NONVERBAL COMMUNICATION includes facial expressions, tones of voice, gestures, eye contact, spatial arrangements, patterns of touch, expressive movement, cultural differences, and other "nonverbal" acts. Research suggests that nonverbal communication is more important in understanding human behavior than words alone--the nonverbal "channels" seem to be more powerful than what people say.

INTERESTED? SEE IF YOU CAN "READ" NONVERBAL COMMUNICATION. This page includes sample pictures of different sorts of nonverbal communication, and you can try to guess what each picture shows.

A new University of California videotape series explores different types of NONVERBAL COMMUNICATION. There are several different videos in this series. Each video is about 30 minutes in length and comes with an Instructor's Guide. This University of California video series on NONVERBAL COMMUNICATION is produced by Dane Archer, a Professor at the University of California at Santa Cruz (E-mail: archer@cats.ucsc.edu). Information about how to obtain these videos from the University of California is at the end of this page.

One of the videos in this series is "A WORLD OF DIFFERENCES: Understanding Cross-Cultural Communication". This video is dedicated to the proposition that cross-cultural communication can be successful -- IF we strive to recognize and understand the powerful differences that separate people from two cultures. When we encounter people from other cultures, we may fail to understand them because of differences in language, values, gestures, emotional expression, norms, rituals, rules, expectations, family background, and life experiences.

The video A WORLD OF DIFFERENCES can serve as an important sentitizing device, and people who see the video will emerge with a greatly enhanced awareness of the importance, nature and power of culture. The video examines 14 different facets -- both verbal and nonverbal -- of cross-cultural misunderstanding. In each case, the power and subtlety of cultural differences is explored and illustrated. As the video demonstrates, culture can be like a veil that prevents us from understanding people from other societies, and also prevents them from understanding us.

As shown in A WORLD OF DIFFERENCES, one important cross-cultural difference involves food. Each culture has unique ideas about what's edible, what's delicious, and what's disgusting. In the video the woman on the left describes her reaction when her Vietnamese hosts served her a local delicacy; a bowl of congealed chicken's blood. In the video, we also see the Iranian-American man on the right tell about the time his father served him a dish without telling him what it was. After the meal was consumed, his father revealed that the dish was bull's testicles.

Cultures also differ in the meaning of slang, even if people think they're speaking the same language. The young man on the left is from Ireland. In A WORLD OF DIFFERENCES, he describes his confusion when American friends misunderstood him. In Ireland, when people say "I was pissed", it means "I was drunk" -- not "I was mad". In the video, he explains that Irish people say "Where's the crack in this town?" to refer to parties and fun -- not drugs. Sometimes understanding vocabulary is not enough. In A WORLD OF DIFFERENCES, we see the man on the right from Japan trying (unsuccessfully) to guess the meaning of the American idiom "I'll Eat My Hat".

In A WORLD OF DIFFERENCES, we explore subtle differences that affect our ability to understand people from different cultures. For example, the woman on the left explains that Chinese young people tend not to display male-female contact in public -- no holding hands, no kissing, etc. In the video, the woman on the right explains that Americans visiting a Japanese home should politely decline an offer of food the first two times it's offered, but then should always accept the food when it is offered a third time. These cultural etiquette rules are never taught to visitors, but visitors will be seen as very rude if they behave in culturally inappropriate ways.

Another video in this series is "THE HUMAN FACE: Emotions, Identities and Masks." This video explores the role of the human face in emotions, cultural differences, attractiveness, identity, facial mythology, cosmetic surgery, pupil size changes, aging, law enforcement, etc.

Another video, "THE HUMAN VOICE: Exploring Vocal Paralanguage, " focuses on the power of the voice (verbal + nonverbal) in interpersonal communication. The emphasis is on the way we interpret a speaker's voice in terms of accent, pronunciation, emotions, honesty, sarcasm, charisma, uniqueness, lifestyle, and geographic origin.

This guess is extremely difficult from a picture alone. But if you heard his VOICE, you would probably be certain he was born in New York City. The video THE HUMAN VOICE shows that people get the correct answer easily when they hear his voice.

The video "A WORLD OF GESTURES: Culture and Nonverbal Communication" focuses on international differences in gestures, and cultural differences in nonverbal communication generally. As might be expected, this video is fascinating, provocative, and even outrageous. This video examines angry gestures, obscene gestures, friendly gestures, warning gestures, the development of gestures in children, gang gestures, secret gestures, and embarrassing gestures. Throughout, the emphasis is on how this powerful form of nonverbal communication varies across cultural and national boundaries.

ANSWERS: The Japanese gesture means "angry." The French gesture means "I don't believe you." The Iran gesture is extremely obscene, and means roughly "screw you." The video A WORLD OF GESTURES captures and explains a huge variety of gestures from many different cultures.

The two remaining videos in the series ("THE INTERPERSONAL PERCEPTION TASK," or IPT, and the IPT-15) are "self-tests" that give viewers a chance to interpret verbal and nonverbal behaviors. There is an objectively correct answer for each of the inferences tested, and viewers can see how accurate their own inferences are. For example, one IPT scene shows two people who have just played basketball, and viewers can try to guess who won the game. Another IPT scene shows a person talking on the phone, and viewers try to guess whether she is talking with a man or a woman.

ANSWERS: In the actual IPT video, you have available a sequence of behavior, including verbal and nonverbal clues. The winner of the basketball game is the man on the right; the woman is talking to a female friend.

• A WORLD OF DIFFERENCES: Understanding Cross-Cultural Communication

• THE HUMAN BODY: Appearance, Shape and Self-Image

• THE HUMAN FACE: Emotions, Identities and Masks

• THE HUMAN VOICE: Exploring Vocal Paralanguage

• A WORLD OF GESTURES: Culture and Nonverbal Communication

• THE INTERPERSONAL PERCEPTION TASK (IPT)

• THE INTERPERSONAL PERCEPTION TASK-15 (IPT-15)

OR: For further information on ordering any of the tapes from the entire University of California NONVERBAL COMMUNICATION video series, follow this link.

Web page designed by Zach Archer. Digitized pictures captured by Nate Archer.