Non-Verbal communication on the Greenway 1 Exploring Non-verbal Communication on the UNCC Greenway By: Joseph Galloway Introduction I am going

to need to clarify some things before we get to the meat of this paper such as; what is the Greenway? This is a paved public trail that runs through patches of forested areas around campus and the charlotte area. Many people use this trail for lots of reasons such as exercise, travel, relaxation or family/ group activities. Next, what is non-verbal communication? This is the process of transferring information from person to person without saying a word. This can be achieved through facial expressions, hand signals, gestures, body language, and even just showing interested in something (like staring at something) Gaze direction is another important facial cue when observing the behavior of others (Frith 3455). Now, where do I the observer fit into this environment? I am an active member of this community. I enter this environment (the Greenway) about 2-3 times a week to do some exercising on my bike. This has led me to attempt to decode the non-verbal world of the greenway. Now, many people if asked what communication occurs on the Greenway would answer little if not none at all. But the people who give that answer arent looking at the full meaning of communication. They are only looking at the verbal from, but most if not all of the communication here is non-verbal. So it takes a hard look at this environment to see what is truly happening. People from all walks of life are sharing a space equally and effectively without as much as a word from either party. This is what makes this environment so unique and what drove me to try and map these hidden dynamics.

Non-Verbal communication on the Greenway 2

Literature Review In my sources we see a lot of talk about facial expressions and the information we derive from them. Facial expressions are crucial component of human emotional and social behavior and are believed to represent innate and automatic behavior patterns (Blair 561). This is very important because if you think of you day today life. Where is most of your attention focused when talking to others? Hopefully you answered their face. This is evident because most of our information gathering as humans is gathered from other peoples faces and body movements. We can relay information such as Disgust, happiness, anger, indifference, and even anticipation through something as simple as the shape and orientation of our facial muscles. Now, a lot of people may be saying I dont know how accurate this information is because I have never done this stuff myself. But the truth is that most people dont realize these processes of information gathering are even happening. This is a result of the fact that most information processes in our minds are on the subconscious level. So many people have no idea this process has been at work their whole lives. But this process is alive in all our brains wither we realize it or not. This is another large reason why people tend to overlook this form of communication, because most of it is processed in our subconscious mind. While we may not realize this is happening that does not mean its not happening or its not important. In fact it is the most important process we have without it we wouldnt be able to tell when people are happy or sad or feel the mood of the room. So this process of subconscious information gathering from peoples expressions and gestures is very important, but how much of our information gathering is processed through these subconscious methods? Well its a lot and it can range from telling you hand what shape to make to grasp an object we make accurate reaching and grasping movements before we become

Non-Verbal communication on the Greenway 3 aware of the stimuli that are eliciting these movements (Frith 3453) to telling you how to react appropriately to a situation or event. For example if you are watching the news and there is a report on a new law being passed in congress. Your subconscious information gathering system will tell you how to react to keep from conflicting with others views just by observing the gestures and facial expressions of the people in the room. You yourself dont have to make any decisions other than wither you want to agree with the other people or disagree, because the information gathering process of determining how others feel about this has been done subconsciously by observing others reactions and facial expressions. So now that the process of this subconscious information gathering has been described to you. We can ask what information can be gained from this process. So many ideas and queues can be derived from this such as personal position on an idea or topic, current feelings, or even desired outcomes. All these bits of information are then compiled subconsciously in our brains and used to form a template for appropriate and non-appropriate behaviors in certain situations. This then gives us a good idea how so many people for different walks of life can coexist in a shared space with little friction and little to no words. This is because as humans we all share a subconscious ability to create templates for appropriate and non-appropriate behavior in certain situations. Even if we have little to no idea what is going on or how this is happening. With these ideas in mind I can then start to reason why certain actions occurred in my observations of this figured world and why they persist from person to person. Such as the occurrence of gestures like the head nod which seems to resemble a server neck twitch, but in reality is a sign of acceptance or a hello from person to person. Simple gestures become the letters and words of this world. These gestures are sort of voted in and out of a non-verbal vocabulary of sorts Displays of anger or embarrassment are important signals to modulate current behavioral responding, particularly

