Nonverbal Communication

Nonverbal Communication NVC can be communicated through gestures and touch (Haptic
communication), by body language or posture, by facial expression and eye contact. Speech
contains nonverbal elements known as paralanguage, including quality, emotion and speaking
style, as well as prosodic features such as rhythm, intonation and stress.

Types of Non Verbal Communication (NVC)

 Proxemics: physical space in communication

Movement and body position
 Kinesics
 Posture
 Gesture
 Haptic : touching in communication
 Facial Expression
 Eye contact
 Paralanguage: nonverbal cues of the voice

Proxemics

Study of how people use and perceive the physical space around them - space between sender
and receiver of a message influences how message is interpreted. Comfortable personal distances
also depend on the culture, social situation, gender, and individual preference. Hall notes that
different cultures maintain different standards of personal space e.g.

- Latin cultures: relative distances smaller, and people tend to be more comfortable standing
close to each other;

- Nordic cultures the opposite is true.

Space in NVC may be divided into four main categories: intimate, social, personal, and public
space.

Body Language
Body language is a form of non-verbal communication, consisting of body pose, gestures, and
eye movements. Humans send and interpret such signals subconsciously. Study of body
movement and expression is kinesics. Body language may provide cues as to the attitude or state
of mind of a person. For example, it may indicate aggression, attentiveness, boredom, relaxed
state, pleasure, amusement, besides many other cues.

A gesture is a non-vocal bodily movement intended to express meaning. They may be articulated
with the hands, arms or body, and also include movements of the head, face and eyes, such as
winking, nodding, or rolling ones' eyes.

Movement and body position

Posture: used to determine

- Degree of attention or involvement,

- The difference in status between communicators,

- The level of fondness a person has for the other communicator.

Studies investigating the impact of posture on interpersonal relationships: mirror-image

congruent postures, (one person’s left side is parallel to the other’s right side), leads to favorable
perception of communicators and positive speech; forward lean or a decrease in a backwards
lean also signify positive sentiment during communication. Posture is understood through such
indicators as direction of lean, body orientation, arm position, and body openness.

Haptic communication

Means by which people and other animals communicate via touching. 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. Socially acceptable levels of touching varies from one culture to another. In
the Thai culture, touching someone's head may be thought rude. Remland and Jones (1995)
studied groups of people communicating and found that in England (8%), France (5%) and the
Netherlands (4%) touching was rare compared to Italy (14%) and Greece (12.5%).
 Paralanguage: nonverbal cues of the voice

Various acoustic properties of speech such as tone, pitch and accent, collectively known as
prosody, can all give off nonverbal cues. Paralanguage may change the meaning of words.
Prosody may reflect various features of the speaker or the utterance:

- The emotional state of a speaker;

- Whether an utterance is a statement, a question, or a command;

- Whether the speaker is being ironic or sarcastic; emphasis, contrast, and focus;

Other elements of language that may not be encoded by grammar or choice of vocabulary.

Facial Expressions

Charles Darwin's book The Expression of the Emotions in Man and Animals (1872) argues that
all mammals show emotion reliably in their faces. Studies now range across a number of fields,
including linguistics, semiotics and social psychology. Paul Ekman's influential 1960s studies of
facial expression determined that expressions of anger, disgust, fear, joy, sadness and surprise are
universal (not, as had been thought, culturally determined). Ekman developed the Facial Action
Coding System (FACS) to taxonomize every conceivable human facial expression. Ekman
conducted and published research on a wide variety of topics in the general area of non-verbal
behavior. His work on lying, for example, was not limited to the face, but also to observation of
the rest of the body.

Eye Contact

Eye contact needs to be neither too little nor too much. Amount of eye contact is related to
various things, suchas personality type.

Natural Gesture Synthesis:

Gesture Modeling and Animation Based on a Probabilistic Recreation of Speaker Style DFKI
and MPI Informatik generated and animated style-consistent manual gestures, modelled from TV
material of human speakers using handcoded annotations, semantic tags and Markov models.

Using agents with NVC to teach…

Aileo (http://www.alelo.com/aied2009/) develop conversational AI technologies that enable

learners to engage in spoken conversations in foreign languages.

- use immersive 3-D videogame that simulates real-life social communications with “intelligent
virtual humans” that recognize speech, gestures and social behavior.

- If speak and behave correctly, the virtual humans become trustful and cooperative, and provide
information that you need to advance.

- Otherwise, the virtual humans are uncooperative and prevent you from “winning” the game.

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.
Repeating: consists of using gestures to strengthen a verbal message, such as pointing to the
object of discussion. 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.

Interaction, cont.

Complementing: 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. Regulating: Nonverbal behavior also regulates our
conversations. For example, touching someone's arm can signal that you want to talk next or
interrupt. Accenting/Moderating: NV signals used to alter interpretation of verbal messages.
Touch, voice pitch, and gestures used to accent or amplify, or tone down, the message that is
sent.

Space in NVC

 Intimate distance for embracing, touching or whispering

o Close phase – less than 6 inches (15 cm)
o Far phase – 6 to 18 inches (15 to 46 cm)
 Personal distance for interactions among good friends or family members
o Close phase – 1.5 to 2.5 feet (46 to 76 cm)
o Far phase – 2.5 to 4 feet (76 to 120 cm)
 Social distance for interactions among acquaintances
o Close phase – 4 to 7 feet (1.2 to 2.1 m)
o Far phase – 7 to 12 feet (2.1 to 3.7 m)
 Public distance used for public speaking
o Close phase – 12 to 25 feet (3.7 to 7.6 m)
o Far phase – 25 feet (7.6 m) or more

Importance of Nonverbal

• To help make a good first impression.

• Understanding how we come across to customers, our staff, contractors and competitors, etc.

• Sending the right messages – managers and leaders using the non verbal messages to lead etc.

• Reading some of the basic signals to help build rapport, gain trust and improve the morale.

• Understanding non verbal communication can confirm or contradict the words actually spoken.

References

https://www.inf.ed.ac.uk/teaching/courses/hc1/slides1011/slides26.pdf

https://www.iirsm.org/sites/default/files/Understanding%20the%20Importance%20of
%20Nonverbal%20Communication.%20Dan%20Terry.pdf