Suggests several factors to account for the onset of infant-adult joint attention initiated by the infant, and identifies several consequences of infants' understanding of others as intentional subjects, such as verbal development and infants' role in their own enculturation. Contends that infants learn referential gestures not only by imitation…

Whether the information children express only in gesture can be understood by adults not trained in gesture coding was studied with 20 teachers and 20 undergraduates who saw vignettes of 12 children explaining solutions to equations. Both teachers and undergraduates frequently understood strategies children had not expressed in speech. (SLD)

When sibling pairs interacted with unrelated mothers, facial and vocal affect directed to the difficult child in the pair was more dysphoric than that directed to the other. This was particularly the case among women who attributed relatively high control to children and low control to adults. A similar relation between affect and attributions was…

The study with 20 emotionally disturbed and 20 nondisturbed subjects (ages 9-11) found that an external locus of control and poorer performance in decoding voice tone and facial expression were associated with emotional disturbance. Implications for teaching and remediation are discussed. (Author/DB)

Examines the influence of nonverbal cues and attorney gender on juror impression formation. Concludes that (1) attorney gender may not influence the impression formation process in the courtroom; and (2) delivery styles produce expectations for the appropriateness of disfluencies in speech. (MM)

Reports on two studies that looked at the spontaneous face-to-face interaction of three-month-old infants with their mothers. Facial and manual actions, gaze direction, and vocalizations were coded. Results showed a correlation between index-finger extensions and syllabic sounds, suggesting a strong connection between speech and the pointing…

Nonverbal communication is critical to the success of the communication process. Examines nonverbal techniques for enhancing communication: appearance, voice, body movement and posture, gestures, facial expressions, touch, and space. (LMI)

Both positive and negative people can strongly influence other staff. The thinking majority can best be influenced by supplying them with positive information. Leaders can counteract negative staff by being good role models, considering verbal and nonverbal messages, identifying negative staffers and limiting their leadership opportunities, and…

Explored dimensions of influential factors in employment interviewing from recruiter's (n=423) perspective in hiring new college graduates from entry-level position. Conducted factor analysis of 28 communication items. Results suggest that there are six dimensions of influential communication factors in employment interviews: resourcefulness,…

Suggests that the study reported in this monograph indicates that the bias toward verbal instead of nonverbal interaction should give way, and avoids the tendency to dichotomize outcomes. Also suggests that scholars who study older children's learning should attend to nonverbal acts, focus on responsibility in learning, and emphasize attention to…

Finds male supervisors can be effective in building rapport with subordinates solely by using certain nonverbal communicative behaviors. Shows that supervisors with such behaviors were more positively perceived than those without and that subordinates were more likely to comply with the requests of the high-rapport supervisor and to experience a…

Explores the relationships of immediacy and verbal aggression with homophily and interpersonal attraction in the higher education instructional context. Finds that immediacy was negatively related to verbal aggression and positively related to all dimensions of homophily and interpersonal attraction and that verbal aggression was negatively…

In this study, the phrase "shrug" is investigated using the Bank of English Corpus. The report is the first of three; the other two will focus on the phrases "hold one's gaze" and "touch wood." Each of these phrases relates to an aspect of communications that may hold particular difficulties for someone from another culture: gesture, eye contact,…

In this report, the phrase "hold one's gaze" is investigated using the Bank of English Corpus. The report is the second of three; the first is the phrase "shrug" and the third is "touch wood." Each of these phrases relates to an aspect of communications that may hold particular difficulties for someone from another culture: gesture, eye contact,…

Developed and tested a method for measuring viewers' comprehension of a museum exhibit. Results with 30 undergraduate students show agreement among participants on the importance of base units and the ranking of subtopics, but there was less agreement on overall exhibit focus. (SLD)