P. E. Bull - Posture & Gesture

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Posture and Gesture
Posture and
Gesture
by
P. E. BULL
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Copyright© 1987 Peter Bull
All Rights Reserved. No part of this publication may be
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First edition 1987
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Bull, Peter.
Posture and Gesture.
(International series in experimental social psychology; vol. 16)
Bibliography: p.
1. Nonverbal communication (Psychology) 2. Posture.
3. Gesture. I. Title. II. Series: International series in
experimental social psychology; v. 16.
BF637.N66B851987 153'.6 87-11388
British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data

Bull, Peter, 1949-
Posture and gesture.—(International
series in experimental social psychology;
v. 16).
1. Nonverbal communication
I. Title II. Series
001.56 P99.5
ISBN 0-08-031332-9 (Hardcover)
ISBN 0-0&-033971-9 (Flexicover)
Printed in Great Britain by A. Wheaton & Co. Ltd., Exeter

Preface
The purpose of this book is to present the results of a series of studies
carried out by the author over a number of years, sharing a common focus
on the role of posture and gesture in interpersonal communication. The
first section of the book is intended to set these studies in the general
context of non-verbal communication research; in addition, previous re-
search on posture and gesture is reviewed in order to highlight the particu-
lar issues which were chosen as the focus of research to be reported here.
Techniques of measurement are also discussed, and two scoring pro-
cedures are presented which were devised by the author for the purpose of
categorizing posture and gesture.
In the second and third parts of the volume are presented the results of
eleven original studies of posture and gesture carried out by the author.
The six experiments reported in Part II were concerned with the extent to
which posture communicates information about listener emotions and
attitudes, the seven studies reported in Part III were concerned with the
relationship between posture, gesture and speech. The final section of the
book (Part IV) is intended to summarize the mainfindingsfrom the studies
presented in this volume, to discuss their theoretical and practical
significance, and to consider their implications for the way in which
research on non-verbal communication is carried out.
v
Acknowledgements
A large number of people have contributed to the research reported in this
book. In particular, the author would like to thank Bob Brown for his help
and advice with the early studies of posture reported in Chapters 4-7.
Andrew Thomas's work on the analysis of conversation provided a useful
framework for investigating the relationship between posture and speech
content, while Gerry Connelly made a valuable contribution to the de-
velopment of the Body Movement Scoring System and to the study of
gesture and emphasis reported in Chapter 9. The author would also like to
thank John Local, John Kelly and Bill Wells for their phonetic trans-
criptions, Reg Dimon for technical assistance, Violet Lovell and Sarah
Hampson for carrying out reliability studies, Don Mitchell, Rob Fletcher,
Andrew Monk and Derek Roger for their help and advice with computing
and statistics, Elizabeth Symondson for preparing the drawings for the
questionnaire employed in Experiments 5 and 6, and Steve Johnson for the
figure illustrating the seating arrangements in Experiments 1-4. In
addition, the author would like to thank the Social Science Research
Council (as it then was) and the Institute for Research in the Social
Sciences (University of York) for financial support.
vi
1
The Study of Non-verbal
Communication
There is nothing new in the belief that non-verbal communication is more

trustworthy than speech. "If we want to understand a person . . . We have
to close our ears. We have only to look. In this way we can see as in a
pantomime", wrote Alfred Adler (Ansbacher and Ansbacher, 1958, p.
18). Adler liked to quote an aphorism of the sixteenth-century Protestant
reformer Martin Luther " . . . not to watch a person's mouth but his fists"
(Ansbacher and Ansbacher, 1958, p. 18). More recent decades have seen
the growth of a popular literature which extols the significance and im-
portance of "body language", while at the same time providing an under-
lying theme in the more sober pursuits of academic research. Within the
rubric of such research can be considered investigations of facial expres-
sion, eye contact, pupil dilation, posture, gesture and interpersonal dis-
tance. But the studies to be reported in this volume are concerned with one
particular aspect of non-verbal communication, namely, posture and
gesture. Posture is conventionally understood as referring to bodily posi-
tions as distinct from bodily movements, which are customarily referred to
as gestures; this distinction is employed throughout this book, which is
intended to report a number of original studies carried out by the author on
posture and gesture. Nevertheless, such investigations need to be set in the
broader context of non-verbal communication research; hence, it is the
purpose of this introductory chapter to begin by offering a definition of
those behaviours which may be regarded as non-verbal and as communi-
cative, and then briefly to outline the kinds of studies which have estab-
lished non-verbal communication as a legitimate and worthwhile subject of
psychological enquiry in its own right.
(i) The Concept of Non-verbal Communication

The definition of what behaviour can be regarded as non-verbal com-
munication has in fact provoked a considerable degree of controversy. One
view has been put forward by Ekman and Friesen (1969a), who argue that
only those non-verbal behaviours which are intended to be communicative
3
4 Posture and Gesture
can be regarded as non-verbal communication. A radically different view

stems from the work of Watzlawick et al. (1968), who dismiss the criterion
of intention to communicate as totally irrelevant; they argue that since all
behaviour conveys information, all behaviour can be seen as communi-
cation. Consequently, according to this view, all behaviour defined as
non-verbal can be regarded as non-verbal communication; thus, for ex-
ample, the man in the passenger compartment of a train who looks straight
ahead avoiding the gaze of the other passengers can be said to be com-
municating just as much as if he were talking to them, since those nearby
usually "get the message" and leave him alone.
Both these views of communication have been challenged in an im-
portant theoretical paper by Wiener et al. (1972). They criticize the view
that all behaviour can be seen as communicative on the grounds that a
basic and necessary distinction should be made between signs and com-
munication. Signs, Wiener et al. maintain, imply only an observer making
an inference or assigning significance to an event or a behaviour; in
contrast, communication implies a socially shared signal system or code
through which an encoder makes something public which is responded to
systematically and appropriately by a decoder. Hence, in Wiener et Λ/.'S
terms, it needs to be shown that information is both transmitted and
received through non-verbal behaviour for it to be regarded as non-verbal
communication. It may well be the case, as Watzlawick et al. propose, that
all behaviour is potentially informative, but this is something which has to
be demonstrated rather than assumed; moreover, it also has to be shown
that such information is decoded appropriately for it to be regarded
according to Wiener et al.'s definition as a form of communication.
Wiener et al. also challenge the view put forward by Ekman and Friesen
that the only non-verbal behaviours which can be regarded as communi-
cative are those behaviours which are intended to communicate. Wiener et
tf/.'s criticisms are based on the argument that it is often difficult to
establish exactly what a person does intend to communicate. If in-
tentionality is defined as those behaviours which a person says are intended
to communicate, then there is no problem; but once it is acknowledged
that a person may be unaware, mistaken or deceitful about his intentions,
then Wiener et al. maintain there is no basis in the behaviours themselves
for deciding whether or not they should be regarded as intentional com-
munications.
It is also this author's view that neither intention to communicate nor
awareness of the significance of specific non-verbal cues are necessary for
regarding communication as having taken place. Communication may take
place without any conscious intention to communicate, or indeed, even
against the express intentions of the encoder. For example, studies re-
ported in Part II of this volume show that boredom is systematically
associated with leaning back, dropping the head, supporting the head on
The Study of Non-verbal Communication 5
one hand and stretching out the legs. A person in an audience may show
these behaviours, without any conscious intention to communicate that he
is bored; nevertheless, this may well be the message the speaker receives!
The person in the audience may even try to suppress these tell-tale cues of
boredom by trying hard to appear attentive, but still be incapable of
suppressing the occasional yawn. To the speaker, he may still communicate
that he is bored by the talk, despite his best intentions not to do so!
Nor is it this author's view that awareness of the significance of specific
non-verbal cues is necessary for communication, in the sense that neither
encoder nor decoder need to be able to identify the specific non-verbal
cues through which a particular message is transmitted. So, for example,
people may be left with the feeling that someone was upset or angry about
something without being able to specify exactly what cues were responsible
for creating that impression. Indeed, it can be argued that a great deal of
non-verbal communication takes this form, and that one task of the re-
searcher in non-verbal communication is to try and identify more precisely
the cues which are responsible for creating such impressions.
However, by no means would I wish to argue that all non-verbal behav-
iour is communicative, and this is where the encoding/decoding distinction
is of importance. This conceptual framework was in fact used as the basis
for a review in which so-called studies of non-verbal communication were
evaluated in the light of the encoding/decoding distinction (Bull, 1983). It
also forms the basis for the original studies which are to be presented in this
volume. Communication requires both encoding and decoding, but en-
coding may take place without decoding, while decoding may also be
inaccurate. The implications of these distinctions allow three different
kinds of status for non-verbal cues.
Firstly, if an emotion, for example, is encoded by particular non-verbal
cues, but is not decoded appropriately by others, then this suggests that
non-verbal cues may be a valuable source of information about others
which is generally neglected. This kind of approach has been particularly
associated with some psychoanalysts, who have maintained that bodily
cues can provide valuable guides to psychodynamics. Deutsch (1947, 1949,
1952), for example, set out to record all the postures of patients under-
going psychoanalysis, together with a transcript of what the patient actually
said. He gave numerous examples of how different postures accompanied
different free associations; for example, he described how one female
patient held her hands under her neck when fearful of being punished for
masturbation, lifted her right hand and held her left hand protectively over
her head when she was angry with men and lifted both arms when she was
angry with both parents (Deutsch, 1947). Deutsch argued that an
awareness of postural expression is of great value in psychoanalysis both
for the analyst in providing him with clues to psychodynamics and for the
patient in helping him to become aware of his own repressed feelings
through the analyst's interpretation of the particular postures adopted.

According to this view, non-verbal cues are significant not because they
constitute a generalized system of communication, but as a source of
valuable information which only a skilled perceiver can learn to understand
through careful observation. The same kind of assumption can also been
seen to underlie the popular literature on body language (e.g. Fast, 1970),
which seeks to instruct people on the tell-tale signs, for example, of sexual
availability. Again, the implication is that non-verbal cues have a particular
importance as a source of valuable information only for the skilled ob-
server who knows how to read the tell-tale signs!
A second possibility is that non-verbal cues are commonly perceived as
conveying a meaning which they do not in fact possess (decoding errors); in
this case their social significance would be quite different. They might in
fact be of considerable social importance, but in the sense that they lead
people to make erroneous attributions about others and possibly to act
upon those mistakes. For example, it is commonly assumed that non-
verbal cues tell us a great deal about personality, but empirical research
(e.g. Bull, 1983, pp. 79-87) has provided little support for this belief; this
may well be an example of a decoding error. Research has also shown
substantial individual differences in people's ability to decode non-verbal
cues (e.g. Rosenthal et al., 1979), so that the extent to which non-verbal
cues operate as a communication system will vary substantially according
to the perceptiveness of the decoder. In fact, many studies of non-verbal
cues have relied only upon decoding designs and there is a real danger that
in the absence of satisfactory encoding studies, the evidence obtained from
decoding alone may be quite misleading. For example, decoder
judgements of emotional expressions may represent popular stereotypes of
their significance rather than an accurate depiction of the way in which
emotions are actually expressed.
The third possibility is, of course, that non-verbal cues may be both
encoded and decoded appropriately, and that in this case their importance
lies in their role as a means of communication. The importance of the
preceding discussion is that the social significance of non-verbal behaviour
does not necessarily lie in communication and hence the importance of the
encoding/decoding distinction always needs to be considered in evaluating
research on non-verbal behaviour. In the subsequent discussion, the term
"non-verbal cues" will be used where the term "cue" is intended to indicate
that the behaviour may be informative but not necessarily communicative;
the term "communication" will only be used where it is considered that
systematic and appropriate encoding and decoding of that particular be-
haviour has been demonstrated.
The encoding/decoding distinction was used as the basis for a theoretical
review of the non-verbal communication literature (Bull, 1983) and forms
the conceptual framework for the author's own studies to be presented in
this volume. The importance of this distinction for empirical research is

that both encoding and decoding studies need to be carried out if we are to
be able to effectively evaluate the social significance of non-verbal behav-
iour, and this was the approach adopted in the research presented here. In
the remainder of this chapter, however, it is intended to present a brief
review of the social significance of non-verbal behaviour to be followed by
a more detailed review of studies of posture and gesture in the next
chapter; these two chapters are by no means intended to be exhaustive,
rather to provide a background for the issues tackled in the author's own
research, which is presented in the remainder of the book.
(ii) The Role of Non-verbal Cues in Social Interaction

Non-verbal cues can be said to communicate information about
emotion, speech, individual differences and interpersonal relationships;
their significance also needs to be considered in specific social contexts
(Bull, 1983). Particular importance is commonly ascribed to non-verbal
cues in the communication of emotion, stemming from the observations of
Charles Darwin (1872), who argued that the facial expressions of emotion
constitute part of an innate, adaptive, physiological response. If the facial
expressions of emotion are innate, then this would suggest that they
constitute a particularly important means of communicating information
about emotion. Thus, if a person is attempting to conceal the fact that he is
experiencing a particular emotion, he might not succeed in suppressing all
the expressive movements associated with that particular emotion. Again,
if a person wishes to convey an emotion he is not experiencing, he may fail
to reproduce the spontaneous expression by omitting certain important
features or by mismanaging the timing.
Evidence relevant to the innate hypothesis can be summarized as
follows. Firstly, there is the evidence from cross-cultural studies (e.g.
Ekman et al., 1972) which shows that facial expressions associated with six
emotions (happiness, sadness, anger, fear, disgust, surprise) are decoded
in the same way by members of both literate and pre-literate cultures.
However, as Ekman (1973) acknowledges, the demonstration of universals
in decoding does not necessarily prove that the facial expressions of
emotion are inherited, it simply increases the probability that this ex-
planation is valid. The only hypothesis necessary to account for universal
decoding in facial expression is that whatever is responsible for common
facial expressions is constant for all mankind; thus, common inheritance is
one such factor, but learning experiences common to all mankind could
equally well be another.
Secondly, there is the evidence from the study of children born deaf and
blind. The ethologist Eibl-Eibesfeldt (1973) has filmed a number of such
children and claims that they show the same kinds of basic facial expres-
sions in appropriate situational contexts as do children born without such

handicaps. Again, a likely explanation for these observations is that such
expressions are inherited, but it is still possible that tKey may be learned
through some form of behaviour shaping.
Thirdly, there is evidence from studies of non-handicapped children
which shows that the facial musculature is fully formed and functional at
birth. Oster and Ekman (1977), using Ekman and Friesen's (1978) Facial
Action Coding System, have shown that all but one of the discrete muscle
actions visible in the adult can be identified in new-born infants, both full-
term and premature. Again, however, this does not prove that the
association of particular facial expressions with particular emotions is
innate. Smiling can be called a universal gesture in the sense that it is an
expression which human beings are universally capable of producing, but
this does not mean that it is innately associated with the emotion of
happiness, nor that it has a universal meaning.
Thus, although the evidence is consistent with the hypothesis that certain
facial expressions of emotion are innate, it is by no means conclusive.
Nevertheless, if the innate hypothesis is accepted as valid, then it suggests
that facial expression is of particular importance in communicating infor-
mation about certain emotions. It should be stated at the outset that this is
not meant to imply that all facial expressions of emotion are innate. The
learned and innate aspects of emotional expression have been neatly
reconciled by Ekman (1972) in what he calls his neuro-cultural model of
emotional expression, according to which he assumes the existence of at
least six fundamental emotions with innate expressions which can be mod-
ified by the learning of what he calls display rules; display rules refer to
norms governing the expression of emotion in different contexts and may
take the form of attenuation, amplification, substitution or concealment of
particular expressions.
The proposal that facial expressions of emotion may be both innate and
learned has important implications for the significance which we ascribe to
facial expression in the communication of emotion (Bull, 1984). For ex-
ample, if we accept this view, it means that no simple answer is possible to
the question of the relative importance of different cues in communicating
information about emotion, since it may depend on whether we are dis-
cussing deliberate or spontaneous expressions. Thus, Ekman and Friesen
(1969b) put forward the concept of "non-verbal leakage", that information
about deception may be revealed more through bodily than facial cues; this
is based on the hypothesis that precisely because of the greater repertoire
of facial movement, people may be more careful to control their facial
movements when trying to deceive others and hence are more likely to give
themselves away inadvertently through bodily movements. But if we are
comparing different types of spontaneous expression, it still seems likely
that the face constitutes the prime non-verbal source of information about
emotion. Facial muscle changes are rapid, the face is usually clearly visible
and there are at least six universal expressions probably innately associated
with different emotions. Conversely, the eyes and the pupils lack the same
variety of movement as the face and are also less easily discernible. It has
yet to be shown that pupil dilation or gaze enable us to distinguish between
different emotions; instead, they probably convey information about in-
tensity of emotion rather than the nature of emotion as such (Bull, 1983,
pp. 2-9, 43-46). The evidence on posture and gesture is much less clear-cut
and will be discussed in detail in the next chapter; one of the purposes of
the studies to be reported in this book was to investigate how much
information is conveyed about emotions and attitudes through posture,
and these studies are reported in Part II.
The central importance of non-verbal cues in the communication of
emotion has led some writers to regard non-verbal communication as an
alternative system to speech, offering a more reliable indicator of people's
true feelings. This has been especially true of the popular literature on
"body language", in which it seems to be suggested that it represents a kind
of "royal road to the unconscious", providing a vital source of information
about people's "real" feelings and attitudes. Typical of such work is that of
Fast (1970), who maintains that "body language" conveys an emotional
message to the outside world, which is more reliable than the spoken word;
thus, Fast (p. 92) writes that ". . .if the spoken language is stripped away
and the only communication left is body language, the truth will find some
way of poking through". While it can certainly be argued from the innate
hypothesis of facial expression that non-verbal cues may be a particularly
important guide to people's emotions and interpersonal attitudes, the
danger of this viewpoint is that it neglects the extent to which speech and
non-verbal communication operate as complementary systems of com-
munication; indeed, it may be the case that incidences in which non-verbal
communication conflicts with speech are the exception rather than the rule.
A number of researchers have in fact claimed that non-verbal behaviour
is closely related to speech in terms of syntax (Lindenfeld, 1971), vocal
stress (Pittenger, Hockett and Danehy, 1960) and meaning (Scheflen,
1964, 1973). It has also been argued that non-verbal behaviour serves a
variety of functions in relation to speech, which can be divided on the basis
of a classification system proposed by Ekman and Friesen (1969a) into
three main types: emblems, illustrators and regulators. The term
"emblems" they derived from Efron (1941) to refer to those non-verbal
acts which have a direct translation, such as nodding the head when
n. eaning "Yes", or shaking the head when meaning "No"; their function is
communicative and explicitly recognized as such. Illustrators are
movements which are directly tied to speech and it is maintained that they
facilitate communication by amplifying and elaborating the verbal content
of the message. Regulators are movements which guide and control the
PAG—B
flow of conversation, influencing both who is to speak and how much is

said. The extent to which posture and gesture are related to speech and the
functions they serve forms the basis for the second group of studies pre-
sented in Part III of this volume; in the next chapter, there also follows a
more detailed review of the research literature on the interrelationship
between posture, gesture and speech.
An extensive literature has also developed on individual differences both
in the encoding and decoding of non-verbal behaviour. With regard to
encoding, Bull (1985) has argued that non-verbal cues may not only encode
information about individual differences but that there may also be indi-
vidual differences concerning the extent to which people transmit infor-
mation through non-verbal cues: some people may transmit a great deal of
information through non-verbal cues, others relatively little. For example,
Hall (1979) has reviewed twenty-six studies in which comparisons were
made of sex differences in encoding—nine showed a significant gender
difference and eight of these showed that women were clearer encoders.
Hence, in this sense women can be seen as more expressive, i.e. they
transmit more information through non-verbal cues. Men and women also
differ in the non-verbal behaviour they use. A recent review of the
literature by Hall (1984) showed a number of consistent non-verbal sex
differences. Women both smile more and gaze more at other people; they
prefer closer interpersonal distances and are approached more closely than
men; they also use smaller and less open body movements and positions.
Given that people can make quite subtle judgements about the sex-role
attitudes of others on the basis of their non-verbal behaviour alone (Lippa,
1978), it can be argued that such behaviours can be used as a code for
communicating information about masculinity and femininity (Bull, 1985).
Thus, individual differences in encoding may be important not only in that
people may differ in the extent to which they transmit information through
non-verbal cues, but also the non-verbal cues they do employ may encode
significant information about aspects of personality such as sex-role
attitudes.
Individual differences in decoding non-verbal cues constitute a second
important theoretical issue. A number of studies have been carried out to
investigate whether groups differ in their decoding ability, whether, for
example, women are superior to men in this respect, or whether psychiatric
patients are disadvantaged in comparison to the normal population. An
extensive body of research has been carried out by Rosenthal et al. (1979)
based on a test of decoding non-verbal cues called the Profile of Non-
verbal Sensitivity (PONS); results using the PONS show a number of
significant effects due to age, sex, culture and psychopathology. The im-
portance of these findings with regard to the communicative status of non-
verbal behaviour is that although non-verbal cues may encode information
about, say, emotion, speech or individual differences, such information
may not always be accurately decoded; if certain groups of people fail to

decode non-verbal cues appropriately, then the significance of those cues
as a form of communication must inevitably vary according to the
sensitivity of the decoders.
In fact, the assumption that people are often not aware of the
significance of non-verbal cues can clearly be seen to underlie the popular
literature on "body language", which seeks to instruct people on the
hidden meaning of non-verbal behaviour. Such books also make the claim
that increasing people's awareness of non-verbal cues will bring them
immediate practical benefits in their daily lives. Whether or not we accept
the view that reading a manual on "body language" will bring instant social
gains, there is no doubt that the systematic study of non-verbal behaviour
does have considerable practical significance. A particularly important
influence has been the social skills model of social interaction, according to
which social behaviour can be seen as a kind of motor skill, involving the
same kinds of processes as, for example, driving a car or playing a game of
tennis (Argyle and Kendon, 1967). The advantage of this approach, Argyle
and Kendon maintain, is that we know a great deal about motor skill
processes, and consequently can apply ideas and concepts developed in the
study of skills to the study of social interaction.
Argyle and Kendon list six processes which they claim are common to
motor skill and social performance: distinctive goals, selective perception
of cues, central translation processes, motor responses, feedback and
corrective action, and the timing of responses. Social performance can be
seen as having distinctive goals; for example, an interviewer has the main
goal of obtaining information from the interviewee, and sub-goals, such as
establishing rapport. Selective perception of cues refers to the process
whereby individuals pay particular attention to certain types of information
which are relevant to achieving their particular objectives. Central trans-
lation processes prescribe what to do about any particular piece of infor-
mation; people learn behavioural strategies with which to respond to
certain types of perceptual information. Motor responses refer to the
actual social behaviours themselves which are implemented as a con-
sequence of the central translation processes. Feedback and corrective
action refer to the ways in which an individual may modify his behaviour in
the light of feedback from others; Argyle and Kendon argue that non-
verbal cues are a particularly important source of feedback. Finally, the
timing of responses is of importance, for example, choosing the right
moment to make a point in a group discussion.
One major implication of the social skills model of social interaction is
that if social behaviour is seen as a skill, then it is possible for people to
improve their social performance through learning, just as it is possible for
them to improve their performance on any other skill. This might take the
form of a systematic course in social skills training (e.g. Trower, Bryant
and Argyle, 1978), or it might be the case that simply reading a book on non-
verbal communication may be sufficient to improve the quality of a person's
social relationships (as is typically claimed in the popular literature on "body
language").
However, there is no reason why skilled decoding should automatically
result in improved social effectiveness. The selective perception of cues has to
be transformed through central translation processes into effective motor
responses; hence, in terms of the social skills model, it is perfectly possible for
someone to be highly perceptive without being able to translate that
perceptiveness into appropriate social behaviour. In this sense, the claims of
the body language literature should be treated with caution —even if reading
such books does substantially change people's social awareness, it will not
necessarily improve the quality of their social relationships.
Another important qualification on the claims made for the practical
advantages of an awareness of "body language" is the importance of social
context. The impression is sometimes given that we have only to master the
dictionary of "body language" in order to understand the emotional meaning
of subtle non-verbal cues. But non-verbal behaviour is not simply an expres-
sion of the individual's biological endowment; it takes place in a social context
and is influenced by the norms which govern behaviour both in the society at
large and in individual situations in particular. Hence, meaning is dependent
upon an understanding of context: practical applications of non-verbal com-
munication research must be considered with regard to specific situations and
the constraints which operate on people in those situations.
Non-verbal behaviour also varies as a function of the relationship between
people. A number of experiments have been carried out in which observers
are asked to make judgements about the identity of an unseen conversational
partner on the basis of viewing the non-verbal behaviour of one of the
conversationalists alone. For example, Benjamin and Creider (1975) showed
that observers were able to perform this task successfully in terms of the age,
sex and acquaintanceship of the unseen conversational partner. Studies by
Abramovitch (Abramovitch, 1977; Abramovitch and Daly, 1979) have shown
that even very young children are capable of accurately discerning the rela-
tionship between people from non-verbal cues alone. Benjamin and Creider,
from an analysis of the videotapes, also identified certain differences in facial
expression according to the type of relationship. When adults talked to
children, their muscle tonus was low, the skin beneath the eyes and over the
cheek bones hanging loosely down except during broad smiles, whereas when
adults talked to other adults, their skin was bunched and raised. There also
appeared to be significant differences in the activity rate between same-age
and different-age conversations, conversations between people of the same
age appearing to be much more animated.
The significance of these studies is not only that non-verbal behaviour
varies according to the nature of the relationship; they also show that
decoders can utilize such information to discern the relationship between

people in terms of sex, age and acquaintanceship. Hence, in addition to
communicating information about emotion, speech and individual
differences, non-verbal cues can also be said to communicate information
about relationships. The importance of this for the practical applications of
non-verbal cues is that if non-verbal behaviour varies according to the
nature of the relationship, then this is another contextual factor which the
decoder must take into account in assessing the significance of non-verbal
behaviour and another argument against the belief that there are fixed
meanings for body movement, to be revealed once the codification of
"body language" has been completed.
In short, research on non-verbal behaviour does have considerable
practical significance, if it is applied in a sophisticated manner; but it is only
too easy to fall into the trap of regarding such research as a panacea for all
problems in interpersonal communication—as a kind of hieroglyphics,
whose mysteries once deciphered reveal to the skilled observer the subtle
intricacies of human relationships in all their infinite variety. In the above
discussion, two qualifications have been proposed: skilled decoding does
not automatically improve interpersonal relationships, while the meaning
of non-verbal behaviour cannot be divorced from context—indeed, it is
only through an understanding of context that its meaning can be fully
appreciated.
In the next chapter, there follows a review of relevant research on
posture and gesture; in Parts II and III are presented the author's own
original studies on this theme. The final section (Part IV) is intended to
provide an evaluation of the significance of this research: the main findings
from the studies presented in this book are summarized, together with a
discussion of their theoretical significance and methodological implications
for non-verbal communication research.
2
Clinical and Experimental Studies
of Posture and Gesture
Introduction
In the previous chapter, it was argued that non-verbal behaviour com-
municates significant information about emotion, speech, individual
differences and interpersonal relationships, and that its significance also
needs to be understood within particular situational contexts. However, in
non-verbal communication research the study of posture and gesture has
been comparatively neglected in comparison to, say, facial expression,
gaze, pupil dilation or interpersonal distance. This dearth of systematic
research contrasts starkly with the substantial claims which have been
made for the psychological significance of posture and* gesture in the
clinical literature. It was the discrepancy between those claims (based
essentially on a qualitative approach) and the relevant quantitative
literature which provided one of the main inspirations for a number of the
studies to be presented in this book. In this chapter, both qualitative and
quantitative approaches to the study of posture and gesture will be dis-
cussed, together with the rationale for the author's own studies which are
to be presented in Parts II and III of this volume.
There have been many claims for the psychological significance of post-
ure. It provides us, we have been told, with a vital source of information
about a person's emotions and attitudes (Deutsch, 1947,1949,1952). It can
tell us much about social relationships and the structure of social inter-
action (Scheflen, 1964, 1973). It both expresses personality and constitutes
a major influence on personality formation, such that manipulation of
posture can be used as a valuable therapeutic device in its own right
(Reich, 1933/1945; Lowen, 1958, 1967).
These are some of the claims which have been made for the psycho-
logical significance of posture, stemming from the observations and in-
tuitions of a number of psychotherapists and psychoanalysts over several
decades. Of course, such an exalted view of the importance of non-verbal
cues can be traced directly to the work of Freud himself: "He that has eyes
to see and ears to hear may convince himself that no mortal can keep a
secret. If his lips are silent, he chatters with his finger-tips; betrayal oozes
14
Clinical and Experimental Studies of Posture and Gesture 15
out of him at every pore" (Ekman and Friesen, 1969b, p. 89). But Freud
was essentially concerned with the analytical interpretation of language; it
was left to his enigmatic pupil Wilhelm Reich to develop an explicit
emphasis on the psychological significance of posture. In Character
Analysis (1933/1945), Reich greatly extended the scope of the character
typologies developed by Freud, while at the same time proposing a critical
link between personality formation and posture. Initially, Reich for-
mulated the notion of character armour, by which he referred to the
rigidity of personality, the failure to respond appropriately to novel cir-
cumstances; later he went on to develop the concept of muscular
armouring, suggesting that particular infantile experiences lead to the
adoption of particular configurations of posture which mould and sustain
certain types of character throughout later life.
Reich's own ideas were taken up and subsequently extended by
Alexander Lowen (1958, 1967). Lowen adopted the notion of a link
between posture and personality, attempting to describe the distinctive
postures which he believed were associated with each of the character
types delineated by Freud and Reich. For example, he maintained that the
oral personality as described by Freud is associated with what he refers to
as the "oral sag", a posture characterized by a sway back and fallen arches.
Lowen claimed that through using both orthodox psychotherapy and direct
physical treatment of the physical rigidities which he saw as integral to
neurotic character structures, fundamental changes in personality could be
achieved and a great deal of trapped energy could be released to the lasting
benefit of the patient.
The work of Reich and Lowen is embedded firmly in the psychoanalytic
tradition; their concern is essentially the relationship of posture to the
individual unconscious. Another psychotherapist, Albert Scheflen, has
also stressed the importance of posture, but from a social perspective
rather than from that of personality. Scheflen (1964) has argued that a
great deal can be learned about a social situation from particular con-
figurations of body posture; thus, he suggests that an individual's con-
versation can be broken up into hierarchically ordered units called the
"point", the "position" and the "presentation". The "point" corresponds
roughly to making a point in a discussion and tends to be indicated by a
change in head posture. Several "points" may go to make up what Scheflen
calls the "position", which corresponds roughly to taking a certain point of
view in an interaction, and tends to be accompanied by a postural change
involving at least half the body. The "presentation" is the largest unit, and
refers to all of the person's body positions in a given interaction; it is only
concluded by a complete change in location.
Posture can also tell us a great deal about social relationships, Scheflen
maintained. Thus, he argued that similarity of posture (called postural
congruence) indicates similarity in views or roles in the group; conversely,
non-congruence of posture he argued is used to indicate marked di-

