Usage: Each of us gives and responds to literally thousands of
nonverbal messages daily in our personal and professional lives--and while
commuting back and forth between the two. From morning's kiss to
business suits and tense-mouth displays at the conference
table, we react to wordless messages emotionally, often without
knowing why. The boss's head-nod, the clerk's bow
tie, the next-door neighbor's hairstyle--we notice the minutia of nonverbal behavior
because their details reveal a. how we relate to one another, and
b. who we think we are.
A personal reflection. Here's what I think are the two most exciting new discoveries in nonverbal communication. (1) Neural roots for speech and hand gestures have been found in an ancient, shared caudal-hindbrain, rh8-upper-spinal compartment that links laryngeal communication and vocalization to pectoral communication and gesture (Bass and Chagnaud 2013). (2) Mirror neurons enable us to decode the nonverbal actions of others as if we ourselves had enacted them.
Evolution. Anthropologist Gregory
Bateson has noted that our nonverbal communication is still evolving: "If . . .
verbal language were in any sense an evolutionary replacement of communication
by means of kinesics and paralanguage, we would expect the old, predominantly
iconic systems to have undergone conspicuous decay. Clearly they have not.
Rather, the kinesics of men have become richer and more complex, and
paralanguage has blossomed side by side with the evolution of verbal language"
(Bateson 1968:614).
FAQ: A frequently asked question is, "What
percent of our communication is nonverbal?" According to Kramer, "94% of our communication is
nonverbal, Jerry" (Seinfeld, January 29, 1998). Kramer's estimate (like
the statistics of anthropologist Ray Birdwhistell
[65%; Knapp 1972] and of psychologist Albert
Mehrabian [93%; 1971]) are hard to verify. But the proportion of our
emotional communication that is expressed apart from
words surely exceeds 99%. (See below, Media.)
Kinds of
cues. Body-language signals may be a. learned, b. innate, or
c. mixed. Eye-wink, thumbs-up, and military-salute gestures, for
instance, are clearly learned. Eye-blink, throat-clear, and facial-flushing cues, on the other hand, are clearly
inborn or innate. Laugh, cry, shoulder-shrug, and most other body-language signals are
"mixed," because they originate as innate actions, but cultural rules later
shape their timing, energy, and use. Body-language researchers do not always
agree on the nature-nurture issue, however. Like Darwin, human biologists
suppose that many body-motion signs are inborn. Like Birdwhistell, many cultural
anthropologists propose that most or even all gestures are learned, while others
combine the biological and cultural approaches. Research by psychologist Paul
Ekman and his colleagues has shown that the facial expressions of disgust, surprise, and other primary emotions are
universal across cultures.
Literature. "Life is made up of
sobs,
sniffles, and smiles, with sniffles predominating." --O. Henry (Gift
of the Magi)
Media. "To study
language by listening only to utterances, say [University of Chicago professor
of psychology and linguistics, David] McNeill and those who subscribe to his
theories, is to miss as much as 75 percent of the meaning" (Mahany
1997:E-3).
Nature vs. nurture. Many biologists consider
nonverbal signals innate (i.e., unlearned; e.g., Darwin 1872). Cultural
anthropologists think many nonverbal signals are learned by
participation in a social group (e.g., La Barre 1947). Some anthropologists
picture nonverbal signs as being organized into grammatical structures,
like the words and phrases of speech (see Birdwhistell 1970, and Scheflen 1972,
e.g., whose purely linguistic approaches have proven largely unproductive).
Other anthropologists have combined nature and nurture approaches (e.g., Hall
1968). According to an erroneous view espoused by anthropologist Ashley Montagu,
"What is 'innate' in man is an unmatched capacity for learning, and except for
the instinct-like reactions to sudden withdrawal of support and to a sudden loud
noise, he has no instincts" (Montagu 1973:442; cf. such well-known reflexive
body movements as rhythmic searching, grasping, climbing,
and swimming [Eibl-Eibesfeldt 1970]).
Power of nonverbal
signs. "A convincing illustration of the power of nonverbal communication is
the unparalleled political popularity experienced by Ronald Reagan, who very
early in his presidency was dubbed the 'Great Communicator'" (Burgoon et al.
1989:4).
RESEARCH NOTE. The first scientific study of nonverbal communication was published in 1872 by Charles Darwin in his book, The Expression of the Emotions in Man and Animals. Since the mid-1800s thousands of research projects in archaeology, biology, cultural and physical anthropology, linguistics, primatology, psychology, psychiatry, and zoology have been completed, establishing a generally recognized corpus of nonverbal cues. Recent discoveries in neuroscience funded during the 1990-2000 "Decade of the Brain" have provided a clearer picture of what the unspoken signs in this corpus mean. Because we now know how the brain processes nonverbal cues, body language has come of age in the 21st Century as a science to help us understand what it means to be human.
