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Non-verbal communication

People with schizophrenia and their ability to recognize nonverbal cues. Nonverbal Communication Blog

By 4 Mins Read

Friends of the Nonverbal Communication Blog, this week we present the paper “The Impact of Poor Nonverbal Social Perception on Functional Capacity in Schizophrenia”, by Chapellier, V.; Palivdou, A.; Maderthaner, L.; von Känel, S. and Walther, S. (2022), in which authors carry out a study with people with schizophrenia to know if their ability to recognize nonverbal cues is the same as that of people who do not live with the disease.

Schizophrenia is a severe psychiatric disorder, affecting almost 1% of the world’s population. It is characterized by delusions, hallucinations and, in general, negative symptoms that impair social cognition. 

Generally, by social cognition we mean the psychological processes that allow us to decode the behaviors and intentions of others. Moreover, its impairment is not only frequent in patients with schizophrenia, but also in patients with psychosis. 

Social cognitive deficits are assumed to be a stable trait that precedes and thus helps predict the onset of schizophrenia. And furthermore, it informs on the relapse frequency of patients. 

Therefore, these deficiencies play a key role, not only in the development of the disorder but also in the functional outcome of patients. 

Nonverbal social perception, which is the ability to decode relevant, nonverbal interpersonal cues, appears to be impaired in patients with schizophrenia, according to several studies from some years ago (reference to these can be found in the original article). 

The correct interpretation of, for example, facial expressions and body movements, greatly limits the communication of patients with schizophrenia: they have a greater tendency to perceive ambiguous gestures and direct gaze as self-referential or even threatening. 

Despite attempts to understand these social cognitive deficits in people with schizophrenia, the role of nonverbal social perception remains poorly understood. 

A 2002 study mentions that impaired nonverbal social perception is related to symptoms of disorganization, which, in turn, could be associated with schizophrenia.

In addition, deficits in nonverbal social perception have been associated in some studies with poor functional outcome, and this in turn is related to poor adaptive skills relevant in the real world for people’s daily functioning. 

The aim of this study was to determine whether patients with schizophrenia are more successful performing nonverbal cue recognition tasks, in addition to briefly exploring the above ideas. 

To do so, they gathered 41 clinical patients suffering from schizophrenia and 30 people without the disease to act as a control group. Data were collected between December 2019 and June 2021. 

Nonverbal social perception was assessed using sound videos and psychologically valid scales with subscales to obtain information about accuracy in interpreting facial expressions, emotional prosody, and body movements. 

Authors obtained data that allowed them to confirm that patients with schizophrenia do, indeed, have worse accuracy in nonverbal social perception compared to the control group. 

Most interestingly, their performance worsens markedly when it comes to recognizing prosodic cues. Regarding other channels of nonverbal expression, the differences were not very marked. 

Moreover, as authors expected, impaired nonverbal social perception was associated with limited functional ability. This has repercussions in, for example, poor self-care skills, few activities in general or impaired work skills. 

Thus, the difficulty in decoding nonverbal cues in patients with schizophrenia is key to their ability to function normally in daily life. 

Authors propose that future studies should attempt to determine if there is any type of intervention that will alive these nonverbal perception deficits. This is tremendously important for improving the social and community functioning of people living with schizophrenia, as well as helping them to have an overall higher quality of life, similar to those who are fortunate enough not to have schizophrenia. 

If you want to know more about nonverbal behavior and how it affects personal relationships, visit our Master of Science in Nonverbal and Deceptive Behavior, which you can take in English or Spanish, with special grants for readers of the Nonverbal Communication Blog.

People don’t always say what they think, but their body reveals everything. Learn to interpret these hidden messages with the Master in Nonverbal Behavior. This program is 100% online, allowing you to study from anywhere. Earn your degree from Evidentia University, a university licensed in the United States, guaranteeing high-quality education under the highest international standards. All of this from just $208 USD per month.

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Sorry, not sorry: the nonverbal language of genuine apologies and fake apologies. Nonverbal Communication Blog

By 5 Mins Read

Friends of the Nonverbal Communication Blog, this week we present the paper “Sorry, not sorry: Effects of Different Types of Apologies and Self-Monitoring on Non-verbal Behaviors” by Yamamoto, K.; Kimura, M. y Osaka, M. (2021), in which authors carry out a laboratory experiment to see the differences between true apologies and fake apologies.

One of the topics studied with more interest within nonverbal language is deception detection. Inside this, which is very complex and extensive, we find apologies: is there a way to know when they are genuine and when they are false?

What we know for sure is that apologies serve the important social function of facilitating interpersonal forgiveness. However, they are not always effective. Whether or not you resolve the conflict generally depends on the perception of the apology: is it trustworthy, genuine, and sincere? Then, surely, it will be successfully accepted.

We can divide the apology into two types: on the one hand, we have the sincere apology, made from the heart, which requires feeling guilt, recognition and acceptance of responsibility; on the other hand, we have the instrumental apology, made with a purpose, such as avoiding punishment or rejection, without acknowledging guilt or accepting responsibility.

The latter do not resolve conflicts because the reasons of them are repeated over and over again when there is no acceptance of responsibility or awareness of guilt. However, these apologies can be helpful when it comes to simply appeasing the emotions of others, as may be the case with seller/server-customer relationships.