vergences in attitude or in status. He also suggested that inclusiveness in a
group may be indicated by posture; if people are seated in a line, those at
each end may turn inward and extend an arm or a leg across the open space
as if to limit access in and out of the group, an effect Scheflen calls
"bookending". Finally, Scheflen maintains that changes in posture may be
used to indicate what he calls a "programme", that is a series of stages
which in any culture mark out the progress of particular social occasions
such as holding a meeting, greeting a friend or serving dinner. Scheflen
argued that stages in the "programme" may be indicated by postural
markers; for example, in a church service some stages are marked by
kneeling, some by the congregation sitting while the minister is standing,
and so forth.
These concepts and observations are derived from the analysis of sound
and motion picture recordings of psychotherapy sessions, analysed
according to a method Scheflen calls Context Analysis. From this re-
cording, each observable behaviour of each participant, both verbal and
non-verbal, is transcribed on to a time graph. When these are examined,
Scheflen maintained that patterns of repetitive behaviour become evident
which can be compared with other similar patterns and evaluated in their
social context, that is, in terms of preceding, simultaneous and subsequent
behaviours, concurrent relationships and other aspects of the larger situ-
ation. This technique is best examplified in the book Communicational
Structure (Scheflen, 1973), in which a psychotherapy session has been
transcribed and examined in this kind of elaborate detail.
Substantial claims have thus been made in the clinical literature for the
psychological significance of posture. Nevertheless, the evidence for these
claims is based essentially on a qualitative approach, which is always open
to the criticism that the authors have selected only those examples which
support their case and have failed to sample adequately the full range of
posture and gesture. Scheflen (1966) has in fact criticized those psycho-
logical studies which rely simply on frequency counts of isolated units of
behaviour. According to Scheflen, non-verbal cues are linked together
through the system of rules. The task of the researcher is to describe those
rules not through the isolation of single variables but through a structural
analysis where the significance of particular aspects of behaviour can be
understood in their total context. The methodological approach which
Scheflen recommends is a natural history one, where the investigator
through repeated viewing of a tape learns which of the non-verbal cues are
ordered in sequential arrangements.
However, there is in fact no reason why statistical analysis should not be
applied to the study of structure. Scheflen (1966) explicitly rejects the use
of statistical analysis because he claims that the nature of a sequential rule
is such that the various elements will appear together in the appropriate
order on each occasion. But such a rule is in fact an inference from

observed behaviour, and just as people sometimes breach the rules of
grammar when they are talking, so there may well be breaches of the rules
which govern the sequential ordering of non-verbal cues. For example,
Scheflen maintains that postural congruence indicates similarity of views or
roles in the group; it would be interesting to know whether postural
congruence always occurs when people express similar views or whether it
ever occurs during disagreement. Scheflen (1964) in fact mentions that old
friends or colleagues who have long-term ties sometimes shift into postural
congruence at times when they are temporarily arguing or taking opposing
sides, as if to indicate the ultimate continuity of their relationship. But this
raises another problem: if postural congruence occurs in this context
during disagreement, how do we know that it indicates the ultimate
continuity of the relationship between old friends? Indeed, how can we be
sure that postural congruence in any context indicates similarity of views or
roles in a group? Only by a proper sampling of incidences of postural
congruence and by the use of other indices of rapport can we assess the
validity of Scheflen's observations concerning the significance of postural
congruence.
The same kind of criticism can in fact be levelled at all the clinical work
on posture: it may indeed be the case that psychotherapists have provided
important insights about the psychological significance of posture, but the
case has yet to be proved. Hence, it is now my intention to turn to what has
been established through quantitative studies of posture and gesture
carried out within the tradition of experimental social psychology. Re-
ference is made here to studies of both posture and gesture, since although
the clinical tradition refers particularly to the significance of posture, the
distinction between posture and gesture is to some extent an arbitrary one,
and in practice many of the claims of the psychotherapists can be seen to
refer to the significance of body movements as well as of body positions.
(i) Postural Congruence

A number of quantitative studies have in fact been carried out based on
Scheflen's observations concerning the significance of postural congruence
in interpersonal relationships, using both encoding and decoding designs.
Most of the studies have been intended to test Scheflen's observations that
postural congruence is indicative of rapport, and hence may be regarded as
encoding designs. However, there have also been studies carried out to
investigate how postural congruence is perceived, which may be regarded
as decoding designs.
For example, Charny (1966) analysed a film of a psychotherapy session
between a male therapist and a female patient. Charny categorized post-
ures into congruent and non-congruent postures; he also distinguished
between mirror-image congruent postures, where one person's left side is

equivalent to the other's right, and identical postures, where right matches
right and left matches left (see Fig. 1). Charny found that as the interview
progressed, there was a significant trend towards spending more time in
upper body mirror-congruent postures. (Lower body postures (hips and
lower limbs) were excluded from the final analysis, since these could not be
scored with adequate reliability.) Charny also found that the speech
associated with mirror-congruent postures was more positive, and argued
from these results that mirror-congruent postures may be taken as indi-
cative of rapport or relatedness. Identical postures rarely occurred during
the session, so were not included in the final analysis.
FIGURE 1. Postural congruence. The pair in the foreground are showing identical postures,
the pair in the background mirror-image postures. Source: Body Movement & Interpersonal
Communication, Bull © 1983. Reprinted by permission of John Wiley & Sons Ltd.
LaFrance (LaFrance and Broadbent, 1976; LaFrance, 1979) has in-

vestigated whether postural congruence is related to rapport in American
college seminars. In one study, LaFrance and Broadbent (1976) asked
students to complete a questionnaire made up of ten six-point bipolar
scales reporting their assessment of the seminar. Of these ten items, the
dimensions apart-together, involved-disinterested and rapport-no rapport
were considered to be particularly relevant to the measurement of rapport,
which was assessed in terms of the sum of these scales. The postures of the
students were coded according to whether they were non-congruent,
identical or mirror-congruent. The results showed a significant positive
correlation between mirror-congruent postures and the measure of

rapport, a significant negative correlation between non-congruent postures
and rapport, and no significant relationship between identical postures and
rapport, although the correlation was positive.
In a second study, LaFrance (1979) measured posture and rapport
during the first week (time 1) and the final week (time 2) of a 6-week
seminar course to investigate the probable direction of causality between
mirror-congruent postures and rapport, using a method of statistical
analysis known as the cross-lag panel technique (Kenny, 1975). To use this
technique, mirror-congruent postures at time 1 were correlated with
rapport at time 2 while rapport at time 1 was correlated with mirror-
congruent postures at time 2. The difference between these two
correlations can then be used to investigate which of the two variables has
causal priority over the other. For example, if postural congruence de-
termines rapport, then the correlation between postural congruence at
time 1 and rapport at time 2 should exceed the correlation between rapport
at time 1 and postural congruence at time 2. In fact, both correlations were
positive and statistically significant, although the results did not show a
significant difference between these two correlations; however, the direc-
tion of the effect suggested that it is postural congruence which may be
influential in establishing rapport.
LaFrance has reported one other study of postural congruence, which in
this case failed to show a relationship between congruence and rapport. In
this study, LaFrance and Ickes (1981) arranged for American male and
female students who were unacquainted with one another to meet in
same-sex pairs while ostensibly waiting for an experiment. Afterwards, the
students completed questionnaires concerning perceptions of their own
and the other's behaviour. Mirror-congruent postures were coded and
showed a non-significant but negative correlation with self-ratings of
rapport {r — —0.017). LaFrance and Ickes attempted to explain this finding
by arguing that postural congruence is a means of establishing rapport,
rather than an indicator that rapport has already been established; hence,
their non-significant results might simply reflect the fact that the subjects
were strangers to one another and had insufficient time in the waiting room
to establish a satisfactory level of rapport.
Thus, for the most part encoding studies of postural congruence suggest
that it is related to rapport. Another way of investigating the phenomenon
is to see whether postural congruence is decoded as conveying rapport. For
example, Trout and Rosenfeld (1980) set up an experiment to investigate
the perception of postural congruency in simulated therapist-client inter-
actions. They arranged for two male American graduate students to play
the roles of therapist and client, and to adopt either mirror-congruent or
non-congruent postures; there was no sound-track, and the faces were
blocked out of the tape. The tapes were judged by American male and
female students on a number of rating scales (e.g. the therapy relationship

was harmonious-unharmonious), and averaged to yield an overall score of
rapport. The results showed that the mirror-congruent postures were rated
as indicating significantly more rapport than the non-congruent postures.
Dabbs (1969) investigated how postural congruence would affect the
ratings of an interviewee in a simulated interview. Dabbs arranged for
pairs of American male students to interview a confederate of the ex-
perimenter who was in fact a trained actor, and had been instructed to
mimic the postures and gestures of one student selected randomly by the
experimenter from each pair. At the conclusion of the "interview", the
students completed a questionnaire evaluating the confederate. They
showed no awareness of the mimicry, nor did the mimicked students rate
the confederate as significantly more similar in postures and gestures. But
the confederate was evaluated significantly more favourably by the mim-
icked students; in particularly, they considered he thought more like they
did", and said that they "identified" with him. Dabbs made no effort to
distinguish between mirror-image and identical postures, although his
findings are clearly consistent with Scheflen's observations concerning
postural congruence; indeed, they also support LaFrance's hypothesis that
the use of postural congruence can be an influential means of establishing
rapport.
(ii) Emotion and Interpersonal Attitudes

In the quantitative literature on the non-verbal communication of
emotions and attitudes, there has been surprisingly little work concerned
with the significance of posture and gesture. While there have been ex-
tensive cross-cultural studies on the facial expression of emotion (e.g.
Ekman and Friesen, 1975; Izard, 1977), the research which has been
carried out on posture and gesture can be divided into two main types:
decoding studies concerned with the relative importance of the face and
the body in decoding emotional expressions (Ekman, 1964, 1965; Ekman
and Friesen, 1967) and encoding studies based on role play concerned with
the communication of interpersonal attitudes (Mehrabian, 1968a, 1968b;
Mehrabian and Friar, 1969; Mehrabian and Williams, 1969).
Ekman had three studies published in the 1960s which were concerned
with the relative importance of the face and the body in the decoding of
emotional expressions (Ekman, 1964, 1965; Ekman and Friesen, 1967).
These studies were all based on structured interviews with a neutral phase,
a stress phase in which the interviewer attacked and criticized the inter-
viewee's choice of occupation, competence and motivation, and finally a
catharsis phase in which the interviewer explained the purpose of the
experiment and apologized for his earlier hostility.
In the first study, Ekman (1964) had still photographs taken of different
phases of the interview, which were shown in pairs to American students

together with short written speech extracts from the stress and catharsis
phases; the students' task was to pick the photograph which matched the
sample of speech. Ekman found that the students reached a significantly
greater level of accuracy when shown pictures of the face alone than when
shown pictures of the body alone.
Ekman (1965) then carried out another experiment comparing
judgements from the face and the body. In this study, three separate
groups of American students each viewed one version of the stimulus
material—the face, the body or the whole person. All the photographs
were rated on Schlosberg's (1954) dimensions of emotion for pleasantness/
unpleasantness and sleep/tension. Ekman hypothesized that the face
carries information primarily about what emotion is being experienced, the
body carries information about its intensity. Thus, he predicted that there
would be higher agreement amongst judges on ratings of pleasantness/
unpleasantness for the face, but higher agreement on ratings of sleep/
tension for the body; this prediction was confirmed. Ekman also correlated
judgements of the face and the body with judgements of the whole person,
and found significant positive correlations between judgements of the face
and the whole person on ratings of pleasantness/unpleasantness and
sleep/tension, whereas there were significant positive correlations between
ratings of the body and the whole person only on judgements of sleep/
tension. Thus, these results suggested that people appear to make their
judgements of emotion more on the basis of the face than the body; they
also provided support for Ekman's hypothesis that the face is perceived as
carrying information primarily about what emotion is being experienced,
whereas the body is perceived as conveying information about the intensity
of emotion.
Finally, Ekman and Friesen (1967) hypothesized that judges who view
the face alone will show more agreement than judges who view the body
alone when attempting to identify the nature of the emotion. The photo-
graphs were rated by American students in terms of surprise, happiness,
fear, anger, disgust and contempt, and as predicted, subjects reached more
agreement on the face than on the body. In that same study, Ekman and
Friesen presented a reformulation of Ekman's position regarding the rela-
tive importance of the face and the body. They suggested that stationary
facial expression and postures are more likely to convey gross affect (such
as liking), whereas movements of the face and body are more likely to
convey specific emotions. In support of this view, they found that body acts
could be ascribed emotion categories more easily than could body posi-
tions.
Hence, it can be seen that Ekman is making a number of statements
about the relationship between the face and the body in the decoding of
emotion. His research suggests that people make greater use of the face
than the body in judgements of emotion, that their judgements are more
accurate when made from the face and that they can reach greater
agreement in judging the face. Ekman and Friesen also hypothesize that
whereas stationary facial expressions and postures are more likely to
convey gross affect, movements of the face and the body are more likely to
convey specific emotions.
The assertion that judgements are more accurate when made from the
face was for the most part supported by a study carried out by Graham,
Bitti and Argyle (1975). In this study, English, northern Italian and
southern Italian students were asked to role play certain emotions, and
their performances were videotaped. Other groups of students from the
same cultures were asked to identify these posed emotional expressions
from videotapes of the face only, the body only or the whole person.
Results showed that judgements from the face alone were significantly
more accurate than judgements from the body alone for specific emotions
and for the emotion dimension of pleasantness-unpleasantness, while there
were no significant differences between judgements of the face alone and
judgements of the whole person (accuracy was scored in terms of the
emotion the encoder intended to portray). However, significant inter-
actions did show a number of exceptions to these findings. Judgements of
anger were more accurate for the English when made from the body than
from the face; judgements of fear were more accurate for the southern
Italians when made from the body than from the face; judgements of
sadness for the English were more accurate when made from the whole
person than from either the face or the body alone.
The results of all these studies on the decoding of emotional expressions
would seem to provide little support for the view that posture and gesture
constitute a vital source of information about emotion. Decoders seemed
to base their judgements on the face more than on the body, they found it
easier to agree on the face and their judgements from the face were more
accurate. Nevertheless, one major problem with the approach adopted in
these decoding studies is that the particular facial expressions and bodily
positions may have varied considerably in their degree of informativeness;
subjects may simply have paid more attention to whichever feature was
carrying the most information. A second problem with decoding designs is
of course that they inevitably rely on the skills of the decoder! It could be
the case that posture and gesture do provide valuable information about
emotions and attitudes but that people are simply more skilled at using
information from the face. The main difficulty in evaluating these criticisms
is the relative scarcity of data on the encoding of emotion through posture
or gesture. There seems no reason in principle why body movement should
not convey information about particular emotions; we speak of people
jumping for joy, or clenching their fists in anger, or cowering in fear, so
there may well be distinctive forms of body movement associated with
particular emotions. But it is only through systematic studies of encoding

that it is possible to evaluate the claim that posture and gesture constitute
an important source of information about emotion.
A series of both encoding and decoding studies have in fact been carried
out on the postures associated with different interpersonal attitudes. De-
coding studies have made use of photographs (e.g. Mehrabian, 1968a), line
drawings (Spiegel and Machotka, 1974), videotapes (e.g Haase and
Tepper, 1972) and interactive settings (e.g. Bond and Shiraishi, 1974).
Encoding studies of posture have typically been based on a role-play
design. Thus, Mehrabian carried out three studies, in which American
male and female students were asked to imagine they were conversing with
someone, and to adopt the positions they would employ to convey
different attitudes towards different people varying in sex and status; the
location of the person with whom they were to imagine they were con-
versing was indicated by a coat-rack. In one study, the students were
instructed to convey different attitudes while standing (Mehrabian, 1968a);
in the other two studies, they were instructed to convey different attitudes
while seated (Mehrabian, 1968b; Mehrabian and Friar, 1969). In all these
experiments employing both encoding and decoding designs, a number of
postures have been the particular subject of investigation, namely, trunk
lean (forward, backward and sideways), body orientation, arms akimbo
and body openness; these will each be discussed in turn:
(a) Forward and Backward Lean

Forward and backward lean have been studied in a number of in-
vestigations, and most findings suggest that forward lean or a decrease in
backward lean indicate a positive attitude. Two encoding studies using role
play showed that when subjects were asked to imagine they were con-
versing with someone they liked, they made a significantly greater use of
reduced backward lean (Mehrabian, 1968b; Mehrabian and Friar, 1969).
Similarly, when subjects were asked to deliver messages with varying
degrees of persuasiveness, a decrease in backward lean was found with
increased intent to persuade (Mehrabian and Williams, 1969).
These findings are supported by other studies using rather different
designs. Breed (1972) created three conditions of intimacy through varying
a confederate's body posture and search for eye contact. In the high
intimacy condition, the confederate employed a direct orientation, forward
lean and constant gaze; in the medium intimacy condition, he employed
direct orientation, an erect posture and intermittent gaze; in the low
intimacy condition, he employed a 45 degree angle, backward lean and
only two instances of eye contact with the subject. Increased intimacy
resulted in increased eye contact and increased number of forward leans on
the part of the subject, as well as an increase in positive attitude towards
the confederate as measured by ratings, thus supporting the relationship

observed in role-play studies between a positive attitude and forward lean. In
another study by Fretz (1966), the movements of counselling dyads were
observed and recorded over three interviews; after the interviews, the clients
were asked to fill in a questionnaire (the Barrett-Lennard Relationship In-
ventory, Barrett-Lennard, 1962). The total inventory score was correlated
with the movement categories, with the finding that for the clients leaning
forward and back was the only significant indicator of a good relationship.
Decoding studies of forward lean show that it is also perceived as indicating
a more positive attitude. Mehrabian (1968a) found in a study using photo-
graphs that a 20 degree forward lean was perceived as more positive than a 20
degree backward lean. Haase and Tepper (1972) employed videotapes
showing 10 seconds of interaction between a counsellor and a client. They
asked other counsellors to rate the videotaped counsellor and found that
forward lean was perceived as more empathic than backward lean. Bond and
Shiraishi (1974) carried out a study with Japanese subjects, in which they were
interviewed by one of two male confederates described and dressed as either
a high or equal status person. They assumed either a forward or backward
lean during the interview, and ratings indicated that forward lean interviewers
were judged as more polite and "flexible" than backward lean interviewers.
(b) Sideways Lean

Both encoding and decoding studies of forward lean indicate that it com-
municates a positive attitude; sideways lean was found in the Mehrabian
(1968b) study to vary in meaning according to the sex of both the message
sender and receiver. In the case of male encoders, intense dislike of another
male was indicated by a lack of sideways lean, whereas intense dislike of a
female was indicated by a greater degree of sideways lean. In the case of
female encoders, dislike was indicated through greater sideways lean,
irrespective of the sex of the imagined recipient of the message. In relation to
status, the findings for sideways lean were comparatively straightforward:
sideways lean was used more when addressing someone of lower status
(Mehrabian and Friar, 1969).
Mehrabian interprets sideways lean in terms of relaxation. He argues that a
man who is disliked a great deal could be very threatening to another male
and hence evokes a very tense, vigilant posture, whereas a disliked female
presents no such threat and hence the man's posture is very relaxed. This
hypothesis can also be used to explain the effects of status on posture, where a
person of higher status who might be seen as more threatening evokes less
sideways lean. However, it does not explain why females should show greater
sideways lean to intensely disliked males, who presumably should also present
an element of threat.
(c) Body Orientation

Mehrabian has taken measures of body orientation in a number of
experiments, but no very clear results have emerged. In one study, he
found that shoulder orientation was more direct when encoders were asked
to imagine addressing someone of high status (Mehrabian, 1968a). In
another study, he found that male encoders used less direct shoulder
orientation when asked to imagine addressing a person they liked very
much, whereas female encoders used the least direct shoulder orientation
when asked to imagine addressing someone they intensely disliked, mod-
erately direct shoulder orientation for someone they liked very much and
the most direct for someone for whom their feelings were neutral
(Mehrabian, 1968b). When a combined measure was taken of head,
shoulder and leg orientation, Mehrabian and Friar (1969) found that body
orientation was less direct when asked to imagine addressing someone of
the opposite sex and also less direct to liked women of low status than to
disliked men of high status. In that same study, he also found that female
encoders used a less direct leg orientation than did male encoders.
Experiments on body orientation using decoding designs present no
clearer picture. In one study, where subjects interacted with a confederate
of the experimenter using direct and indirect head and body orientation, it
was found that direct orientation was perceived by the subjects in more
positive terms (Mehrabian, 1967); in another study in which videotape
recordings were shown to the subjects, it was found that a more indirect
shoulder orientation of 30 degrees was perceived as more persuasive than a
direct shoulder orientation (Mehrabian and Williams, 1969).
(d) Arms Akimbo

Observations of the arms akimbo position suggest that it has a con-
sistently negative meaning. Mehrabian (1968a) found that arms akimbo
was used by standing encoders significantly more when asked to imagine
people they disliked and when asked to imagine addressing people of low
status. Spiegel and Machotka (1974), in a decoding study employing line
drawings, found that a male figure with an arms akimbo position was
perceived as the most haughty of a group of men. A nude male figure using
an arms akimbo position was seen as the most imperious and the second
most immodest, cold, strong, exhibitionistic and unyielding of the same
figure in a number of different postures.
(e) Body Openness

Observations of body openness (absence of folded arms or crossed leg
positions) suggest that it has a generally positive meaning. Mehrabian
(1968a) found that standing female encoders assumed a more open
arrangement of the arms when asked to imagine addressing men they
PAG—C
liked; however, there were no corresponding differences when they were

asked to imagine addressing women, nor were there any significant
differences for male encoders. In that same study, Mehrabian also found
that females assumed more open arm positions when asked to imagine
addressing someone of high status, but in a study of seated encoders,
Mehrabian and Friar (1969) found just the reverse, that seated female
encoders asked to imagine addressing a person of high status used less
open arm positions. In neither case were there any significant effects for
male encoders. Mehrabian (1969) attempted to resolve these conflicting
results by arguing that body openness may reflect differences in relaxation.
Thus, for seated encoders a relatively more open position may indicate
greater relaxation, whereas for standing encoders a folded arm position
may be more relaxed than one with the arms hanging. Hence, he argues
that although the folded arm position of seated females may be a more
"proper" and tense position while seated, this same closed arm position
while standing may be considered a more relaxed position and might thus
occur with people of lower status.
Decoding studies also suggest that body openness is perceived as having
a positive meaning. In one study, Mehrabian (1968a) found that an open
posture for females was decoded as conveying a more positive attitude, but
only if the encoder was older or younger than the decoder; for males,
however, the open posture showed no difference. Spiegel and Machotka
(1974), in another decoding study using line drawings of both a nude male
and nude female, found that with the nude female, the more the arms
covered the body of the figure, the more she was perceived as modest,
rejecting, self-concerned, shy and unyielding. When the figure was
clothed, these effects were even more pronounced, and subjects saw her as
more modest and were more repelled by the closed arm positions than by
the comparable versions of the nude figure. With the nude male, the more
the arms moved away from the body, the more this figure came to be
perceived as other-concerned, virile and warm.
Finally, a study by McGinley et al. (1975) suggests that body openness
may have some effect on the persuasiveness of a message. In their ex-
periment, female subjects were shown slides of a female communicator
while she discussed her beliefs. Some subjects viewed open body positions,
others closed positions, these postures being defined in terms of ratings
from another group of subjects prior to the main experiment. Their
findings showed that open positions produced significantly greater opinion
change in the second group of subjects than did neutral or closed positions.
The results of all these encoding and decoding studies of interpersonal

attitudes certainly support the view that posture does communicate infor-
mation about interpersonal attitudes. Nevertheless, in no sense do they
enable us to test the psychotherapists' claim that posture constitutes a
particularly important source of information about interpersonal attitudes.

Thus, in the case of decoding designs, the concern of the experimenter is
with the way in which postures are perceived, so that the results he obtains
could be regarded as simply a systematization of popular knowledge which
may or may not be accurate. While this is a perfectly legitimate field of
enquiry in its own right, it is not necessarily relevant to the claims of the
psychotherapists that posture exists as a potential source of information
concerning emotions and attitudes of which we are largely unaware.
In the case of encoding designs, there are also a number of problems.
One difficulty is that in such studies the sampling of postures has been
highly selective, so that only a few postures have been investigated in any
detail; hence, there may well be other postures whose significance is missed
simply because they have never been investigated. The problems of
categorizing posture and gesture are discussed in greater depth in the next
chapter. A second difficulty is that most encoding studies have been based
on role play, and the problem here is that we can never be sure that the
observations obtained through role play correspond to spontaneously
occurring behaviour. Thus, the subject simply may not know what postures
he would use in a given situation; again, the postures he thinks he might
use in a role play may not correspond to those he uses spontaneously.
What people think they might do may well be an interesting source of data
in its own right, but can only be effectively evaluated through observations
of spontaneously occurring behaviour. In a sense, then, encoding designs
employing role play are subject to the same criticisms which can be made
of decoding designs; they represent essentially a systemization of popular
knowledge of posture which may or may not be accurate, so that again the
claim of the psychotherapists for the potential importance of posture as
guides to emotions and attitudes are never effectively put to the test.
Hence, one of the main aims of the research reported in this volume was to
develop an encoding methodology for the study of posture which did not
rely on subjects' own pre-conceptions of the significance of posture; the
methodology which was developed and the results which were obtained are
reported in Part II of this volume.
(iii) Posture, Gesture and Speech

