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The use of robots to improve nonverbal communication in class. Nonverbal Communication Blog

By 5 Mins Read

Friends of the Nonverbal Communication Blog, this week we present the paper “Robot lecture for enhancing presentation in lecture” by Ishino, T.; Goto, M. y Kashihara, A. (2022), in which authors carry out an experiment to know whether the use of robots with specialized skills in nonverbal communication is positive and beneficial for the learning process of students in class.

For some years now, the use of robots, especially small ones, has been spreading in various contexts such as care, nursing, education, guidance, hospitality… and moreover, people’s interest in implementing robots in some of these areas is growing exponentially, especially in education. 

In this article, authors focus on the use of communication robots to give lectures or short lessons in small classes. 

In a lecture, it is generally very important to present the contents with slides to support the oral presentation, so that a better and easier understanding by the students is achieved. This requires teachers to control the students’ attention, both to the slides and to the oral presentation, and this must be done by means of many non-verbal elements: the eyes, gestures, paralanguage, etcetera. 

For example, if teachers want to draw students’ attention to an important point on a particular slide, they should turn their face towards the presentation and point with a direct gesture simultaneously. 

On the other hand, nonverbal behavior that is histrionic, excessive, unnecessary, would prevent students from keeping their attention on understanding the content. Consequently, it is essential for teachers or lecture speakers to have some training in nonverbal communication. 

However, even for experienced communicators, it is not so easy to make proper use of the learned tools of nonverbal communication and maintain it throughout the lecture. And if we bear in mind that there are also inexperienced people who do not know the effective techniques in this type of situation, the matter becomes more complex. 

Those with less experience tend to concentrate more on oral explanation and leave aside non-verbal communication. As a result, the learning process for students will be more difficult. 

The authors propose the use of robots to give lectures, replacing human teachers. The aim in the experiment was to reproduce nonverbal behavior as adequate as possible for the students to pay attention to the most important contents of the lecture. 

The robot reproduced the presentation that was part of the supporting material of the lecture or class, and directed its face and gestures accordingly. 

The study compares the effectiveness of human-delivered and robot-delivered lectures in terms of student learning. 

The participants were 36 university students. Three different video lectures lasting 5-6 minutes were prepared. 

The obtained results reported that the robots had difficulties in performing accurate speaker behavior, due to their obvious limitations (they are not human beings), but their behavior was recognizable. 

In the case of a pointing gesture, performed by human teachers, it is required to point to precise locations. If it is imprecise, it can lead to confusion on the part of the students, and they will lose attention. The pointing gesture by a robot tends to be firmer, so students would pay immediate attention in the direction pointed. 

However, to make up for the possible shortcomings of robots in terms of gestures, the authors propose using laser pointers or visual effects on the slides.

As a point that also needs to be improved, the authors mention that the robot needs to recognize the learning and behavioral states in the classroom on the part of the students. For example, if there are people who feel that the lecture is difficult, the robot will have to present a different nonverbal behavior that helps to change this perception. 

The results are positive in terms of attention when it comes to lectures given by the robot, possibly because of the novelty factor, although it is also mentioned that they are short lectures and this can be a point in favor. For this reason, the authors propose the use of hybrid models where robots make the introductions to certain topics and human teachers explain the complex parts or those that require a less “technological” factor. 

In the future, authors intend to learn more about the applications of robots in the field of education. In the meantime, they invite other researchers to investigate the subject, in order to include more and more of this type of technology in our lives. 

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.

The analysis of nonverbal behavior is a competitive advantage in any field. If you want to develop this skill, the Master in Nonverbal Behavior is your best option. Study 100% online and earn a degree from Evidentia University, a university licensed in the United States, ensuring internationally recognized education. Start your training from just $208 USD per month.

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Emotions

Can facial expression help us know if a potential romantic partner is going to reject us? Nonverbal Communication Blog

By 4 Mins Read

Friends of the Nonverbal Communication Blog, this week we present the paper “In the name of love: can nonverbal communication serve as a predictor of Acceptance and Rejection of Potential Partners?”, by van den Eijnden, L.; van Telgen, T.; van Viersen, J. and Visser, T. (2022), in which authors carry out a couple of studies to know whether nonverbal communication in general and facial expression in particular, may help us predict if a potential romantic or sexual partner will reject us or not.

For many years, researchers have agreed that nonverbal communication plays a very important role in the process of sending and receiving messages by conveying relevant information that goes beyond words. 

Authors’ research focuses specifically on couples, because verbal communication is considered to be a fundamental factor in the transmission of messages and, therefore, of people’s emotions. Since love is based on emotions rather than rationality, it is reasonable to say that nonverbal communication may be especially relevant to love. 

Therefore, authors ask: to what extent does nonverbal communication serve as a predictor in choosing our partner?