Regarding nonverbal behavior in apologies, several studies have shown that nonverbal displays of sadness and/or remorse facilitate the positive effects of apology more than smiling. Furthermore, they also reduce the negative feelings of the aggrieved part.

There is a social belief that looking away is a reliable indicator of deception but appears that the opposite is true. Experts have shown that people who lie make more eye contact than those who tell the truth, because they have the intention of appearing convincing. Taking this into account, and also the fact that the feeling of guilt typical of a genuine apology is related to the aversion of the gaze, authors consider that in instrumental apologies there will be greater eye contact.

On the other hand, authors investigate self-control. Individuals with a high level of self-control are more concerned with the adequacy of their social behavior according to the context in which they find themselves, so they are more likely to adapt their behavior according to the situation. In other words, it is logical to think that these people would find it easier to adjust their facial expression to simulate a genuine apology.

Authors conducted an experiment to explore all these questions. In it, they gathered a total of 53 people, assigning 27 of them to the condition of sincere apology and 26 to the condition of instrumental apology.

Participants were instructed to watch a video where a waiter offered a glass of water to a customer: it was spilled on the customer, making him angry. For those participants assigned to sincere apology status, it was the waiter’s fault. For those participants assigned to instrumental apology status, it was the client’s fault. Both types of participants were asked to represent an apology.

The first hypothesis that authors propose was that the aversion to the gaze was more likely to occur in a sincere apology than in an instrumental apology. In this regard, the results suggest that a person with high self-control tries to convey a sincere apology by maintaining greater eye contact, whether we are talking about a genuine apology or an instrumental apology.

On the other hand, authors hypothesized that instrumental apologies would facilitate longer lasting facial expressions than sincere apologies. This was one of the main ideas because numerous experts have shown that fake facial expressions last longer than those that are sincere.

Supporting this hypothesis, the results show a longer duration of expressions in the upper half of the face in instrumental apologies than in sincere apologies.

In a nutshell, people with high self-control and good public performance tried to convey an apology to the client by combining increased eye contact and facial displays of remorse, even though they did not feel guilty.

There are some limitations of the study, for example, the nonverbal behavior obtained in a role-playing game can be different from the spontaneous expression.

In addition to continuing to investigate this dynamic, authors recommend delving into issues such as how the burden of an instrumental apology affects the person who apologizes.

They also consider that the findings of this study are important to improve the relationship between salespeople or servers and customers, and also interpersonal relationships in general.

Nonverbal behavior has a significant impact on both personal and professional relationships. If you want to better understand this impact, the Master in Nonverbal Behavior is for you. Study online at your own pace and earn a degree from Evidentia University, a university licensed in the United States, guaranteeing high-quality education that meets the highest international standards. Study from just $208 USD per month.

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Nonverbal Behavior speaks relational messages of dominance, trust, and composure. Nonverbal Communication Blog

By 5 Mins Read

Friends of the Nonverbal Communication Blog, this week we present the paper “Nonverbal Behaviors ‘Speak’ Relational Messages of Dominance, Trust, and Composure” by Burgoon, J. K.; Wang, X.; Chen, X.; Pentland, S. J. and Dunbar, N. E. (2021), in which authors wonder what the nonverbal signals of dominance, trust and composure are, and, moreover, how easily is for technological devices to perceive them.

We know that, thanks to nonverbal signals we can interpret more accurately the messages we receive in interpersonal relationships, as well as we are able to emit them more effectively.

Due to their importance, without them our communication skills would be greatly diminished.

Until few years ago, we only had the human capacity of observation to study nonverbal behavior, but with the development of new technologies, it seems that the precision with which this type of behavior is investigated, could become more objective and studied in more detail.

Authors of this paper choose three relevant traits of personality, which are dominance-submission, composure-nervousness and trust-distrust.

In addition, they propose to detect them with the help of technological devices. In this way, authors can check to what extent we can trust technology in this matter.

We will talk about dominance-submission first. Dominance is one of the most recognized human personality and behavior traits in personal relationships.

Authors point out some nonverbal behaviors that may be related to dominance. For instance, silence, lower vocal pitch, loudness or rapid speech rate, in relation to prosody.

Previous studies have reported that facial expressions such as lowered brows or a non-smiling mouth are associated with perceived dominance too.

Regarding body movements, the contraction of the body and gaze avoidance would be associated with the opposite extreme of dominance, that is, submission.

In dominant people, more expansive body postures appear, with upward inclinations of the head.

On the other hand, we have composure-nervousness. Generally, when levels of composure or calm increase during interactions, more positive outcomes appear. For instance, manager composure leads to increased employee satisfaction.

People with this personality trait are thought to have a pleasant facial gesture, frequently showing emotions in their voices, being expressive, talking a lot. They have a relaxed head and body posture and tend to be relaxed in general.

Regarding prosody, they tend to have a lower tone of voice, a contained and relaxed laugh and a moderate volume.

On the other hand, it is considered that people who are nervous are more rigid, tense, tend to avoid eye contact and have a higher tone of voice.

Finally, trust-mistrust appears. This is expressed in interpersonal relationships, and usually appears in the form of reciprocity, convergence and synchrony when two or more people interact. Furthermore, it seems that it is difficult to associate these traits with nonverbal behaviors objectively.