The other studies reported in Part III of this volume were concerned
with the relationship between posture, gesture and speech. A number of
writers working in the clinical tradition have emphasized that a close
relationship exists between body movement and speech. For example,
Condon and Ogston (1966), from a frame-by-frame analysis, described
how the body of the speaker moves closely in time with his speech, a
phenomenon which they called self-synchrony. Condon and Ogston's ob-
servations were not simply confined to hand gestures; it was movements of
all parts of the body which they found to be closely synchronized with
speech. Scheflen (1964, 1973) maintained that an individual's conversation
can be broken up into hierarchically ordered units called the "point", the
"position" and the "presentation", which are indicated by changes in
posture. The "point" corresponds roughly to making a point in a discussion
and tends to be indicated by a change in head posture. Several "points"
may go to make up what Scheflen calls the "position", which corresponds
roughly to taking a certain point of view in an interaction, and tends to be
accompanied by a postural change involving at least half the body. The
"presentation" is the largest unit, and refers to all of the person's body
positions in a given interaction; it is only concluded by a complete change
in location. More generally, Scheflen has put forward the concept of a
"programme", according to which different stages in social interaction are
indicated by postural markers. However, as has been discussed above,
none of the observations reported by Scheflen are based on any
quantification of the data. The two studies reported in Chapter 7 of this
volume were intended to provide a more rigorous test of Scheflen's concept
of a programme. One study was intended to investigate whether television
newsreaders use changes of posture to indicate a change of topic; the other
study was intended to investigate whether speech which introduces new
information into conversation is accompanied by significantly more
changes in certain postures than speech which is less informative.
Scheflen's observations suggest that posture picks out hierarchical
features of speech content. Another way in which it has been argued that
non-verbal behaviour is related to speech is in terms of phonemic clause
structure. The phonemic clause consists of a group of words, averaging five
in length, in which there is only one primary stress indicated by a change in
pitch, rhythm or loudness, and which is terminated by a juncture, in which
these changes in pitch, rhythm and loudness level off before the beginning
of the next phonemic clause. Pittenger, Hockett and Danehy (1960) ob-
served that most speakers of American English accompany their primary
stresses with slight jerks of the head or hand. Scheflen (1964) notes that
Birdwhistell demonstrated that junctures are accompanied by a movement
of the head, eyes or hands.
These claims were criticized by Dittman and Llewellyn (1969), who
carried out a study in which American students participated in two
15-minute interviews with one of the experimenters. The bodily
movements of the students were recorded by movement transducers
attached to the head, to both hands and to both feet, while transcripts of
their speech were segmented into phonemic clauses. Dittman and
Llewellyn found that bodily movements occurred significantly more
frequently at what they called start positions (the beginnings of clauses,
non-fluencies within clauses and the start of speech following those
non-fluencies) than at non-start positions. They criticized the observations
of Scheflen and of Pittenger, Hockett and Danehy on the grounds that

stress points and junctures occur at or towards the end of phonemic
clauses, whereas their own data suggest that bodily movements occur
mainly at the beginnings of clauses. They do however acknowledge that
their own data show a significant relationship between body movement and
stress and juncture, but maintain that the relationship is not sizeable and
has been greatly exaggerated by Scheflen and by Pittenger, Hockett and
Danehy.
The basic problem with Dittman and Llewellyn's approach, however,
stems from the use of movement transducers to record body movement
which provide no details of the visual appearance of those movements, and
hence of how the structure of those movements relates to the structure of
discourse. If, for example, a person extends his forearm, index finger
outstretched to coincide with the stress point in a phonemic clause, he may
well have flexed his forearm at the beginning of the clause in preparation
for that movement; the action of flexing and extending the forearm can be
seen as a single structural unit which reaches its apex on the stress point of
the clause. Dittman and Llewellyn's method of recording body movement
would presumably lead to the preparatory movement being scored as
unrelated to the stress point in the phonemic clause, and hence their
particular methodology may lead to an underestimate of the relationship
between body movement and vocal stress.
One of the main aims of this research reported in this volume was to
develop a scoring system through which a detailed description could be
given of the visual appearance of posture and gesture, and this is reported
in the next chapter. The system which was eventually developed (the Body
Movement Scoring System) was in fact applied in a study of informal
conversations which included in addition a measure of vocal stress
(Chapter 9); the results of this study showed a very strong relationship
between vocal stress and movements of all parts of the body (head, trunk,
arms/hands, legs/feet). A study of political speeches reported in Chapter 10
also showed a very close relationship between vocal stress and the use of
hand gesture by political speakers.
From the evidence reviewed above, there appears to be a close rela-
tionship between body movement and speech. According to the functions
which they serve, speech-related non-verbal cues have been divided by
Ekman and Friesen (1969a) into three main types: emblems, illustrators
and regulators. The term "emblems" they derived from Efron (1941) to
refer to those non-verbal acts which have a direct translation, such as
nodding the head when meaning "Yes", or shaking the head when meaning
"No"; their function is communicative and explicitly recognized as such.
Illustrators are movements which are directly tied to speech and it is
maintained that they facilitate communication by amplifying and
elaborating the verbal content of the message. Regulators are movements
which guide and control the flow of conversation, influencing both who is
to speak and how much is said.
Regulators have typically been discussed in relation to how people take
turns to speak in conversation (turn-taking), but it is also possible to
include under this heading greetings and farewells, referred to by Goffman
(1972) as access rituals, signals which indicate a change in the amount of
interaction people have with one another. Turn-taking has been ex-
tensively studied with regard to the role both of speech and of non-verbal
communication, in particular by Duncan and his associates (e.g. Duncan,
1972; Duncan and Niederehe, 1974; Duncan and Fiske, 1977). Within his
theoretical framework, Duncan has identified a number of different
signals, which he refers to as turn-yielding cues, attempt-suppressing
signals, back channels, within-turn signals and speaker-state signals.
Turn-yielding cues offer a speaking turn to the other person, and
Duncan (1972) has identified six such cues—a rise or fall in pitch at the end
of a clause, a drawl on the final syllable, the termination of hand gestures,
stereotyped expressions such as "but uh" and "you know", a drop in pitch
or loudness associated with one of these stereotyped expressions and the
completion of a grammatical clause. Duncan and Fiske (1977) reported a
correlation of 0.98 between the number of turn-yielding cues and a smooth
switch between speakers. They maintain that the relationship between the
number of turn-yielding cues and a smooth switch between speakers is
linear, hence that these signals function in an additive fashion: the more
turn-yielding signals are displayed, the smoother will be the transition
between the two speakers.
Attempt-suppressing signals are used by the speaker to prevent a listener
taking over the turn when the speaker wishes to continue talking. Duncan
(1972) identified only one such cue, that of hand gesticulation; he found
that if the speaker continues to gesture, this essentially eliminated attempts
by the listener to take over the turn.
The term "back channel" was introduced by Yngve (1970) to refer to
short messages such as "yes" and "uh-huh" employed by the listener,
which do not constitute a claim to the turn. Duncan (1972) identified five
such cues—sentence completions, requests for clarification, brief phrases
such as "uh-huh", "yeah" and "right", and head nods and head shakes.
Duncan and Fiske (1977) also found that back channels are typically
preceded by a shift in head direction towards the partner and the com-
pletion of a grammatical clause. Duncan and Fiske refer to these cues as
within-turn signals, which mark appropriate points in conversation for a
listener back channel, in the same way as turn-yielding cues mark
appropriate points for the listener to take a turn. If back channels do not
constitute an attempt at taking the turn, how can a speaker distinguish
between a back channel and a turn-taking attempt by the listener? Duncan
and Fiske (1977) found that turning the head away from the other speaker
and starting to hand gesture were found to mark out a speaking turn from a
listener back channel; hence, they can be regarded as constituting speaker-
state signals.
Duncan has provided a useful theoretical framework in which to under-
stand turn-taking, and a detailed description of the turn-taking system.
However, one surprising feature of Duncan's work is the lack of attention
to speech content, since some aspects of speech (like asking questions)
clearly constitute an invitation to take the turn. The study reported in
Chapter 8 was intended to address this issue by looking at the postural
changes which occur immediately prior to speech and by attempting to
relate those postural changes to turn-taking through an analysis of the
associated speech content.
Emblems refer to those non-verbal acts which have a direct verbal
translation, such as nodding the head when meaning "Yes" or shaking the
head when meaning "No". Emblems are generally assumed to be specific
to particular cultures or occupations, but some do appear to be pan-
cultural such as the "eyebrow flash", where a person raises his eyebrows
for about a sixth of a second as a greeting; Eibl-Eibesfeldt (1972) claims to
have observed this in a wide number of differing cultures. Morris et al.
(1979) attempted to map the geographical distribution of twenty emblems
in a wide variety of locations spread across western and southern Europe
and the Mediterranean. Some of the emblems they describe are specific to
particular cultures; for example, an emblem which they call the cheek-
screw, in which a straightened forefinger is pressed against the centre of the
cheek and rotated, is primarily an Italian gesture of praise; it is little known
elsewhere in Europe. Other gestures are well known in many parts of
Europe; for example, a movement which they call the nose-thumb, in
which one hand is raised so that the thumb touches the tip of the nose, is
widely known throughout Europe as a form of mockery. A gesture which
they call the ring, where the hand is held with the palm facing away from
the encoder, the thumb and forefinger touching to form a circle, means in
Britain something is good, in parts of France, something is worthless, while
in Sardinia it is a sexual insult! Clearly the function of emblems is com-
municative and they constitute a form of non-verbal communication of
which people have explicit awareness. The question arises, however, why
emblems should have emerged as an alternative form of communication to
speech. Ekman and Friesen (1969a) argue that their particular importance
stems from the fact that they are often used when speech is difficult or
impossible, and hence function as an alternative system to speech. For
example, the policeman directing the traffic on points duty, or the deaf-
and-dumb person using sign language can both be said to be using emblems
in situations where speech is not possible.
However, Kendon (1981) has argued that people may choose to use
emblems in preference to speech, because in certain communicative
contexts there may be distinct advantages in using gesture. Gesture is

faster than speech, hence might be preferred where quick action is re-
quired. Gesture is silent: hence, it may be used at the same time as speech
to avoid breaking in on a conversation, or to make comments on the
interaction or on the participants. Gesture is much closer to actual physical
actions, and so may be selected when greater impact of utterance is
required. Finally, gesture can also be effectively received at greater dis-
tances than speech; it is probably no accident that a number of the
emblems described by Morris et al. are insults, which are certainly safer to
communicate at a distance! A number of the examples Kendon gives are of
instances where emblems are used in conjunction with speech, in which
case they could be said to serve the functions of illustrators; there are a
number of ways illustrators can be considered to enhance and elaborate the
verbal message, and these are discussed below.
Illustrators are movements which are directly tied to speech and it is
maintained that they facilitate communication by amplifying and
elaborating the verbal content of the message. For example, Rogers (1978)
prepared a silent film of various actions being performed, such as a car
making a series of turns, or a tennis ball bouncing into a corner. Encoders
were asked to view these actions and to describe them to another person
who was unable to see the film. These descriptions were videotaped and
shown to a group of observers who were asked a series of five compre-
hension questions about each incident. In one condition, the vision was
altered by reducing the contrast to obliterate details of the eyes and the
mouth so that information was not readily available from the speaker's
lips. Rogers found that the comprehension of the decoders was
significantly better in the modified audio-visual condition than in the audio-
only condition.
Rogers's findings suggest that illustrators do assist the process of com-
munication, in that they appear to facilitate the comprehension of speech.
A variety of reasons have been proposed for why this should be the case.
The most obvious answer is that visual information can be conveyed more
easily through visual means. It is often easier or quicker, for example, to
point to an object, rather than to describe it verbally. Similarly, some
gestures are like representative pictures in that they attempt to portray the
visual appearance of an object, spatial relationship or bodily action (called
"physiographic" by Efron, 1941). Graham and Argyle (1975) in fact tested
the hypothesis that visual information is communicated more easily
through hand gestures. They designed an experiment in which English and
Italian encoders were asked to convey information about two-dimensional
shapes to other male students from their own culture both with and without
the use of hand gestures. The drawings of the decoders were judged as
significantly more accurate in the condition where gesture was permitted
and this effect was also significantly more pronounced for the Italian
subjects, thus providing some evidence in support of the view that gesture
is of particular importance in Italian culture.
Riseborough (1981) has also carried out a number of studies to test
whether physiographic gestures facilitate communication. In one ex-
periment, she found that decoders guessed what an object was more
quickly when the description was accompanied by gesture. In a second
experiment, she found that recall of words accompanied by gesture was
significantly better than recall of words accompanied by either vague
movements or no movements at all. In a third experiment, she also found
that gesture played a significantly more important role in the recall of
narrative when noise (rather similar to that of an electric shaver) was
introduced at the same time as the telling of the narrative.
But not all illustrators are physiographic in the sense described by Efron.
For example, the relationship between bodily cues and vocal stress
documented by Pittenger, Hockett and Danehy (1960) suggests that body
movement supplements the information on stress communicated by
changes in intonation. Why should this duplication occur? One hypothesis
is that gesture simply makes the stress pattern more clear. A second
possibility is that whereas changes in intonation carry the primary stress in
spoken English, illustrators can be used as a way of communicating greater
intensity; a speaker can pick out particular words or phrases which may be
important in his communication, and highlight them with some kind of
illustrative body movement.
The relationship between body movement and the syntactic and seman-
tic structure of speech documented by Lindenfeld (1971) and Scheflen
(1964, 1973) would also suggest that illustrators may be useful in communi-
cating information about the structure of speech. Efron (1941) described
certain movements as "ideographic", in that they traced the logical stages
or direction of a line of thought. By demarcating whether a speaker is
making a new point, or changing the topic of conversation, it may be easier
for the listener more readily to discern the structure of speech.
Rogers (1978) discusses a number of other possible explanations for
ways in which illustrators may facilitate the comprehension of speech. One
possibility is that they simply increase the listener's level of attention by
providing greater stimulation. Another possibility is that they create a
richer bimodal sensory image which better stimulates memory processes
during the decoding of speech. Rogers also suggests that illustrators may
serve as a visual tracking signal for the flow of speech, although it is not
clear how this explanation would differ from the argument that illustrators
convey useful structural or semantic information (which Rogers includes as
a separate hypothesis).
All the hypotheses described above are based on the notion that illus-
trators in some way facilitate the comprehension of speech. An alternative
hypothesis is that the prime function of illustrators is not to make the
message more comprehensible, but to convey information about the

speaker's emotions and attitudes, both towards the content of his own
message and towards other people. So, for example, Mehrabian and Will-
iams (1969) found that when American students were asked to present a
message persuasively, they used significantly more gesture than when
asked to present the message in a neutral fashion. Kiritz (1971, cited by
Ekman and Friesen, 1974a) found that patients suffering from psychotic
depression used significantly more illustrators at discharge from hospital
than at admission. What these studies suggest is that illustrators may
qualify the verbal message by indicating the speaker's attitude towards it,
for example, whether he is interested or bored by what he is saying,
whether he is confident or diffident about it and so forth. If the speaker
conveys great interest in the topic, the listener may attend more carefully;
if the speaker conveys great confidence in his argument, the listener may
be more easily persuaded. According to this view, illustrators convey
stylistic features which may have an important effect on the reception of a
message.
Indeed, Kendon (1984) has argued that gesture does not so much "illus-
trate" what is being said, but adds to what is being said, conveying aspects
of meaning that cannot readily be conveyed in words. One example he
gives is of a daughter who said to her mother "You don't know anything
about it" and, as she did so, moved her arm laterally away from herself in
the direction of her mother with the palm of the hand towards her mother
as if pushing her mother away; ^Kendon argues the gesture here served to
enact the daughter's wish to exclude her mother from the discussion at the
moment. Thus, the gesture does not bear upon the referential meaning of
what she had said; it actually conveys information which is additional to
speech, and the role of such gestures is underestimated by referring to
them simply as "illustrators".
All the hypotheses discussed above share the basic assumption that the
function of gesture is communicative. A totally different explanation of
their function has come from those who have attempted to relate body
movement to speech encoding. Dittman and Llewellyn (1969), in the study
referred to above, argued that body movements occur more frequently at
the beginnings of phrases because of difficulties of speech encoding; such
difficulties are hypothesized to create tension which leads to greater bodily
movement. It is, however, difficult to evaluate this hypothesis in the
absence of more direct information on the visual appearance of the body
movements recorded by Dittman and Llewellyn.
Cohen (1977) argued that illustrators are not substitutes for failure or
inability to communicate, but rather facilitators of such activity; according
to this view, the encoder "creates" the illustrators as if "drawing a map" of
the situation, while encoding the message verbally. To test this hypothesis,
Cohen carried out an experiment in which male and female Israeli students
were asked to give directions on how to get to one place from another from
a map. Subjects were asked to give instructions either face to face, or over
an intercom, or alone; in the alone condition, subjects were asked to
record themselves on tape on their own as a form of practice. It was argued
that if subjects used more illustrators face to face, this would be consistent
with a decoding view of the functions of illustrators. The tasks were also
varied in terms both of familiarity and complexity, it being argued that if
illustrators facilitate speech encoding, then there should be more illus-
trators when the task was unfamiliar and complex. In the familiar condi-
tion, the subjects (who were from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem)
were given map segments of a part of Jerusalem; in the unfamiliar condi-
tion, another group of subjects were given the same map segments, but
they were told the map depicted a fictitious Israeli town called Hadera.
Task complexity was varied according to the number of decision points
necessary to give instructions on how to get to one place from another.
When illustrators were analysed in terms of a rate based on the number
of hand illustrators used per second, the results showed a significant main
effect for the form of communication, with most illustrators being
employed in the face-to-face condition; this, Cohen argued, was consistent
with the decoding hypothesis that illustrators are intended to facilitate
communication. The results also showed a significant main effect for task
complexity, with more illustrators being used with more complex maps;
this, Cohen argued, was consistent with the hypothesis that illustrators
facilitate speech encoding. There were no signficant effects associated with
task familiarity.
If illustrators do facilitate speech encoding, then it might be expected
that if people are restrained from using gesture, this would interfere with
speech encoding. Graham and Heywood (1975) asked British male
students to communicate information about two-dimensional shapes,
having explicitly instructed them in one condition to keep their arms folded
so as to prevent them gesturing. Graham and Heywood found that of the
thirteen measures of speech they used, only three discriminated between
the gesture and no-gesture conditions, and two of these were measures of
speech content; when gesture was prohibited, phrases and words des-
cribing spatial relations within the pictures were used significantly more
frequently, while significantly less use was made of demonstratives (e.g.
"like this", "like so"). The only measure of speech fluency to discriminate
between the gesture and no-gesture conditions was the measure of pausing;
subjects did pause significantly more frequently in the no-gesture condi-
tion. Graham and Hey wood's results suggest that if gesture does facilitate
speech encoding, its use is certainly not of any great importance.
Even if gesture does not necessarily facilitate speech encoding, McNeill
(1985) has argued that the relationship between gesture and speech is so
close that they form part of the same psychological structure and share a
common computational stage: as such, gesture provides a second channel

of observation into the speaker's mental representations during speech.
The evidence McNeill cites is as follows. Gestures occur only during
speech; they have semantic and pragmatic functions that parallel those of
speech; they are synchronized with linguistic units in speech; they dissolve
together with speech in aphasia; they develop together with speech in
children. Hence, gesture is of interest not only for the social psychologist
concerned with understanding the processes of interpersonal communi-
cation but also for the cognitive psychologist concerned with theories of
mental representation.
Summary and Outline of Research

The purpose of this chapter has been to review quantitative research on
posture and gesture in relation to the substantial claims made for their
psychological significance in the clinical literature and to present the
rationale for the studies of posture and gesture to be described in this
volume. The argument that posture encodes significant information about
emotions and attitudes finds some support in the quantitative literature,
although the studies which have been carried out suffer from a highly
restricted sampling of postures and a heavy reliance on the use of role-play
designs. To develop a more comprehensive coding system for the
categorization of posture and gesture was one of the main aims of the
research to be reported in this book; the systems developed by the author
for this purpose are described in the next chapter, together with a review of
other techniques which have been used for classifying posture and gesture.
Another major aim of the author's research was to develop an alternative
methodology to role play through which the encoding of different emotions
and attitudes through posture could be investigated, and the results from
using this procedure are presented in Chapters 4 and 5. Two decoding
studies based on the results of those encoding experiments are presented in
Chapter 6.
All the studies presented in Part III are concerned with the relationship
between posture, gesture and speech. Scheflen (1964, 1973) has main-
tained that there are important links between posture and speech content.
The first two studies reported in Chapter 7 were intended to test Scheflen's
concept of a "programme", according to which different stages in social
interaction are indicated by postural markers. The study reported in
Chapter 8 was focused on the postural changes which occur immediately
prior to speech in order to relate those postures to turn-taking through an
examination of the associated speech content. The study reported in
Chapter 9 was concerned with the way in which gesture may be used to
communicate emphasis in speech. The final study presented in Chapter 10
was concerned with the use of gesture in political speeches, with particular
reference to the relationship between gesture and vocal stress, and to the
way in which gesture is associated with rhetorical devices used to evoke
applause.
In the final section of the book (Part IV), the significance of all the
research findings presented in Chapters 3-10 is discussed both with regard
to the theoretical issues raised in Chapter 1 and in the context of the
detailed review of research on posture and gesture presented in this
chapter. The study of posture and gesture has been comparatively
neglected in non-verbal communication research in contrast to the in-
tensive research effort on facial expression and gaze; one of the aims of this
book is to attempt to remedy that neglect both by presenting thefindingsof
the author's own research and by highlighting the areas where future
research effort might be directed.
3
Methodology
Methodological questions in research on non-verbal communication can be

approached from two main viewpoints (Bull, 1983, pp. 10-23). Firstly,
there is the question simply of how non-verbal communication should be
measured. If, for example, posture and gesture are being studied, a coding
system is required which will provide the main units of measurement as
well as a system of categories for describing the units. It also has to be
decided whether posture and gesture are to be scored within the
framework of a single scoring system and whether such a system should be
based on describing either movements or positions or some combination of
the two. Secondly, there is the question of the context in which non-verbal
communication should be observed. For example, should observations be
made in naturalistic settings or should they be made through carefully
controlled laboratory studies? It is the purpose of this chapter to discuss
the way in which both these issues of methodology were tackled and to give
an outline of the overall research design of the studies to be reported in this
book.
(i) The Measurement of Posture and Gesture

Most contemporary studies of non-verbal communication have used
either film or videotape as the main technique of observation. Studies have
also been carried out where an observer takes a "live" record of behaviour,
often concealed from subjects behind a one-way screen, which permits the
observer to see without being seen. But this approach has a number of real
disadvantages in comparison with recording on videotape or film. If the
observer misses any behaviours, there is no way of going back to rectify the
omission. Moreover, a number of bodily movements (especially, for ex-
ample, movements of the hands and arms) are simply too rapid to be noted
by an observer without the aid of repeated viewing of a particular behav-
ioural sequence, or sometimes without the use of slow-motion replay
facilities. Another advantage of film or tape is that the duration of a
particular behaviour can be timed much more precisely from frame
numbers superimposed on the recording. Frame numbering is useful both
as a method of referencing particular sequences of behaviour through the
38
Methodology 39
unique number given to each frame and as a method of measuring the

duration of any given behaviour in real time; it is certainly far more
accurate than timing movements with a stop watch.
However, the main disadvantage of all visual methods of analysing body
movement is that they rely on a human observer to code that behaviour
accurately into different categories. It is customary to check an observer's
scoring by carrying out a reliability study in which his coding of behaviour
is correlated with that of an independent observer. Nevertheless, the
procedure of coding behaviour from film or tape is still exceedingly time-
consuming and fatiguing, and it would clearly be desirable if fully auto-
mated systems of recording behaviour were available. Unfortunately,
where such systems do exist, they usually raise different kinds of problems.
For example, Hadar (e.g. Hadar et al., 1983, 1984) has used a polarized-
light goniometer as a way of studying head movement. This operates by
projecting strong light from a single source through a plane polarizer
material and a rapidly rotating disk on to a photosensor (or photosensors)
attached to the subject. The reflected light is automatically processed by
the goniometer to provide immediate information on properties of
movement such as its rate, duration, range and speed. One particular
advantage of this apparatus is its sensitivity to small movements, which a
human observer working from videotape might miss or find very difficult to
classify. Another advantage is its precision—by taking direct readings of
speech amplitude, it is possible to make fine measurements of the rela-
tionship between head movements and speech. A disadvantage of the
system is that it does not allow a detailed description to be given of the
visual appearance of particular movements. An additional problem is of
course the intrusiveness of attaching photosensors to the body. In certain
circumstances where one might wish to make observations of body
movement, this may simply not be possible; there is also the further
difficulty that their use (even when practicable) may in some way affect
people's social behaviour, through making them aware that it is their body
movement which is the focus of the investigation.
A technique for measuring hand gestures which is automated but non-
intrusive was employed by Sainsbury and Woods (1977), using an
ultrasonic system developed by Haines (1974). This system measures the
ultrasound waves created in the air by hand gestures, so that the
measurements can be made quite unobtrusively. The problem here is that
although such a record provides an indication of the frequency of hand
gestures, it tells us nothing about their visual appearance, which is essential
if we are to discuss visual communication.
Other techniques for measuring posture and gesture involve making a
behavioural record through tape or film and analysing that record through
some kind of coding system. For example, Friesen, Ekman and Wallbott
(1980) describe a relatively simple system for classifying hand movements,
which distinguishes between emblems, illustrators and manipulators.
Emblems are symbolic hand gestures with a verbal meaning known to the
members of a particular social group. Illustrators are hand movements
which follow the rhythm and content of speech, and typically do not
involve contact with an object or part of the body. Manipulators can be
divided into those movements which satisfy self or bodily needs (self-
manipulators) and those movements in which some instrumental task is
performed (object-manipulators). The system also records which hand is
involved in the activity and which part of the body is manipulated. One
major problem with these distinctions is that the observer is asked to make
an inference concerning the function of a particular aspect of behaviour,
for example, to judge whether a movement does actually follow the rhythm
and content of speech and hence is in fact an illustrator. While it is
certainly clear that some hand movements involve touching the body, that
others involve touching objects and others neither, it would be much
simpler to refer to these movements as "body-contact", "object-contact"
and "non-contact" movements, rather than to ask the observer to make
any judgements about their hypothesized social or psychological functions.
A more fundamental problem with this system of categories is that no
attempt is made to describe the visual appearance of particular
movements, a feature which is important if we are to discuss visual com-
munication.
Mehrabian (1968a) has described a slightly more elaborate procedure for
coding bodily posture. For example, he proposes that relaxation of the legs
can be coded on a four-point scale ranging from a symmetrical stance of the
legs with insteps touching to an asymmetrical stance of the legs with both
feet resting flat on the floor. The main problem with Mehrabian's system is
that it is highly selective and omits many common forms of bodily posture.
Much more elaborate systems have been proposed by Birdwhistell
(1971) and Frey (Frey and von Cranach, 1973). Birdwhistell's system has a
very detailed range of categories, but it is not clear how these categories
were derived nor how they should be applied in practice. For example, it is
not clear whether the categories refer to movements or to positions or
both. Nor is it clear whether the categories are intended to be independent
of one another, or whether one behavioural unit can be described in terms
of more than one category. Finally, no reliability data are reported for the
system, so it is not clear how successfully it has been applied in practice.
Frey (Frey and von Cranach, 1973) is much more explicit with regard to
these questions. He describes a system whereby the positions of the body
are scored at different time intervals. The positions of the head and trunk
are defined in relation to three main axes, dissecting the body from front to
back, side to side and top to bottom. Hand positions are classified
according to whether eleven spatial areas (e.g. head, hand, or desk) are
touched by the hands. Foot positions are classified according to whether
Methodology 41
four parts of the foot (heels, toes, inner and outer edge) are touching one of
five areas (floor, chair, thigh, lower part of leg or foot). Movements are
scored by assessing the position of the body at different time intervals, so that
the system is essentially static, characterizing all body movements in terms of
a series of positions. The main difficulty with this approach is that it destroys
the natural structure of body movement. For example, in Frey's system it
would not be possible to describe a head nod as a single behavioural unit;
instead, it would have to be described in terms of three positions (head
upright, head dropped, head upright) and hence the basic unity of the
movement is lost.
The approach taken in the studies to be described in this book was to
classify posture and gesture in terms of a series of movements rather than in
terms of a series of positions. The scoring system used in these studies went
through two phases of development; initially, a system was developed for the
description of posture, which is referred to as the Posture Scoring System.
Subsequently, this system was expanded so that gesture could be coded within
the same descriptive framework and this is referred to as the Body Movement
Scoring System.
In the Posture Scoring System, the criterion for scoring a posture was
established as any movement which is taken up and maintained for at least 1
second. Maintained means there is no visible movement within that posture.
Thus, if a person was moving his hand, or moving his foot, no arm or leg
posture could be scored until that movement had ceased for at least 1 second.
Postures are classified into four main types: head, trunk, arms/hands and
legs/feet. Head postures are described relative to a position in which the
person is looking straight ahead in alignment with the direction of the chair,
neither to right or left. Thus, "raises up head" refers to a position in which the
head is raised so that the eyes are above the horizontal axis, "drops head" to a
position where the head is lowered so that the eyes are below the horizontal
axis. Since the system was used to describe postures in situations involving
pairs of people, head postures were also described relative to the other person
in the room. Thus, in "turns head to person", the head is turned towards the
other person and within the side of the vertical axis nearer that person; in
"turns head away from person", the head is turned away from the other
person and within the side of the vertical axis further from that person.
The main axis for trunk postures is taken to be an upright position, facing
straight ahead in alignment with the direction of the chair, the trunk at 90
degrees to the chair seat. Postures are described relative to this axis and to the
other person in the room. Hence, in "leans forward", the trunk is moved
forward of the main axis, in "leans back", the trunk is moved back of the main
axis. In "leans sideways to person", the trunk is leaned to one side of the
central axis towards the other person, in "leans sideways away from person",
the trunk is moved to one side of the central axis further from the other
person.
PAG—D
Hand/arm postures are described according to the position of the hand,

i.e. whether it is touching some object (e.g. "puts hand to chair arm") or
touching a body part (e.g. "puts hands to thigh") or not touching anything
(e.g. "points hand"). Legs/feet postures can be seen as varying along four
main dimensions: crossing the legs, moving the legs apart or together,
drawing the legs back or stretching them out, and changing the orientation
of the foot.
The Posture Scoring System was used in the studies reported in Chapters
4, 5, 7 and 8. A reliability study was carried out for the two experiments
reported in Chapter 4, in which an independent observer scored eighteen
postures for head, trunk, arms and legs from at least three different
subjects in both experiments. The reliability study in the first experiment
resulted in a mean agreement with the main scorer of 79% (head 76%,
trunk 76%, arms 80%, legs 82%). The reliability study in the second
experiment resulted in a mean agreement with the main scorer of 84%
(head 92%, trunk 84%, arms 83% and legs 75%). The full list of categories
used in the Posture Scoring System is given in Appendix A.
In the original Posture Scoring System, the adoption of the one-second
criterion meant that only movement which resulted in a sustained change
of posture was categorized within the framework of that coding procedure.
Consequently, if the role of gesture as a form of non-verbal communication
was to be examined, this scoring system required substantial modification.
Hence, a procedure called the Body Movement Scoring System was de-
veloped which was based on the categories used in the Posture Scoring
System, but expanded so that all body movement occurring in seated
conversation could be categorized within the same descriptive framework.
In the Body Movement Scoring System, the basic unit of analysis is the
single movement act. Hence, the system is dynamic, not static; it describes
gestures as a series of movements rather than as a series of positions.
Where static positions (postures) do occur, these are described in terms of
the body movements which bring about those changes (as in the Posture
Scoring System).
In the Body Movement Scoring System, the most basic distinction is
between those movements which involve contact with an object or part of
the body and those movements which do not involve any such contact.
Body-contact and object-contact acts are described in terms of the way the
contact is made (e.g. touching, grasping, scratching), the part of the body
which makes the contact (e.g. palm of hand, back of hand, fingertips) and
the body part or object with which contact is made (e.g. thigh, chair arm).
Any change in one of these three elements is regarded as starting a new
movement act.
Non-contact movements are described in terms of the various
movements which are possible from each of the major joints of the body
(neck, spine, hips, knees, ankles, toes, shoulder girdle, shoulders, elbows,
Methodology 43
wrists and fingers). For example, the forearm can flex, extend, rotate
inwards and rotate outwards. The head can lower, raise, nod (lower and
raise), tilt to one side, rock (tilt from side to side), turn, shake (turn from
side to side) and rotate. Some of these movements can occur in com-
bination from the same point of articulation; for example, the forearm may
be extended and rotated outwards simultaneously. Some movements may
be embedded in other movements; for example, a person may nod his head
while turning it away from another person. The basic unit of analysis for
non-contact acts is movement along one axis; if the axis of movement is
changed, then a new movement act is scored.
The Body Movement Scoring System was used in the study of news-
broadcasts reported in Chapter 7 and in the studies presented in Chapters 9
and 10; the full list of categories used in this system is given in Appendix B.
Inter-observer reliability was tested in the study reported in Chapter 9,
showing a k coefficient of agreement of 0.81 between the main scorer and
the project investigator for the arms/hands (based on 120 behavioural
categories from three different subjects) and 0.75 for the head (based on
68 behavioural categories from four different subjects). Since compara-
tively few observations of trunk and leg/feet movements were made in that
study, these were scored by both observers, disagreements being resolved
by discussion.
The Body Movement Scoring System is intended to provide a compre-
hensive system for describing posture and gesture in the context of seated
conversations. In contrast to Frey's procedure (Frey and von Cranach,
1973), the Body Movement Scoring System uses movements rather than
positions as the basic unit of analysis; hence, it is possible through these
categories to capture the natural structure of body movement. In contrast
to the system described by Friesen, Ekman and Wallbott (1980), no
assumptions are made regarding the social functions of body movement;
the system is intended simply to describe the physical appearance of
particular movements, their social significance to be ascertained by
empirical research. The main problem with the system is the
time-consuming and laborious nature of transcribing movement des-
criptions from videotape. Nevertheless, it retains the advantage of being
unobtrusive, in contrast to polarized-light goniometry which although
technically highly sophisticated, still requires the attachment of light
reflectors to the limbs; this is impracticable in many of the naturally-
occurring situations where one might wish to observe body movement.
(ii) Research Design