To investigate this issue, authors use a Dutch television program, where a group of male farmers are looking for love and go on dates with different female candidates. The current research considers the facial expression that the man who is going to decide, shows before verbalizing his decision. 

Facial expressions are often the means through which many emotions are inferred. People tend to associate certain facial movements with certain emotions and, therefore, it is possible that the nonverbal signals shown on the face of the decision-maker may reveal his response.

One hypothesis of the authors is that, by observing the farmer, it is possible to predict the decision he is going to make before he communicates it.

On the other hand, it is important to find out which are the elements that make us deduce that the farmer will make one decision or another. In other words, which movements tip the balance towards rejection or acceptance. Authors consider four: 1) raising the eyebrows, 2) smiling, 3) nodding and 4) shaking the head. 

Raising the eyebrows has often been associated with sadness and anger, even surprise or fear, depending on the movement. 

Smiling, on the other hand, can express happiness, but there are many types of smiles, such as false, or sad.

Nodding and shaking the head are also important because they can convey agreement and attention or disagreement, reluctance, even anger….

Therefore, authors predict that these elements will be important predictors of acceptance or rejection of the potential partner. 

A total of 40 clips were analyzed where some of the male farmers featured in the program just before rejecting their female candidates.

Unlike expectations, the results did not show support for the idea that we can predict whether the farmer will reject or accept a female candidate. There was also no support for the expectation that facial cues play a role in predicting rejection or acceptance. 

One possible explanation is that visual cues are often subjective. For example, a smile may indicate that someone is happy, but sometimes it can also signal shyness or cynicism. Raising eyebrows can indicate multiple emotions, such as astonishment or concern, which makes it difficult to judge people’s emotional state. 

Therefore, it is especially important to take into account the context and other nonverbal communication channels, as one alone provides us with scarce and unreliable information. 

Authors suggest investigating with more participants in future studies, as well as classifying the videos: on the one hand, those in which the candidate accepts someone, on the other hand, those in which he or she rejects the person. In this way, facial expressions can be contrasted with each other. 

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.

Nonverbal communication is crucial in all of our interactions. If you want to delve deeper into how body signals influence communication, the Master in Nonverbal Behavior is perfect for you. This online program offers flexibility and provides you with an accredited degree from Evidentia University, a university licensed in the United States, where the education system is recognized for meeting the highest standards of quality. 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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Emotions

Detecting lies using base lines: is it really effective? Nonverbal Communication Blog

By 5 Mins Read

Friends of the Nonverbal Communication Blog, this week we present the paper “Detecting deception using comparable truth baselines” by Bogaard, G.; Meijer, E. H.; Vrij, A. and Nahari, G. (2022), in which authors carry out a couple of experiments to know how the use of true base lines affects deception detection. 

We have already seen on several occasions throughout the different messages how the human capacity to detect lies is quite poor. Both the skill of laymen and the skill of professionals do not usually exceed the levels of luck.

Among the possible reasons that would explain the deficiency of these skills is the idea that people pay too much attention to behavioral signals, such as aversion to gaze and body movements. The reality is that there is not as much relationship as it is believed between these signs and deception.

Research has also shown that, in order to improve truth-lie detection accuracy, the observers should focus primarily on the content of people’s statements, as this has shown to be a more promising technique.

However, even verbal lie detection tools have a significant error rate, and one potential source of this error rate is individual differences in the verbal behavior of the liar; as meta-analytic research has shown.

That is, whether observers are able to detect a lie depends largely on the qualities of someone’s lying skills.

For example, fantasy-prone people are better at formulating believable lies, and people with verbal skills get away with it more often because they tend to include more detail in their false stories.

This is consistent with the finding that good liars report that they rely heavily on verbal strategies when lying.

One way to include the individual and verbal differences of liars in a lie detection procedure is through the baseline. That is, using a statement that is known to be true, or part of a statement that is also true, to compare between it and the lie.

The idea is that people are telling the truth during small talks, and any difference in behavior between this and the part of the interview that deals with the important issue being investigated is taken as a signal to pay attention to. attention and as a possible indicator of deception.

The problem is that this comparison is confusing. The topics covered in small talk are different from the ones being researched, and depending on the topic and personal relevance, people may respond differently. In addition, what is at stake contrasts substantially.

For this reason, there is the so-called “comparable truth baseline” (CTB). This baseline is used to be considered comparable to the research topic.

Previous studies have thrown up the idea that liars whose lies are accompanied by truth include more details. That is, good liars calibrate their deceptive responses against truthful information. Therefore, two contradictory ideas appear. On the one hand, if liars calibrate the amount of detail they report in their lie based on a previous truthful response, a CTB could decrease the discriminability between the lie and the truth. However, if the liars cannot gauge their responses, the use of a CTB has the potential to improve the discrimination between lying and truth.