RESEARCH REPORTS: 1. Psychiatrists have found that disturbances in nonverbal communication are "more severe and often longer lasting" than disturbances in verbal language (Ruesch 1966:209). 2. "We have defined over 80 [nonverbal] elements arising from the face and head and a further 55 produced by the body and limbs" (Brannigan and Humphries 1969:406). 3. In a study of language-disabled children, ". . . nonverbal performatives (e.g., pointing, showing, etc.) were not radically different from those of the normal subjects" (Snyder 1978:170). 4. Women are superior to men in decoding nonverbal cues (Rosenthal and DePaulo 1979).
Neuro-notes. Nonverbal messages are so potent and compelling because they are processed in ancient brain centers located beneath the newer areas used for speech (see VERBAL CENTER). From paleocircuits in the spinal cord, brain stem, basal ganglia, and limbic system, nonverbal cues are produced and received below the level of conscious awareness (see NONVERBAL BRAIN). They give our days the "look" and "feel" we remember long after words have died away.
Antonym: WORD. See also BODY
LANGUAGE.
NONVERBAL DREAMING
Sleep signals. Nonverbal communication occurs in the awake state but continues in the sleep state, often in phantasmagoric dreams. Dreaming may involve any or all of the senses (including balance and pain), but rarely involves smell.
Usage. Of what use are dreams? Thinkers from Descartes to Freud to Jung have proposed diverse ideas about dreams and dreaming. Research continues in the 21st Century, but at present there is no definitive answers to the question.
Nonverbal nature of dreams. Dreaming is principally nonverbal, and millions of years older than speech. Research suggests that dreaming is widespread in vertebrates (animals with backbones) and invertebrates, and may be ca. 500 million years old. Its deep neural roots and evolutionary conservation through time attest to dreaming's central role in sleep, a role not yet explained.
Rapid Eye Movement (REM). Our most vivid and complex nonverbal dreams are often audiovisual and take place in the REM sleep stage, detectable in sideward eye movements visible beneath closed lids. Emotional sensations (e.g., of euphoria and fear) along with imaginary and memory-based visions (e.g., of faces and street scenes), tastes (strawberry shortcake), touch (caresses and hugs) and vestibular sensations (falling and flying) take place sequentially in narrative order, from chronological beginning to end. When describing a dream in words, we use temporal-order memory to follow the narrative.
Neural relay. That the sense of smell is virtually absent in dreamland echos the role of the brain's thalamus in dreaming. The thalamus is a central switchboard that links incoming sensory information (excepting smell) to processing centers above. In non-REM sleep the switchboard turns off, while in REM sleep it activates to within waking levels as audio, cognitive, emotional, gustatory, tactile, vestibular and visual centers populate our dreams.
Sensory content. In their review of dreaming research, Fox and colleagues (2013) estimate that 100 percent of human dreams contain visual elements, usually in color (see COLOR CUE and VISION CUE), ca. 57 percent contain audio elements (see AUDITORY CUE) and all other senses account for ca. one percent of dream content (see BALANCE CUE, OLFACTORY CUE, PAIN CUE and TASTE CUE). They estimate, further, that emotions populate ca. 70 to 75 percent of dreams (see EMOTION CUE) and bizarre or impossible dream elements populate between 32 and 71 percent.
Neuro-notes. In dreaming, the brain's afferent sensory channels shut down (see AFFERENT CUE). In REM sleep, efferent channels shut down as well (see EFFERENT CUE) and skeletal body movements cease: nonverbally, the body is silent. Audiovisual dreaming predates speech and involves diverse areas of the hindbrain, midbrain and forebrain. While the body movements and facial expressions we "see" in dreams, as well as the voice tones we "hear," may seem real, they are neurological phantoms, imaginary, elusive and easily forgotten.
Reference:
Fox, Kieran C. R., Nijeboer, Savannah,Solomnova, Elizaveta, Domhoff, G. William, and Kalina Christoff (2013). "Dreaming as Mind Wandering: Evidence from Functional Neuroimaging and First-person Content Reports," Frontiers in Human Neuroscience, Vol. 30 (https://doi.org/10.3389/fnhum.2013.00412 [accessed Aug. 6, 2020]).
See also NONVERBAL COMMUNICATION.