A major issue in research on interpersonal communication concerns the
context in which measurements should be obtained. Experimental social
psychologists typically obtain their data through the use of laboratory
experimentation, while sociologists working in the framework of conversation

analysis insist that data should be collected only in naturalistic settings (e.g.
Heritage, in preparation) and prefer qualitative methods of analysis. Critics of
the psychological approach maintain that laboratory experiments are artificial
and that the behaviours so observed may have little correspondence to
behaviour occurring outside the laboratory; psychologists defend this
approach because of the advantages of the systematic manipulation and
control of independent variables, which allows for more rigorous testing of
hypotheses—a feature which is often lacking in studies based on naturalistic
settings. In this book the studies to be presented actually fall into three main
types. Those presented in Part II were based essentially on laboratory ex-
perimentation; those presented in Part III, although they took place in a
social psychology laboratory, were based on observations of informal con-
versations. There were also two studies based on naturally-occurring situ-
ations, involving no manipulation on the part of the experimenter: the study
of news broadcasts in Chapter 7 and the study of political speeches in Chapter
10. The rationale for each group of studies is presented below.
(a) Studies of Listener Emotions and Attitudes (Part II)

The use of experimental techniques in the study of non-verbal communi-
cation can be conveniently divided into encoding and decoding designs. The
study of encoding presents particular problems for the experimental social
psychologist, especially if he wishes to study emotions and attitudes, since he
needs some kind of technique for arousing the emotions or attitudes he wishes
to investigate. Early studies of encoding used role-play techniques, in which
subjects were asked to adopt, for example, the postures they might employ to
convey liking (e.g. Mehrabian, 1968b). The advantage of using role play in
the study of encoding is that it facilitates the interpretation of the non-verbal
behaviour so observed; the problem with this approach is of course that
people may simply not know what non-verbal cues they use when they like
someone, or the behaviours they use in a role play may represent the way
they think they would behave rather than the way they actually do behave in a
given situation (Bull, 1978).
An alternative procedure is for the experimenter actually to attempt to
induce the attitude he wishes to observe. Thus, Mehrabian (1969), in a
discussion of encoding and decoding designs, mentions a study by Exline and
Winters (1965) in which they arranged for subjects to have separate con-
versations with two different people and then asked them which person they
liked better; the purpose of this design was to study the patterns of eye gaze
associated with affiliation. Mehrabian praises this kind of approach, but
argues in his own study of affiliation (Mehrabian, 1968b) that it is often
difficult to devise situations where real attitudes can be induced, especially if
one wishes to study the same attitudes at different levels of intensity.
Methodology 45
However, another experiment carried out by Ekman, Friesen and

Malmstrom (in Ekman, Friesen and Ellsworth, 1972) suggested how to
circumvent some of the problems which Mehrabian has argued are
associated with inducing real attitudes in the laboratory. In Ekman et A/.'S
experiment, the facial expressions of subjects were observed while
watching a stressful and a neutral film. The great advantage of this tech-
nique is that through using film or tape, attitudes can be induced under
controlled conditions, which can also be varied if one wishes, for example,
to study the same attitudes at different levels of intensity. Other re-
searchers (e.g. Buck et al., Wagner et al., 1986) have used this kind of
technique to investigate communication accuracy: emotionally-loaded
slides are shown to an encoder while a decoder attempts to judge from the
encoder's expression which slide he is observing. However, the purpose of
the experiments to be reported in Chapters 4 and 5 was to investigate the
way in which information about different emotions and attitudes may be
encoded through specific postural cues.
In a pilot study (Bull, 1978), subjects were asked to listen to tape-
recorded extracts intended to be funny, sad, interesting or boring and to
say after each one which category was found most appropriate and why;
after hearing all the extracts, the subject was then asked to rank those in
each category in order of intensity. The whole interview was recorded on
videotape without the subjects' knowledge, so that the postures displayed
could be analysed according to the categories and ranks chosen. However,
at the conclusion of the experiment, it was explained that a videotape had
been taken and that if the subject objected to this procedure, the videotape
would be erased; but no such objections were made.
The design also allowed the postures occurring while listening to the
extracts to be compared with those occurring when explaining the choice of
category to the experimenter. Although talking just after you have listened
to something interesting is obviously not the same as expressing interest
when you feel it, nevertheless it was considered useful to make some sort
of comparison between the postures associated with listening and those
associated with speech to see if they differed in any significant way. Thus,
through this method it was possible to analyse the postures according to the
self-reports obtained from the subjects without having to reveal the pur-
pose of the experiment and consequently making subjects aware that
posture was the focus of the investigation. The results showed that dis-
tinctive postures were associated with the different categories, such as
dropping the head in sadness and leaning the head on one hand in
boredom, thus providing empirical support for the value of this method as
a way of obtaining information on the encoding of posture.
Hence, it was decided to use this technique in a series of studies designed
to investigate the encoding of different emotions and attitudes through
posture; these studies are reported in Chapters 4 and 5 of Part II. Two of
these studies (Chapter 4) were intended to investigate how interest and

boredom are encoded in posture, the other two studies (Chapter 5) to
investigate the encoding of disagreement and agreement. The results of
these studies showed that there were distinctive postures associated both
with interest/boredom and with disagreement/agreement. These findings
formed the basis for another two studies reported in Chapter 6, which were
intended to investigate how the postures shown to encode interest/
boredom and disagreement/agreement are decoded. Clearly, the results
of such a decoding study are important with regard to the social significance
which we ascribe to these postural cues. If an independent group of
observers fail to accurately decode the postural cues described in Chapters
4 and 5, then we could not talk of these postural cues as a communication
code; rather it would suggest that they provide a potentially valuable but
unperceived source of information about emotions and attitudes.
Conversely, if we found that the postural cues described in Chapters 4 and
5 were for the most part accurately decoded, then this would suggest that
the cues do constitute a socially shared signal system through which interest/
boredom and disagreement/agreement are systematically encoded and
appropriately decoded, and hence that they can be seen as a form of non-
verbal communication.
The postural cues themselves were presented in the form of line
drawings, a technique derived from the work of Spiegel and Machotka
(1974) on the effects of postural variations on aesthetic judgements. The
great advantage of this technique is that details of facial expression which
would confound the experimental results can simply be omitted from line
drawings; this is not the case with photographs or videotape where it was
considered that concealing or omitting facial expressions would result in a
rather bizarre and artifical method of presentation. In the first decoding
experiment, all the postures which had been shown to encode interest/
boredom were systematically varied with one another in all possible com-
binations to create a series of drawings which were then rated by a group of
decoders; in the second decoding experiment, a similar procedure was
adopted for the postures shown to encode disagreement/agreement.
All the studies reported in Part II were based on experimental pro-
cedures. The technique used to investigate encoding had a number of
advantages. Through using videotaped extracts, different emotions and
attitudes of interest to the experimenter could be evoked in the laboratory;
at the same time, the postures displayed could be analysed from the ratings
of the extracts given by the subjects without having to make them aware
that posture was the focus of the investigation. Hence, the high degree of
experimental control made it relatively easy to analyse the postures so
observed. Nevertheless, the findings do have considerable relevance to
naturally occurring situations, such as when a public speaker is addressing
an audience, in that they indicate the kind of information which is available
Methodology 47
to the speaker about the way in which the audience is responding to what is
being said. The two decoding studies were also carried out using an
experimental procedure, in which all the cues shown to encode each
emotion and attitude were systematically manipulated with one another in
order to assess the relative importance of different postural cues in the way
interest/boredom and disagreement/agreement are decoded. By carrying
out separate studies of encoding and decoding in this way, it was possible
to ascertain the communicative significance of postural cues.
(b) Posture, Gesture and Speech (Part III)

The studies to be reported in Part III were concerned with the rela-
tionship between posture, gesture and speech. Three of these studies were
based on videorecordings of conversations between opposite-sex pairs of
British students; the other two studies were based on public performances,
namely, BBC television news broadcasts and videorecordings of political
speeches.
In the first study of conversation (Chapter 7), the students were simply
asked to talk and to get to know one another. In the other two studies of
conversation (Chapters 8 and 9), the students were asked initially to
complete an attitude questionnaire, indicating their agreement or dis-
agreement with contentious statements concerning such issues as
euthanasia or abortion; they were then asked to discuss a number of issues
on which they had disagreed. In the study reported in Chapter 7, the
participants were aware that they were being videotaped; in the other two
studies, they were videotaped without their knowledge, although at the
end of the experiment it was explained to them that a videotape had been
taken and that if the subject objected to this procedure, the videotape
would be erased—but no such objections were made.
Since these three studies were all concerned with the role of posture and
gesture in relation to conversation, it was clearly necessary to employ some
means of classifying speech. The study of conversation to be described in
Chapter 7 (Bull and Brown, 1977) was intended to investigate whether
more initiating moves in conversation were accompanied by particular
types of postural change, in order to test Scheflen's hypothesis of a "pro-
gramme", according to which new stages in social interaction are indicated
by postural markers. Hence, a system of content analysis was developed to
classify conversation according to the way information is exchanged, for
example, whether it is offered, requested or given in response to a request.
This method of content analysis has subsequently been expanded and
developed into a system referred to as Conversational Exchange Analysis
or CEA (Thomas, Bull and Roger, 1982). CEA comprises four sets of rules
for the division and subsequent classification of speech. Initially, CEA
provides a set of rules for segmenting conversational speech into units
representing individual ideas. CEA is then used to classify speech along

three separate dimensions: focus, type and activity. Focus is concerned
with the referent of the information; for example, one may be referring to
one's own opinions or to the opinions of a third party. Type refers to the
sort of information exchanged, such as beliefs or past experiences. Activity
refers to how information is made salient in the conversation; the activity
categories can be seen as exemplifying different types of speech act, based
on the view proposed by Austin (1962) and Searle (1969) that speech is not
simply concerned with the transmission of information, but constitutes a
form of activity in its own right. The activity dimension represents an
elaboration of the system used by Bull and Brown (1977); it also includes
some changes in terminology, which were made to express more concisely
the different ways in which information is exchanged in conversation.
Throughout this book, the more recent CEA terminology will be
employed; the earlier categories and their more recent counterparts are
given below.
In terms of CEA, the experiment to be described in Chapter 7 was
concerned with the activity dimension. Scheflen's hypothesis of a "pro-
gramme", that new stages in social interaction are indicated by postural
markers, was operationalized in terms of speech acts, such that it was
predicted that more initiating types of speech act would be more likely to
be associated with changes in posture. Specifically, it was predicted that
offers, which introduce new information into the conversation (referred to
by Bull and Brown as "statements") would be associated with the most
changes in posture. Requests, which refer to speech in which a person is
actively asking for information (referred to by Bull and Brown as
"questions") would be associated with fewer changes in posture than offers
because they only ask for new information to be introduced into the
conversation, but with more changes in posture than replies, since replies
(referred to by Bull and Brown as "answers") refer to speech that is made
by the other person in direct response to a request; hence, the information
given is constrained by the request and consequently replies can be seen as
a less initiating form of speech act. Finally, it was predicted that reactions,
which refer to vocalizations made by the listener as reactions to what the
speaker is saying (referred to by Bull and Brown as "responses"), would be
associated with the fewest changes in posture since they introduce no new
information into the conversation.
The same form of content analysis was also used in a second study on the
role of posture in conversation, which is described in Chapter 8 (Thomas
and Bull, 1981). The focus of this study was on the postural changes which
occur immediately prior to speaking to investigate whether different post-
ures precede different speech acts and so in some way signal the nature of
the speech act which is to follow. The results supported this hypothesis and
were interpreted in terms of the role of postural cues in turn-taking.
Methodology 49
The final study of conversation to be presented in this book (Chapter 9;

Bull and Connelly, 1985) was concerned with the way in which gesture is
used to emphasize speech. Two techniques were used in this study. The
first technique involved asking both subjects in each pair at the end of the
conversation to replay the vidotape independently of one another (without
sound) and to indicate which body movements of themselves and their
partners they considered conveyed emphasis. Those movements which
both subjects (i.e. encoder and decoder) regarded as emphatic were then
classified using the Body Movement Scoring System to see whether there
were any particular types of gesture which were used to communicate
emphasis. But since awareness is not regarded by this author as a necessary
condition for non-verbal communication, a second approach was adopted
which was not dependent on subject awareness; in this approach, the
relationship between body movement and vocal stress was investigated.
Träger and Smith (1951) have argued that discourse has a discernible
structure based on strings of words which seem to be spoken as a unit,
which they named the phonemic clause. The phonemic clause consists of a
group of words, averaging five in length, in which there is only one primary
stress indicated by changes in pitch, rhythm or loudness and which is
terminated by a juncture, where these changes in pitch, rhythm and
loudness level off before the beginning of the next phonemic clause. In the
analysis reported in Chapter 9, transcripts were made of a number of
randomly selected conversations and scored for primary stress (following
Halliday, 1970), so that the relationship between gesture and vocal stress
could be investigated.
The other two studies to be presented in this book were based on
videorecordings of naturally-occurring situations which did not involve any
experimental manipulation on the part of the author. One of these was a
study of news broadcasts, which is presented in Chapter 7 along with the
first study of informal conversation, since both studies were intended to
test hypotheses derived from Scheflen's observations on the way in which
posture may be used to mark out hierarchical units of speech. In the study
of informal conversation, this was done by looking at the relationship
between postural change and different forms of speech act; in the study of
news broadcasts, the relationship between posture and topic change was
investigated. News broadcasts are ideally suited for this purpose, since the
newsreader usually progresses through a sequence of clearly delineated
topics, whereas in informal conversation it is often difficult to decide where
a change of topic has occurred, and the issue may be further confused by
forward-tracking to new topics and back-tracking to previous topics. In the
study of news broadcasts, the specific hypothesis tested was that changes in
topic would be indicated by marked changes in posture.
The other study of a naturally-occurring situation and the final one to be
reported in this book was concerned with the role of hand gesture in
political speeches (Chapter 10; Bull, 1986). Political speeches were chosen
as a potentially interesting context in which to investigate the functions of
hand gesture for a number of different reasons. Some speakers make
extensive use of hand gesture, so that a detailed analysis of their speeches
may be highly informative about the role of gesture in interpersonal
communication. Again, there is typically a considerable physical distance
during a public speech between the speaker and his audience, so that hand
gesture may be of particular importance in this context because of its
greater visibility than facial expression or gaze. Finally, because public
speeches are by definition public occasions, there is no reason to believe
that the nature of the performance will be substantially affected by the
presence of a camera.
Conclusion
In this section methodological issues have been discussed with regard
both to the way in which body movement was measured and to the context
in which the observations were made. The development of the Body
Movement Scoring System was described; the system is intended to pro-
vide a comprehensive and detailed description of the visual appearance of
both posture and gesture. This procedure employs the single movement act
as its basic unit; it provides descriptive categories based on the range of
movements which are possible from each of the major joints of the body.
Hence, it is essentially descriptive and has the advantage that the observer
is not required to make any inferences about the assumed social meaning
of particular forms of body movement.
Another advantage of this procedure is that it is unobtrusive, it does not
involve attaching any recording devices to the subjects of the investigation.
Hence, it was possible to use this system (and its predecessor, the Posture
Scoring System) in a series of both experimental and naturalistic studies on
the role of posture and gesture in interpersonal communication. One group
of studies comprised a set of six experiments, intended to investigate
whether posture communicates information about listener emotions and
attitudes. The other five studies were intended to investigate the rela-
tionship between posture, gesture and speech. These studies were con-
ducted in a variety of settings: three were based on informal conversations
which were held in a social psychology laboratory, the other two were
based on television newsbroadcasts and videorecordings of political
speeches delivered at public meetings during the 1983 British General
Election campaign. The results of all eleven studies are reported in the
next seven chapters.
4
The Encoding of Interest and
Boredom
Introduction
In this chapter, two studies will be described which were intended to
investigate the way in which interest and boredom are encoded through
posture. The methodology used in these experiments was based on a pilot
study (Bull, 1978), in which students were asked to listen to tape-recorded
extracts intended to be funny, sad, interesting or boring and to say after
each one which category was found most appropriate and why; after
hearing all the extracts, the subject was then asked to rank those in each
category in order of intensity. The whole interview was recorded on
videotape without the subjects' knowledge, so that the postures displayed
could be analysed according to the categories and ranks chosen. Thus,
through this method it was possible to analyse the postures according to the
self-reports obtained from the subjects without having to reveal the pur-
pose of the experiment and consequently making subjects aware that
posture was the focus of the investigation. The results showed a number of
significant findings relating different postures to different emotions and
attitudes, such as dropping the head in sadness and leaning the head on one
hand in boredom, thus providing empirical support for the value of this
method as a way of obtaining information on the encoding of posture.
Nevertheless, there were a number of problems with the study reported by
Bull (1978) and the purpose of the two experiments reported in this
chapter was to remedy these faults.
One major problem was that only four postures occurred with sufficient
frequency for statistical analysis, so that it was not possible to provide a
comprehensive profile of the specific postures associated with particular
emotions and attitudes. To tackle this difficulty, it was decided to increase
both the length and the number of recorded extracts; thus, the number of
extracts was increased from three to four and the duration of each extract
increased to approximately 5 minutes in length (the extracts in the pilot
study were between 45 seconds and 2 minutes in length).
A second possible source of bias was the presence in the room of the
experimenter as interviewer. The purpose of this procedure was to allow
53
the postures occurring while listening to the extracts to be compared with

those occurring when explaining the choice of category to the ex-
perimenter. Although talking just after you have listened to something
interesting is obviously not the same as expressing interest when you feel it,
nevertheless it was considered useful to make this comparison between
postures associated with listening and those associated with speech. How-
ever, while the subjects listened to each recorded extract, the experimenter
maintained the same posture throughout; this procedure was adopted in
order that postural changes shown by the subjects should reflect their
reaction to the recorded extracts rather than imitations of the postural
changes shown by the experimenter. Nevertheless, by maintaining the
same posture, the experimenter may have inhibited the subject's overall
level of postural activity. Hence, in this study of interest and boredom, two
experiments were carried out, one in which the experimenter was present
with each subject (Experiment 1) as in the pilot study, the other in which
two subjects at a time watched the same extracts with the experimenter
absent from the room; this design was intended to see whether the results
obtained in the listening phase of Experiment 1 would generalize to a
rather freer experimental situation (Experiment 2).
A final modification of the design employed in the Bull (1978) study was
the use of videotape rather than audiotape in the preparation of the
recorded extracts. This modification was introduced to see whether head
orientation to the television monitor might vary as a function of interest
and boredom.
Method
Subjects
The subjects in Experiment 1 were eleven male and eleven female
students from Exeter University, aged between 18 and 22 years, all initially
unfamiliar with the experimenter. The subjects in Experiment 2 were also
eleven male and eleven female students from Exeter University, aged
between 18 and 22 years. Subjects participated in Experiment 2 in pairs of
one male and one female, no pairs being previously acquainted with one
another.
Apparatus
Eight talks between 4 minutes 45 seconds and 5 minutes in length were
recorded on a Sony AV 3620CE videotape-recorder. The talks were in-
tended to be either interesting or boring with four in each category; a ninth
talk was also recorded which was intended to fall between the two categor-
ies as a test item to accustom the subject to the procedure in Experiment 1.
The Encoding of Interest and Boredom 55
The talks were recorded by a male and a female speaker, and

counterbalanced for sex of speaker and category of emotion; the speakers
were also instructed to read each extract in a tone of voice consonant with its
intended mood and to maintain the same posture throughout to avoid in-
fluencing the postures of the subjects. Examples of the items used are a
description and explanation of the Indian rope trick (intended to be inter-
esting) and a report of the Home Grown Timber advisory committee (in-
tended to be boring).
The experiments took place in a room with microphones concealed be-
neath the tables and a Shibaden FP-707 portable video camera concealed in a
hold-all bag; a piece of neutral density paper covered the lens of the camera,
while a coat and scarf was thrown over the bag to camouflage the whole
arrangement. The lead from the camera ran through a small hole in the wall
to a Shibaden SV-700 videotape-recorder in the next room. In Experiment 1,
the subject and experimenter sat on chairs placed 32 inches apart at right
angles to another along two sides of a table, while the Sony videotape-
recorder used to present the recorded extracts was placed on the table beside
the experimenter. The subject's chair was some 8 feet away from the tele-
vision monitor which it faced directly and which had been placed on another
table alongside the camera. In Experiment 2, and same arrangement of
furniture was adopted but with both chairs facing the television monitor
directly and with the Sony videotape-recorder placed in the adjoining room
with the connecting lead running through the small hole in the wall (see Fig.
2).
Procedure
In Experiment 1, the experimenter presented the test extract followed by
the eight experimental extracts in random order to each subject, who was
asked to say after listening to each one which category seemed most
appropriate and briefly to give reasons for his choice. This stage of the
experiment lasted about an hour and was recorded on videotape from the
hidden camera and microphones. After listening to all the extracts, the
subject was asked to rank them in order of intensity according to the category
chosen; thus, the extracts categorized as boring were ranked from the most to
the least boring and those categorized as interesting from the most to the least
interesting.
While listening to each extract, the experimenter was careful to avoid eye
contact in order not to differentially influence the postures taken up by the
subject. For the same reason, he was also careful to employ the same posture
for all the subjects and to avoid changing it during an extract; however, at the
end of each extract he turned his head towards the subject, who then said
which category seemed most appropriate and why, having been instructed
previously on the first item to do this without request from the experimenter.
FIGURE 2. Seating arrangements in Experiments 1 and 2 (Not to scale).
EXPERIMENT 1 EXPERIMENT 2
□ a
□ TELEVISION
MONITOR
TELEVISION
MONITOR
HIDDEN HIDDEN
CAMERA CAMERA
EXPERIMENTER
VIDEOTAPE
RECORDER
In Experiment 2, the subjects in each pair were introduced to one

another and asked to listen to the videotaped extracts; they were told they
would be asked to rate the extracts after listening to them all according to
whether they found them interesting or boring and to rank them in order of
intensity according to the category chosen. The subjects were then taken to
the experimental room, where they were left alone to watch the eight
videotaped extracts which were presented in random order. This stage of
the experiment lasted about three-quarters of an hour and was recorded on
videotape from the hidden camera and microphones. After they had
listened to all the extracts, the subjects were then asked to rate and rank
them as instructed; this part of the experiment they completed in different
rooms to avoid any collusion in the responses given.
In both experiments, after subjects had rated and ranked all the extracts,
it was explained that a videotape had been taken and that if the subjects
objected to this procedure the videotape would be erased, but no such
objections were made. Subjects were also asked if they had become aware
of the hidden camera at any point during the experiment, but in no case
had this occurred.
The videotapes thus obtained were then scored for changes in posture
according to the Posture Scoring System. Only changes in posture which
occurred while listening to an extract or talking about it afterwards were
scored, thus omitting the start postures for each listening and speech
section. A reliability study on the scoring system was carried out where
an independent observer scored eighteen postures for head, trunk, arms
and legs from at least three different subjects for data from Experiment 1;
the same procedure was repeated for Experiment 2. The reliability study
for Experiment 1 resulted in a mean agreement with the main scorer of
79% (head 76%, trunk 76%, arms 80%, legs 82%). The reliability study
for Experiment 2 resulted in a mean agreement with the main scorer of
84% (head 92%, trunk 84%, arms 83%, legs 75%).
Results
The data were analysed with the intention of finding out whether there
are specific postural cues associated with interest and boredom. All
analyses were performed on two measures: the frequency with which a
posture occurred and the total length of time for which all postures of
each type were maintained (recorded with a stop watch to the nearest
second). In all analyses, only the items ranked first and second for
interest and boredom were included, with the intention of omitting
extracts which might have failed to evoke a strong response. The postural
changes occurring in the items ranked first and second were then com-
bined to permit a direct comparison between interest and boredom using
Wilcoxon Matched-Pairs Tests. For the results of Experiment 1, separate
analyses were carried out for postures occurring during the listening
phase of the experiment and during the ensuing speech; this was con-
sidered necessary because the time spent talking was invariably much
shorter than that spent listening, so that a fair comparison could not be
made between the two situations. Non-parametric analyses were
employed throughout because the data were heavily skewed by a large
number of zero entries.
The results for Experiment 1 are summarized in Table 1; for the sake
of brevity, only the significant findings are presented. They show that
during listening, "drops head", "supports head on one hand" and "leans
back" were associated with boredom, while "leans forward" was
associated with interest. During speech, "leans forward" and "draws back
legs" were associated with interest.
PAG-E
TABLE 1. Group Means and Significant Results of Wilcoxon Matched-Pairs Tests for
Changes in Posture Associated with Interest and Boredom in Experiment 1
Posture Interest Boredom
Leans forward
(Listening, frequency) 0.0015* 0.0002
(Speech, frequency) (0.059*) (0.009)
Leans back
(Listening, frequency) 0.001 0.002*
Drops head
(Listening, time) 0.004 0.064**
Supports head on one hand
(Listening, frequency) 0.001 0.003**
(Listening, time) 0.035 0.076**
Draws back legs
(Speech, frequency) 0.044** 0.001
(Speech, time) 0.279** 0.018
** /?<0.01, *p<0.05. Results are measured according to the total time length (in seconds)
and frequency of each postural change in proportion to the total time length (in seconds) of
the appropriate recorded extract. An analysis carried out using a Sign Test is indicated in
brackets.
The results for Experiment 2 are summarized in Table 2; again, for the
sake of brevity, only the significant findings are presented. They showed
that as in Experiment 1, boredom was associated with "drops head",
"supports head on one hand" and "leans back". They also showed that
boredom was significantly associated with "leans head to person", "turns
head to person", "turns head away from person", "stretches out legs",
"puts one hand to same thigh" and all changes in posture of the head and
arms; there were no postures significantly associated with interest.
Thus, the one finding which did not replicate from Experiment 1 to
Experiment 2 was the association of "leans forward" with interest.
However, Experiment 2 was deliberately designed as a freer situation in
which two subjects at a time watched the videotaped extracts in the
absence of the experimenter, so this may have affected the results in a
number of ways. For example, in some of the sessions, subjects talked to
one another during some of the extracts, and hence might have leaned
forward out of interest in each other's conversation during boring ex-
tracts! This could not have affected the results of Experiment 1, since
there was no conversation between experimenter and subject during the
extracts. Another possibility stems from the fact that subjects turned their
heads away from the television monitor both more frequently and for a
longer period of time during boring extracts and hence might well have
leaned forward during those extracts out of interest in some aspect of the
experimental room. Again, this should not have affected the results of
Experiment 1, since there were no significant differences between
Changes in Posture Associated with Interest and Boredom in Experiment 2
Posture Interest Boredom

All changes in head postures
(Frequency) 0.036 0.053**
All changes in arm postures
(Frequency) 0.025 0.041**
Turns head to person
(Frequency) 0.004 0.009**
(Time) 0.013 0.070**
Turns head away from person
(Frequency) 0.002 0.004**
(Time) 0.008 0.023**
Leans head to person
(Frequency) 0.012 0.015*
Drops head
(Frequency) 0.001 0.005**
(Time) 0.008 0.055**
Leans back
(Frequency) 0.001 0.002*
(Frequency) 0.002 0.005**
(Time) 0.157 0.225*
Puts one hand to same thigh
(Frequency) 0.001 0.002*
(Time) 0.019 0.136*
Stretches out legs
(Frequency) 0.0003 0.0036*
**p<0.01, *p<0.05. Results are measured according to the total time length (in seconds) and
frequency of each postural change in proportion to the total time length (in seconds) of the
appropriate recorded extract.
conditions in turning the head away from the television monitor. To test
both these possibilities, the "leans forward" data were reanalysed, omitting
observations of "leans forward" where subjects were talking to one
another during extracts and where subjects turned their head away from
the television monitor at the same time as leaning forward. From this
revised analysis, "leans forward" was found to be significantly associated
with interest.
Discussion
When interpreting these findings, perhaps the most surprising feature of
the results of Experiment 1 was that subjects did not turn their heads away
from the television monitor more frequently or for a longer period of time
during boring than during interesting extracts, since a number of studies