That is why, in two different experiments, two aspects are investigated: first, if providing a CTB influences the detail of a subsequent statement provided by the same person; and second, if using a CTB statement would improve lie detection ability thanks to verbal cues.

In the first experiment 171 people participated; in the second, 138. In them, the participants were basically assigned the role of telling the truth or lying according to certain conditions, a process that is more explained in the original article, and then passing their complete statement through a tool used to evaluate the credibility of the speech , which is Reality Monitoring.

The analysis showed the existence of an interesting verbal pattern: the objective statements (the main ones and references to the research topics) of the truth tellers tend to include more temporal and auditory details than their reference statement, or their CTB, while the liars’ results showed the opposite pattern.

In the first of the experiments, no evidence appeared that the use of a CTB improves the accuracy when detecting truths and lies.

In experiment 2, those who used the CTB became worse at truth detection, but just as accurate at lie detection, compared to those who did not use the CTB.

However, authors mention that their results should be interpreted with caution, because their support is weak and it seems premature to use them as a reference. Therefore, they encourage other researchers to continue delving into this topic, plus, they leave the door open for future related experiments.

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.

The analysis of nonverbal behavior is a competitive advantage in any field. If you want to develop this skill, the Master in Nonverbal Behavior is your best option. Study 100% online and earn a degree from Evidentia University, a university licensed in the United States, ensuring internationally recognized education. Start your training from just $208 USD per month.

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Emotions

The ultimatum in negotiations: should we show our emotions? Nonverbal Communication Blog

By 5 Mins Read

Friends of the Nonverbal Communication Blog, this week we present the paper  “Shall I Show My Emotions? The Effects of Facial Expressions in the Ultimatum Game” by Ferracci, S.; Giuliani, F.; Brancucci, A. and Pietroni, D. (2021), in which authors carry out two experiments to know how the expression of some emotions affect the most tense moments in a negotiation. 

In recent years it has been shown that emotions play an essential and central role in the communication of intentions and desires.

Emotions and the information associated with them can be transmitted through facial expressions during specific social interactions, where their inference can influence decision-making processes, such as negotiations.

The ultimatum game has a lot to do with negotiations. It was developed forty years ago as a representation of the reality of negotiations. In this game, a player proposes how to allocate a certain amount of money between himself and another player. This second player can accept the proposal, in which case one will receive the decided amount, or he can reject it, causing neither player to receive any money.

According to classical economics, the respondent has to accept any offer greater than 0, since anything is better than nothing. However, it has been observed that participants tend to reject offers that are approximately below 30% of the total, preferring not to win anything rather than accept an unequal distribution of money. Therefore, in front of classical economic theory, human behavior and its intolerance to inequality appear.

From this idea, the question arises as to how the expression of human emotions influenced the negotiations, a topic that has been studied previously.

In some of these earlier articles, it appears that offers made with a smiling face were accepted more often than those made with a neutral facial expression. Also, there used to be lower acceptance rates if the offers were made by a person with an angry facial expression.

The responder’s behavior, on the other hand, might be more driven by the sense of perceived fairness and fairness that we discussed earlier.

For studies that had the participant assume the role of the proposer, Van Dijk studied the effects of responder joy and anger on the proposer’s offers. He found that the respondent’s anger led the proposer to make better offers.

These studies indicate that proponents must be very careful in capturing the emotional state of the respondent, as they can then use the information obtained to modulate their subsequent responses.

The role of anger is also interesting, with controversial results. For one thing, studies show that when the responder reacts in anger, the proponent makes more concessions. But on the other hand, there are studies that claim the opposite.

Authors decide to explore this and other questions in two experiments. 113 people participated in the first of them. The authors selected images of faces that were manipulated to offer four expressions: happy, neutral, angry and disgusted. The participants, in this case, were the ones who might answer whether or not they accepted the offer.

In the second experiment, all participants were assigned the opposite role, that of proposer. 134 subjects participated and the methodology and procedure were the same.

The results showed that, in experiment one, for the respondent the decision is strongly driven by fairness in supply, as the authors expected.

Emotions also had an effect: neutral emotion and happiness led to higher rates of acceptance compared to anger and disgust.

Some theories have attempted to explain irrational behaviors in equity-related decision-making, such as “inequality aversion”, which confirms individuals’ preferences for fair outcomes.

On the other hand, in experiment two, the participants, in the role of the proponents, modulated their offers based on the expressions they saw on the faces of the responders.

Specifically, anger and disgust had no differential effects and were perceived as equally negative. More generous offers were made to those with neutral expressions, and even more generous ones to those with happy facial expressions.

So what about the anger and previous studies with conflicting ideas? A study carried out by Steinel and colleagues proposes the idea that anger would have one effect or another depending on where it is projected.

