Nonverbal cues for depth of depression: Set versus no set.

100 psychology undergraduates and 15 clinical graduates viewed a silent videotape of depressed and nondepressed patients, rated depression on a 10-point scale, and indicated which of 10 body areas conveyed depression. Results show that Ss, even when given no informational set (the depression label), can discriminate depth of depression by nonverbal cues alone, suggesting that it may be an unobtrusive diagnostic technique. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Nonverbal cues for anxiety: An examination of emotional leakage.

20 silent 1-min video segments of psychiatric patients ranging in anxiety levels were shown to 46 psychology seniors serving as raters. Results show that raters were able to identify the presence of anxiety and discriminate varying intensities of anxiety on the basis of nonverbal cues alone. Nonverbal cues identified as most salient in communicating anxiety were the hands, eyes, mouth, and torso. Additional microanalysis examined how these body areas cued anxiety. Discussion of nonverbal cues for anxiety is presented in terms of P. Ekman and W. V. Friesen's (1969) theorizing regarding nonverbal masking and leakage. (23 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Nonverbal communication deficits and response to performance feedback in depression.

Evaluated aspects of recent behavioral and cognitive theories of depression. Social-skill concepts were conceived as involving 2 component processes, termed receptive and expressive communication, and the ability of depressed Ss to engage in these behaviors was studied within a nonverbal communication paradigm. Three groups of 10 females—depressed, psychiatric control, and normal control—had their facial expressions videotaped while exposed to a differential classical conditioning procedure, with pictorial stimuli following 1 CS, auditory stimuli following a 2nd CS, and a neutral event following a 3rd CS. In a 2nd session, the Ss observed the videotapes of other Ss, one from each diagnostic group, and judged which type of conditioning trial the observed S was undergoing, in addition to predicting their anticipated performance prior to each set of judgments. Results indicate that the depressed Ss were the most difficult to judge correctly; this deficit did not seem to be attributable to idiosyncratic response predispositions on the part of the depressives. This finding is interpreted as consistent with P. M. Lewinsohn's (see PA, Vol 53:7587) theory. Predictions of performance did not differ significantly between groups, failing to support one aspect of A. T. Beck's (1967) theory. For all groups, changes in Ss' ratings of their anticipated performance were highly correlated with the discrepancy between predicted and actual performance on previous trials. This finding is contrary to a prediction derived from M. E. Seligman's (see record 1973-06430-001) model of depression. (25 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Nonverbal cues in the employment interview: Links between applicant qualities and interviewer judgments.

Investigated the role of nonverbal behavior in the employment interview inference process, using a modified Brunswik lens model. Job interviews for an actual research assistant position were conducted and videotaped with 34 candidates (aged 18–67 yrs). Job applicants' self-appraised motivation to work and social skill were assessed, and their nonverbal behaviors during the interview were scored. 18 judges with training and experience in employment interviewing watched the videotaped interviews and rated the Ss on their motivation, social skill, and hirability. Social skill was more accurately inferred by the judges as a group than was motivation to work. Ss' social skill was apparently transmitted to the judges via 3 nonverbal cues: rate of gesturing, time spent talking, and formality of dress. In contrast, there was a lack of correspondence between cues correlated with Ss' self-appraised motivation to work and those used by judges in making their attributions. Implications for employment interview training are discussed. (18 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Nonverbal behavior and self-presentation.

Because of special characteristics of nonverbal behaviors (e.g., they can be difficult to suppress, they are more accessible to the people who observe them than to the people who produce them), the intention to produce a particular nonverbal expression for self-presentational purposes cannot always be successfully translated into the actual production of that expression. The literatures on people's skills at using their nonverbal behaviors to feign internal states and to deceive are reviewed as they pertain to the question of whether people can overcome the many constraints on the translation of their intentions into expressions. The issue of whether people's deliberate attempts to regulate their nonverbal behaviors can be detected by others is also considered. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Nonverbal communication and counseling outcome.

Nonverbal abilities and behaviors and verbal–nonverbal (VB–NVB) congruence of both counselor and client were studied in relation to judgments by counselors and clients of counseling outcome. 40 university students were clients; 20 counseling or clinical psychology graduate students were counselors. 40 counseling dyads were videotaped during 30-min counseling sessions. NVB abilities were assessed by the Profile of Nonverbal Sensitivity and an encoding task. Raters judged the presence of 7 NVB behaviors for each 5-sec segment of the videotaped session. Congruence was measured through postsession recall by counselor and client of consistency of feelings expressed through VB and NVB channels of communication. Only VB–NVB congruence was significantly related to outcome, suggesting that the NVB dimension is important primarily as it interacts with the VB dimension. Recommendations are made for use of new methodologies in future research to examine the complex interactions involving NVB communication. (41 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Nonverbal assessment of Piagetian concepts.