(reviewed in Berlyne, 1971) have shown that subjects look longer at stimuli
judged as interesting. Conversely, all the significant results which were
obtained in Experiment 1 can be interpreted in terms of an arousal
hypothesis, where the bored person becomes so lethargic that he leans
back, drops his head and in fact has to support his head on his hands,
whereas the interested person leans forward and draws back his legs in
greater alertness.
The results of Experiment 2 for the most part tended to support this
arousal hypothesis. Thus, the association with boredom of leaning back,
dropping the head and supporting the head on one hand was replicated;
moreover, the finding in this study that boredom was associated with
leaning the head to one side and stretching out the legs also ties in neatly
with the concept of boredom as lowered arousal.
However, there were several other significant effects in Experiment 2
which do not fit in so easily with this arousal hypothesis. Two such findings
stem from the analyses of overall postural activity, which showed that there
were significantly more changes of head and arm postures associated with
boredom. At first sight, this impression of increased activity from the
overall measures of postural change might well seem contrary to the
interpretation of boredom in terms of lowered arousal; however, the fact
that there were also more specific head and arm postures significantly
associated with boredom in this experiment suggested that these two
findings may simply be the result of that effect. Hence, the data for these
two measures were reanalysed omitting specific postures which had pro-
duced significant effects. After this reanalysis, the significant differences
associated with all head postures disappeared, thus partly supporting the
hypothesis; however, the significant difference for all hand/arm postures
remained, for which there seems to be no obvious explanation. Similarly,
there seems to be no obvious explanation for the significant association
with boredom of "puts one hand to same thigh", except that it may
represent part of the increased hand/arm activity associated with boredom.
The two remaining findings from Experiment 2 which did not fit in with
the arousal hypothesis were the association of boredom with "turns head to
person" and "turns head away from person". The failure to find this effect
in Experiment 1 suggests that turning the head away from the television
monitor during boring extracts occurred principally in the absence of the
experimenter! A likely explanation for this is that subjects may have been
afraid of offending the experimenter in Experiment 1 by not appearing to
pay attention to the videotapes, however boring they found them. This is
comparable to the concept of "non-verbal leakage" put forward by Ekman
and Friesen (1969b), according to which people are more careful to control
facial expression because of its greater sending capacity and hence
attempts at deception may be more often "leaked" through movements of
the body. In the experiments reported here, it appears that people are
careful to monitor their head orientation when bored; nevertheless, they
still "give off" signals of boredom in Experiment 1, such as leaning back,
dropping the head and supporting the head on one hand. But the overall
pattern of results showed that for the most part interest and boredom are
encoded through a clear, consistent and interpretable postural profile.
5
The Encoding of Disagreement
and Agreement
Introduction
The two studies described in the previous chapter represented an in-
tensive examination of the postures associated with interest and boredom;
the studies to be described in this chapter were intended to investigate the
postures associated with a different attitude dimension, namely, that of
disagreement and agreement.
There were two main reasons for this choice. Firstly, it was considered
that although the results of Experiments 1 and 2 had suggested very clearly
that certain postures were associated with interest and boredom, it could
have been the case that these particular postures were not specific to
interest and boredom but related more widely to positive and negative
feeling states in general. Hence, it was decided to test this possible
alternative explanation through the examination of a different attitude
dimension, to see whether a similar or dissimilar postural profile would be
observed.
Secondly, it was considered that this attitude dimension would be of
particular interest in view of the research discussed in Chapter 2 on open
and closed body positions. In that chapter, a number of decoding studies
were described which showed that open arm positions are generally
perceived as more positive than closed arm positions; encoding studies
based on role play also tend to support this relationship between a positive
attitude and body openness.
The assumption underlying this research seems to be that there is a kind
of parallel between openness of attitude and openness of body posture,
with open arm positions conveying greater accessibility, whereas closed
arm positions convey an attitude of rejection. The attitudes of dis-
agreement and agreement seemed particularly well suited to test this
hypothesis; it was predicted that disagreement would lead to closed body
postures with arms folded and legs crossed conveying an attitude of re-
jection, whereas an attitude of agreement and acceptance would be con-
veyed by a relative absence of such postures. At the same time, since all
other encoding studies of body openness have employed role play, it was
62
The Encoding of Disagreement and Agreement 63
possible to carry out a more satisfactory test of the hypothesized rela-

tionship between disagreement and closed body postures through an en-
coding methodology which avoided the problems inherent in a role-play
design.
In carrying out these studies, the same methodology was used as in
Experiments 1 and 2. In the first study (Experiment 3), the experimenter
was present with the subject who was asked to say after each extract
whether he disagreed or agreed with it and why; in the second study
(Experiment 4), the same extracts were employed but with two subjects at
a time watching the videotape, with the experimenter absent from the
room. However, some minor modifications were introduced in the ratings
carried out by the subjects. As well as being asked to rank the items in
order of disagreement and agreement, subjects were also asked to indicate
whether they strongly or mildly disagreed with each item. This strategy was
adopted in order to give an extra guarantee that the extracts employed in
the final analysis represented a full range of the attitudes being sampled, so
that it was possible, for example, to compare only those extracts which had
evoked strong disagreement and strong agreement. Another minor
modification of the methodology employed in Experiments 1 and 2 con-
sisted of asking subjects to rate the extracts in terms of interest/boredom as
well as disagreement/agreement, so that the relationship between ratings
of these two attitude dimensions could be examined. Thus, through this
design it was intended to take observations of the postures associated with
disagreement and agreement in order both to test the hypothesized rela-
tionship between disagreement and closed body postures and to provide
further data on another attitude dimension which could be compared with
that already obtained on the dimension of interest and boredom.
Method
Subjects
The subjects in Experiment 3 were eleven male and eleven female
students from Exeter University, aged between 18 and 22 years, all initially
unfamiliar with the experimenter. The subjects in Experiment 4 were also
eleven male and eleven female students from Exeter University, aged
between 18 and 22 years. Subjects participated in Experiment 4 in pairs of
one male and one female, no pairs being previously acquainted with one
another.
Apparatus
Short summaries were prepared of thirteen arguments on controversial
issues such as euthanasia and prison reform; these were presented in
questionnaire form to twenty-four students from Exeter University (twelve
male, twelve female, aged between 18 and 22 years), who were asked to
indicate whether they disagreed or agreed with each item and to rank those
with which they disagreed in order of disagreement and those with which
they agreed in order of agreement. The results of this questionnaire were
then used to select eight experimental extracts comprising the four items
which had evoked the most disagreement and the four items which had
evoked the most agreement. The short summaries were then expanded
into longer arguments and were recorded in the form of videotaped talks
between 45 minutes 45 seconds and 5 minutes in length on a Sony
AV3620CE videotape-recorder. The talks were recorded by a male and a
female speaker, and counterbalanced for sex and category (disagreement/
agreement) accordingly. Examples of the items used are an attack on
compulsory education (which had evoked high disagreement in the
questionnaire) and a defence of private medicine (which had evoked high
agreement in the questionnaire). A ninth talk was also recorded as a test
item with which to accustom each subject to the procedure in Experiment
3.
The experiments took place in a room with the hidden camera and
microphones arranged with the furniture as described in Chapter 4 for
Experiments 1 and 2.
Procedure
In Experiment 3, the experimenter presented the test extract followed

by the eight experimental extracts in random order to each subject, who
was asked to say after listening to each one whether he disagreed or agreed
with the argument and briefly to give reasons for his opinion. This stage of
the experiment lasted about an hour and was recorded on videotape from
the hidden camera and microphones. After listening to all the extracts, the
subject was asked to rate them according to whether his disagreement or
agreement was either strong or mild. He was also asked to rank all those
extracts with which he had disagreed in order of disagreement and all those
with which he had agreed in order of agreement. Finally, he was asked to
repeat the whole procedure, but rating them in terms of interest and
boredom instead of disagreement and agreement, indicating whether the
interest or boredom was strong or mild and ranking all the interesting items
in order of interest and all the boring items in order of boredom.
While listening to each extract, the experimenter was careful to avoid
eye contact and to employ the same postures for all subjects throughout
each extract; however, at the end of each extract he turned his head toward
the subject, who then said whether he disagreed or agreed with the
argument and why, having been instructed previously on the first test item
to do this without request from the experimenter.
In Experiment 4, the subjects in each pair were introduced and given
instructions to listen to the videotaped extracts, which they were told they
would be asked to rate after listening to them all according to whether they
disagreed or agreed with them (strongly or mildly), according to whether they
found them interesting or boring (strongly or mildly) and to rank them in
order of intensity for disagreement, agreement, interest and boredom. The
subjects were then taken to the experimental room, where they were left
alone to watch the eight videotaped extracts which were presented in random
order. This stage of the experiment lasted about three-quarters of an hour and
was recorded on videotape from the hidden cameras and microphones. After
they had listened to all the extracts, the subjects were then asked to rate and
rank them as instructed, and to do this in different rooms to avoid any
collusion in the responses given.
In both experiments, after subjects had rated and ranked all the extracts, it
was explained that a videotape had been taken and that if subjects objected to
this procedure, the videotape would be erased; but no such objections were
made. Subjects were also asked if they had become aware of the hidden
camera at any point during the experiment, but in no case had this occurred.
The videotapes thus obtained were scored for changes in posture using
the Posture Scoring System in the same way as described in Experiments 1
and 2.
Results
The data were then analysed with the intention offindingout whether there
are specific postural cues which encode disagreement and agreement. As in
Experiments 1 and 2, all analyses were performed on two measures: the
frequency with which a postural change occurred and the total length of time
for which all postural changes of each type were maintained. In all analyses,
only the items ranked first and second for disagreement and agreement were
included, with the intention of omitting extracts which might have failed to
evoke a strong response. The postural changes occurring in the items ranked
first and second were then combined to permit a direct comparison between
disagreement and agreement using Wilcoxon Matched-Pairs Tests. For the
results of Experiment 3, separate analyses were carried out for the postural
changes occurring during the listening phase of the experiment and during the
ensuing speech. Non-parametric analyses were employed throughout be-
cause the data were heavily skewed by a large number of zero entries.
The results of Experiment 3 showed that "straightens head (from leans
head to person)" was significantly associated with disagreement, while "leans
sideways" and "raises one foot" were significantly associated with agreement;
there were no significant findings in Experiment 4. For the sake of brevity,
only the group means and significant results from Experiment 3 are presented
in Table 3.
TABLE 3. Group Means and Significant Results ofWilcoxon Matched-Pairs Tests for
Changes in Posture Associated with Disagreement and Agreement in Experiment 3
Posture Disagreement Agreement

Straightens head (from leans
head to person)
(Listening, frequency) 0.011* 0.008
Leans sideways
(Listening, time) 0.107 0.397*
Raises one foot
(Speech, time) 0.016 0.060*
*/?<0.05. Results are measured according to the total time length (in seconds) and frequency of
each postural change in proportion to the total time length (in seconds) of the appropriate
recorded extract.
Thus, the results of these initial analyses showed no support for the
hypothesis that disagreement is encoded by closed body postures. However,
there were at least two reasons for not immediately rejecting this hypothesis.
One problem with the initial analyses is the possibility that the extracts
selected for analysis did not evoke disagreement and agreement with
sufficient intensity to satisfactorily test the hypothesis. To check on this
alternative explanation, the data from both experiments were reanalysed, but
in this case comparisons were made only between subjects who had both
strongly disagreed and strongly agreed with at least one item, the items
ranked first for strong disagreement and strong agreement being compared in
each case. Because this substantially reduced the number of subjects available
for analysis, the data from Experiment 4 were combined with the data from
the listening phase of Experiment 3; the significant results from this revised
analysis are presented in Table 4. They showed that disagreement was
significantly associated with "folds arms" and with "supports head on one
hand", thus providing some evidence in support of the hypothesis that dis-
agreement is associated with a closed arm posture.
Changes in Posture Associated with Strong Disagreement and Strong Agreement
in Experiments 3 and 4
Posture Disagreement Agreement

Folds arms
(Frequency) 0.003* 0.002
(Frequency) 0.004** 0.002
**/?<0.01, *p<0.05. Results are measured according to the total time length (in seconds) and
frequency of each postural change in proportion to the total time length (in seconds) of the
appropriate recorded extract.
Criticisms could also be made of the analysis of the crossed-legged
postures. Initially, these postures were all grouped under one category,
irrespective of whether the person was crossing his legs, say, at the knee or
at the ankles. However, it is possible that only certain ways of crossing the
legs are associated with disagreement, in particular those where the legs
are tightly crossed, which would form the most "closed" leg position. Thus,
the data for crossed-legged postures were reanalysed and subdivided into
four categories: crossing the legs at the ankles, at the knee, above the knee
and with one ankle on the thigh. The critical category here was that of
crossing the legs above the knee, since this represented the tightest way in
which the legs could be crossed according to these criteria.
The distinction between crossing the legs at the knee and above the knee
was made in terms of whether the lower knee was actually visible; if it was,
the posture was scored as a crossed-legged position above the knee. To
check that this discrimination could be made satisfactorily, a reliability
study was carried out in which an independent observer reached a mean
agreement with the main scorer of 84%. To provide sufficient observations
for analysis employing these four categories, Wilcoxon Matched-Pairs
Tests were performed on postures occurring in the items ranked first and
second both in Experiment 4 and in the listening phase of Experiment 3.
The results of this analysis (presented in Table 5) showed that the posture
of crossing the legs above the knee was indeed significantly associated with
disagreement.
TABLE 5. Group Means and Results of Wilcoxon Matched-Pairs Tests for the
Reanalysis of Crossed Leg Postures Associated with Disagreement and
Agreement in Experiments 3 and 4
Type of crossed- Frequency Time

leg posture
Disagreement Agreement Disagreement Agreement
Above the knee 0.002 0.001 0.239* 0.098
At the knee 0.001 0.001 0.119 0.115
Ankle over thigh 0.001 0.002 0.114 0.140
At the ankles 0.001 0.001 0.126 0.111
*p<0.05. Results are measured according to the total time length (in seconds) and frequency
of each postural change in proportion to the total time length (in seconds) of the appropriate
recorded extract.
Hence, the results of all these analyses suggested that disagreement and
agreement can be identified from postural cues. But in comparison to the
results obtained for interest/boredom in Experiments 1 and 2, they did not
suggest that disagreement and agreement can be identified as reliably from
postural cues. Thus, in no case did the results generalize from listening to
speech nor from one experiment to the other; moreover, in the case of
closed body postures, these were only found to be associated with dis-
agreement under rather limited and restricted conditions.
Nevertheless, what the results had shown was that the postures
associated with disagreement/agreement did constitute a postural profile
essentially dissimilar from that associated with interest/boredom. To see
whether the ratings of the videotaped extracts also differed, the ratings for
the extracts ranked one and two for disagreement/agreement were
compared with the ratings of the same extracts in terms of inter-
est/boredom and analysed using a non-parametric trend test (Jonckheere
and Bower, 1967). Results showed a non-significant correlation (Kendall's
tau) of 0.017 between the two attitude dimensions in Experiment 3 but a
significant correlation of 0.23 between the two dimensions in Experiment 4
(z = 2.075, p = 0.0376, two-tailed), indicating a significant positive rela-
tionship between disagreement and boredom, and between agreement and
interest. Nevertheless, the correlations obtained in both experiments were
low, so that although these results did not show that the ratings of the two
attitude dimensions were completely independent, they did suggest that for
the most part the relationship between them was not a strong one. Thus,
when taken together the results of Experiments 3 and 4 showed that
disagreement/agreement is associated with a postural profile which is
essentially different from that associated with interest/boredom, while
there is only a slight relationship between ratings of the two attitude
dimensions; at the same time, the results also provided some support for
the hypothesized association between disagreement and closed body post-
ures.
Discussion
In interpreting these results, the closed body postures—as well as two of
the other significant findings associated with disagreement and agreement
—seemed to be consistent with the hypothesis of a defensive response to
threat. Thus, the association with disagreement of "straightens head (from
leans head to person)" suggests a vigilant posture with the head erect,
while the person also quite literally bars access to his body by folding his
arms and crossing his legs tightly above the knee; conversely, the
association of "leans sideways" with agreement suggests a posture charac-
terized by much greater relaxation.
The two significant results which do not fit into this pattern are those of
"raises one foot" and "supports head on one hand". There seems to be no
obvious explanation of why "raises one foot" should be associated with
agreement, but the association of "supports head on one hand" with
disagreement might well reflect the low significant positive correlation
found in Experiment 4 between ratings of disagreement and boredom. But
since this "supports head on one hand" finding was observed only in the
analysis of items from both experiments ranked first in terms of strong
disagreement and agreement, the ratings from this particular analysis for
disagreement/agreement were compared with the ratings on inter-

est/boredom and analysed using a non-parametric trend test; however, a
non-significant correlation of only 0.14 was found, providing no support for
this particular interpretation of the "supports head on one hand" finding.
Nevertheless, the fact that most of the significant postural cues observed
in these experiments can be interpreted consistently and meaningfully does
suggest that they provide a valid postural profile of disagreement and
agreement. At the same time, the results of these two experiments also
provided some support for the hypothesized relationship between closed
body postures and the encoding of disagreement. Most important of all,
the fact that they provide such a different profile from the postures
associated with interest and boredom provides no support for the
alternative explanation of the data obtained in Experiments 1 and 2,
namely, that the significant postures observed in those experiments were
not specific to interest and boredom but might be related more widely to
positive and negative feeling states in general. Experiments 1-4 showed
that different emotions and attitudes are in fact encoded in different
postures; the purpose of the two experiments to be described in the next
chapter was to investigate to what extent people make use of the infor-
mation which is available through posture.
6
The Decoding of Interest/
Boredom and Disagreement/
Agreement
Introduction
If we are to use the term non-verbal communication, it needs to be
shown that information can be both transmitted and received through
non-verbal behaviour. In this context, the experiments reported in
Chapters 4 and 5 demonstrated that interest/boredom and disagreement/
agreement are systematically encoded in posture; but if these postural cues
are to be considered as a form of communication, then it also needs to be
shown that they are decoded in an appropriate fashion. In this chapter, two
further experiments are reported, one of which was intended to investigate
the decoding of the postures shown to encode interest/boredom (Ex-
periment 5), the other intended to investigate the decoding of the postures
shown to encode disagreement/agreement (Experiment 6).
Clearly, the results of these decoding studies are important with regard
to the social significance which we ascribe to posture. If an independent
group of observers failed to accurately decode the postural cues described
in Chapters 4 and 5, then we could not talk of these postural cues as a
communication code; rather it would suggest that they provide a
potentially valuable but unperceived source of information about emotions
and attitudes. Conversely, if we found that the postural cues described in
Chapters 4 and 5 were for the most part accurately decoded, then this
would suggest that interest/boredom and disagreement/agreement are
systematically encoded and appropriately decoded, and hence that they
can be seen as a form of non-verbal communication.
One of the problems in investigating how postures are decoded is that
people may respond to other cues such as facial expression in their
judgement of what emotions and attitudes are being conveyed. The
solution to this problem adopted in the studies reported here was to show
the different postures in the form of line drawings, a technique derived
from the work of Spiegel and Machotka (1974) on the effects of postural
variations on aesthetic judgements. The great advantage of this technique
is that details of facial expression which might affect decoder judgements
70
The Decoding of Interest/Boredom and Disagreement/Agreement 71
can simply be omitted from line drawings; this is not the case with photo-
graphs or videotape, where it was considered that concealing or omitting
facial expressions would result in a rather bizarre and artificial way of
displaying the postures. In the drawings prepared for these experiments,
all details of facial expression were omitted, except for the eyes and nose
which were retained as indicators of facial orientation. In preparing these
figures, the drawings for Experiment 5 were based on the postural cues
which had been shown to encode interest/boredom in Experiments 1 and 2;
the drawings for Experiment 6 were based on the postural cues which had
been shown to encode disagreement/agreement in Experiments 3 and 4.
In both experiments, the subjects were asked to rate all the drawings on
six seven-point scales of interested/bored, disagrees/agrees, friendly/
unfriendly, polite/impolite, superior/inferior and relaxed/tense. The in-
clusion of the extra dimensions (friendly/unfriendly, polite/impolite, super-
ior/inferior and relaxed/tense) was intended to avoid the bias which might
have occurred if the subjects had been asked to rate the postural cues on
the one main dimension only and consequently might have searched for
special significance in the postures with respect to that one particular
dimension. Nevertheless, the main purpose of these two experiments was
to find out how accurately the subjects decoded the postures which had
been shown to encode interest/boredom and disagreement/agreement.
Method
Subjects
The subjects of both experiments were twenty-six students from the
University of York (thirteen men, thirteen women) aged between 18 and
22 years. All subjects completed the questionnaires for both Experiment 5
and Experiment 6.
Apparatus
The postures employed in these questionnaires were based on the
significant results obtained in Experiments 1-4. Where those postures
referred to movements without indicating specific positions, the postures
employed were based on the most frequently occurring position for that
particular movement where such data were available. Thus, "leans for-
ward", which refers to a trunk forward movement, was depicted by a
"forward lean" position, where the angle between trunk and thighs is less
than 90 degrees; this was the position most commonly associated with the
"leans forward" movement. Similarly, "leans back" was depicted by a
"backward lean" position, where the angle between the trunk and thighs
was greater than 90 degrees; "draws back legs" was depicted by a "legs
drawn back" position, where the heels of both feet were behind the knees;
and "stretches out legs" was depicted by a "legs stretched out position",
where the heels of both feet were in front of the knees. In the case of "leans
head to person", "straightens head (from leans head to person)" and
"leans sideways", no information had been collected on the specific post-
ures associated with these particular movements, although it was con-
sidered that given the nature of these movements, they could be depicted
quite readily as positions. Thus, "leans head to person" was depicted by
the position of "head lean", where the head is tilted but not turned to one
side, "straightens head (from leans head to person)" was depicted by a
"head straight" position, where the person looks straight ahead without
any tilting or turning of the head, and "leans sideways" was depicted by a
"sideways lean" position, where in this case the trunk is tilted but not
turned to one side.
In Experiment 5, the drawings were based on the postural cues which
had been found in Experiments 1 and 2 to encode interest/boredom and
which had been interpreted in terms of arousal and attentiveness. There
were four head positions, comprising "drops head", "turns head" and
"head lean" (from "leans head to person"), all of which had been found to
encode boredom, and a fourth "head straight" position included as a
neutral posture. There were three trunk positions, comprising "forward
lean" (from "leans forward", which had been associated with interest),
"backward lean" (from "leans back", which had been associated with
boredom) and a "trunk straight" position midway between "forward lean"
and "backward lean" as a neutral posture. There were two arm positions,
comprising "supports head on one hand", which had been associated with
boredom, and a neutral posture of "joins hands on abdomen". Finally,
there were three leg postures, comprising "legs drawn back" (from "draws
back legs",which has been shown to encode interest), "legs stretched out"
(from "stretches out legs", which had been shown to encode boredom) and
a "legs straight" position midway between "legs drawn back" and "legs
stretched out" as a neutral posture. The basic postures used are depicted in
Fig. 3. Each postural cue was varied systematically with each other to
produce a complete set of seventy-two drawings (i.e. 4 head x 3 trunk x 2
arms x 3 legs).
In Experiment 6, the drawings were based on the postural cues which
had been shown in Experiments 3 and 4 to encode disagreement/
agreement and which had been interpreted in terms of a defensive
response to threat. There were two head postures, comprising "head
straight" (from "straightens head (from leans head to person)", which had
been found to encode disagreement) and the position of "head lean",
considered as neutral with regard to the disagreement/agreement
dimension. There were two trunk postures, comprising "sideways lean"
(from "leans sideways", which had been found to encode agreement) and a
neutral position of "trunk straight". There were two arm postures,
FIGURE 3. Examples of line drawings used in Experiment 5.
Head straight
Trunk straight
Folds arms
Crosses legs above the knee
Head straight
Trunk straight
Joins hands on abdomen
Crosses legs at the knee
Head lean
Sideways lean
Legs uncrossed
comprising "folds arms", which had been found to encode disagreement, and a
neutral posture of "joins hands on abdomen". Finally, there were three leg
postures; these comprised "crosses legs above the knee", which had been found
to encode disagreement, "crosses legs at the knee", intended to investigate the
effects of different types of leg cross on the decoding of disagreement, and "legs
uncrossed" showing the "legs straight" position of Experiment 5 as a neutral
posture so that both cross-legged positions could be compared with an
uncrossed position. These postural cues are depicted in Fig. 4. Each postural
cue was systematically varied with each other to produce a complete set of
twenty-four drawings (i.e. 2 head x 2 trunk x 2 arms x 3 legs).
The drawings for both experiments were combined to form a single
questionnaire and the order of drawings was randomized for each copy of the
questionnaire. Alongside each drawing was a copy of the six seven-point rating
scales, showing the dimensions interested/bored, disagrees/agrees,
polite/impolite, relaxed/tense, superior/inferior and friendly/unfriendly. The
order in which these dimensions appeared was randomized for each copy of the
questionnaire, as were the two poles of each dimension. A sheet of instructions
also prefaced each copy of the questionnaire.
Procedure
Each subject was presented with a copy of the questionnaire, which he was
asked to fill out in accordance with the printed instructions. In these in-
structions, the subject was asked to rate all the drawings by imagining that he
was talking to the person in each picture, who was said to be a fellow student (to
control for the effects of status) and who was said to be sitting directly opposite
the subject (to ensure that the "turns head" posture would be perceived as
looking away from the subject); the instructions also provided an explanation
of how to use the seven-point rating scales.
Results
The results for the rating scales of both experiments were then subjected to
analysis of variance, where the four sources of variance in each case were the
Head, Trunk, Arms and Legs. In describing the main effects, all those sources
of variance which were significant and which included three or more postural
cues (i.e. Head, Trunk and Legs in Experiment 5, Legs in Experiment 6) were
analysed further using the Newman Keuls test (Kirk, 1968), so that each
postural cue in such main effects could be compared with each other; the
description of all such main effects are based on these results. In interpreting
the effects of significant interactions, where smaller interactions can be seen to
be included in larger interactions (e.g. Head x Trunk is included in the inter-
action Head x Trunk x Arms), only the most inclusive interaction in each case
is discussed. The postures themselves are described in terms of their position on
FIGURE 4. Examples of line drawings used in Experiment 6.
Head straight
Forward lean
Legs drawn back
Turns head
Trunk straight
Legs straight
Head lean
Trunk straight
Legs straight
Drops head
Backward lean
Supports lean on one hand
Legs stretched out
the seven-point scale, so that, for example, a postural cue with a mean rating in
the "interested" half of the scale is described as "interested", whereas a postural
cue with a mean rating in the "bored" half of the scale is described as "bored".
Experiment 5
In Experiment 5, the results for the interested/bored ratings only were
subjected to analysis of variance. The group means and results of this analysis
are shown in Table 6; for the sake of brevity, the group means for the main
effects alone are listed in this table.
TABLE 6. Main Effect Group Means and Analyses of Variance for the Perception of Postures
in Experiments
Group Names
(Scores in the interested half of the dimension are marked with a plus; scores in the bored half of the
dimension are marked with a minus.)
Head Postures Arms Postures

Head straight + 1.312 Joins hands on abdomen +0.443
Head lean -0.019 Supports head on one;hand +0.147
Turns head +0.536
Drops head -0.647
Trunk Postures Legs Postures

Forward lean +0.785 Legs drawn back +0.534
Trunk straight +0.143 Legs straight +0.389
Backward lean -0.042 Legs stretched out -0.037
Results of Analysis of Variance