When the emotion is directed to the offer, it can be understood as a strategy to know the limits of the opponent and, therefore, can lead to greater concessions.

Conversely, if the emotion is directed at the person, it can lead to negative outcomes, indicating poor cooperation.

Authors point out the need for further research, especially to understand the effects of anger and disgust in depth, and to improve these experiments, for example, with real and higher incentives.

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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Do women change their voice when they’re speaking to attractive men? Nonverbal Communication Blog

By 5 Mins Read

Friends of the Nonverbal Communication Blog, this week we present the paper “Hong Kong women project a larger body when speaking to attractive men”, by Lee, A. and Ng, E. (2022), in which authors carry out a small experiment to know whether heterosexual women make changes in their voices when they’re speaking to men they find attractive. 

Does having a beautiful voice bring us social benefits? According to some studies, it seems so. Listeners tend to associate it with an attractive face, a nice personality, and even good health.

In addition, perceiving a person as attractive and more likeable leads to advantages in dating, job applications, promotions at work, public elections, more social support…

However, although physical appearance cannot be easily altered, the voice can be modulated and thereby it is possible to influence the perception that others have of our appearance.

So how to get this? What are the voice modulation tendencies to influence our physical attractiveness?

There are two apparently conflicting hypotheses that seek to explain the phonetics of an attractive voice. They are the average hypothesis and the body size projection.

The first hypothesis defends the phenomenon of average attractiveness, arguing that voices similar to the media in the population are considered more attractive.

From an evolutionary point of view, the average voice may indicate good genes as it has resisted adaptive changes and has become the norm, producing an effect similar to that of average faces, which seem to suggest good physical condition and health.

On the other hand, the body size projection hypothesis holds that animals use their voice to project different body sizes and fulfill certain communicative functions.

Extending this idea to humans, one study found that an attractive male English voice to heterosexual female listeners was one that sounded like it came from a large and tall person, while the opposite was true for a female voice and heterosexual male listeners.

In general, it seems that an attractive voice is one that resembles the average of the population, with certain projected body sizes that add enhancement effects, but without deviating from the average.

It has been seen, however, that American female speakers are increasingly using a certain screeching tone in their voices. This seems to deviate from the projection principle of body size, as this feature is considered to belong to a large body because of its loudness. There is also evidence that the use of a scratchy voice by American women is considered less attractive than a normal voice.

Thus, it appears that not all changes in vocal strategies align with what the opposite sex finds attractive.

Other studies conducted with non-Western populations found that while the general principles of average voice and body size projection can be stabilized, there are certain specific deviations depending on the language in which it is spoken. For example, in Japanese and Mandarin, the projection of a very large body size would not be attractive to either men or women.

Building on these insights and studies, authors investigate vocal changes in heterosexual women when they are talking to a man they find attractive, in the context of Cantonese speech.

A total of 19 women participated in the study. They first saw some photographs of men and had to say which ones they found attractive, on a scale of 1 to 10. Based on the previous ratings, they were presented with images of the most attractive men on the one hand, and also the least attractive, and a role-playing game was proposed to women: they had to pretend they and the attractive man were university classmates, and had to ask them a spoken question, which would later be analyzed.

Even with cross-linguistic variations, authors expected that Cantonese women would use at least some cues that projected small body size. Unexpectedly, the participants seemed to be trying to project a big-sounding voice when they spoke with an attractive face.

This may be because they were deliberately trying to sound less nervous or anxious around an attractive potential partner. However, this idea should be interpreted with caution.

Future studies should analyze other factors, authors suggest investigating whether the menstrual cycle has any influence and also increasing the number of study subjects.

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.

Would you like to learn how to read what people really think through their body language? With the Master in Nonverbal Behavior, you will acquire this valuable skill. Study online at your own pace and earn a degree from Evidentia University, a university licensed in the United States, recognized for its prestige and educational quality, meeting the highest international standards. All of this from just $208 USD per month.

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Lie detection

Does gender affect the ability of reading body language? Nonverbal Communication Blog

By 5 Mins Read

Friends of the Nonverbal Communication Blog, this week we present the paper “Gender affects body language Reading” de Sokolov, A. A.; Krüger, S.; Enck, S.; Krägeloh-Mann, I. y Pavlova, M. A. (2012), they carried out one of the first studies about the different abilities of men and women to understand nonverbal language.

Reading body language has an immense importance when it comes about adaptive social behavior and communication in general. This skill is part of the core of social competences.

Those people who can infer emotions in others, represented by body movements, are likely to be more successful in interacting with other people.

In addition, it is possible to discriminate between deception and truth by observing the body and all the nonverbal information that the person transmits to us, considering it as a whole and analyzing its consistency.