Non-Verbal communication on the Greenway 4 in situations involving hierarchy interactions (Blair 561) through the process of observing them subconsciously and voted on by using them in person to person interactions and observing peoples reactions to determine the gestures use and acceptability. Fearful faces have been seen as aversive unconditioned stimuli that rapidly convey information to others that a novel stimulus is aversive and should be avoided (Blair 561). The Subconscious mind plays a huge role in the formation and use of these non-verbal cues and interactions. So seeing it is something of a challenge and mapping it is an ever greater challenge but it is important to every one of us. Next we can start to talk about body language and its role in information gathering. With body language we can derive information such as mood, desire, or even if someone is being truthful. The great unawareness of people to their body language can be a helpful thing to someone who is in tune with their own. For the untrained body can say much more than the person would have hoped. Some examples of body language are hand gestures, small movements, or a reoccurring habit (like nose scratching). These can show others that you are uncomfortable, nervous, or even distracted. Also stance or even movement while walking can display aggression, power, or timidness. This is so important to appearance that the president even has and body language advisor. Whose job it is to manage and teach the president how to move and stand properly so as to not make the president seem timid or powerless, Also this training is used in jobs that require public speaking. So if this communication process is so important that the president must train himself in it then how come the average person knows little about this communication. This can be attributed to the old saying out of sight out of mind people cant see themselves so they tend to be unaware of little movements and gestures that give away their true intentions. This can be observed easily when people give speeches. The most common types of nervous movements are things like peoples hands in their pockets, fiddling with shirt ends, shifting stance, crossing arms

Non-Verbal communication on the Greenway 5 or so many more little movements that vary from person to person. These subtle movements can give the audience more information than some speech writers can pack into a single speech. This is another large reason why the president needs to control these movements as to stave of accusations of weakness, nervousness, or timidness. That would cause people to lose confidence in his method or ideas. This can be show in real life when John Kennedy debated Richard Nixon for the presidency of 1960. This was around the time of the first TV recorded debates. So the American people could see their potential presidents as they debated the issues. This opened the world up to a new way of gaining information from their presidents. Not only could the people hear the candidates voices but see their faces and their bodies. This gave the debates a new dynamics one Nixon was not familiar with appearance and body language. Nixon was sweaty and unkempt while Kennedy appeared well groomed confident and relaxed. The American people responded to this by forming opinions about Nixon. That he was weak scatter brained and even foolish. Many people have speculated that this lead to the fact that Kennedy won the election. This outcome shows that appearance is important and people gather lots of information from that. This shows that body language is very important to information conveying. So with the combination of body and facial expression language large loads of information can be acquired from people who have little to know idea they are transmitting all this information. So with these ideas in mind we can start to see the depth and dynamics of this unseen world of communication. This light we have shown on this world allows us to see that this method of communication is larger and deeper than the average person realizes.

Non-Verbal communication on the Greenway 6 Enter the Conversation What I believe about this idea of this figured world is that non-verbal communication plays a huge role on the Greenway and is an ever changing dynamic. That many people overlook because they are unaware of their subconscious world or so overwhelmed by the verbal world Spoken language plays such an important role that we often forget about the importance of nonverbal signals. (Frith 3454). This is not a far-fetched idea because the definition of subconscious is to be below consciousness. As the old saying goes out of sight out of mind this is kind of ironic in this situation. Never the less the depth of information gathering and action processing is enacted by the subconscious mind. So view point of only seeing the verbal world is like saying an iceberg only consist of the ice above the water level. Now, many of my articles talk about information received and conveyed by facial expressions. There is much truth in this I have seen it with my own eyes in my everyday life. Through a facial expression you can see a range of emotions. From happy to sad, angry to loving, disgusted to infatuated, aroused to un-intrigued. A lot of people can even judge a persons character through a few minutes looking at someones face. Also this depth of information transfer can be attributed to body language to. This language can be as informative if not more informative then someones face. Through someones body you can even tell if someones words are lies. You can even tell want a person desires without them telling you. Showing the importance of this language in day to day life and how it may be used. These articles show that not only is verbal communication the only way to communicate efficiently but that its not even the biggest or most important form of communication. Non-verbal forms such as facial expression body language and gestures seem to make up the vast majority of communication and even seem to be more truthful and important. So this overlooked and underappreciated world seems to be bigger and more important than our