(**p<0M,*p<0.05)
dfs F
Head(H) 3/75 30.678**
Trunk (T) 2/50 39.011**
Arms (A) 1/25 7.644*
Legs(L) 2/50 24.586**
HxT 6/150 5.291**
HxA 3/75 4.868**
HxL 6/150 5.291
TxA 2/50 0.814
TxL 4/100 2.638*
AxL 2/50 2.906
HxTxA 6/150 3.975**
HxTxL 12/300 1.573
HxAxL 6/150 4.338**
TxAxL 4/100 4.787**
HxTxAxL 13/200 5.549**
The results of this analysis showed significant main effects for the Head,
Trunk, Arms and Legs, as well as a significant four-way interaction (Head
x Trunk x Arms x Legs). Further analysis of the main effect for the head
postures using the Newman-Keuls test showed that "drops head" and
"head lean" were decoded as significantly more bored than "head
straight", while "turns head" was also decoded as significantly less inter-
ested than "head straight"; these particular results seemed to be unaffected
by the four-way interaction. Hence, given that "drops head", "turns head"
and "leans head" were all shown in Experiments 1 and 2 to encode
boredom, these postures can be regarded as a means of non-verbally
communicating boredom.
To investigate the effects of the significant four-way interaction on the
other postures, the whole analysis was partitioned and divided into four
sub-analyses (one for each head posture). In the "head straight", "turns
head" and "drops head" sub-analyses, significant main effects showed that
"backward lean" was decoded as more bored than "forward lean", which
was also decoded as more interested than "trunk straight". In the "head
lean" sub-analysis, a significant three-way interaction (Trunk x Arms x
Legs) showed that in certain postural combinations (listed in Table 7),
"forward lean" was actually seen as less interested or more bored than
"trunk straight" and "backward lean". The results of Experiments 1 and 2
had shown that "leans forward" encodes interest, while "leans back"
encodes boredom. The results of Experiment 5 showed that for the most
part these postures are decoded as conveying interest and boredom, with
the exception only of the postural combinations listed in Table 7; hence,
"leans forward" and "leans back" can also be regarded as a means of non-
verbally communicating interest and boredom.
The significant main effect for arm postures showed that "supports head
on one hand" was decoded as conveying less interest than "joins hands on
abdomen". To investigate how this finding was affected by the four-way
interaction, the four sub-analyses for each of the head postures were again
partitioned for each of the three trunk postures, making a total of twelve
sub-analyses in all (4 head postures x 3 trunk postures). The results of this
second set of partitions showed that the significant difference in the de-
coding of "supports head on one hand" and "joins hands on abdomen"
only occurred in highly specific postural combinations (summarized in
Table 7). Thus, the results of this experiment showed that "supports head
on one hand" is decoded as conveying boredom, albeit in certain highly
specific postural combinations. Given that the results of Experiments 1 and
2 had shown that boredom is encoded by "supports head on one hand", it
can hence be regarded as a means of non-verbally communicating
boredom.
The results of Experiment 5 also showed a significant main effect for leg
postures. Further analysis using the Newman-Keuls test showed that "legs
drawn back" was decoded as more interested than "legs stretched out", which
was also decoded as more bored than "legs straight". The results of the second
set of partitions showed that this significant difference occurred in about half of
the possible postural combinations (summarized in Table 7). The results of
Experiments 1 and 2 had shown that "draws back legs" encodes interest, while
"stretches out legs" encodes boredom. The results of Experiment 5 showed
that in certain highly specific postural combinations "legs drawn back" was
decoded as conveying more interest than "legs stretched out"; hence, "draws
back legs" and "stretches out legs" can also be regarded as a means of non-
verbally communicating interest and boredom.
TABLE 7. Summary of the Results of the Partition of the Four-way Interaction in Experiment 5
Trunk Postures
To investigate the effects of the significant four-way interaction, the whole analysis was
partitioned and divided into four sub-analyses (one for each head posture). In the "head straight",
"turns head" and "drops head" sub-analyses, significant main effects showed that "backward lean"
was decoded as more bored than "forward lean", which was also decoded as more interested than
"trunk straight". In the "head lean" sub-analyses, a significant three-way interaction (Trunk x
Arms x Legs) showed:
1. "Forward lean" was seen as more bored than "trunk straight" and "backward lean" when
associated with:
(i) "Joins hands on abdomen"/"legs stretched out".
(ii) "Supports head on one hand"/"legs drawn back".
2. "Trunk straight" was seen as more interested than "forward lean" when associated with
"supports head on one hand"/"legs straight".
Hand/Arm Postures
The four sub-analyses for each of the head postures were partitioned for each of the three trunk
postures, making a total of twelve sub-analyses in all (4 head postures x 3 trunk postures). The
results of this second set of partitions showed three significant main effects andfivesignificant two-
way interactions (Arms x Legs):
1. From the significant main effects, "supports head on one hand" was decoded as more bored
or less interested than "joins hands on abdomen" when associated with:
(i) "Turns head"/"trunk straight".
(ii) "Drops head"/"trunk straight".
(iii) "Drops head"/"backward lean".
2. From the significant two-way interactions, "supports head on one hand" was decoded as less
interested or more bored than "joins hands on abdomen" when associated with:
(i) "Head lean"/"forward lean'7"legs straight".
(ii) "Head straight'V'forward lean"/"legs drawn back" or "legs straight".
(iii) "Head lean"/"forward lean"/"legs drawn back".
(iv) "Head lean"/"trunk straight "/"legs stretched out".
(v) "Turns head"/"backward lean"/"legs straight" or "legs stretched out".
Legs/Feet Postures
The results of the second set of partitions showed that "legs drawn back" was decoded as
significantly more interested than "legs stretched out" in about half of the possible postural
combinations:
1. Significant main effects showed that "legs drawn back" was decoded as more interested
than "legs stretched out" when associated with:
(i) "Head straight'7"trunk straight".
(ii) "Head lean"/"backward lean".
(iii) "Turns head"/"forward lean".
(iv) "Drops head"/"forward lean".
(v) "Drops head"/"backward lean".
2. Three significant two-way interactions (Arms x Legs) showed that "legs drawn
back" was decoded as more interested than "legs stretched out" when associated with:
(i) "Head lean"/"forward lean"/"joins hands on abdomen",
(ii) "Head lean"/"trunk straight"/"supports head on one hand",
(iii) "Turns head"/"backward lean"/"supports head on one hand".
Experiment 6
The results of Experiments 3 and 4 had shown that "leans sideways"
encodes agreement, while "straightens head (from leans head to person)",
"folds arms" and "crosses legs above the knee" encode disagreement. The
results of Experiment 6 showed only one significant effect for the ratings of
disagreement/agreement, namely, that "folds arms" was decoded as con-
veying disagreement more than "joins hands on abdomen"; hence, "folds
arms" can be regarded as a means of non-verbally communicating dis-
agreement.
With regard to the other cues which had been shown to encode dis-
agreement/agreement, it was decided to analyse the data from the remain-
ing five rating scales in order to obtain further information on how these
postural cues were decoded. But since the use of five rating scales for one
set of pictures considerably increased the chances of obtaining significant
effects by chance alone, results were only accepted which were significant
at the 0.01 level. In the case of leg postures, where three different leg
positions were used, significant main effects were reanalysed using the
Newman-Keuls test (Kirk, 1968) and the description of all such effects are
based on these results (at the 0.01 level of statistical significance). A
posteriori analyses were carried out on all significant interactions using
Tukey's HSD test (Kirk, 1968); the description of all such interactions is
based on the results of these tests (at the 0.01 level of statistical
significance, unless explicitly stated to the contrary where comparisons
were only significant at the 0.05 level). The group means and results of
these analyses are shown in Table 8; again, for the sake of brevity only the
group means for the main effects are listed in these tables.
The most striking results to come out of these analyses were for the leg
postures. The results of Experiments 3 and 4 had shown that "crosses legs
above the knee" encodes disagreement; the results of Experiment 6
showed that "crosses legs above the knee" was in fact decoded as con-
veying a generally positive message. Thus, significant main effects showed
that "crosses legs above the knee" was decoded as more relaxed than
"crosses legs at the knee" and as more friendly than either "crosses legs at
the knee" or "legs uncrossed".
Nor was there any evidence to suggest that the other cross-legged post-
ure of "crosses legs at the knee" was decoded more negatively than "legs
uncrossed". In fact, a significant three-way interaction (Head x Arms x
TABLE 8. Main Effect Group Means and Analyses of Variance for the Perception of Postures
in Experiment 6
Group Means
(All mean scores were associated with the first half of each dimension, e.g. interest rather
than boredom.)
Interest/ Disagreement/ Superior/ Relaxed ' Polite/ Friendly/

Boredom Agreement Inferior Tense Impolite Unfriendly
Head Postures
Head lean 0.103 0.772 0.526 0.756 0.510 0.500
Head straight 1.271 0.692 1.022 0.346 1.006 0.561
Trunk Postures
Sideways lean 0.423 0.731 0.782 0.756 0.574 0.577
Trunk straight 0.712 0.734 0.766 0.346 0.942 0.484
Arm Postures
Folds arms 0.340 1.013 0.885 0.385 0.535 0.263
Joins hands on
abdomen 0.795 0.452 0.766 0.718 0.981 0.798
Leg Postures
Crosses legs above
the knee 0.788 0.587 0.933 0.875 0.832 0.856
Crosses legs at
the knee 0.505 0.837 0.793 0.226 0.962 0.375
Legs uncrossed 0.409 0.774 0.596 0.553 0.481 0.361
Results of analyses of variance

(*p<M)
Interest/ Disagreement/ Superior/

1Boredom Agreement Inferior
dfs F dfs F dfs F
Head (H) 1/25 40.884* 1/25 0.519 1/25 19.528*
Trunk (T) 1/25 4.569 1/25 0.002 1/25 0.025
Arms (A) 1/25 20.442* 1/25 25.318* 1/25 3.170
Legs(L) 2/50 4.340 2/50 2.166 2/50 2.363
HxT 1/25 15.781* 1/25 0.177 1/25 0.036
Hx A 1/25 2.901 1/25 0.548 1/25 1.874
HxL 2/50 7.755* 2/50 1.839 2/50 0.172
Tx A 1/25 0.114 1/25 2.982 1/25 0.443
TxL 2/50 0.384 2/50 0.002 2/50 0.405
AxL 2/50 3.382 2/50 0.408 2/50 1.873
HxTx A 1/25 7.830* 1/25 0.956 1/25 0.241
HxTxL 2/50 1.350 2/50 1.348 2/50 0.159
Hx AxL 2/50 4.845 2/50 1.888 2/50 0.193
Tx A x L 2/50 1.465 2/50 0.368 2/50 0.184
HxTxAx L 2/50 1.789 2/50 0.160 2/50 0.644
Relaxed/ Polite/ Friendly/
Tense Impolite Unfriendly
dfs F dfs F dfs F
Head (H) 1/25 11.174* 1/25 16.632* 1/25 0.277
Trunk (T) 1/25 7.838* 1/25 7.829* 1/25 1.485
Arms (A) 1/25 7.084 1/25 16.860* 1/25 17.969*
Legs(L) 2/50 6.600* 2/50 6.609* 2/50 6.524*
HxT 1/25 0.366 1/25 1.331 1/25 5.883
Hx A 1/25 0.214 1/25 3.920 1/25 0.422
HxL 2/50 4.792 2/50 4.625 2/50 1.482
Tx A 1/25 1.672 1/25 3.990 1/25 1.360
TxL 2/50 2.526 2/50 1.677 2/50 0.913
AxL 2/50 2.269 2/50 0.460 2/50 0.532
HxTx A 1/25 0.604 1/25 1.402 1/25 8.107*
HxTxL 2/50 2.446 2/50 4.324 2/50 2.392
HxAxL 2/50 0.951 2/50 8.887* 2/50 0.597
Tx A x L 2/50 1.062 2/50 1.935 2/50 1.191
HxTx A x L 2/50 1.425 2/50 1.226 2/50 0.379
Legs) showed that "crosses legs at the knee" (combined with "head
straight "/"joins hands on abdomen") was actually seen as more polite than
"legs uncrossed" (combined with "folds arms"/"head lean", "joins hands
on abdomen"/"head lean" and "folds arms'7"head straight"). Thus, not
only were the closed leg positions not decoded as conveying disagreement;
the results from the other rating scales showed that they were in fact
decoded as conveying a generally positive message.
In contrast, the ratings of the arm positions showed that the decoding of
"folds arms" was consistently negative, being seen in certain postural
combinations both as less friendly and less polite than "joins hands on
abdomen". Thus, one significant three-way interaction (Head x Arms x
Legs) showed that "joins hands on abdomen" (combined with "head
straight"/"crosses legs at the knee") was seen as more polite than "folds
arms" (combined with "head lean"/"legs uncrossed", "head lean"/"legs
crossed at the knee" and "head straight"/"legs uncrossed").
Another significant three-way interaction (Head x Trunk x Arms)
showed that "joins hands on abdomen" (combined with "sideways lean"
and "head straight") was seen as more friendly than "folds arms" (com-
bined with "head straight"/"trunk straight" and "head lean'V'trunk
straight"). "Joins hands on abdomen" (combined with "head lean"/"trunk
straight") was also seen as more friendly than "folds arms" (combined with
"head lean'V'trunk straight") (all comparisons significant at the 0.05 level
only).
The ratings of the head and trunk postures did not show that they were
decoded in any consistently positive or negative fashion. Two significant
main effects showed that "sideways lean" was decoded as more relaxed
than "trunk straight", while "trunk straight" was decoded as more polite
than "sideways lean". Significant main effects also showed that "head
straight" was decoded as more polite and more superior than "head lean",
while "head lean" was decoded as more relaxed than "head straight". A
significant two-way interaction (Head x Legs) showed that "head straight"
was decoded as more interested than "head lean" in the legs uncrossed pos-
ition. A significant three-way interaction (Head x Trunk x Arms) showed
that "head straight" (combined with "sideways lean"/"joins hands on
abdomen" and "trunk straight"/"joins hands on abdomen") was decoded
as more interested than "head lean" (combined with "sideways
lean "/"joins hands on abdomen" and "sideways lean"/"folds arms").
In summary, in this study it was found that of the postural cues shown to
encode disagreement and agreement in Experiments 3 and 4, only "folds
arms" was decoded as conveying disagreement; results from the other
rating scales showed a consistently negative picture of "folds arms" in
which it was also decoded in certain postural combinations as less friendly
and less polite than "joins hands on abdomen". In contrast, cross-legged
postures were consistently decoded as more positive than the "legs un-
crossed" position. "Crosses legs above the knee" was decoded as more
friendly and more relaxed than "legs uncrossed", while "crosses legs at the
knee" in certain postural combinations was decoded as more polite than
"legs uncrossed". Finally, there was no evidence to suggest that head and
trunk postures were decoded in a consistently positive or negative way.
"Head straight" was decoded as more polite, more superior and in certain
postural combinations as more interested than "head lean", while "head
lean" was decoded as more relaxed than "head straight". "Sideways lean"
was decoded as more relaxed than "trunk straight", while "trunk straight"
was decoded as more polite than "sideways lean".
Discussion
In attempting to evaluate these results, the main problem lies in the
highly complex interactions which emerged between different postural
cues and which are exceedingly difficult to interpret. For example, there
seems to be no particular reason why "forward lean" should be decoded as
more bored than "trunk straight" when associated with "head lean"/"joins
hands on abdomen "/"legs stretched out". Even "supports heads on one
hand", which virtually by definition should be expected to show inter-
actions with "drops head" and "head lean", showed highly complex inter-
actions with leg and trunk postures, as well as with other head positions.
Conversely, the results of specific postural cues when examined separately
do suggest a reasonably consistent and comprehensible pattern, so that the
approach taken in this Discussion is to present only an interpretation of all
the specific postural cues taken separately; there is no discussion of the
interactions between different postural cues because there seemed to be no
obvious explanation of these interactions.
The results of Experiment 5 showed that the postures which had been
shown to encode interest and boredom were all decoded appropriately,

and hence can be regarded as a means of non-verbally communicating
interest and boredom. When subjects in the encoding experiments were
asked informally about what postures they might use to convey interest or
boredom, they seemed unable to state explicitly what postures they would
use; yet the results of Experiment 5 clearly showed that when people are
shown pictures of different postures which had already been demonstrated
to encode interest and boredom, they can recognize the different attitudes
quite readily. Hence, the results provided no evidence for the view that
posture provides a valuable source of information concerning emotions
and attitudes of which people are largely unaware; rather it suggests that
posture can be regarded as a form of non-verbal communication, but with
the qualification that this evidence is relevant only to a code for communi-
cating listener attitudes. The results of the encoding studies (Experiments 1
and 2) were based essentially on a situation in which people were asked to
listen to videotaped extracts, and of course in Experiment 5 the decoders
were also asked when rating the drawings to imagine that the person in the
illustration was listening to them in conversation.
The results of Experiments 3 and 4 had shown rather more tenuously
that there were postural cues which encode disagreement and agreement,
and this seems to be reflected in the results of Experiment 6, where only
"folds arms" was decoded as conveying disagreement. Hence, "folds arms"
can be regarded as a means of non-verbally communicating disagreement,
but in the case of "head straight", "sideways lean" and "crosses legs above
the knee", there is clearly no evidence for such a view. Moreover, since the
association in Experiment 3 of "leans sideways" with agreement and of
"straightens head (from leans head to person)" with disagreement were not
replicated in Experiment 4 and since the association of "crosses legs above
the knee" with disagreement was only obtained after an intensive re-
examination of the data from both experiments, it certainly does not seem
justified to argue that these postures provide a valuable but unperceived
source of information concerning the attitudes of disagreement and
agreement.
Nevertheless, what can be argued from these six experiments is that the
role of posture in non-verbal communication has been underestimated. For
example, Ekman in his early work on posture (Ekman, 1964,1965; Ekman
and Friesen, 1967) argued that people make greater use of the face than
the body in judgements of emotion, that their judgements are more accur-
ate when made from the face and that they can reach greater agreement in
judging the face. At one stage, Ekman (1965) proposed that the face is
perceived as carrying information primarily about what emotion is being
experienced, whereas the body is perceived as conveying information
about the intensity of emotion. Subsequently, Ekman and Friesen (1967)
proposed that stationary facial expressions and postures are more likely to
convey gross affect (such as liking), whereas movements of the face and
body are more likely to convey specific emotions. The results presented in
these six experiments show that both movements and positions convey
information about four distinctive emotions and attitudes, and hence that
posture does constitute a significant source of information about listener
emotions and attitudes.
PART III
Posture, Gesture and Speech
The studies reported in Part II were all based on experimental procedures.

There were a number of advantages from the technique used to investigate
encoding. Through using videotaped extracts, different emotions and
attitudes of interest to the experimenter could be evoked in a laboratory
setting; at the same time, the postures displayed could be analysed from
the ratings of the extracts given by the subjects without having to make
them aware that posture was the focus of the investigation. Hence, the high
degree of experimental control made it relatively easy to analyse the
postures so observed; at the same time, it can be argued that the findings
do have considerable relevance to naturally occurring situations, such as
when a public speaker is addressing an audience, in that they indicate the
kind of information which is available to the speaker about the way in
which the audience is responding to what is being said. The two decoding
studies were also carried out using an experimental procedure, in which all
the cues shown to encode each emotion and attitude were systematically
manipulated with one another in order to assess the relative importance of
different postural cues in the way interest/boredom and disagreement/
agreement are decoded. By carrying out separate studies of encoding and
decoding in this way, it was possible to ascertain the communicative
significance of different postural cues.
In the studies to be reported in this section, a rather different approach
was adopted. Whereas the studies presented in Part II were essentially
concerned with the way in which a listener may communicate his emotions
and attitudes through posture, the studies reported in Part III were
concerned with the relationship between posture, gesture and speech.
Three of these studies were based on informal conversations between
students; the other two studies were based on television newsbroadcasts
and political speeches delivered at a public meeting in the 1983 British
General Election campaign.
7
The Organization of Posture in
Relation to Speech
Introduction
The purpose of the two studies to be reported in this chapter was to
investigate a number of hypotheses derived from the work of Scheflen (e.g.
1964, 1973) on the relationship between posture and speech. Scheflen
(1964) argued that a person's conversation can be broken up into
hierarchically ordered units, which he calls the "point", the "position" and
the "presentation", and that these different units are marked out by
changes in posture. The point corresponds crudely to making a point in a
discussion and tends to be indicated by a change in head posture. Several
points go to make up what Scheflen calls the "position", which corresponds
roughly to taking a certain point of view in an interaction; it is
accompanied by a postural change involving at least half the body. The
presentation is the largest unit and refers to all of the person's body
positions in a given interaction; it is only concluded by a complete change
in location. These concepts are derived from the analysis of sound and
motion picture recordings of psychotherapy sessions, best exemplified in
the book Communicational Structure (Scheflen, 1973), an intensive ex-
amination of one such session, in which all the points, positions and
postural markers are described in great detail and related to the communi-
cational context as a whole.
Scheflen's concept of the position finds some support in a study carried
out by Kendon (1972). Kendon examined a filnvof a conversation in a
London pub and found that the trunk and leg movements of one speaker
occurred only with changes of what he calls a "locution cluster"; this refers
to a change in what the speaker is talking about or how he treats the topic
of conversation and thus appears to be very similar to the concept of the
position. This similarity is interesting in view of Scheflen's explicit
statement that the position is usually accompanied by a postural change
involving at least half the body, which is of course the case with trunk and
leg movements.
Neither the study carried out by Kendon nor the psychotherapy sessions
analysed by Scheflen involved any quantification of the observations so
87
obtained. In fact Scheflen (1966) explicitly rejects the use of statistical

analysis, criticizing those psychological studies which rely simply on frequency
counts of isolated units of behaviour. According to Scheflen, non-verbal cues
are linked together through a system of rules. The task of the researcher is to
describe those rules not through the isolation of single variables but through a
structural analysis where the significance of particular aspects of behaviour
can be understood in their total context. The methodological approach which
Scheflen recommends is a natural history one, where the investigator through
repeated viewing of a tape learns which of the non-verbal cues are ordered in
sequential arrangements. Scheflen (1966) explicitly rejects the use of
statistical analysis because he claims the nature of a sequential rule is such that
the various elements will appear together in the appropriate order on each
occasion. But such a rule is in fact an inference from observed behaviour and
just as people sometimes breach the rules of grammar when they are talking,
so there may well be breaches of the rules which govern the sequential
ordering of non-verbal cues. Hence, the purpose of the two studies reported
in this chapter was to use a quantitative approach to test some hypotheses
derived from Scheflen's observations.
Study 7. Posture and topic change in television newsbroadcasts

Introduction
The first study reported in this chapter represents one way of con-
ceptualizing Scheflen's argument that higher-order units of speech are indi-
cated by postural change, in this instance through looking at topic change. In
conversation, it is often difficult to determine exactly where topic change has
taken place: thus, people may backtrack to topics they have already dis-
cussed, or forwardtrack to new topics; it may not even be clear whether there
is a specific topic of conversation. Hence, it was decided to carry out a study in
a context where these problems would not arise; television newsbroadcasts
were selected as ideally suited for this purpose, because topics are clearly
delineated and there is no difficulty in deciding where the transition from one
topic to the next has taken place. The hypothesis tested was whether postural
markers would be used to indicate the transition from one topic to the next.
Method
Subjects
The subjects of the enquiry were two British news broadcasters, John
Humphries and Michael Burke. Three 9.00 p.m. newsbroadcasts were re-
corded off-air for each newscaster: for John Humphries on 29 November 1982
and 7 and 11 January 1983; for Michael Burke on 5 and 13 January and 29
July 1983.
The Organization of Posture in Relation to Speech 89
Apparatus
The videocassettes were recorded off-air and analysed in detail using a
Sony VO 5800 video cassette recorder.
Procedure
Each cassette was categorized first according to the number of topics
listed in the news item. It was then inspected to see whether any body
movements were associated with each change of topic; these movements
were categorized using the Body Movement Scoring System (see
Appendix B). This preliminary inspection of the cassettes suggested that
both newsreaders made use of a particular type of movement to indicate a
change in topic: John Humphries used "join hands with palm over back
of other hand", while Michael Burke used "joins hands fingers inter-
locked". A detailed analysis was then carried out of the incidence of these
movements in relation to topic change throughout each set of three
newsbroadcasts.
Results
The results for John Humphries are shown in Table 9. The number of
topics is listed, including the final summary of the news as a separate
topic. In some cases, the newsreader is not visible, but can be heard
talking over a photograph or a film; hence, the number of topics where
the newsreader is visible for at least part of the time are listed separately.
Sometimes the newsreader is visible from a head and shoulders view only,
hence the number of cases where the hands are fully visible is also listed
separately. In most of these cases (84%), John Humphries began the
topic by joining his hands palm over back of hand (see Fig. 5), typically
just after starting the topic, although in two instances he began the
movement just before starting the topic. The close temporal relationship
of this hand movement with topic change strongly suggests that the cue is
intended to indicate change of topic, given that it occurs in no other
instance in any of the three news broadcasts. The movement typically
occurred within 1 second of the start of the new topic, topics averaging
between 2-4 minutes in length, during which the newsreader (and the
newsreader's hands) are typically visible for about 30 seconds. Once this
hand position was taken up, it was maintained without further hand
movement throughout the duration of the topic, except in two instances
only, where John Humphries broke the hand position at the end of the
topic, only to resume the position again at the start of the next topic.
PAG—G
FIGURE 5. Newsreader with hands joined, palm over back of other hand.
TABLE 9. John Humphries' Use of "Joins hands palm over back of other hand"
(JHsPBH) in Relation to Topic Change
29/10/82 7/1/83 11/1/83
Number of topics 16 15 11
Number of topics where newsreader is visible 15 13 11
Number of topics where newsreader's hands are
visible 7 5 7
Incidences of JHsPBH 6 4 6
Incidences of JHsPBH before start of new topic 1 0 1
Time interval between JHsPBH and start of new
topic (in seconds) 1.0 — 0.4
Incidences of JHsPBH after start of new topic
5 4 5
Mean time inverval between new topic followed by
JHsPBH (in seconds) 0.52 1.14 0.66
Mean topic length where newsreader's hands are
fully visible (in seconds) 136 219 162
Mean period where newsreader's hands are visible
during topics (in seconds) 25 30 25
The results for Michael Burke are shown in Table 10. These results show
that Michael Burke also made use of a characteristic posture at the be-
ginning of a new topic ("join hands with fingers interlocked"); this position
is depicted in Fig. 6. However, the effect is much less pronounced than for
John Humphries, occurring in only 23% of the cases where the news-
reader's hands are fully visible at the start of a new topic. Nevertheless, as
with John Humphries, this movement only occurred just after the
beginning of a new topic (typically within a second of the start of the new
topic), topics averaging about 2 minutes in length, where the newsreader
(and the newsreader's hands) are typically visible for about 16 seconds.
FIGURE 6. Newsreader with hands joined, fingers interlocked.
TABLE 10. Michael Burke 's Use of "Joins hands with fingers interlocked" (JHsFsI) in
Relation to Topic Change
5/1/83 13/1/83 29/7/83
Number of topics 16 20 14
Number of topics where newsreader is visible 15 16 13
Number of topics where newsreader's hands are
visible 8 10 8
Incidences of JHsFsI (all incidences occur after
start of new topic) 2 2 2
Mean time inverval between new topic followed by
JHsFsI (in seconds) 0.98 0.40 1.08
Mean topic length where newsreader's hands are
fully visible (in seconds) 131 106 142
Mean period where newsreader's hands are visible
during topics (in seconds) 16 19 14
Discussion
The results of this study on the use of posture in newsbroadcasts were
thus highly supportive of hypotheses derived from Scheflen's work on the
way in which posture is used to structure the flow of speech, clearly
showing that both newsreaders appeared to use a particular posture to
indicate the start of a news item. However, television broadcasts lend
themselves relatively easily to the study of posture in relation to the
organization of speech, because they are so clearly structured and organ-
ized. It would also be interesting to know to what extent Scheflen's ideas
are applicable to conversation, and a second study using a rather different
approach was carried out on this theme.
Study 8. The relationship between postural change and speech

content in dyadic conversations
(Based on "The role of postural change in dyadic conversations" by P. E.
Bull and R. Brown, British Journal of Social and Clinical Psychology,
1977, 16 29-33.) This material is reproduced with permission from the
British Psychological Society.
Introduction
The approach taken in the study of conversation (Bull and Brown, 1977)
was to devise a scoring system for speech, where conversation could be
classified in terms of the various steps or stages in a conversational
sequence, according to the amount of information the speech introduced
into the conversation. This was in order to test Scheflen's hypothesis of a
"programme", according to which new stages in social interaction are
indicated by postural markers. Specifically, it was hypothesized that post-
ural change would be associated with more initiating types of speech.
This method of content analysis has subsequently been expanded and
developed into a system referred to as Conversational Exchange Analysis
or CEA (Thomas, Bull and Roger, 1982). CEA comprises four sets of rules
for the division and subsequent classification of speech. Initially, CEA
provides a set of rules for segmenting conversational speech into units
representing individual ideas. CEA is then used to classify speech along
three separate dimensions: focus, type and activity. Focus is concerned
with the referent of the information; for example, one may be referring to
one's own opinions or the opinions of a third party. Type refers to the sort
of information exchanged, such as beliefs or past experiences. Activity
refers to how the information is made salient in the conversation; the
activity categories can be seen as exemplifying different types of speech
act, based on the view proposed by Austin (1962) and Searle (1969) that
speech is not simply concerned with the transmission of information, but
constitutes a form of activity in its own right. The activity dimension
represents an elaboration of the system which was used in the study of

conversation reported here; it also includes some changes in terminology,
which were made to express more concisely the different ways in which
information is exchanged in conversation.
In terms of CEA, the study of conversation to be described in this
chapter was concerned with the activity dimension. Conversation was
classified into six main categories, referred to in CEA as offers, requests,
replies, reactions, consents and dissents. Dissents (called "disagreements"
by Bull and Brown) refer to speech where a person disagrees with a fact,
evaluation or preference or disapproves of what has just been said; con-
sents (called "agreements" by Bull and Brown) refer to speech where a
person specifically endorses what has just been said (e.g. in the sense of
"Yes, I think you're right"). Neither dissents nor consents occurred with
sufficient frequency for statistical analysis and so were omitted from the
subsequent analysis. Of the remaining four speech categories, it was pre-
dicted that the more initiating types of speech act would be more likely to
be associated with changes in posture. Specifically, it was hypothesized that
offers, which introduce new information into the conversation (referred to
by Bull and Brown as "statements") would be associated with the most
changes in posture. Requests, which refer to speech in which a person is
actively asking for information (referred to by Bull and Brown as
"questions") would be associated with fewer changes in posture than offers
because they only ask for new information to be introduced into the
conversation. But it was also hypothesized that requests would be
associated with more changes in posture than replies, since replies (re-
ferred to by Bull and Brown as "answers") refer to speech that is made by
the other person in direct response to a request; hence, the information
given is constrained by the request and consequently replies can be seen as
a less initiating form of speech act than requests. Reactions refer to
vocalizations made by the listener as reactions to what the speaker is saying
(referred to by Bull and Brown as "responses"); it was predicted that they
would be associated with the fewest changes in posture because they
introduce no new information into the conversation.
Method
Subjects
The subjects of the experiment were twelve students from Exeter Uni-
versity, six male and six female, aged between 18 and 22 years. Subjects
met each other in pairs of one male and one female, no pairs being
previously acquainted with one another.
Apparatus
The videotapes were taken with a Shibaden FP-707 portable video-
camera mounted on a tripod and a portable videotape-recorder; these were
in full view of the subjects. The experimental room was arranged with two
chairs 32 inches apart, at an angle of approximately 45 degrees to one
another.
Procedure
The subjects in each pair were introduced and given instructions simply
to sit down and get to know one another. They were told the camera would
be running. They were left alone to talk to one another in the experimental
room for about 20 minutes and their conversation was recorded.
The videotapes thus obtained were then scored using the Posture
Scoring System (see Appendix A) and the speech classification system
(Bull and Brown 1977). Speech was classified and timed according to the
six activity categories described in the Introduction; the times were
measured with a stop-watch to the nearest second, items under 1 second
being given a standard score of a half second. A reliability study for the
classification of speech was carried out in which a second observer who was
unaware of the hypothesis under examination scored three 5-minute
segments from three different tapes, reaching a mean agreement of 82%
with the main scorer on these items.
Results
Table 11 shows the group means for the probability of postural change in
the four speech act categories which occurred with sufficient frequency for
statistical analysis. The first part shows the results for all changes in
posture, the second and third parts the results for changes in specific
postures recorded in the Posture Scoring System for the arms/hands and
legs/feet. An individual subject's probabilities were calculated by dividing
his total number of postural changes occurring during a given speech
category by his total time (in seconds) using that speech category.
To test the prediction that the more a speech category introduced a new
stage in conversation, the more likely it was to be accompanied by a change
in posture, the Jonckheere trend test (1954) was employed for changes in
trunk, arms/hands and legs/feet postures respectively. In no case was the
prediction confirmed that postural changes should differ in the order offers
> requests > replies > reactions. However, the group means certainly
suggested a difference between offers and other categories, so further
analysis was undertaken. All possible comparisons between each of the
four categories were made with the Wilcoxon test, except for n/s. as low as
5, where the sign test was used. Table 12 shows the results of this analysis.
TABLE 11. Group Means of Probability of Postural Change in Each Speech Category
(Probabilities for each subject were calculated by dividing the total number of postural changes
occurring during a given speech category by the total time (in seconds) using that speech category).
Posture Offers Requests Replies Reactions
Overall changes in posture
Trunk 0.022 0.024 0.013 0.033
Arms 0.069 0.108 0.069 0.099
Legs 0.067 0.044 0.055 0.077
Totals 0.158 0.176 0.137 0.209
Changes in specific arm postures
Puts hand to face 0.008 0.015 0.021 0.010
Points one hand 0.004 0.003 0.004 0
Holds up one hand 0.013 0.060 0.015 0.006
Puts one hand to thigh 0.008 0.017 0.004 0.016
Joins hands on thigh 0.015 0.004 0.008 0.014
Changes in specific leg postures
Draws back legs 0.016 0.005 0.003 0.009
Stretches out legs 0.005 0.005 0.006 0.010
Raises one foot 0.026 0.008 0.014 0.029
Lowers one foot 0.019 0.016 0.014 0.023
Moves one foot to left 0.010 0.007 0.015 0.008
Moves one foot to right 0.011 0.002 0.023 0.019
TABLE 12. Summary ofPaired Comparison Testsfor Postural Change as a Function of