The dynamic body expressions, gestures and actions of others are a very rich and valid source to pay attention to in our social interactions.

It is known from previous literature that emotions expressed by dynamic bodies, compared to faces, elicit greater activation in several areas of the brain, including the superior temporal sulcus, which is critically important in the social brain.

But how do you know who to trust? These judgments are vital to social interaction, and it appears that men and women differ in the cues they pay attention to.

According to generalized beliefs, women show greater sensitivity to nonverbal signals: they better discriminate friendship from sexual interest and are more competent in recognizing emotions on the face. Even women with Asperger’s syndrome would better recognize the emotions of dynamic faces than men.

In addition, women tend to recognize emotions better from faces than from voices, while men show the opposite trend.

Surprisingly, however, the impact of gender on reading body language is largely unknown. In a study carried out in the early 1980s, the superiority of women in reading it was pointed out, but there is not much more literature on the matter, as there is with other aspects of nonverbal communication.

The article tries to fill the gap and clarify whether the gender of the perceiver affects the recognition of emotional expressions conveyed by the actions of others and, if so, how it does. More specifically, authors ask whether gender affects the recognition of emotions represented by body movement, or, in other words, whether females excel at recognizing emotional actions.

To this end, authors gathered 34 healthy adults between the ages of 20 and 36 who were enrolled in the study.

Authors used light dot screens depicting a person knocking on the door with different emotional expressions (happy, neutral, or angry) and showed this to the subjects. They had to infer which was the emotion of the person in that moment.

The light spot technique was used because it helps to isolate the information revealed by the appearance of other signals. The perceivers saw only a few bright spots placed on the joints of an arm, that, otherwise, would be completely invisible.

The results yielded interesting information. It seems that the effect of gender would be related to the emotional content of the actions.

Women tend to excel at recognizing angry actions, while men excel at recognizing the happy ones.

Additionally, females outperform males in recognizing emotionally neutral hits.

Women have been socially associated with a high sensitivity to emotional cues and subtle details; the reverse occurring with men, who may have a better performance in recognizing negative threatening expressions.

These assumptions are based on the different evolutionary and sociocultural roles of both genders.

The data is consistent with findings showing that men appear to exhibit stronger brain activation in response to positive images (depicting landscapes, sports activities, families, or erotic scenes) than women.

Finally, women have an advantage in recognizing neutral movements. It suggests that they are better attuned to the lack of emotional content in bodily actions.

Authors point out that future research should be directed at uncovering sex differences in brain activity during body language reading. Such research would also shed light on sex differences in neuropsychiatric conditions characterized by deficits in social cognition, such as autism spectrum disorders, depression, or schizophrenia.

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. 

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.

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How to detect fake videos using body language. Nonverbal Communication Blog

By 5 Mins Read

Friends of the Nonverbal Communication Blog, this week we present the paper “Fighting Deepfakes Using Body Language Analysis”, by Yasrab, R.; Jiang, W. y Riaz, A. (2021), in which authors explain what deepfakes are and how to recognize them using body language’s tools. 

The development of technology has brought us good and bad things at the same time. Now, for example, almost everybody has access to the internet, the largest information network in history; but there are also dangers from which we must defend ourselves.

One of them is fake videos, called “deepfakes” from now on, which are a threat to people’s privacy.

Until now, we knew that images could be digitally manipulated with tools such as Photoshop, and we are already trained to distinguish, almost always, the fake ones from the true ones. 

However, fake videos are becoming more and more convincing due to the quick development of what authors call the “deep learning method”, which has spread and popularized deepfakes. Currently, videos can be manipulated in a way that the face of one person is replaced by another, preserving the original facial expressions and actions, achieving great realism.

Due to the amount of data required to achieve a successful deepfake model is enormous, it is very easy to focus on celebrities and world leaders (presidents, vice presidents, etc.), as there are many images and videos of them on multiple public platforms. Therefore, they are the main targets of apparently real deepfakes.

The danger of deepfakes lies in the fact that disinformation spreads as fast as real news on the internet and therefore, they are used to deceive the general public. Therefore, they are a serious problem for national and social security if used with political objectives.

World leaders like Barack Obama and Donald Trump have sparked contentious debates because of this. For example, former President Trump shared Joe Biden’s deepfake gifs on Twitter in the middle of the campaign for the US presidency.

As we have mentioned, it also affects celebrities. Recently, the actor Tom Cruise appeared on the social network TikTok, to later reveal that he never had an account on this network and it was actually a deepfake.

The most worrying thing is that this technology has become very accessible in recent years, where with a simple application for smartphones, such as Zao or FaceApp, very realistic videos and gifs can be created. Even the aforementioned TikTok has introduced filters that can be used to, as was the case with Tom Cruise, damage someone’s credibility or spread misinformation.