Non-Verbal communication on the Greenway 7 obvious verbal world in my opinion. Next there has been little research into theses world of communication in the current age, as compared to other areas of communication. This leaves one to wonder what we are not seeing (literally and figuratively) in this world. One can only speculate what else these worlds of communication hold secret in their dark hidden recesses, unless the world expresses greater interest in these ideas and worlds of non-verbal communication in our day to day lives.

Conclusion My Issue of the dynamics of non-verbal communication is something that is not just important in a non-verbal world but something that is important in every world. For I have Proven that the non-verbal world is not only as large as the verbal world but that it is just as dynamic and alive as the verbal world. Also I must stress the depth of information that this world holds and transfers from person to person without them even knowing. This can be likened to the flow of water on the surface of the earth in lakes, streams, rivers(verbal world) and the flow of water underground (non-verbal world). Showing that many people can easily see lots of water flowing around the surface of the earth (we can observe many forms of obvious verbal communication) but many people overlook the massive amount of water flowing under the earth (people overlooking the not obvious non-verbal communication practices and events). This idea shows that while there is a lot of surface water on earth there is so much more water just under the crust (lots of verbal communication but so much more background non-verbal communication behind and with the verbal communication). Also we can then show that this world of communication is not only large but most definitely in charge when it comes to

Non-Verbal communication on the Greenway 8 information transfer. This is evident because of the large verity of information that is received and expressed by these methods. Now, what actions should be a result of this information that is being expressed in this paper? Well I believe that this topic should be heavily researched. Maybe it will unlock the ideas and causes for so many actions that are left unexplained and give us a deeper understanding into who we truly are and that are something worth its weight in gold. If one lets their mind wonder in the thought of what we could discover if we truly explored this area of communication. One would spend many sleepless nights enjoying all the titillating ideas that would come from this area of thought.

Non-Verbal communication on the Greenway 9 References Joseph Galloway. (2013). Observation one Joseph Galloway. (2013). Observation Two Joseph Galloway. (2013). Observation Three Blair, R. (2003, February 5). Facial Expressions, their communicatory functions and neurocognitive substrates. JSTOR.org. Retrieved October 3, 2013, from http://www.jstor.org/discover/10.2307/3558134?searchUri=%2Faction%2FdoBasicSearc h%3FQuery%3Dnonverbal%2Bcommunication%26acc%3Don%26wc%3Don%26fc%3Doff&Search=yes&se archText=communication&searchText=nonverbal&uid=2&uid=4&sid=21102723420403 Frith, C. (n.d.). Role of facial expressions in social interactions. JSTOR.org. Retrieved October 3, 2013, from http://www.jstor.org/discover/10.2307/40538139?searchUri=%2Faction%2FdoBasicResu lts%3Fhp%3D25%26la%3D%26wc%3Don%26fc%3Doff%26acc%3Don%26vf%3Dall %26bk%3Doff%26pm%3Doff%26jo%3Doff%26ar%3Doff%26re%3Doff%26ms%3Dof f%26gw%3Djtx%26Query%3Dnon-verbal%2Bcommunicat Parr, L., Waller, B., & Vick, S. (n.d.). New Developments in Understanding Emotional facial Signals in Chimpanzees. JSTOR.org. Retrieved October 2, 2013, from ww.jstor.org/discover/10.2307/20183177?searchUri=%2Faction%2FdoBasicResults%3F hp%3D25%26la%3D%26wc%3Don%26fc%3Doff%26acc%3Don%26vf%3Dall%26bk

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