Speech Category
(Column headings indicate predicted directions of difference for speech categories—offers (O),
requests (Rq), replies (Rp), reactions (Re). All significant results are in the predicted direction: * *p
<0.01, *p<0.05. Comparison ofthe means of non-significant results: + in the predicted direction, -
in the reverse ofthe predicted direction. Where no analysis was possible because of insufficiently
frequent data, the cell is left blank).
Posture Predicted direction of difference
for speech categories
0 > R q 0 > R p 0 > R c Rq>Rp Rq>Rc Rp>Rc
Overall changes in posture
Trunk *
Arms - - - + + -
Legs
+ * - — -
Changes in specific arm postures
Puts hand to face
Points one hand — — +
Holds up one hand + + *
Puts one hand to thigh - - ** + * *
Joins hands on thigh -
+
Changes in specific legpostures
Draws back legs + * +
Stretches out legs - - -
Raises one foot + * -
Lowers one foot + + -
Moves one foot to left + - + - - +
Moves one foot to right right - - +
Although this raised the number of potential statistical tests carried out
on the same data to six, all results significant at the 0.05 level (one-tailed)
were included because they all fell in the predicted direction. Most of these
significant findings were for comparisons involving the offer category,
offers being associated with points one hand, holds up one hand, draws
back legs and raises one foot (all in comparison to reactions) and with more
changes in trunk and legs/feet postures in comparison to replies.
Furthermore, the other two significant findings were also in agreement
with the main hypothesis, requests and replies both being associated with
holds up one hand in comparison to reactions. Reactions were never
significantly associated with more postural change than the other three
categories. Thus, although the data did not support the hypothesis of a
trend at a gross level, they were consistent with the proposition that more
initiating acts of conversation are associated with higher degrees of post-
ural change.
Discussion
In evaluating these results, it is difficult to know how much importance
to attach to the fact that most of the significance was due to the offers
category, since the paucity of significant results for requests and replies
might simply be due to a disproportionate lack of data for analysis.
Whereas it was possible to make thirty-six paired comparisons for offers, it
was only possible to make twenty-one such comparisons for requests,
twenty-five for replies and twenty-three for reactions.
Nevertheless, it is interesting that significant degrees of postural change
for trunk and legs/feet postures occurred only for offers, since this
corresponds closely to the observations made by Kendon and Scheflen
which were discussed in the Introduction. Thus, Kendon found that trunk
and leg movements of one speaker occurred only with changes of "locution
cluster", while Scheflen explicitly states that a gross postural shift involving
at least half the body is used to indicate a change of "position". Since both
Kendon's change of locution cluster and Scheflen's change in position
would have been classified as offers in CEA, these observations do find
some support in the quantitative evidence presented here.
In a broader context, the results show that there is a close relationship
between postural change and the semantic structure of speech, as has been
proposed by Scheflen. This in itself is important; there has been a tendency
to regard speech and non-verbal behaviour as parallel systems, operating
independently of one another. Indeed, we have been encouraged to be-
lieve in the popular literature that "if the spoken language is stripped away
and the only communication left is body language, the truth will find some
way of poking through" (Fast, 1970, p. 92). The problem with this
approach is that it encourages the belief that speech and non-verbal
behaviour operate in opposition to each other, whereas the results of both

the studies reported in this chapter show that there is in fact a close parallel
between speech and postural change.
If one accepts that this relationship does exist, the question naturally
arises as to what function it serves. Scheflen's concept of a "programme"
would suggest that different stages in social interaction are indicated by
postural markers, so they might be seen as helping to communicate the
spoken word just as a paragraph is used to help communicate the written
word—by clearly demarcating the introduction of new themes and ideas.
Further evidence consistent with this view was provided in the first study
reported in this chapter on the use of posture by newsbroadcasters (Study
7)·
An alternative explanation of Study 8 is that the significant findings may
be related to the exchange of turns in conversation. In this respect, the fact
that there were no postural changes significantly associated with reactions
is interesting in that whereas offers, requests and replies can be all seen as
constituting speaking turns, reactions simply acknowledge continued
listener interest and attention but do not in themselves constitute a claim to
the turn. Duncan (1972) observed that ceasing to gesture was one of six
cues used to yield the turn to the other speaker, while continuing to gesture
constituted an attempt-suppressing signal which had the effect of pre-
venting a listener taking over the turn when the other speaker wished to
continue talking. On the basis of these findings, one would not expect
either "points one hand" or "holds up one hand" to be associated with
reactions, since reactions do not constitute an attempt to take the turn, and
this is precisely what was found in the study reported here. It may be the
case that "draws back legs" and "raises one foot" were also not associated
with reactions because they too could be seen as signalling a wish to take a
speaking turn. The role of posture in turn-taking is explored in further
detail in the next chapter in a study which was focused specifically on the
nature of postural changes occurring immediately prior to speech.
8
The Role of Pre-speech Changes
in Posture
(Based on "The role of pre-speech posture change in dyadic interaction"
by A. P. Thomas and P. Bull, British Journal of Social Psychology, 1981,
20,105-111.) This material is reproduced with permission from the British
Psychological Society.
Introduction
In the previous chapter, a study was presented in which it was shown that
postural change is related to the different types of speech act which occur
in conversation. As a consequence of encoding information about different
speech acts, postural cues may also play a role in the process of turn-
taking. For example, a request is obviously an invitation to the other
speaker to take the turn, while a reply to that request constitutes an
acceptance of the speaking turn. If there are distinctive postures associated
with these particular speech acts, then this may provide additional infor-
mation as to whether the participant wishes to keep the turn or to hand it
over to the other person. In the study reported in this chapter, the
hypothesis under test was that there will be specific changes in body
posture associated with the onset of different types of speech. The study
was intended to identify the specific changes in posture and the type of
speech with which they are associated, relating any findings to the process
of floor apportionment in conversation.
Turn-taking has in fact been quite extensively researched in the study of
interpersonal communication. The most intensive set of studies have been
carried out by Duncan and his associates (e.g. Duncan, 1972; Duncan and
Niederehe, 1974; Duncan and Fiske, 1977). Within his theoretical
framework, Duncan has identified a number of different cues, which he
refers to as turn-yielding cues, attempt-suppressing signals, back channels,
within-turn signals and speaker-state signals.
Turn-yielding cues offer a speaking turn to the other person and Duncan
(1972) has identified six such cues—a rise or fall in pitch at the end of a
clause, a drawl on the final syllable, the termination of hand gestures, a
stereotyped expression such as "but uh . . . " or "you know", a drop in
pitch or loudness associated with one of these stereotyped expressions and
98
The Role of Pre-speech Changes in Posture 99
the completion of a grammatical clause. In two studies, Duncan found

correlations between the number of turn-yielding cues and a smooth switch
between speakers of 0.99 (Duncan, 1972) and of 0.98 (Duncan and Fiske,
1977).
Attempt-suppressing signals are used by the speaker to prevent a listener
taking over the turn when the speaker wishes to continue talking. Duncan
(1972) identified only one such cue, that of hand gesticulation; he found
that if the speaker continues to gesture, this essentially eliminated attempts
by the listener to take over the turn. In the study by Duncan and Fiske
(1977), this finding was replicated.
The term "back channel" was introduced by Yngve (1970) to refer to
short messages such as "yes" and "uh-huh" employed by the listener,
which do not constitute a claim to the turn. Duncan (1972) identified five
such cues —sentence completions, requests for clarification, brief phrases
such as "uh-huh", "yeah" and "right", and head nods and head shakes.
The listener's use of the back channel is generally taken to indicate con-
tinuing attentiveness to the speaker's message. Brunner (1979) has argued
that smiling can also be considered as a back channel, since from an
analysis of four of the conversations used in the Duncan and Fiske (1977)
study, he found that smiles tended to occur at similar points in con-
versation as the other forms of back channel described by Duncan. Using
the videotapes from the Duncan (1972) study, Duncan and Fiske also
found that back channels are typically preceded by shift in head direction
towards the listener and the completion of a grammatical clause. Duncan
and Fiske refer to these cues as within-turn signals, which mark
appropriate points in conversation for a listener back channel, in the same
way as turn-yielding cues mark appropriate points for the listener to take
the turn.
If back channels do not constitute an attempt at taking the turn, how can
a speaker distinguish between a back channel and a turn-taking attempt by
the listener? Duncan and Niederehe (1974) argued that there are four
signals which mark out a speaking turn from a listener back channel—a
shift away in head direction, starting to hand gesture, an audible inhalation
of breath and what they refer to as "paralinguistic overloudness". Duncan
and Niederehe found that in a conversation between two psychotherapists,
these four cues were displayed significantly more often at the beginnings of
turns than at back channels. But in the conversations between a
psychotherapist and a client, they found that only turning the head away
and gesticulation distinguished the beginnings of turns from back channels.
In the replication study, Duncan and Fiske (1977) again found that only
those two cues were significantly associated with beginning a turn. Hence,
turning the head away from the other and beginning to gesture are re-
garded as constituting the speaker-state signal.
Kendon's (1967) observations on the regulatory functions of gaze
provide the starting point for another distinctive approach to the role of
non-verbal communication in turn-taking. Kendon's observations were
based on seven pairs of British students (drawn from ten men and three
women); the members of each pair were simply left together and asked to
get to know one another, while their conversation was recorded. Kendon
found that the students typically looked less while speaking than while
listening. He hypothesized that a speaker typically looks at the other when
he wishes the listener to take over the turn and the listener typically looks
away to signal that he has accepted the turn: in Duncan's terms, looking at
the listener is a turn-yielding cue, looking away at the start of the turn is a
speaker-state signal. From a further analysis of two conversations, Kendon
found that utterances which terminated with an extended look were
followed by either no response or a delayed response significantly less
frequently than those which ended with the speaker looking at the listener,
a finding which supports his hypothesis that gazing at the listener functions
as a turn-yielding cue.
Kendon's hypothesis that the listener signals he has accepted the turn by
gazing away from the other is certainly consistent with the data reported by
Duncan. Duncan and Fiske (1977) found that turning the head away from
the listener was one of the two cues they identified as constituting the
speaker-state signal (Duncan took observations of head turn rather than
gaze, because he considered the definition on his tapes inadequate to score
gaze). But Kendon's hypothesis that gaze directed at the listener functions
as a turn-yielding cue is certainly not consistent with Duncan's ob-
servations. Duncan and Fiske (1977) in fact maintain that turning the head
towards the listener is a within-turn signal requesting a back channel; they
did not find it to be a turn-yielding cue.
Of course it is possible that this discrepancy might simply represent a
cultural difference in turn-taking between the Americans and the British,
but other British studies have also cast doubt on Kendon's hypothesis that
gaze directed at the listener functions as a turn-yielding cue. Rutter et al.
(1978) examined conversations between same-sex pairs of British students
and found only a low level of eye contact at the ends of utterances, whereas
they maintained that there should be a high level of eye contact if gaze is
being employed as a turn-yielding signal. Beattie (1978), in a study of
tutorials, found that utterances terminating with extended gaze were
actually associated with significantly longer switching pauses than
utterances terminating without gaze, which he maintained is precisely the
opposite of what might be expected from Kendon's original hypothesis.
However, in another study of tutorials, Beattie (1979) did find that hesitant
phases of speech terminating in gaze were associated with significantly
shorter switching pauses. Beattie argued that during speech hesitations,
gaze aversion typically occurs as a consequence of cognitive planning and
hence that gaze may function as a turn-yielding cue but only in contexts
typically associated with low levels of other-directed gaze (such as speech

hesitations). Hence, according to this view, gaze would function as a turn-
yielding cue at best only in very specific linguistic or social contexts.
Similarly, support for a highly restricted regulatory function for gaze in
conversation comes from a study by Hedge, Everitt and Frith (1978). They
investigated whether gaze and turn-taking in conversation conformed to a
first-order Markovian process, in which information on the immediately
preceding event is sufficient to predict the current event without requiring
further information on earlier events. Hedge, Everitt and Frith sampled
gaze and speech of same-sex pairs of friends and strangers in conversation
with one another at 0.3 second intervals, recording who was speaking and
the direction of gaze of both participants. The results showed that for
conversations between strangers, speech in the immediately preceding 0.3
second was sufficient to predict the next state of dialogue without reference
to gaze; but for friends both speech and gaze had to be taken into account.
Hence, Hedge, Everitt and Frith argued that gaze has an important
function in controlling the dialogues only of friends.
Finally, there have been studies in which turn-taking has been in-
vestigated in situations where subjects cannot see one another, such as
talking over the telephone. If gaze has an important regulatory function in
conversation, then it might be expected that situations where visual com-
munication is not possible will be characterized by a lack of
synchronization. Beattie and Barnard (1979) sampled 700 directory en-
quiry conversations monitored at a British trunk telephone exchange,
which they compared with face-to-face conversations video-recorded in
different university contexts at Cambridge. Their results showed no
significant differences in the time taken for speaker and listener to ex-
change roles, nor in the number of times simultaneous claiming of the turn
occurred. Rutter and Stephenson (1977) arranged for same-sex pairs of
British students previously unacquainted with one another to discuss items
from a questionnaire about which they had disagreed both over an inter-
com and face to face. Rutter and Stephenson found that both the duration
and frequency of simultaneous speech were significantly greater in the
face-to-face condition. Hence, both studies clearly failed to support the
hypothesis that where visual communication is not possible the
synchronization of conversation will be impaired, thus providing further
support for the view that gaze is only of limited importance in con-
versational turn-taking.
However, the fact that Rutter and Stephenson found a significantly
greater occurrence of simultaneous speech in face-to-face conversation is
an interesting finding which deserves explanation. According to their inter-
pretation, interruptions occur more often face to face because in that
situation visual signals can be employed to prevent conversational
breakdown. This interpretation would certainly seem to be quite consistent
with the results reported by Duncan. When the turn is not in dispute, as in
the case where turn-yielding cues or back channels are in use, then visual
cues do not seem to be of great importance. For example, of the six turn-
yielding cues described by Duncan, only one (ceasing to gesture) is a visual
cue and Duncan regards each of these six cues as of equal importance,
exerting an additive effect on whether a smooth transition takes place
between speaker and listener. But when the turn is in dispute, as in the
case where an attempt-suppressing signal is employed, then the only cue
identified by Duncan is the visual cue of hand gesturing. Similarly, the only
cue which distinguishes the speaker-state from a back channel (another
potential source of conflict in turn-taking) are the visual cues of gesturing
and turning the head away from the other person. Hence, it would seem
that on present evidence the importance of non-verbal cues in regulating
dyadic conversations lies in handling conflicts over who should take the
speaking turn; where visual communication is not possible (as in telephone
conversations), people avoid such conflicts by avoiding simultaneous
speech.
Duncan has provided a useful theoretical framework in which to under-
stand turn-taking and a detailed description of the turn-taking system.
Nevertheless, questions must obviously be raised concerning the generality
of Duncan's findings. One issue is whether the turn-taking signals which
Duncan describes operate independently of speech content. The purpose
of the study described in this chapter was to investigate the relationship
between speech content and pre-speech changes in posture in order to
relate the findings to the process of turn-taking. If different postural cues
occur immediately prior to different speech acts, then such cues may be
taken to provide further information on the ensuing speech act according
to whether the speaker wishes to keep the turn or hand it over to the other
speaker. Hence, the hypothesis under test was that there will be specific
exchanges in body posture occurring prior to different speech acts. The
study aimed to identify the specific changes in posture and the type of
speech in which they are associated, relating any findings to the process of
floor apportionment.
Method
Subjects
The subjects of the experiment were eight male and eight female
students from the University of York, aged between 18 and 22 years.
Subjects took part in the experiment in opposite-sex pairs, members of
each pair being previously acquainted with one another for at least one
year but not more than two years.
Apparatus
The room in which the experiment took place was arranged with two
chairs 36 inches apart and at approximately 45 degrees to one another. The
conversations were videotaped using two wall-mounted cameras and a
Shibaden SV-610K videotape-recorder, positioned in an adjacent room.
The participants in each conversation were fully visible from head to foot
on the television monitor at all times. Split-screen recording techniques
were used.
Procedure
Prior to the conversations taking place, subjects were asked to fill in a
questionnaire designed to measure their attitudes towards various con-
tentious issues. Each pair of subjects was then asked to discuss for about 15
minutes a number of issues on which their questionnaire reponses showed
they had disagreed. The conversations were all videotaped and at the end
of each discussion, subjects were informed that they had been videotaped
and permission requested to use the tapes for research; in no case was this
refused.
Transcripts of each conversation were made using the Posture Scoring
System (see Appendix A) and the speech classification system devised by
Bull and Brown (1977). However, as in the previous chapter, the more
recent terminology of Conversation Exchange Analysis is employed
(Thomas, Bull and Roger, 1982). Speech acts were timed with a stop-watch
to the nearest second, items under one second being assigned the arbitrary
value of half a second. Postural changes were scored as occurring "with" a
speech act if the posture was taken up at the onset or up to 1 second before
the onset of speech.
Reliability studies were carried out for the classification both of speech
and of posture. A second observer, who was unaware of the purpose of the
experiment, scored four extracts from three different conversations,
totalling 13.25 minutes of tape, reaching a mean agreement with the main
scorer of 74% for postures (head 67%, arms 77%, trunk 78%, legs 84%)
and 86% for speech (offers 89%, reactions 76%, requests 87%, replies
100%, consents 85%, dissents 90%). Because of the low reliability for
head postures, an error analysis was carried out which showed a high
number of disagreements for the "straightens head" category (53%),
whereas disagreements concerning the other head categories fell between
9% and 16%; for this reason, the "straightens head" category was omitted
from the final analysis.
Results
Table 13 shows the group means for nine specific postures for the
probability of postural change preceding each of the six speech act
categories. Separate analyses of variance were carried out for each of the
nine specific postures to test whether there were significant differences in
their probability of occurrence prior to different speech acts. As the data
were proportional and of a binomial form, an arc-sine transformation was
used (Kirk, 1968, p. 66). A summary of the analysis of variance tests for
each of the specific postures may be found in Table 14. (N.B. Due to the
paucity of data for consents and dissents associated with the postures of
"holds up hand", "joins hands at abdomen", "leans forward" and "leans
back", these analyses were performed using just the offer, reaction,
request and reply categories.)
TABLE 13. Group Means of Probability of a Pre-speech Posture Change in Each

Speech Category
O Re Rq Rp C D
Posture (392) (210) (119) (99) (34) (64)
Changes in specific head postures
Turns head to person 0.194 0.186 0.303 0.055 0.053 0.082
(79) (38) (35) (9) (5) (9)
Raises up head 0.062 0.042 0.145 0.056 0.021 0.077
(23) (10) (21) (4) (1) (5)
Drops head 0.061 0.058 0.024 0.156 0.168 0.118
(23) (16) (3) (14) (5) (9)
Turns head away from person 0.154 0.133 0.029 0.448 0.135 0.271
(56) (28) (3) (52) (6) (16)
Changes in specific hand and arm postures
Puts hand to face 0.068 0.070 0.066 0.061 0.125 0.061
(23) (18) (9) (9) (4) (5)
Holds up hand(s) 0.068 0.016 0.058 0.008 0.006 0.083
(23) (3) (5) (2) (1) (4)
Joins hands on abdomen 0.038 0.042 0.046 0.010 0.006 0
(15) (10) (5) (1) (1) (0)
Changes in specific trunk postures
Leans forward 0.026 0.027 0.027 0.106 0.063 0.033
(12) (6) (4) (5) (2) (4)
Leans back 0.026 0.031 0.035 0.058 0 0.036
(12) (5) (5) (3) 0 (4)
Offers (O), reactions (Re), requests (Rq), replies (Rp), consents (C), dissents (D). An
individual subject's probabilities were calculated by dividing the total number of postural
changes occurring prior to a speech act category by the number of times the subject used
that category. The actual number of postural changes preceding each speech act category as
well as the total number of each type of speech act are given in brackets. (N.B. The
probability figures given are group means of individual subject means and cannot therefore
be calculated from the n values given.)
TABLE 14. Summary of Nine Analyses of Variance for Differences in the Probability of
Postural Change Preceding Each Speech Act Category
Posture d.f. F P
Changes in specific head postures
Turns head to person 5/70 7.858 <0.001
Raises up head 5/70 3.118 <0.05
Drops head 5/70 1.366 n.s.
Turns head away from person 5/70 6.696 <0.001
Changes in specific hand/arm postures
Puts hand to face 5/70 0.810 n.s.
Holds up hand(s) 3/42 2.246 n.s.
Joins hands on abdomen 3/42 1.331 n.s.
Changes in specific trunk postures
Leans forward 3/42 1.294 n.s.
Leans back 3/42 0.725 n.s.
The results of the analyses of variance showed that there were significant
differences in the frequency with which "turns head to person", "raises up
head" and "turns head away from person" preceded different speech act
categories. Newman-Keuls a posteriori tests were then carried out on these
three significant main effects, so that all possible pairwise comparisons
could be made of the frequency with which each of these three postural
changes precided each speech act. The results of these analyses (see Table
15) showed that "turns head to person" was associated predominantly with
requests and to a lesser extent with offers and reactions, while "raises up
head" was associated specifically with requests and "turns head away from
person" specifically with replies.
TABLE 15. Summary Table of Newman-Keuls Paired Comparison Tests for Significant
Differences in the Probability of Head Posture Changes Preceding Each Speech Act
Category
Speech category paired comparisons
Head posture Rp/O Rq/Rc Rp/Rc Rp/Rq C/Rq D/Rq C/Rp D/Rp
Turns head to person *0 *Rc **Rq **Rq **Rq
Raises up head *Rq **Rq
Turns head away **Rp **Rp **Rp **Rp *Rp
Note: Column headings indicate speech category paired comparisons—offers (O), reactions
(Re), requests (Rq), replies (Rp), consents (C) dissents (D). All comparisons where a
significant difference in probability of pre-speech posture change exists are marked *p < 0.05;
**p<0.001. Letters adjacent to the significance level refer to the speech category of the
paired comparison with which a posture change is most associated.
Discussion
The results of this study suggested that there is a strong relationship
between different types of speech act and specific changes in head posture.
In particular, "turns head to person" was associated predominantly with
requests, and, to a lesser extent, with offers and reactions. "Raises up

head" was associated specifically with requests (confirming an observation
made by Scheflen, 1964), and "turns head away from person" was
specifically associated with replies.
The purpose of looking at pre-speech postural change was in order to
relate the findings to turn-taking. Overall, the results of this study seem to
fit in well with Duncan's theoretical framework, in that the use of "raises
up head" preceding requests can be seen as a turn-yielding cue, indicating
that the listener is about to be offered the turn, while "turns head away
from person" preceding replies can be seen as an acceptance of the turn: by
looking away, the new speaker both prevents any response from the
previous speaker whilst an answer is being prepared (Kendon, 1967, p. 35)
and indicates a switch to the speaker state (Duncan and Niederehe, 1974).
In fact, Duncan and Fiske (1977) specifically describe turning the head
away from the other as one of the two signals which distinguish the speaker
state from a back channel.
Thefindingsare of interest for a number of reasons. Previous analyses of
turn-taking have paid little attention to the role of speech content and to
the way in which it interacts with non-verbal cues. This study suggests both
that the relationship between posture and speech content may be much
more specific than has hitherto been realized and that particular postural
cues signal aspects of speech content which are important in turn-taking.
The importance of speech content in turn-taking was demonstrated in a
subsequent study by Thomas, Roger and Bull (1983). Using Con-
versational Exchange Analysis (Thomas, Bull and Roger, 1982), the re-
sults showed that informal conversation conformed to a first-order
Markovian process, in which information concerning the immediately pre-
ceding speech act is sufficient to predict the current speech act without
requiring further information on earlier speech acts. The results also
showed that the offer, reply and dissent categories tend to perpetuate
themselves (i.e. an offer is typically followed by another within-turn offer),
thereby maintaining the turn for the speaker; in contrast, the consent,
reaction and request categories typically relinquish the speaking turn.
Thus, if a listener wishes to retain the listener-state, he should use either a
reaction, a consent or a request; if he wishes to take the turn, he should use
either an offer or a dissent.
Taken together, the results of the two studies (Thomas and Bull, 1981;
Thomas, Roger and Bull, 1983) can be taken as demonstrating that
different speech acts have different implications for turn-taking and that
pre-speech postural changes provide additional information about the
nature of the ensuing speech act. In the previous chapter, Scheflen's
hypothesis of a "programme" was discussed, to which different stages of
social interaction are indicated by postural markers. But whereas Scheflen
proposed that posture is related to the structure of speech, the data
reported in this chapter suggest a different way in which posture is related

to speech content, namely, that it provides information about what speech
act is to follow and hence about how the listener should respond to what is
being said. Where the studies reported in both chapters concur is in
demonstrating a close relationship between posture and speech content;
the relationship between non-verbal behaviour and speech is further
elaborated in the next chapter in a study which was intended to investigate
the way in which gesture is used to convey emphasis in speech.
9
Gesture and Emphasis in Speech
(Based on "Body movement and emphasis in speech" by P. E. Bull and G.