To carry out their study and find out if technological devices can be used to study these mental states in an objective way and precisely, authors designed an experiment.

A total of 379 people participated in it. Authors used board games with a certain role-playing component, in which volunteers interacted in small groups.

These groups were divided into two, creating a rivalry between them within the same game.

Participants’ faces, gestures and body movements were measured with cameras and microphones that were in the devices each one of them had in front of.

Later, after watching the recordings of their companions, they were told that they had to rate other participants on the dimensions of dominance-submission, composure-nervousness and trust-distrust, according to a list of relevant factors.

Results showed that dominance was associated with the majority of factors (101/150). The perception of dominance, according to the results, was associated with a high volume of voice, a more expressive facial nonverbal behavior, more head movements and longer speaking turns.

On the other hand, we have the nonverbal signals of nervousness and composure. Authors originally believed that nervousness would be perceived by a high-pitched tone of voice, but results were not consistent with this idea. However, they did confirm others, such as that people who are nervous tend to have a more rigid body posture.

Finally, we have trust-mistrust. It was the most difficult to detect. No facial expression or body movement was found to suggest that an individual was dealing with a person who could be trustworthy.

Authors suggest this happened because none of the participants knew each other and, therefore, it was very difficult to establish a relationship of trust or mistrust in such a short time.

In a nutshell, results tell us that, although thanks to technological devices we can objectively register nonverbal behaviors, the help of people is still needed, so that nothing is overlooked.

An important advance of this study is that for the recognition of personality traits, groups of people were used, instead of making pairs, which has been the most common way to carrying out this type of studies.

Authors propose to continue improving technological resources in order to make their performances better and, in the future, to use them as 100% accurate nonverbal detectors.

Effective communication goes beyond words—it’s in behavior. With the Master in Nonverbal Behavior, you will learn to interpret gestures and micro-expressions that reveal what is left unsaid. The program is 100% online, giving you the freedom to study from wherever you prefer. You will also earn a degree from Evidentia University, a university licensed in the United States that guarantees internationally recognized, high-quality education. Study from just $208 USD per month.

If you prefer, you can obtain your Certificate in Nonverbal Communication by clicking here.

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How does nonverbal behavior influence facial identification at passport controls? Nonverbal Communication Blog

By 5 Mins Read

Friends of the Nonverbal Communication Blog, this week we present the paper “Body language influences on Facial Identification at Passport Control: an exploration in virtual reality” by ummon, H. M.; Allen, J. and Bindemann, M. (2020), in which authors study the influence of nonverbal behavior in the identification of people at passport controls using virtual reality’s tools.

Nowadays, we live in a globalized world, where it is possible to move around for (almost) the whole planet without problem.

That is why it is necessary to correctly identify people, in order to carry out a record of who gets in and out of the countries.

People in charge of passport controls are forced to routinely observe a large volume of passengers, usually through photographic documentation, comparing the image of the passport with the person in front of them.

A security problem arises with imposters and identity thieves, who travel with illegal documents, property of someone who looks like them, in order to not being detected.

Authors thought that they could investigate this problem from an approach that had not been studied until now.

We know that nonverbal behavior influences practically any area of life and interpersonal relationships, but does it also affect the identification of people at airports? And if so, how?

Generally speaking, there is already some evidence that information transmitted by body affects the identity match.

For instance, although face is more important when it comes about identifying a person, the precision with which this task is performed is greater if the body and face are both present.

That is, people are easier to distinguish when they are complete, than when just appear isolated faces or bodies.

Authors comment some commonsense ideas that we all think are true. For example, that impostors, by seeking to remain undetected, can fail on their intentions by transmitting behavioral signals of anxiety, such as changes in their body posture or movements with their limbs.

To investigate this matter, authors carried out a total of 6 experiment. Their results are explained in the following paragraphs.

In general, they all consisted on participating subjects identifying and matching, in a virtual reality environment, people with the photographs of their passports.

The first experiment investigates whether unusual body language influences the person’s identification with his/her passport photograph. The most important idea obtained was that the level of body language activity did not seem to influence the identification of the person in the first instance.

Therefore, the second experiment was carried out to investigate the possibility that the intensity differences were very subtle, and that that was the reason why there were no differences observed. Still, the results appeared to be inconclusive.

An argued possibility was that, since participants did not know that they should look specifically at nonverbal behavior, it had not influenced their opinions. At the third experiment, they were told they should pay attention to it.

Obtained results indicated that those avatars that exhibited unusual body language tended to be classified as not concordant with their passport photo. Nevertheless, most of the avatars whose behavior was classified as unusual, had very vivid body movements.

Therefore, authors asked themselves whether avatars had been classified as non-concordant with their passports simply because they increased normal body language. This is what was explored in the fourth experiment.

In this one, avatars with a calm attitude influenced participants much less than those with a livelier body behavior, suggesting, again, that what most affects when it comes about identifying a person with their passport, is the increasement in body language.

To verify this point, authors carried out the fifth experiment with only two types of avatars: inactive and very active. Previously, there was a third group of avatars with a halfway behavior between both extremes, but it was suppressed for the fifth experiment.

The result was that, indeed, it seems that presenting a body language considered unusual, such as an exaggerated or very lively body behavior, would affect the matching of faces and, therefore, the identification of people and their passport photos.

