Nonverbal Communication - Research Proposal Example

Participants were randomly assigned to either group one or two without knowing the hypothesis to be tested. Participants were asked to solve six questions, where only the time to solve the sixth question was recorded to the nearest second. It was found that participants took more time to answer the sixth question in the absence of nonverbal communication than in the presence of nonverbal communication. It was concluded that absence of nonverbal communication have caused participants to lose their concentration and guidance to complete the task at hand.

Nonverbal communication is an effective way to communicate between people. This paper describes an experiment to access the extent to which nonverbal communication affects the level of concentration. Communication is the transfer of information from one person to another. People fail to realize that most of our communication is of a non-verbal form as opposed to the oral and written forms. Non-verbal communication includes facial expressions, eye contact, tone of voice, body posture and motions, and positioning within groups.

It may also include the way we wear our clothes or the silence we keep (Allis 2007). While words communicate ideas, nonverbal behavior conveys emotions and attitudes. Nonverbal communication is communication that does not use words. . Voice is still considered one of the most important nonverbal communications. Voice communicates in ways different than the words a speaker utters. Social scientists use the term paralanguage to describe a wide range of vocal characteristics, which express different attitudes.

The paralinguistic content of a message reflects a speaker's feelings. The face and eyes are another important means of nonverbal communication. The eyes communicate a great deal. A skilled nonverbal communicator knows when and where to look to produce the desired results. Visual contact is an invitation to speak which regulates the interaction, exercise control and express intimacy (Posner 1966). Not looking at people indicates the desire not to be interrupted. Eye contact, smiling and nodding indicates interest and social approval of a situation.

In most two-person conversations, people seem to look at their partners somewhere between 50 and 60 percent of the time, often alternating short gazes with glances away. An experiment by (Garau 2001) investigated the importance of eye gaze in people engaged in conversation concluded that related gaze behaviour is related provides a marked improvement to the conversation. This report includes the design and results of an experiment to test effect of the existence of nonverbal communication in interpersonal communication.

Time taken by participants is recorded in a control condition where nonverbal communication are allowed by the experimenter and compared with time taken by participants in an experimental condition where nonverbal communication is obscured. The hypothesis to be tested was "It would take participants of condition one (absence of non-verbal