VERBAL COMMUNICATION
Concept. 1. The process of sending and receiving word-based messages by means of manual sign language and voice (see SPEECH, WORD). 2. Also included are written texts (writings) using alphabetic, diagrammatic, ideographic, numeric, pictographic or syllabic signs to convey messages (see INFORMATION). 3. As concepts, though "verbal" and "nonverbal" contrast, they are not logical opposites; both may be intimately linked, and boundaries between the two often overlap.
Usage. Verbal communication is used to record, share, store and transmit information about, e.g., environmental conditions, events, feelings, ideas, locations, measurements, objects and relationships in space and time.
Punctuation. In writing systems, punctuation marks may be both verbal and nonverbal. English ellipses, e.g. (. . .), may be used to suggest a nonlinguistic pause between linguistic signs. English exclamation points (!!) may be used to suggest an emotional commitment or overloud tone of voice. Precise boundaries between verbal and nonverbal signs are not always clear.
Nonverbal steps. Anthropologists estimate that human language originated between ca. 200-thousand (Lieberman 1991) and two-million (Gibson 1993) years ago. Linguistic communication likely evolved from diverse forms of nonverbal communication commencing with electromagnetic transmissions of information and ending with the protean design of the human larynx. Fifteen nonverbal steps leading to speech have been proposed, including acrobatic tongue movements, dexterous lips and binocular vision. Today's verbal communication reflects the earlier medium's role in (1) self-assertion, (2) species recognition, (3) genetic reproduction, (4) emotional expression and (5) attention to objects.
See also NONVERBAL COMMUNICATION.
ZEITGEIST ARCHETYPE
Nonverbal plate tectonics. "Zeitgeist" is a German word for very broad societal outlooks, spirits, fads, fashions and overall tastes of the times. Artwork, for instance, was the dominant zeitgeist of 15th-16th century European Renaissance times. Nonverbally, zeitgeist may be used to label important evolutionary developments that broadly influence and shape our nonverbal communication. So critically basic are these game-changing paradigm shifts that we call them zeitgeist archetypes.
Archetype. English "archetype" derives from Greek "arkhe" (primitive) and "tupos" (model). A nonverbal archetype is a prototypical pattern of wordless behavior and thought that dwells in unconscious recesses of our nervous system and brain. Nonverbal archetypes evident, e.g., in the biology of color vision, the physiology of grasping hands and the primatology of facial expression, continue to motivate human feelings and behavior apart from conscious awareness today.
Among the world's 12 most important nonverbal archetypes are the following:
1. Messaging Molecules (3.7 bya).
Molecular communication began ca. 3.7 bya with blue-green algae, and continues to this day in diverse organs of the human body. Our bodily organs, including the brain and nervous system, communicate information via electromagnetic signals.
Zeitgeist: Messaging molecules provide the background electromagnetic infrastructure required for all nonverbal communication. The underpinning neural framework is entirely out of conscious awareness unless something, e.g., a stomach ache, should signal a malfunction (see ENTERIC BRAIN).
2. Sexual Signaling (2 bya).
The archetype of sexual signaling began ca. two bya with bacteria and continues to this day in human beings. Humans send and receive sexually meaningful nonverbal signs through virtually every sensorimotor channel. Daily sexual signaling occupies significant bandwidth in our nonverbal communication (see LOVE SIGNAL, REPRODUCTIVE FORCE).
Zeitgeist: The Austrian neurologist Sigmund Freud (1856-1939) was correct in asserting that Eros and sexual instincts are dominant themes in human life. Sexuality strongly influences, informs and shapes our fundamental human feelings, thoughts and weltanschauung (world view).
3. Sound & Gesture (500 mya).
It was established ca. 500 mya that vertebrate vocalizations and pectoral gestures should be linked in the stream of nonverbal communication. Researchers have found a physiological connection between aural and gestural channels in a shared compartment of the hindbrain and upper spinal cord (see HANDS, Neuro-notes IV).
Zeitgeist: Vocal-pectoral signs proclaim identity and personal presence: viz., that "I am here." We proclaim our own existence with the sound of our voice (see AUDITORY CUE), our speaking gestures (see SPEECH) and with salutary waves of our hands.
YouTube Video: Watch my colleague Joe Navarro's two minute talk on nonverbal communication.
Copyright 1998 - 2021 (David B.
Givens/Center for Nonverbal Studies)
Photo of New York governor, Eliot Spitzer and wife Silda at a press conference on March 10, 2008. Without acknowledging he had patronized a prostitute, Spitzer apologized for what he characterized as a "private matter." (On March 12, 2008, Spitzer resigned as governor; picture credit: unknown)