In the final experiment, authors attempt to investigate why this identification bias arises.

They conclude that there are several potential explanations for this effect. For instance, it could be that the occurrence of a high level of activity in body language, in an unexpected or unusual way, distracts people so that they cannot extract relevant visual information from faces in order to perform identification tasks successfully.

Despite all this, authors point out that it seems that body language would only decisively influence in this context when people are aware of that they must pay attention to it.

A limitation of this study is that, despite carrying out six experiments, authors do not consider that enough tests were achieved.

Therefore, they emphasize that it is necessary to delve into this topic to know how the knowledge of nonverbal behavior can help to improve security in this type of controls.

Would you like to become an expert in nonverbal behavior analysis? With the Master in Nonverbal Behavior, you will master the art of interpreting gestures, expressions, and body language that reveal more than words. This program is 100% online, allowing you to study at your own pace, and earn an accredited degree from Evidentia University, a university licensed in the United States, ensuring a high-quality education that meets the highest international standards. All of this from just $208 USD per month.

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Students’ perceptions about verbal and nonverbal behavior during and after the Covid-19 pandemic. Nonverbal Communication Blog

By 4 Mins Read

Friends of the Nonverbal Communication Blog, this week we present the paper “Students’ perceptions of verbal and non-verbal communication behaviors during and after the Covid-19 pandemic”, by Dragomir, G. M.; Fărcasiu, M. A. and Simon, S. (2021), in which authors carry out a study to know how the modification of interpersonal relationships during and after Covid-19 has affected university students.

We all know that the Covid-19 pandemic has shaken and disrupted the physical health and emotional state of the whole world.

It has wreaked havoc on people’s lives and changed their behaviors in record time like never seen before.

As a result of the confinement, the separation, isolation and fear of the unknown, not only the psychological well-being of health workers at the forefront of risk has been impaired, but also in the general population.

In addition to all this, it became clear that the disease has also affected relationships between people by influencing the way we communicate with each other both verbally and nonverbally.

On an interpersonal level, communication has suffered a lot due to masks, which undoubtedly help our health and fight against the virus, but strain our daily face-to-face communication.

It has also suffered due to the rules of social distancing, which forced people to adapt to these new living conditions by adopting contactless meetings, or by changing in-person communication for online platforms such as Zoom or Microsoft Teams.

Previous studies have shown that personality traits such as extraversion and introversion play a huge role in the burnout result from working from home and using these platforms.

For example, extroverts were more exhausted than introverts, since the latter felt more comfortable in this configuration.

In addition, the level of intimacy achieved in video calls, with close-ups and direct gazes, is usually reserved for intimate relationships but it has become the new way of interacting with co-workers and acquaintances, and it seems to disrupt our productivity.

On the other hand, despite being necessary to protect our health, masks have a great disadvantage for interpersonal communication: they hide people’s facial expressions.

Having been studied from different perspectives, these expressions are considered the most important part of our non-verbal arsenal, since they communicate emotions and, in addition, they are a part of the body that we pay a lot of attention to in our interactions.

Nonverbal behavior has the function of helping to decode the interlocutor’s verbal message, as well as her/his feelings. Unfortunately, the masks cover the middle and lower area of ​​the face, which partially and negatively affects this decoding.

This study sheds light on this moment in our lives when face masks and the virtual world have become our new normality.

It is focused on university students, very young and energetic people, and therefore very affected by the pandemic.

It analyzes the impact of this on young people and also how they think it will affect them in the future. That is, whether they will maintain some of the behaviors adopted during the pandemic in the future or not.

It was conducted using an online questionnaire between April 1 and May 30, 2021.

The results obtained regarding to verbal communication reveal that students seem to have adopted the rules very well and effortlessly when it comes about switching to the online world, thanks to being already accustomed to using technology.

By wearing masks, to make themselves being understood better, students seem to have got accustomed to repeat sentences sometimes, using the voice, its pitch, and volume as compensation. In addition, they mentioned focusing more on the upper part of the face, sometimes exaggerating the movements of these areas. They try to listen more accurately and use more or bigger gestures.

Some of the respondents reported having enjoyed social distancing rules at some point, which is consistent with the findings previously mentioned about extraversion and intraversion.

On the other hand, they admit that some new practices, such as greeting each other in a different way in the future or exaggerating the movements of the upper face area and make them livelier, will probably leave a mark on their future behavior.

Nonverbal behavior has a significant impact on both personal and professional relationships. If you want to better understand this impact, the Master in Nonverbal Behavior is for you. Study online at your own pace and earn a degree from Evidentia University, a university licensed in the United States, guaranteeing high-quality education that meets the highest international standards. Study from just $208 USD per month.

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Perception

How distrust and fake cues of deception contribute for us to make inexact judgements in lie detection. Nonverbal Communication Blog

By 6 Mins Read

Friends of the Nonverbal Communication Blog, this week we present the paper “The Limits of Conscious
Deception Detection: When Reliance on False Deception Cues Contributes to Inaccurate Judgements”,
by Stel, M.; Schwarz, A.; van Dijk, E. and van Knippenberg, A. (2020),in which authors explore the ideas
of unconscious thought, fake cues of deception and people’s ability to detect lies.

We have already seen in several articles how the ability to deception detection, in addition to being one of the most interesting fields in the study of non-verbal language, is an extremely important and practical skill in everyday life.