Reviews studies which attempt to reduce linguistic or other performance demands in the assessment of Piagetian concepts. It is argued that a precise diagnosis of cognitive skills is important for several reasons: for testing claims concerning the sequencing or concurrence of cognitive acquisitions, for assessing the effects of training or educational interventions, and for evaluating models of underlying process. In many of the studies reviewed, performance on the revised test proved no better than on standard Piagetian tests, and in many others a high level of performance was rendered suspect by methodological problems. Some studies, however, provided suggestive (although seldom conclusive) evidence that an understanding of concepts such as conservation and transitivity might emerge earlier than Piaget indicated. The point is stressed that nonverbal assessment is not inherently opposed to Piagetian theory. It is suggested that the effect of nonverbal studies may be to provide a firmer basis for the claim of nonlinguistic operational structures. (85 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Nonverbal involvement and social control.

Reviews research on the role of nonverbal involvement (e.g., distance, gaze, touch, lean, orientation, paralinguistic cues, and facial expression) in the interactive function of social control (SC). The SC function describes a general goal of exercising influence to change the behavior of others. Specifically, that process is designed to produce reactions not likely in the absence of such influence. Patterns of nonverbal involvement in the service of the SC function are reviewed in the areas of status, power, and dominance; persuasion; feedback/reinforcement; deception; and impression management. The role of these patterns in the employment interview and counseling situation is addressed. In contrast to the common assumption that nonverbal behavior usually reflects a spontaneous and consistent affective reaction, this research strongly suggests that in many instances nonverbal behavior may be managed to influence the behavior of others. (127 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Olfactory and/or visual cues for spatial navigation through ontogeny: Olfactory cues enable the use of visual cues.

This study analyzed the spatial memory capacities of rats in darkness with visual and/or olfactory cues through ontogeny. Tests were conducted with the homing board, where rats had to find the correct escape hole. Four age groups (24 days, 48 days, 3-6 months, and 12 months) were trained in 3 conditions: (a) 3 identical light cues; (b) 5 different olfactory cues; and (c) both types of cues, followed by removal of the olfactory cues. Results indicate that immature rats first take into account olfactory information but are unable to orient with only the help of discrete visual cues. Olfaction enables the use of visual information by 48-day-old rats. Visual information predominantly supports spatial cognition in adult and 12-month-old rats. Results point out cooperation between vision and olfaction for place navigation during ontogeny in rats. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Nonverbal technique for measuring affect using facial expression photographs as stimuli.

50 depressed inpatient and 50 normal females matched on age (M = 39 yr.), education, and socioeconomic status were each given a deck of facial expression photographs and asked to choose 1 that "best looks like you feel right now." Affective values of the pictures were based on normative tabulation of adjectives most frequently applied to individual pictures, and on judges' ratings of them on an elation-depression scale. Findings indicate not only that different pictures were picked by the normal and depressive groups but also that the technique discriminated appropriately within the depressive group. The more depressed the patient's affect, based on interview ratings, the more depressive was the picture chosen. The method appeared to be independent of education and social-class effects. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Nonverbal behavior, gender, and influence.

Participants viewed a videotape of either a male or female confederate delivering a persuasive message using a high task, social, submissive, or dominant nonverbal style. Participants were influenced more after viewing the social and task styles than the dominant or submissive styles. Participants liked task and social confederates more than dominant confederates and considered submissive confederates to be less competent than the other 3 styles. Although both likableness and competence were predictive of influence, likableness was a more important determinant of influence for female than male speakers when the audience was male. Consequently, with a male audience, women exhibiting a task style were less influential and likable than men exhibiting that style. Men were not more influential than women when displaying dominance. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Nonverbal communication of affect in interracial dyads.

Two experiments investigated the relationship between nonverbal behavior and the racial composition of a teacher–student dyad. The Multifactor Racial Attitude Inventory was used to measure prejudice. In Exp I, 36 high- and low-prejudiced White female undergraduates, acting as teachers, were led to praise successful White and Black students (confederates). Analysis of samples of nonverbal behavior showed that high-prejudiced teachers nonverbally discriminated between White and Black students (favoring Whites) significantly more than low-prejudiced teachers. In Exp II, 40 White and Black teachers (female undergraduates) taught successful White and Black students (confederates). Results show that both Whites and Blacks behaved nonverbally more positively to a student of their own race than to a student of the other race, although only same-race judges (12 White female undergraduates) could distinguish the differences in affect displayed by the Ss. (17 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Nonverbal indices of arousal in group psychotherapy.