Therefore, it is essential to help the audience so they can identify fake videos and protect people from deepfakes.

The research conducted by the authors aimed to create a new deepfake detection method that can address these emerging threats, as well as improve existing methods.

We have already mentioned that most of the targets of these scams are famous people or world leaders. For this reason, the research focuses on the latter, whose public appearances are usually behind a lectern, leaving the upper part of their body exposed. Authors hypothesize that the movements of this part of the body are radically different for each individual, and deep learning networks can use the language of these areas to identify people and expose forgeries.

This upper body area would consist of a few key points: the eyes, the nose, the neck, the shoulders, the elbows and the wrists. Authors suggest that these points could be used to train a deep learning neural network, so that it internalizes the posture and gestures of each person.

The methods that have emerged recently are divided into fake image detection and fake video detection. Artificial intelligence-based video analysis is used, which is relatively new. However, the existing methods to date are actually transitory, because deepfakes are being perfected more and more, correcting their errors and making detection difficult. Therefore, it is necessary to develop new techniques or improve existing ones. The novelty of the technique proposed by authors is that it includes the upper part of the body, and not only the face.

They propose to train software to learn the pose of the target person, their body language, and detect fake videos. For their study, they chose videos of George W. Bush, Barack Obama, Donald Trump and Joe Biden.

The results were promising. The authors’ model, which could be improved in the future, found with 94.39% accuracy which videos were false and which videos were true. This shows that upper body body language is very helpful when it comes about exposing deepfakes.

To improve this research, authors propose collecting more videos, as training the software with a larger data set could improve its performance.

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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Education

Gesture expression in children with autism spectrum disorders: is it the same as gesture expression in children with a typical development? Nonverbal Communication Blog

By 4 Mins Read

Friends of the Nonverbal Communication Blog, this week we present the paper “Gesture and Language Trajectories in Early Development: an Overview from the Autism Spectrum Disorder Perspective” by Ramos-Cabo, S.; Vulchanov, V. and Vulchanova, M. (2019), in which authors carry out a revision about the existent works about gestures, language, and how they are developed in children with autism spectrum disorders.  

When we talk about autism spectrum disorders, we mean a very broad and extensive group of different neurodivergences. Although these are very complex, we know a few things about them.

For example, one of the first signs of the existence of autism spectrum disorders (ASD) is the absence or late appearance of communicative behaviors, both verbal and non-verbal.

In this article authors comment that there is a large body of research showing that the evolution of language in typically developing children (TD) is highly dependent on their ability to produce gestures. However, there still are many questions without answers for children with ASD on this precise topic.

Authors therefore wonder whether gestures also influence language development in children with ASD, and if there are differences between the gestures of children with ASD and children with TD.

Authors mention many studies in the article, from which we can extract two main ideas that we will be developing.

In the first place: the association between gestures and language exists in children with ASD; secondly, there are, indeed, differences in the development of verbal and non-verbal communication skills between children with ASD and children with TD.

Regarding the first idea, multiple studies have shown that gestures can predict the language skills of children with ASD and, in particular, deictic gestures, which would be relevant both for these children and for those with typical development. Deictic gestures are those that are used to guide someone’s attention to something located in the environment.

The fact that these gestures are related to social and interactive demands indicates that they could constitute a powerful and useful tool for early interventions in children with ASD, since these disorders are also related to social interaction. 

Previous studies show that intervention in this area improves the vocabulary of children typically developed, which is why authors understand that it could be very beneficial for children with ASD, providing them with more nonverbal communication resources that could expand their verbal skills and, therefore, also improve social skills.

Regarding the second idea, there are numerous studies that indicate the presence of differences in the development of nonverbal communication skills in children with ASD when compared to the development of children with TD.

One of these differences is the lower rate of gestures in children with ASD compared to typically developing children. There would also be a progressive deterioration in the domain of deictic gestures in these children.

One idea raised by authors is that, due to the fact that no evidence of retardations in verbal and non-verbal communication appears until the first year of life, some previous studies have failed to find differences in early communication skills between groups of children with ASD and children with TD.

It should also be considered that babies with ASD can develop communication skills similar to those of children with TD, but the trajectory of this development changes from that first year that we have mentioned.

That is, at some point in the first two years of life there is a decline. This is not limited to the domain of communication skills, but also to social, cognitive and adaptive behaviors.

In any case, authors advise caution when interpreting these findings, as they consider that much more evidence is necessary, due to the complexity of autism spectrum disorders.

Authors mention the need for research that replicates this study and those mentioned in it. For some of the aforementioned investigations, methods such as the observation of unstructured interactions or analysis of home videos were used, so that, although they have some validity, their control is difficult. That is one point that can be improved.