However, it is important to remember that most studies show that the level of this ability does not usually exceed the level of probability.

One of the arguments used to explain this is that people have a tendency to believe in the information that is presented to them. This is called the truth bias or the “default value of truth.” Since most communications are honest most of the time, the benefits of believing are higher than the costs of the occasional deception. Therefore, it is understood that people can detect truths with greater precision than lies.

So, if overconfidence gets in the way of a successful deception detection, wouldn’t mistrust be an antidote to it?

In this article, authors investigate whether people’s ability to detect deception varies depending on whether or not they feel mistrust.

Previous research shows that increasing suspicion would decrease truth bias. However, studies about the effects of suspicion on the accuracy of deception detection offer mixed results: some are positive and others negative.

But only a few studies on deception detection focused on the effects of mistrust instead of suspicion. They are similar concepts, but different. In a state of suspicion, the perceivers are not sure of the motivations of the others; while in a state of mistrust, negative expectations about these motivations are added. As a result, suspicious perceivers are more willing to seek information to determine whether or not someone else’s motivations are honest. On the other hand, mistrust affects the perceiver’s need to face a possibly threatening situation. By having different effects, they are likely to affect deception detection abilities differently as well.

According to some experts, distrust indicates that the environment is not the usual and, as a result, people avoid routine strategies, and examine deeply more people’s behavior. This encourages deliberate conscious processing, whereas when we have signals that a situation is safe, less effort cognitive processing is encouraged.

In other words, it is suggested that a state of mistrust would promote the conscious processing of information, while a state of trust would promote intuitive or unconscious processing. Decisions for both thought forms have differences: for unconscious thinking decisions, attention is directed elsewhere before making them; for conscious or automatic decisions, the decision is made immediately. All this makes these ideas attractive to authors and they decide to explore them.

Other findings suggest that conscious processes may hamper the ability to detect deception. Judging whether a person is truthful or deceiving us, can be a complex decision to make. First, we evaluate the signals, such as the level of detail, the plausibility of the story …, and this is cognitively demanding. Second, we must process verbal and nonverbal content, and pay attention to different types of observable cues. Because judging whether a person is telling the truth or not is a demanding process, the theory of unconscious thought suggests that the detection of deception can be better handled with it, since it is assumed that the unconscious thought would have more processing power.

Research focused directly on conscious and unconscious thinking showed that people’s ability to detect deception increased when they were prevented from consciously deliberating on the information presented.

For the experiment carried out, authors used covert manipulation, causing observers to adopt facial expressions of distrust (narrowed eyes) or confidence (wide eyes). The aim was to induce these states of mind, based on previous studies.

A total of 93 university students participated and watched eight video clips showing a person lying or telling the truth. The participants were then asked how much they trusted this person, requiring a score on a scale to measure this aspect.

A second study was conducted that investigated whether confidence in the use of false indicators of deception influenced mistrust in detection. 54 people participated in it. The experiment was similar to the first one, but the participants had to explain why they trusted or mistrusted the people in the videos.

Although increasing mistrust was expected to reduce the truth bias, the results did not show that distrustful people were less likely to mistake a lie for a truth. On the contrary, it happened that mistrust led the participants to confuse truths with lies.

That is, mistrust led participants to misjudge those who told the truth as liars. Furthermore, with study 2, it was shown that distrustful people relied more on false beliefs about lying when judging truth-tellers than when judging liars.

Although the existence or not of benefits in unconscious deception judgments was finally not directly proven, authors showed that contextually induced modes of thought affect the ability to detect deception, when confidence or mistrust was induced in the subjects.

One limitation is that the sample in Study 2 is quite small, and as such, the results should be interpreted with caution.

In conclusion, authors showed that contextual mistrust difficulties people’s ability to detect deception, especially for those who tell the truth, who are often judged as liars.

If you want to know more about nonverbal behavior and how it influences our personal relationships, visit our Nonverbal Communication Certificate, a 100% online program certificated by the Heritage University (Washington) with special discounts for readers of the Nonverbal Communication Blog.

Did you know that most human communication is nonverbal? The Master in Nonverbal Behavior will help you understand this invisible part of communication and use it to your advantage in both your personal and professional life. Study at your own pace with this 100% online program and earn a degree from Evidentia University, a university licensed in the United States, guaranteeing high-quality education. All of this from just $208 USD per month.

If you prefer, you can obtain your Certificate in Nonverbal Communication by clicking here.

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Which are the effects of being dominant or passive in a negotiation? Nonverbal Communication Blog

By 5 Mins Read

Friends of the Nonverbal Communication Blog, this week we present the paper “Towards Understanding the Effect of Voice on Human-Agent Negotiation”, by Mania, J.; Miedema, F.; Browne, R.; Broekens, J. and Oertel, C. (2020), in which authors wonder how the dominance in the voice affects negotiations. 

With the development of technology, virtual agents and social robots increasingly integrated into society, it is important to know the effects of nonverbal behaviors when we are interacting.

A very interesting area in which to apply this knowledge is negotiation, where social robots are being used more and more frequently.

A negotiation is made up of several elements, ranging from negotiation tactics to the influence of the personality of the one who negotiates. One point that authors consider important to mention, is that negotiation between humans has tended to focus much more on tactics than on this last point.