Examined psychometric properties of a nonverbal measure of arousal in psychotherapy (J. K. Burgoon et al, 1989) used with depressed clients in 2 types of group psychotherapy: experiential (n?=?18) and cognitive (n?=?13). Results indicate that both general and specific aspects of emotional arousal can be reliably rated from nonverbal behaviors. Vocalic tension, nervous vocalizations and laughter, kinesic random movement, and vocal expressiveness were associated with higher global arousal. A 2nd study looked at the relationship between nonverbal arousal and within-session benefits in the 2 group psychotherapies. A depressed S experiencing positive response to therapy and one experiencing a poor response were studied from each type of therapy. Different patterns of arousal characterized the different group therapy modalities. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Source of cues for cue-dependent amnesia in rats.

In 2 experiments 54 Sprague-Dawley male albino rats were given extensive training in a complicated appetitive maze and then handled extensively for 7 days. On the 7th day of the retention interval some Ss were exposed to the "cognitive" learning cues of the maze and some were not. Immediately afterward Ss were given ECS or sham ECS. To the extent that cognitive learning cues are assumed to activate memory, the ECS impaired retrieval of memory only for those Ss which had the cues reinstated prior to ECS administration. It appears that memory must be active at the time of ECS in order to obtain retrieval deficits. In a 3rd experiment with 36 Ss the intensity of hunger drive, manipulated by the amount of prefeeding, was not a cue for memory activation and subsequent cue-dependent amnesia. Arousal is therefore not believed to be crucial for the effect. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Decoding discrepant nonverbal cues.

Developed a videotaped test of accuracy in decoding discrepant auditory and visual nonverbal cues (the Nonverbal Discrepancy Test). In three-quarters of the test items, the affect communicated in the audio modality is incongruent with the affect communicated in the video modality. In Study 1, with 41 college students, some Ss saw only the video portion of the test, some heard only the audio portion, and others judged both the audio and the video cues. Intergroup comparisons showed that Ss were more influenced by video cues than by audio cues (video primacy effect). In Study 2, 73 junior high school Ss, 150 high school Ss, and 95 college Ss took the full discrepancy test. In all 3 samples, Ss' judgments of the affects communicated in the discrepancy test were again more influenced by video cues than by audio cues. There was more video primacy for females than for males, for discrepancies involving the face than for discrepancies involving the body, and for discrepancies concerning degree of positivity than for discrepancies concerning degree of dominance. In decoding very discrepant messages, as compared to slightly discrepant ones, Ss adopted a strategy characteristic of judges of deception: They attended relatively more to the audio cues than to the video cues. (36 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Nonverbal disclosure of teacher deception and interpersonal affect.

Explored the effect of verbal dissembling on nonverbal behavior. Stimulus teachers were 32 female undergraduates who were led to be verbally truthful or deceptive to a student confederate. The teachers' underlying affective state and the publicness of the interaction between teacher and student were also varied experimentally. Videotaped samples of teachers' nonverbal behavior were shown to 37 naive judges (female undergraduates) who rated how pleased the teachers appeared. Results show that nonverbal behavior tends to reflect whether a teacher is dissembling or truthful. In addition, when being truthful, teachers revealed their underlying affective states; but when lying, there was no difference in nonverbal behavior according to affective state. Teachers' nonverbal behavior also tended to occur differentially according to the publicness of the interaction. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)     

Nonverbal communication in the context of dissociative processes.

Nonverbal communication, at both conscious and unconscious levels, can be portrayed as a type of "body language," a communication between the psychic bodies of patient and therapist. In this article, the author provides several examples of this communication process in the context of a psychoanalytic treatment with a patient who has a history of trauma resulting in frequent dissociative states. Motoric actions (drawing), somatosensory symptoms, and intense affect states represent the media through which she "informs" the analyst of her painful experiences. The analyst's surrender to countertransference states, such as deadness, constitutes the beginning of attunement to the patient's body communications. In one particularly unusual symptom of dissociation, the patient exhibits physical abilities that she is incapable of in more integrated states. An attempt is made to understand this event from a phenomenological and neurobiological perspective. Using an information-processing model, the author illustrates one instance of how the patient's subsymbolic information may be converted to the verbal symbolic via the analyst's use of evoked images. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved)