participant, who either agreed or disagreed with the viewpoints endorsed by the participant. Participants’ gaze toward the confederate was recorded using a hidden video camera. Consistent with previous research, our results showed that participants looked at the confederate more when listening than speaking. Notably, the magnitude of this listening-speaking difference depended on agreement condition; compared to a baseline non-controversial conversation, disagreement (but not agreement) exacerbated the listening-speaking difference, particularly by increasing gaze during listening. Follow-up analyses showed that emotion, gender, and political ideology did not moderate this effect. Together, these results shed light on factors that affect eye gaze during politically-charged conversations and show that both conversational role and level of agreement work together to exert an influence.