In recent years, an increasing amount of research has focused on equipping virtual negotiation agents with human-comparable social skills. An example is that they are increasingly capable of adapting their negotiation tactics according to the behavior shown by the human.

Attention has also been paid to endowing the virtual agent with the ability to express social cues such as dominance. Through implementing nonverbal signals from different channels, such as body posture, facial expressions, gaze, head tilt, among others, it was shown that dominance, as a sign of power, can also affect negotiations with virtual agents.

Although many studies focused on this topic emphasize the importance of voice, it has rarely been studied explicitly. In addition, the negotiator’s perception of the other person’s voice, and how this affects the negotiation process, has not been studied either.

The main objective of this study is to explore the effects of vocal dominance on human-to-human negotiation.

Dominance can be defined as communicative behavior used to influence others and to extend one’s power.

It has been shown that hearing people are able to infer attitudes and affective states of the speaker based solely on acoustic characteristics, and to do so, moreover, with an accuracy greater than luck levels. It is known that vocal variability, volume, interruptions, pauses, speech speed, pitch and vocal relaxation are essential aspects to transmit or not vocal mastery.

In interactions between people, the pleasant and warm communication style with a high degree of courtesy is perceived as less dominant. The person exhibiting this behavior will be perceived as generous, and will expect his/her opponent to reward him/her with warmth and a good atmosphere in the negotiation. In addition, these people tend to have a behavior that facilitates opening up to the opponent and increases the probability of reaching agreements. However, him/her is also perceived as less competent and easier to exploit.

Behaviors perceived as dominant achieve greater gains in individual negotiations. A tougher and firmer communication style generally results in better economic outcomes and more beneficial counteroffers.

To examine the influence of verbal expression of dominance, concession tactics, and the moderating effect of negotiation type on negotiation outcomes and perception, an online experiment was conducted.

In it, two types of tactics were used: the individualistic and the neutral. The individualist belongs to the group of competitive negotiation and therefore more dominant; in the neutral tactic small concessions are made and a more collaborative behavior is shown. In addition, vocal dominance and concession tactics were used as factors of interest.

Each participant was asked to play a negotiation game and at the end was asked to explain his/her opinion about the simulation.

The results confirmed, to a small extent, the expectations derived from previous studies on negotiations between humans. Following the findings of Belkin et al., where dominance leads to higher profits, and the findings of Rosenthal, where dominant negotiation agents are more persuasive, manipulated vocal dominance was expected to lead to better negotiation outcomes.

However, this did not happen that way. In the study, the level of dominance was deduced from the voice alone, without additional cues such as facial expressions or gestures. As a consequence, the effects of dominance might have been milder.

Furthermore, although the individualist tactic and the neutral tactic were used, there were no significant differences in how one or the other influenced the usefulness of the agreement.

It is true that participants perceived the individualistic tactic as more unfair than the neutral one. In the first, they perceived that the opponent was destined to achieve only their own goals.

The participants perceived differences with respect to the vocal domain. The group that negotiated with the agent with high vocal dominance finished the negotiation in fewer rounds. When the low vocal dominance agent was interacted with, the subjects felt that there was more to gain and therefore negotiated in more rounds.

In future studies, authors point out that it would be interesting to include additional multimodal cues, such as gaze and facial expressions.

If you want to know more about nonverbal behavior and how it influences our personal relationships, visit our Nonverbal Communication Certificate, a 100% online program certificated by the Heritage University (Washington) with special discounts for readers of the Nonverbal Communication Blog. 

Did you know that most human communication is nonverbal? The Master in Nonverbal Behavior will help you understand this invisible part of communication and use it to your advantage in both your personal and professional life. Study at your own pace with this 100% online program and earn a degree from Evidentia University, a university licensed in the United States, guaranteeing high-quality education. All of this from just $208 USD per month.

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Non-verbal communication

Can I have your number? Men’s perceived effectiveness of pick-up lines used by women. Nonverbal Communication Club

By 5 Mins Read

Friends of the Nonverbal Communication Club, this week we present the paper “Can I have your numer? Men’s perceived effectiveness of pick-up lines used by women” by Fisher, L. M.; Coughlin, S. and Wade, T. J. (2020), in which authors wonder which are the most effective pick-up lines used by women to flirt with men, according to men’s perceptions.

One of the areas in which knowing nonverbal communication and nonverbal behavior is more interesting is flirting.

Both men and women worry about how they are perceived by the sex they are interested in, and not few work in order to improve this. In fact, we are sure that all of us have think of any strategy to be more attractive to our love interest’s eye.

One of the most interesting points of nonverbal behavior applied to flirting, is how conversations focused on dating are started. Which approximation will guarantee us success? Which one shall we avoid?

Most of the research on pick-up lines pertains to how men commonly use them to encourage conversation with women, to impress them. That is why authors decided to carry out this experiment focusing on the contrary, on the other side of the story: women perceived by men.

There is a variety of pick-up lines, which have been categorized in many ways. Authors use the categories of direct (“You are hot, can I have your number?), innocuous (“Can you recommend me a drink?”) and flippant (“Can I get a picture of you so I can show Santa what I want for Christmas?”).

Generally, women are most receptive to innocuous lines followed by direct lines. On the contrary, the ones that would be less appealing to them would be flippant lines. It could be because women may perceive flippant line users as unintelligent or untrustworthy.