They comment that gestural language elicitation methodologies are necessary, so that they can allow naturalistic interactions between the caregiver and the child in controlled environments. In that way, the children’s communication skills, as well as other cognitive and social skills, would improve substantially.

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Facial Expression

What are the facial movements associated with the facial expression of pain? Nonverbal Communication Blog

By 5 Mins Read

Friends of the Nonverbal Communication Blog, this week we present the paper “Assessing pain by facial expression: Facial expression as nexus” de Prkachin, K. M. (2010) in which the author makes a revision about what are the movements that scientifically have been associated with pain through recent research.

When it comes about the study of nonverbal expressions of emotions, there is great interest in identifying the exact movements that represent each one of them.

The reality is that there is no completely precise answer, and there are many elements to pay attention to if we want to be able to say that we infer the presence of one or another emotion. Nevertheless, it is true that over recent years research with scientific validity has been carried out, in which we can observe a series of movements that are repeated in the expression of emotions.

Consequently, the author of this article wants to make a review of facial movements that have been associated with the emotion of pain.

Evolution has equipped us with complex systems for treating injuries, many of which depend on our behavior.

In the case of adults, there is a language that allows us to talk about pain, its causes, and the options to deal with it in the best way. If we talk about babies, it will be the parents who would have to describe the behaviors they use to infer whether their child is in pain or not. We can therefore affirm that behaviors related to pain are mainly communicative.

Charles Darwin, to whom we owe the first research about the facial expressions of emotions, mentioned that when it came about pain the mouth could be compressed, the lips were retracted, the teeth clenched, and the eyes opened with horror.

However, Darwin’s contribution to the study of pain expression, as well as his much broader contribution to the study of facial expressions, was largely forgotten for many years.

And although interest in studying emotional facial expressions was lost for a few years, there were some experts who took over from Darwin. For example, Hollander studied pain experimentally, placing a metal grater under a cuff to measure blood pressure and inflating it, watching the subjects wince at pain.

On the other hand, Chapman and Jones also conducted experimental studies on pain and observed a contraction of the eyelids in the outer area of ​​the eyes, even when they asked the subjects to try not to make any movement.

In a later work, also by Chapman, it was suggested that neurotic patients had a pain reaction to milder stimuli than other subjects.

These studies show that almost all inferences about pain arise from observations of behavior, so research focused on it and how to measure it.

As the behavior that was most recognized as a manifestation of pain was facial expression, it was the one that the experts chose to carry out most of the investigations. It thus offered a basis for establishing more objective measurement rules.

Among the attempts to classify facial expressions, the most influential and used by experts is the Facial Action Coding System (FACS) by Ekman and Friesen. In it, they describe facial expressions in 44 action units, which are changes produced by movements of facial muscles. From its creation, it was a way of measuring facial expressions that gradually gained strength among experts, who used it for their studies.

LeResche used the FACS to describe the facial expressions depicted in real photographs of people in extreme pain. He concluded that there was a characteristic expression of pain, which included the lowering of the eyebrows, the tight skin around the eyes and an open mouth, stretched horizontally, with a deepening of the nasolabial fold.

Craig and Patrick, on the other hand, and also using the FACS, reported that they observed, in pain, an elevation of the cheekbones, squeezing of the eyelids, elevation of the upper lip, and pulling of the corners of the lips.

As there was a relative coherence between all the empirical research on facial expressions associated with pain, the idea that there was a possibly universal expression for it gained weight.

Noting the success of the FACS, Grunau and Craig developed the Neonatal Facial Coding System (NFCS) for newborn children. These subjects have a skin and a neuromuscular system whose differences with those of adults make the application of the FACS complicated for both.

With this system, some elements that were associated with pain in young babies were identified, such as a bulging of the forehead, the contraction of the eyes, the deepening of the nasolabial fold or the opening of the lips.

There are, therefore, similarities between the facial actions associated with pain in adults and in newborns, which is why it is suggested that there is a continuity in the expression of this emotion from birth to maturity.

And since most of the actions associated with pain require the participation of the corrugator muscle, the orbicularis oculi, and the elevator, it is suggested that researchers interested in evaluating the expression of pain can focus their attention on this area of the face, where the key information concentrates.

One limitation of the FACS is that it takes a considerable amount of time to train on it. In addition, a quality observation time is also needed.

However, it is one of the most useful tools to study, know, identify and research on facial expressions so far.

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Non-verbal communication

The importance of paying attention to nonverbal cues in the school context. Nonverbal Communication Blog

By 6 Mins Read

Friends of the Nonverbal Communication Blog, this week we present the paper “Non-Verbal Communication and Management of Interactive Conflict in School-based violence: a Sociological Perspective” by Iyekolo, A. O. (2020), in which the author makes a revision about the problems of not paying attention to nonverbal cues of students and teachers.

We all know that school is a projection of society in a small version, actually.