Men, on the other hand, and according to previous research, would be more receptive to direct lines, followed by flippant ones; feeling less attracted to innocuous lines. It may be due to these lines not being explicit.

Nevertheless, studies until today have been historically focused on these pick-up lines rather than the appearance of the people using them. That is why authors decided to carry out the experiment bearing in mind that attractiveness could affect to the effectiveness of the pick-up lines.

Hypotheses are two: first, that women using direct pick-up lines would be rated as being the most effective when trying to pick-up men for the purpose of dating; second, that men would rate the pick-up lines used by highly attractive women dressed in a highly promiscuous way as more effective than the pick-up lines used by women who were less attractive and promiscuous.

To prove these hypotheses, authors carry out to pilot studies in order to gather information so they able to perform the main experiment.

The first of these pilot studies was conducted to ensure women use pick-up lines, and if so, which types of lines. Women were presented a hypothetical scenario, in which they had to think what they would say to flirt with a man in a bar. A series of pick-up lines were obtained, and later used in the main experiment.

The second pilot study was used to determine which photographs would be used in the experiment. Participants were shown a series of photographs of women and were asked to classify them according to how attractive and promiscuous they seemed. With the obtained results, authors selected twelve of these pictures, three in each one of the four following categories: high attractiveness/low promiscuousness, high attractiveness/high promiscuousness, low attractiveness/high promiscuousness and low attractiveness/low promiscuousness.

130 heterosexual men participated in the main experiment. They were asked to answer a questionnaire with the twelve chosen pictures, classified as the four categories previously mentioned. Each one of these photographs were assigned a pick-up line, it could be direct, innocuous or flippant.

One more time, a hypothetical scenario was presented, in which these men had to guess what would be the effectiveness of these twelve women in the photographs when it comes about flirting with an heterosexual man, bearing in mind how attractive and promiscuous these women seemed.

Obtained results suggested that men prefer direct lines over flippant and innocuous lines (these would be the least preferred).

Plus, perceived attractiveness plays a more significant role than perceived promiscuousness.

Women in the high attractiveness and high promiscuousness condition were rated to be the most effective.

Namely, the hypotheses authors thought about at the start of the paper, would be confirmed.

Flippant lines deserve particular attention, because their results offer conflicting information.

For instance, previous research suggest that women prefer funny men with a good sense of humor, as it shows off their intelligence and creativity. This makes us think that flippant lines should be the most successful. But that is not the case, flippant lines would be the least preferred by women.

Men do not particularly like funny women, instead they like women who enjoy their sense of humor. These findings suggest that men would be less receptive to flippant lines, but men preferred flippant lines more than innocuous lines in the current study.

There were some limitations in the experiment. For example, women used in the photographs were all models. Thus, these women are not representative of the general population. Besides, rating photographs and stated pick-up lines is far less realistic than being approached by women in real life, due to other elements, as prosodic, that would be very important.

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Emotions

Are people with antisocial personality disease or psychopathic personality able to recognize and copy facial expressions in the same way as the rest of people? Nonverbal Communication Blog

By 5 Mins Read

Friends of the Nonverbal Communication Blog, this week we present the paper “Reading and reacting to faces, the effect of facial mimicry in improving facial emotion recognition in individuals with antisocial behavior and psychopathic traits”, by Kyranides, M. N.; Petridou, M.; Gokani, H. A.; Hill, S. and Fanti, K. A. (2022), in which authors investigate how people with antisocial personality disorder and/or psychopathic personality disorder recognize and answer to facial expressions.

Both antisocial personality disorder and psychopathy are associated with severe antisocial traits.

Antisocial personality disorder (APD from now on) has an identity of its own, and by many intellectuals, psychopathy is considered as part of it. However, other experts believe that psychopathy can be considered as a personality itself, and not as a behavioral trait.

Psychopathy, as we have already explained, would include the traits of the dark triad, which encompasses affective, interpersonal, and behavioral characteristics.

Correctly interpreting and transmitting affective and emotional states is crucial for social relationships and healthy group functioning of human beings.

Facial expressiveness plays a central role in interpersonal relationships, as it communicates silent social cues and helps reinforce acceptable social behaviors. In addition, it is a non-verbal channel that we pay a lot of attention to.

Previous studies suggest that people with psychopathic traits are characterized by deficiencies in facial emotion recognition, which, in turn, results in poor social adaptation and dysfunctional interpersonal relationships.

This raises the idea that similar deficits seen in people with antisocial personality disorder are due to the disorder itself or are the result of psychopathic features, although whether the latter are part of the antisocial disorder is unclear.

This week’s study aimed to differentiate the emotion-processing deficits of individuals with these traits, by examining how people with antisocial personality disorder, people with psychopathic disorder, and people with both, identify affective facial expressions and how they obey the instructions in which they are asked to imitate these expressions.

Empirical evidence suggests that people with psychopathic traits will show deficiencies in emotion recognition, but especially in facial expressions of fear and sadness.

Regarding antisocial personality disorder, very few people have explored the matter. In a 2014 study, more severe deficiencies in disgust recognition were found in a sample of people with APD compared to the control group. In 2002, deficiencies in the correct identification of happy and sad facial expressions were found, but no study controlled the psychopathic features that appeared in subjects with APD.

If these people theoretically experience difficulties in identifying the emotions of others, would they be capable of practicing facial mimicry?

Individuals with typical personality development engage in facial mimicry automatically when observing the expressions of others, and this has been associated with empathy.

However, the findings regarding facial mimicry in individuals with psychopathic traits are diverse. For example, according to one study, they have intact the ability to accurately mimic the expression of fear; according to another, they have difficulty reflecting negative emotions.

Something that seems to be logical is that if people with psychopathic traits and people with TPA have deficits in their ability to be empathic, they will have some kind of difficulty in correctly imitating the emotions of others. But, as we see, it is something that seems not to be confirmed.

For this study, 107 people over 18 years old were gathered, who were evaluated individually. They were presented with dynamic stimuli of facial expressions of sadness, happiness, anger, fear, and pain, in addition to neutral expressions. They had to imitate the presented expressions, suppress any facial response elicited by the stimulus, or do nothing and only answer the question of what facial expression was being displayed.

The results showed that facial recognition accuracy was significantly worse in the group that had psychopathic traits and APD at the same time, compared to the control group. In addition, the psychopathic traits + APD group showed increased choice of angry facial expression compared to the others. Surprisingly, the group that only had APD, showed more pronounced facial expressions when they had to mimic the expressions shown to them.

These findings are in line with previous work on the deficiencies of these people in the recognition of facial emotions and point towards the idea that the presence of psychopathic traits, isolated from antisocial personality, may represent a profile in itself, in which individuals would function in a similar way, but also different.

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Emotional Prosody

Expressing robot personality through talking body language. Nonverbal Communication Blog

By 5 Mins Read

Friends of the Nonverbal Communication Blog, this week we present the paper “Expressing robot personality through talking body language”, by Zabala, U.; Rodríguez, I.; Martínez-Otzeta, J. M. and Lazkano, E. (2021), in which authors investigate whether it is possible for social robots to express emotions correctly through their body language.

Robotics it is not an invention from science fiction movies, it is a reality that each day is more present in our lives.

This week we will talk about social robots. This kind of robots are thought, for instance, for helping dependent or sick people, or even to accompany people in circumstances of isolation.

As they are robots whose aim is to interact with people, it is very important for them to master the nuances of human communication, and this includes verbal and nonverbal language.

Moreover, they must be capable of expressing affection or perceiving human emotions and possessing distinctive personalities. In this way, they could create social bonds with people.

That is why authors try to improve this aspect of robots’ communication. They made a series of changes in their software and their mechanics, in order to coordinate their bodies and what they want to say or transmit.

Within nonverbal language, as we already know, many areas exist. We have gestures, postures and movements of the body and face to convey information about the emotions we feel. Therefore, we see that making a robot’s body language resemble to a human’s, is not an easy task.

Authors carry out a series of changes in the chosen robot in order to achieve their purpose.

On one hand, we have the importance of body movements. It is necessary for them to be coordinated with the speech. That is why authors adapted the speed of the gestures’ execution to the intended emotion, in order to better convey it.

For instance, if the emotion is understood as positive, the gesture will be executed livelier than when the emotion is depicted as negative or neutral.

Authors also modified head movements. When a neutral emotion is portrayed, the robot head will simply look forward. The robot will tilt the head in other situations: in case of positive emotions the head will direct upwards, while with negative emotions it will go downwards.

The same would happen with the chest.

We already know how important facial expression in nonverbal communication is. In the case of the robot used in this investigation, the only manipulable facial expression by the programmers are the eyes.

Authors decided to install LED lights in robot’s eyes. These can be programmed in different manners. The color intensity changes according to the intensity of the emotion that the robot wants to transmit or show.

Therefore, two colors with different intensities existed for each one of the three types of emotions. Negative emotions appeared in blue, while there was gray for neutral ones and yellow for the positive ones.

Paralinguistics was an area that authors also wanted to explore. People modulate the intonation of their voices according to the context and add emphasis to their speeches. Plus, intonation is also correlated with the speaker’s mood.

One of the limitations of the used robot is that it does not provide a way to directly manage voice intonation. But it is possible to adjust some voice parameters, as volume and speed.

In order to check whether with the changes in the robot desired results were obtained, authors carried out two tests.

First, they made the robot read a definition authors found in Wikipedia. They manipulate its functioning to its body language flow within the three types of emotions proposed (negative, neutral, positive).

Afterwards, the robot read a book and authors tried to adapt its body language to what was happening in the different chapters. For example, if sad scenes appeared, robot showed negative emotions. The same happened for happy scenes and positive emotions.

Authors considered their experiments a success, because with the configurated changes, the robot’s emotions were understood paying attention to its body language.

In this way, it is easier to create a personality for the robot and it also facilitates to establish bonds or relations with people.

A limitation in this study is that authors achieve the robot to react with emotions, but only when large speeches appeared. In other words, it looks like the robot does not react as successfully with short sentences.

Authors point out that they will correct these limitations. Plus, they say that there is a need for a public evaluation, a performance in front of real people.

In this way, we would know whether if authors have achieved for the robot to show emotions with its both verbal and nonverbal behavior.

Besides, they were looking for an emulation of human behavior, so, if the results in front of people are positive, this objective would be achieved.

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NonVerbal Communication Blog