In the end, it is still an environment in which people of diverse origins and socio-economic orientations come together, in order to acquire knowledge and social skills.

Social interaction would be the method through which people in any environment (although we are referring to the school in this case) creates relationships and exchange ideas, using both verbal and nonverbal language.

Language is so important precisely because it is the main tool of social interaction. Humans, animals, and even plants seem to have ways of communicating their state through its use.

And it is important both in its verbal and nonverbal manifestation. When the author talks about nonverbal communication, he refers to facial expressions, gestures, body movement and physical appearance, in addition to prosody, proxemics, artifacts, and so on.

In many cases, a large part of the nonverbal communication of the school environment is underestimated when actually it has a very important role in the correct development of life in the center. It is used constantly. In fact, social interaction and academic activities may not generate the expected benefits when nonverbal messages are not used properly, even school violence may appear.

Interactive conflicts occur. They happen when the academic and social interactions of school personnel and students become negative and dysfunctional. That is, the interaction between staff and students cannot lead them towards the achievement of the proposed objectives if there is a communication breakdown.

The author, in this article, presents from a sociological perspective how poor verbal and nonverbal communication can affect the relationship between students, teachers and the school, and how interaction conflicts can arise if the messages are not well decoded or they are underestimated by figures of power.

The author explains, firstly, the theory of labeling and the theory of self-fulfilling prophecies, which he considers important for the development of the paper.

Labeling theory says that people are assigned a label based on what they do, say, and how they appear. Therefore, the appearance of a person can be enough to label him/her as deviant, conformist, a delinquent, obedient, and so on. According to the experts who support this theory, if it is a figure of power the one that assigns the label (parents, teachers, etc.), there is a tendency for labeled people to see themselves as such and act accordingly.

Teachers’ interactions with students will be influenced by the label or definition of the student’s behavior, which is verbally and nonverbally communicated. Teachers can, for example, give more encouragement to those students they consider brilliant. This will cause that student’s self-concept to be shaped by the teacher’s expectations, seeing himself/herself as, brilliant, boring, or passive (in other cases), acting accordingly. This would be the theory of self-fulfilling prophecies applied to this context.

That is why a good understanding of communication, verbal and nonverbal, of students and teachers is so important.

The author highlights several nonverbal cues to which he considers that teachers should pay special attention.

Artifacts are nonverbal communication items consisting of clothing, makeup, glasses, accessories, jewelry, and so on. They are elements of the person’s appearance. Efforts are made in the school environment to unify these artifacts through policies such as wearing a uniform. In this way, they try to eliminate negative impressions, segregation, or inequalities, and instill discipline. But equally, if we take a close look at the students and teachers, we can still infer a few things about their person.

For example, a student can communicate through this way his disposition towards a certain youth subculture. It can also reflect his/her sense of discipline or his/her willingness to engage in a violent act. The way students roll up their sleeves, where they put their belts or pants, the level at which the shirt is buttoned… can say a lot about them.

Prosody is also a very interesting aspect. We refer to the voice, volume, rate of speech, pauses or sighs of the speaker. It can provide a rich source of information for the teacher, heads of studies, and all school staff who want to avoid violence in it.

Prosody can represent the temperament of students and teaching staff. Teachers can decode what a student’s level of aggressiveness is through prosody; just like school administrators can decode how their employees handle their emotions at school.

This channel informs listeners nonverbally about the emotional needs of the speaker. The teacher can detect if a student or another teacher is emotionally stable simply by listening to them speak.

We also have proxemics, which is the use of social and personal space when we are communicating. The way the student sits, moves his/her hands, his/her face, can show his/her interest in what he/she is listening to. Thus, the teacher can assess the eagerness of his students to, for example, learn.

The fact that schools do not correctly decode a series of nonverbal messages within their environments can generate conflicts and violence in them.

Unread negative nonverbal messages can cause conflicts that hinder social interaction. Many students are isolated and harassed at school because they do not integrate in the school as the others.

Unfortunately, a student can be very quiet, reserved and passive in class, not because that is his/her personality, but because he/she finds it difficult to place himself/herself among his/her peers. A teacher who is not aware of this may misclassify the student as passive and therefore neglect him/her. In addition, it could affect the student’s self-concept.

The conclusion we get is that nonverbal elements cannot be ignored in school and they need the same attention as verbal ones. This type of communication can improve the well-being of students and teachers and, as such, resources should be dedicated to its study.

Interpreting nonverbal behavior improves your communication skills in any environment. If you’re interested in learning more about this fascinating field, the Master in Nonverbal Behavior is ideal for you. Study online from anywhere in the world and receive an accredited degree from Evidentia University, a university licensed in the United States, ensuring high-quality international education. All of this from just $208 USD per month.

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NonVerbal Communication Blog