Connelly, Journal of Nonverbal Behaviour, 1985, 9(3), 169-187.) This
material is reproduced with permission from Human Sciences Press, Inc,
New York.
Introduction
The previous two studies of conversation discussed in this section of the
book were concerned with the role of posture; the study to be reported in
this chapter was concerned with the way in which gesture is used in relation
to speech. Although the previous two studies had shown different ways in
which posture is related to speech content, a major problem stemmed from
the use of the Posture Scoring System. The decision in that system to score
only those movements which resulted in a position being taken up and
maintained for at least one second meant that a great deal of movement
was simply not being scored. This is particularly a problem when looking at
the relationship between body movement and speech, since speech in
contrast to listening is characterized much more by quick movements,
which would simply not be coded within the existing Posture Scoring
System. Hence, the decision was taken to expand the Posture Scoring
System into the Body Movement Scoring System so that more detailed
analysis could be carried out of the role played by gesture in conversation;
this new system has already been described in Chapter 3.
Whereas the focus of the previous two studies of conversation was on the
relationship between posture and speech content, the aim of the study to
be described in this chapter was to investigate the way in which gesture
may be used to add emphasis to speech. In Chapter 1, it was argued that
according to the functions which they serve, speech-related non-verbal
cues can be divided on the basis of a classification system proposed by
Ekman and Friesen (1969a) into three main types, namely, emblems,
illustrators and regulators. The term "emblem" they derived from Efron
(1941) to refer to those non-verbal acts which have a direct verbal trans-
lation, such as nodding the head when meaning "Yes", or shaking the head
when meaning "No"; their function is communicative and explicitly
108
Gesture and Emphasis in Speech 109
recognized as such. Illustrators are movements which are directly tied to

speech and it is maintained that they facilitate communication by amplify-
ing and elaborating the verbal content of the message. Regulators are
movements which guide and control the flow of conversation, influencing
both who is to speak and how much is said. The purpose of the study
described in this chapter was to investigate a particular type of illustrator
referred to by Ekman and Friesen (1972) as "batons", movements which
accent or emphasize a particular word or phrase.
In order to carry out this investigation, videotapes were made of
opposite-sex pairs of students in conversation with one another. After each
videotape had been made, subjects were asked to replay the videotape
(without the soundtrack) and to indicate which body movements of both
themselves and their partners they considered communicated emphasis. If
we are to use the term non-verbal communication, it has been argued by
Wiener et al. (1972) that there must be non-verbal behaviours with shared
meanings which constitute a code, an encoder who conveys meanings
through that code and a decoder who responds appropriately to that code.
Hence, body movements which both subjects (i.e. encoder and decoder)
agreed conveyed emphasis were taken to constitute non-verbal communi-
cation of emphasis, since both encoding and decoding had been shown for
these behaviours. The purpose of this procedure was to investigate both
the movements which the subjects perceived as emphatic and whether it is
something about the visual appearance of body movements alone which
leads to them being regarded as emphatic.
But since awareness is not presumed to be a necessary condition for
non-verbal communication (Wiener et al., 1972), a second approach was
adopted which was not dependent on subject awareness; in this approach,
the relationship between body movement and vocal stress was investigated
by scoring the tape for primary stress (following Halliday, 1970) and for the
associated body movements. This second procedure was intended to pro-
vide a more objective assessment of the way in which body movement may
be used to add emphasis to speech. In Chapter 1, it was argued that body
movement is related to speech in terms of its semantic, syntactic and
phonemic clause structure. Whereas the studies described in the previous
two chapters were concerned with the relationship between posture and
the semantic structure of speech, this procedure was intended to in-
vestigate the relationship between gesture and phonemic clause structure.
The phonemic clause consists of a group of words, averaging five in length,
in which there is only one primary stress indicated by changes in pitch,
rhythm or loudness, and which is terminated by a juncture, in which these
changes in pitch, rhythm and loudness level off before the beginning of the
next phonemic clause (Träger and Smith, 1951). A close relationship
between body movement and phonemic clause structure has been claimed
both by Pittenger, Hockett and Danehy (1960), who observed that most
speakers of American English accompany their primary stresses with slight

jerks of the head or hand, and by Schellen (1964), who noted that
Birdwhistell demonstrated that junctures are accompanied by a movement
of the head, eyes or hands.
However, neither of these observations were based on any quantification
of the data. Moreover, these authors have also been criticized on the basis
of a study in which quantification was employed (Dittman and Llewellyn,
1969). In this study, Dittman and Llewellyn asked American students to
participate in two 15-minute interviews with one of the experimenters. The
body movements of the students were recorded by movement transducers
attached to the head, to both hands and to both feet, while transcripts of
their speech were segmented into phonemic clauses. Dittman and
Llewellyn found that bodily movements occurred significantly more
frequently at what they called start positions (the beginnings of clauses,
non-fluencies) than at non-start positions. They criticized the observations
of Scheflen, and of Pittenger, Hockett and Danehy on the grounds that
stress points and junctures occur at or towards the end of phonemic
clauses, whereas their own data showed that bodily movement occurred
primarily at the beginnings of clauses. In this study, a significant rela-
tionship was found between body movement and stress and juncture, but
Dittman and Llewellyn maintain that this was not sizable and has been
greatly exaggerated by Scheflen and by Pittenger, Hockett and Danehy.
The basic problem with Dittman and Llewellyn's approach, however,
stems from the use of movement transducers to record body movement;
this procedure provides no information on the visual appearance of
movement and hence of how movement is structurally related to discourse.
If, for example, a person extends his forearm, index finger outstretched, to
coincide with the stress point in a phonemic clause, he may well have flexed
his forearm at the beginning of the clause in preparation for that
movement; the action offlexingand extending the forearm can be seen as a
single structural unit which reaches its apex on the stress point of the
clause. Dittman and Llewellyn's method of recording body movement
would presumably lead to the preparatory movement being scored as
unrelated to the stress point in the phonemic clause; hence their particular
methodology may lead to an underestimate of the relationship between
body movement and vocal stress.
Butterworth and Beattie (1978) claimed that the onset of certain types of
gesture actually precedes speech. They distinguished between gestures
and what they called speech-focused movements. Speech-focused
movements refer to all movements of the arm or hand which appear to be
related to speech, except movements which involve some form of self-
touching, such as finger-rubbing or scratching. Gestures refer to more
complex movements which appear to bear some semantic relation to
speech; Butterworth and Beattie give the example of a lecturer who raised
one hand while announcing that "certain problems can be raised".

Butterworth and Beattie claimed to find a clear difference between
gestures and speech-related movements, with the initiation of gestures
typically preceding speech, while other speech-related movements usually
occur at the same time as speech.
McNeill and Levy (1982) found results which clearly contradicted
Butterworth and Beattie's findings. They looked at what they called iconic
gestures, which in their form or manner depict aspects of the event or
situation being described verbally. Since iconic gestures depict actions,
McNeill and Levy proposed looking at the timing of the gesture in relation
to the verb. Although the onset of half their sample of gestures preceded
the verb, the onset of the other half of the gestures actually followed the
verb, in marked contrast to Butterworth and Beattie's results. However, as
McNeill and Levy themselves admit, timing iconic gestures just in relation
to the verb is somewhat arbitrary: iconic gestures may be related not only
to the verb but to the entire clause.
Nevertheless, there are other grounds on which Butterworth and
Beattie's study is open to criticism. Their procedure involved classifying
gestures from videotape and timing their onset in relation to speech from a
timer mixed on to the videorecordings. But like Dittman and Llewellyn,
they do not attempt to give any detailed description of the visual
appearance of body movement. Without such a detailed description, it is
not possible to assess alternative explanations of their data. For example,
what they call gestures may be initiated slightly before the onset of speech
because they are more complex than other speech-related movements,
although the apex of the gesture may still occur at the same time as the
vocal stress. Hence, the apparent difference between gestures and
speech-related movements in their temporal relationship to speech may
simply reflect different degrees of movement complexity; without a more
detailed description of the visual appearance of movement, it is not pos-
sible to test this hypothesis.
The Body Movement Scoring System used in the study reported in this
chapter has a number of advantages which overcome these problems. The
system takes as its basic unit the single movement act; hence, it is dynamic,
not static—it describes gestures as a series of movements, not as a series of
positions. Body-contact and object-contact acts are described in terms of
the way the contact is made (e.g. touching, grasping, scratching), the part
of the body which makes contact and the object or part of the body with
which contact is made. Any change in one of these three elements is
regarded as starting a new movement act. Non-contact movements are
described in terms of the various movements which are possible from each
of the major joints of the body (neck, spine, hips, knees, ankles, toes,
shoulder girdle, shoulders, elbows, wrists and fingers). For example, the
forearm can flex, extend, rotate inwards, rotate outwards or perform these
movements in combination. The basic unit of analysis for non-contact acts

is movement along one axis; if the axis is changed, then a new movement is
scored. Using this system, it is possible to give a highly detailed description
of the structure of movement, which is essential if we are to appreciate the
role played by body movement in relation to speech. In this study, the
system was used to categorize both the movements which subjects selected
as emphatic and movements which were associated with vocal stress; the
aim was to find out both whether there are particular movements which on
the basis of their visual appearance alone tend to be perceived as emphatic
and to investigate the relationship between body movement and vocal
stress.
Method
In carrying out this investigation, videotapes were made of opposite-sex
pairs of ten strangers and ten friends (British students) in conversation with
one another. Prior to the conversation, subjects were asked to fill in an
attitude questionnaire and each pair was asked to discuss three items on
which they had disagreed. Each pair of subjects were left on their own for
15-20 minutes and their conversation was recorded on videotape. Subjects
were not told that they had been videotaped until after the conversation
was over, but permission was asked from the subjects to use the tape for
research purposes and in no case was this refused.
After the tapes had been obtained, each subject was asked to replay the
tape and to indicate which body movements of themselves and their
partners they considered indicated emphasis. Specifically, they were asked
to select those movements "that in some way seem to underline or stress
your speech, or make what you're saying more important". This task was
performed by each subject on his own without the soundtrack, so that
subjects were not directly influenced by the conversation in selecting
emphatic movements; subjects were asked simply to indicate which body
part (head, right arm, left arm, etc.) was used in the movement and to give
the relevant frame numbers (these were mixed on to the tape from a
character generator). They were also asked to indicate whether they con-
sidered a body movement was very emphatic or only quite emphatic. Body
movements which both subjects (i.e. encoder and decoder) agreed con-
veyed emphasis were taken to constitute non-verbal communication of
emphasis, since both encoding and decoding had been shown for these
behaviours; only those body movements which both encoder and decoder
scored as very emphatic were taken to constitute communications of strong
emphasis.
Results
(a) Movements Chosen as Communicating Emphasis
The results showed that the movements which were selected by each pair
of subjects as emphatic were primarily movements of the arms/hands and
movements of the head. The total number of encoder/decoder agreements
for each body part were as follows: arms/hands 767, head 129, trunk 24 and
legs/feet 1. Corresponding figures for encoder/decoder disagreements
were: arms/hands 943, head 673, trunk 188 and legs/feet 127. Hence, the
tendency primarily to select movements of the arms/hands and the head as
communicating emphasis cannot be regarded simply as reflecting a higher
level of encoder/decoder agreement for these particular body parts.
The movements selected by each pair of subjects as emphatic were then
scored using the Body Movement Scoring System. Using this scoring
system, a reliability test was carried out in which a correlation coefficient of
0.81 was obtained between the main scorer and an independent observer
for the arms/hands and of 0.75 for movements of the head; since compar-
atively few observations were made of trunk and leg/feet movements, these
were all scored by both scorers, disagreements being resolved by dis-
cussion. The Body Movement Scoring System takes as its basic unit the
single movement act and when the movements selected as emphatic were
scored using this system, they yielded in these units 1687 arm/hand
movements, 135 head movements, twenty/seven trunk movements and one
leg/foot movement. Wtih regard to different levels of emphasis, 20.3% of
the arms/hands movements (in single movement acts) were regarded as
very emphatic, as opposed to 14.8% of the trunk movements, 3.0% of the
head movements and none of the leg/feet movements. Hence, the results
showed that it was primarily movements of the arms/hands which could be
regarded both as communicating emphasis and as communicating different
levels of emphasis.
A further set of analyses were carried out to investigate whether particu-
lar types of movement were used to convey emphasis through using the
categories of the Body Movement Scoring System. Head movements in
this system are categorized according to the various movements of which
the head is capable (e.g. turning, tilting, raising or lowering). Some of
these movements can occur in combination; for example, a person can turn
his head away from another person while nodding it at the same time
(double combination), or lower his head, lean it away from the other
person and shake it at the same time (triple combination). Head
movements were consequently categorized into different kinds of single
movements, double combinations or triple combinations and the results of
this analysis showed that there were no particular head movements or
combinations of head movements which were selected as emphatic.
Sixty-four movement categories were necessary to account for the 135 head
movements, the most frequently occurring being the multiple head nod,
which accounted for 10.5% of the observations.
Trunk movements in the Body Movement Scoring System are similarly
categorized according to the movements of which the trunk is capable, and
again this can occur either singly (e.g. leans forward) or in combinations,
e.g. leans forward and sideways (double combination), leans forward and
sideways and turns (triple combination). Trunk movements are
categorized according to whether they involved single movements, double
combinations or triple combinations and the results of this analysis again
showed that there were no particular trunk movements or combinations of
trunk movements selected as emphatic. Fourteen categories were necess-
ary to describe the twenty-seven trunk movements, the most frequently
chosen category being leans from side to side, which accounted for 22.2%
of trunk movements selected as emphatic.
The one leg movement selected as emphatic was for a female subject
sitting with legs crossed (ankle over knee) who drew back the upper leg in a
leg cross; there seems to be no particular reason why this should be the
only leg movement selected by subjects as emphatic.
The arm/hand movements selected as emphatic were subdivided
according to whether they involved one or both hands (unilateral/bilateral
movement) and according to whether they did or did not involve contact
with an object or part of the body (contact/non-contact movements). When
subdivided according to these categories, it was clear that the majority of
emphatic arm/hand movements were unilaterial, non-contact acts. 71.8%
of the arm/hand movements selected as emphatic were unilateral, non-
contact acts; 18.0% were bilateral, non-contact acts; 9.4% were unilateral,
contact acts; 0.8% were bilateral, contact acts.
Non-contact acts in the Body Movement Scoring System are categorized
according to the movements possible from the five major points of
articulation (shoulder girdle, shoulder, elbow, wrist, finger joints). The
movements were divided into categories (according to each of the major
points of articulation) to investigate whether there were any specific com-
binations of non-contact arm/hand movements selected to convey
emphasis. The results of this analysis suggested that this was not the case;
874 categories were necessary to describe the 1211 unilateral non-contact
movements and 220 categories were necessary to describe the 304 bilateral
non-contact movements.
The results of this analysis suggested very clearly that the subjects did
not make use of any particular combinations of non-contact hand/arm
movements to communicate emphasis. An alternative hypothesis is that
particular hand shapes may be used to communicate emphasis irrespective
of other associated arm movements, given that certain hand shapes have
clear emblematic meanings (e.g. Morris et al., 1979). The non-contact
hand/arm movements were consequently reanalysed according to hand
shape irrespective of the associated arm movements, but the results of this
classification still showed that fourteen unilateral hand shapes and sixteen
bilateral hand shapes were used to communicate emphasis. The most
frequently chosen unilateral hand shapes were hand outstretched (21.8%
of unilateral non-contact hand-arm movements chosen as emphatic), index
finger outstretched (18.9%) and hand semi-open with fingers open
(16.7%). The most frequently chosen bilateral non-contact hand shapes
were hands outstretched (31.1% of bilateral non-contact movements
chosen as emphatic) and hands semi-open with fingers open (20.7%).
Contact hand/arm movements are categorized in the Body Movement
Scoring System according to the way the contact is made (e.g. touching,
grasping, scratching, etc.), the part of the hand which makes the contact
and the body part or object with which contact is made. When categorized
according to these dimensions, there appeared to be no particular com-
binations chosen as emphatic, ninety-two categories being derived from
172 contact movements. When contact acts were categorized simply
according to the way in which contact is made (irrespective of the body part
making the contact or the body part or object with which contact is made),
the results still showed that twelve different forms of contact were used to
convey emphasis (unilateral and bilateral data combined). The most
frequent forms of contact activity selected as conveying emphasis were
tapping (41.9% of contact acts selected as emphatic), stroking (20.9%) and
touching (18.0%).
Thus, when subjects were asked to select body movements which they
considered communicate emphasis, the results showed that the movements
chosen were predominantly unilateral, non-contact hand/arm movements.
There apeared to be no particular combinations of hand and arm
movements associated with emphasis, but the most common hand shapes
used were index finger outstretched, hand outstretched and hand semi-
open with fingers open, the latter two being the most commonly selected
unilateral and bilateral hand shapes. The most common forms of contact
activity selected by subjects as communicating emphasis were tapping,
stroking and touching. Head and trunk movements were also regarded as
communications of emphasis, but to a much lesser extent. Leg movements
(with only a single exception) were not regarded as communicating
emphasis.
(b) Relationship of Body Movement to Vocal Stress

Hence, the hypothesis that there are particular types of body movement
which by virtue of their visual appearance alone tend to be perceived as
emphatic was not supported by these data; in general, a wide variety of
movements were perceived as emphatic. Nevertheless, this procedure was
essentially subjective, relying on subjects' reports of what movements they
considered to be emphatic. This is an interesting source of data in its own

right, but needs to be evaluated against a more objective assessment of
emphatic movement. Consequently, a second procedure was adopted, in
which the relationship between body movement and vocal stress was in-
vestigated. Dittman and Llewellyn (1969) maintained that the relationship
between body movement and vocal stress has been overestimated, but as
has been argued above, their use of movement transducers to record body
movement may lead to an underestimate of that relationship, a problem
which is avoided by the use of the Body Movement Scoring System through
which the visual structure of body movement can be described.
It would have been prohibitive in terms of time to score all body
movements associated with vocal stress, so a sample of behaviour was
taken from six randomly selected pairs of subjects (three acquainted pairs,
three unacquainted pairs). Transcripts were made of each conversation
and scored for primary stress (following Halliday, 1970). An independent
scorer (a trained phonetician) scored three 2-minute sections from three
different conversations which showed an average agreement in marking
primary stress of 79% with the main scorer. For each subject, forty-five
body movements related to vocal stress were scored, selected from the first
fifteen of such movements occuring in the first, second and final third of the
conversation.
The results of this study showed a very close relationship between body
movement and tonic stress. For the twelve subjects so observed, a mean
90.5% of the tonic stresses within the segments of tape scored were
accompanied by body movement (total number of tonic stresses within the
segments of tape scored = 277). The results also showed that it is not just
movements of the head and arms/hands which accompany tonic stress (as
observed by Pittenger, Hockett and Danehy, 1960), but movements of all
parts of the body. Of the total number of 540 movements observed in
relation to tonic stress, 35.2% were movements of the head, 14.6%
movements of the trunk, 34.4% movements of the hands/arms and 15.8%
movements of the leg/feet. These results contrast strikingly with the earlier
analysis of those movements which the subjects perceived as communi-
cating emphasis, which were predominantly movements of the arms/hands.
This pattern was reproduced in the 540 movements related to tonic stress:
8.1% of the arm/hand movements were perceived by the subjects as
communicating emphasis, 0.5% of the head movements and none of the
trunk and legs/feet movements.
Four main ways were distinguished in which body movement was related
to tonic stress. One category comprised all the contact acts which were
related to tonic stress and these were further subdivided according to
whether the contact occurred at the start, the middle or the end of the
tonic, or whether a multiple contact took place at the same time as the
tonic.
The other three categories referred to different ways in which non-

contact acts were related to tonic stress (for these purposes, all head and
trunk movements were regarded as non-contact acts); these non-contact
acts were divided into single movement acts, apex peaks and embedded
movements. Single movement acts refer to single units of movement which
were related to the tonic and these were further subdivided into three main
types. Start peaks refer to movements which start on the tonic and con-
tinue after the tonic has been completed. End peaks refer to movements
which end on the tonic and start before the tonic. Envelope peaks refer to
movements which start and finish within the tonic, hence are "enveloped"
by the tonic.
Apex peaks refer to movement categories which involve more than one
single movement unit (such as nodding the head, or extending and flexing
the forearm). Such movements were further subdivided according to
whether the apex of the movement occurred at the start, the middle or the
end of the tonic, or in the case of repeated movements with a multiple
apex, where multiple apexes occurred at the same time as the tonic.
The final category was that of embedded movements, where one
movement occurs "inside" the tonic, and falls on the tonic. So, for ex-
ample, one person might turn his head towards another, nodding it during
the course of the turn; if the nod occurs at the same time as the tonic, then
this would be described as an embedded peak.
The distribution of the ways in which body movement was related to
tonic stress are given in Table 16. This table shows clearly that the com-
monest relationship between body movement and tonic stress was in terms
of the apex peak, which accounted for 59.5% of the observations. The
middle peak was the commonest form of apex movement, where the apex
of the movements occurred in the middle of the tonic; this accounted for
32.8% of all the body movement observations, and included movements of
all parts of the body. With reference to the argument of Dittman and
Llewellyn that the relationship of body movement to phonemic clause
structure has been greatly overestimated, it is noteworthy that only the
category of single envelope peaks refers to movements which occurred
"inside" the tonic; other movements typically either began before the
tonic, continued after it, or both, and hence without a description of their
visual appearance they would presumably be scored in part as unrelated to
the tonic if they were measured simply from movement transducers. A
similar criticism can be made of Butterworth and Beattie's (1978) finding
that "gestures" (movements which bear some semantic relationship to
speech) typically precede the speech which they illustrate. Such
movements may well start before the tonic stress, but the actual apex of the
movement may nevertheless still coincide with the occurrence of tonic
stress.
TABLE 16. Ways in Which Body Movement is Related to Tonic Stress (No. of
movements = 540; allfiguresin percentages)
Movements Head Trunk Arms/hands Legs/feet Totals
Contact
Start peak 0 0 3.1 0.2 3.3
Middle peak 0 0 1.1 0 1.1
End peak 0 0 3.5 0.4 3.9
Multiple peak 0 0 2.3 0 2.3
Totals 0 0 10.0 0.6 10.6
Single peaks
Start peak 2.1 1.5 1.1 1.1 5.8
End peak 2.3 0.4 3.1 0 5.8
Envelope 10.4 3.5 2.3 1.1 17.3
Totals 14.8 5.4 6.5 2.2 28.9
Apex peaks
Start peak 1.9 1.5 4.6 2.1 10.1
Middle peak 12.1 4.8 9.0 6.9 32.8
End peak 3.3 2.1 3.3 1.9 10.6
Multiple peak 3.1 0.4 0.6 1.9 6.0
Totals 20.4 8.8 17.5 12.8 59.5
Embedded peaks 0 0.4 0.4 0.2 1.0
Combined totals 35.2 14.6 34.4 15.8
The movements were also categorized to investigate whether there were

any particular kinds of body movement related to tonic stress. Head
movements as before were categorized into different kinds of single
movements, double combinations and triple combinations, and the results
of this classification showed that to describe the 190 head movements, forty
categories were needed. The most frequently occurring head movements
were head nod (12.1% of head movements related to the tonic), turns head
to person (12.1%), head shake (10.3%), head rock (8.6%) and head jerk
(6.9%). Head nod, head shake, head rock and head jerk were most
commonly associated with the tonic in the form of an apex middle peak;
turns head to person was most commonly associated with the tonic in the
form of a single envelope peak.
Trunk movements were also classified as before into different kinds of
single movements, double combinations and triple combinations, and the
results of this classification showed that to describe the seventy-nine trunk
movements, twenty-one categories were needed. The trunk movement
most commonly associated with the tonic was leans from side to side
(27.6% of the trunk movements related to the tonic); leans from side to
side was most commonly associated with the tonic in the form of an apex
start and middle peak.
The hand and arm movements were subdivided according to whether

they were unilateral or bilateral, and according to whether they were
contact or non-contact acts. When subdivided according to these categor-
ies, 59.1% of the 186 movements were unilateral non-contact acts, 25.6%
unilateral contact acts, 11% bilateral non-contact acts, and 4.3% bilateral
contact acts. Non-contact acts were initially classified according to the
movements possible from the five major points of articulation (shoulder
girdle, shoulder, elbow wrist, finger joints), and contact acts were initially
classified according to the way the contact was made, the part of the hand
or arm which made the contact, and the body part or object with which
contact was made. When classified on this basis, 130 categories were
needed to describe the 186 hand/arm movements related to the tonic.
The classification system was then simplified as before to categorize
non-contact acts according to the hand shape used, and contact acts
according to the form of contact alone; on this basis, thirty-two categories
were still needed to describe the hand/arm movements. The non-contact
unilateral hand shape most commonly associated with the tonic was index
finger outstretched; this accounted for 29.2% of all the unilateral non-
contact hand shapes, and was most commonly associated with the tonic in
the form of an apex middle peak. The bilateral non-contact hand shapes
most frequently associated with the tonic were hands joined fully inter-
locked, and hands joined with palm over back of other hand (23.8% each
of all the bilateral non-contact hand shapes); they were both most
frequently associated with the tonic in the form of an apex middle peak.
The form of contact activity most frequently associated with the tonic was
touching (35.1% of contact activities associated with the tonic); this form
of contact occurred most frequently at the start and at the end of the tonic.
The leg and feet movements were also subdivided according to whether
they were unilateral or bilateral. When subdivided on this basis, 62.7% of
the 85 leg/feet movements were unilateral acts, 37.3% were bilateral acts.
Leg/feet movements were categorized according to the position of the legs,
and according to the movements possible from the three major points of
articulation (hip, knee, ankle). When classified on this basis, sixty-three
categories were necessary to classify the eighty-five leg/feet movements.
The unilateral movement most commonly associated with the tonic was an
outward and inward rotation from the hip with the foot on the floor; this
accounted for 15.4% of the unilateral leg movements related to the tonic,
and was most commonly associated with the tonic in the form of an apex
middle peak. The bilateral movement most commonly associated with the
tonic was also an outward and inward rotation from the hips, but with the
legs crossed ankle over knee: this accounted for 42.9% of the bilateral leg
movements related to the tonic and was also most commonly associated
with the tonic in the form of an apex middle peak. Thus, the results of this
analysis showed that a very broad range of movements are used in relation
to tonic stress, just as a very broad range of movements in the earlier

analysis were explicitly recognized by the subjects as communicating
emphasis.
Discussion
The purpose of the study described here was to investigate ways in which
body movement may facilitate the communication of emphasis in speech.
In one procedure, subjects were asked to select the movements which they
considered communicated emphasis both for themselves and for their
partners from the videotape alone (without sound). This was intended to
investigate which movements the subjects perceived as emphatic and
whether it is something about the visual appearance of body movements
alone which leads to them being regarded as emphatic. The results of this
analysis showed that it was mainly hand/arm movements which were
perceived both as communicating emphasis and communicating different
levels of emphasis. The results also showed that a wide range of hand/arm
movements and to a lesser extent head and trunk movements were recog-
nized as communicating emphasis; hence, there appear to be no distinctive
movements which are regarded as communicating emphasis. This con-
clusion is further reinforced by the high overall level of encoder/decoder
disagreements about which movements were emphatic, thus suggesting
that the subjects neither found the task easy nor that there are any
particular movement shapes which lead to a movement being regarded as
emphatic.
The second procedure involved scoring body movements associated with
tonic stress; the results of this study showed that most tonic stresses were
accompanied by a wide range not only of hand/arm movements but also of
movements of the head, trunk and legs/feet, most typically in the form of
apex peaks. Research workers (e.g. Condon and Ogston, 1966; Freedman
and Hoffman, 1967) have frequently commented on how certain body
movements appear to be closely related to the rhythm of speech, but the
analysis reported here suggests much more specifically one way in which
body movement is related to speech, namely, in terms of its relationship to
tonic stress. When combined with the results of the first analysis, it further
reinforces the argument proposed above that emphatic movements take
their meaning not from their particular visual appearance alone, but from
their temporal relationship to tonic stress, most notably in the form of apex
peaks, where the apex of the movement is synchronized to occur at the
same time as the tonic. Hence, it may be possible for a person to use quite
idiosyncratic forms of body movement (in terms of their visual
appearance), but which communicate emphasis quite clearly through their
temporal relationship to tonic stress. The striking disparity in results from
the two methodological procedures employed is also interesting in that
whereas the movements which subjects explicitly recognize as communi-

cating emphasis were predominantly movements of the arms/hands,
movements of all parts of the body are related to tonic stress and only a
small proportion of these tonically-related movements (including the
hands/arms) were explicitly recognized by the subjects as communicating
emphasis. This suggests either that people grossly underestimate the infor-
mation about stress that is available from the body and particularly infor-
mation that is available from other parts of the body besides the hands/
arms, or that people simply fail to perceive the nature of most stress-
related movements when given information from the vision alone. In either
case, it suggests that further research needs to be focused on how subjects
perceive the relationship between body movement and vocal stress.
The results reported here also have significant implications for the
typology of speech-related body movement proposed by Ekman and
Friesen (1969a) which was discussed earlier. Ekman and Friesen regard
"batons" (movements which accent or emphasize a particular word or
phrase) as merely one subset of the class of movements which they refer to
as illustrators. However, the finding in this study that most vocal stresses
were accompanied by body movement suggests the intriguing possibility
that the illustrator sub-categories employed by Ekman and Friesen may
not be mutually exclusive; for example, an ideographic movement which
sketches the path or direction of a line of thought may also be closely
related to the tonic and may function in addition as a baton, emphasizing a
particular word or phrase. Indeed, the fact that most vocal stresses were
accompanied by body movement suggests the possibility that illustrators
may be typically related to the tonic; it may even be the case that what
leads a movement to being perceived as an illustrator is its relationship to
vocal stress. Such speculations go well beyond the data presented here, but
are suggested by the close relationship between tonic stress and body
movement identified in this study which would not have been anticipated
from a reading of Dittman and Llewellyn (1969) and which only becomes
apparent through the use of a fine-grained scoring system through which a
detailed description can be given of the visual appearance of body
movement.
PAG— I
10
The Use of Hand Gesture in
Political Speeches: Some Case
Studies
(Based on "The use of hand gesture in political speeches: some case
studies" by Peter Bull, Journal of Language and Social Psychology, 1986,
5(2), 103-118.) This material is reproduced with permission from
Multilingual Matters Ltd.
Introduction
Whereas three of the previous studies reported in this section of the
book have been concerned with the role of posture and gesture in con-
versation, the study to be described in this chapter was concerned with the
role of hand gesture in political speeches. The relationship between non-
verbal behaviour and speech has scarcely been studied in research on
public communication, yet public performances present a particularly
interesting context for this kind of investigation: because public
performances by definition take place for an audience, the performer
should not be unduly affected by the presence of a camera.
The particular public performance selected for the research reported in
this chapter was that of political speech-making. The rhetoric of political
speeches has recently been the subject of intensive study by Atkinson (e.g.
1983, 1984a, 1984b) and by Heritage and Greatbatch (1986), who have
argued that a certain range of restricted rhetorical devices are highly
effective in evoking applause. Their observations provide a valuable
framework for investigating non/verbal behaviour in the context of politi-
cal speeches. A second influence on the research presented here was the
study reported in the previous chapter, which showed a close relationship
between body movement and vocal stress in informal conversation (Bull
and Connelly, 1985); it was decided to investigate whether a similar rela-
tionship would be demonstrated between gesture and intonation by politi-
cal speakers. Hand gesture was chosen on the grounds that it may be a
particularly important form of non/verbal communication in public
speaking. Typically, there is a considerable physical distance between the
speaker and his audience, so that hand gesture may be of especial
122
The Use of Hand Gesture in Political Speeches: Some Case Studies 123
significance because of its greater visibility than, say, facial expression or

gaze; during television presentations, in contrast, a speaker's facial expres-
sion and gaze can be observed in much greater detail and hence may play a
correspondingly more important role.
Thus, the approach adopted in this study was to investigate the way in
which hand gesture in political speeches is organized in relation to in-
tonation and to the elicitation and control of applause. Research on body
movement and vocal stress has already been described in the previous
chapter; the other major influence on the work described here was that of
Atkinson on rhetorical devices used to evoke applause. In a number of
publications, Atkinson (1983, 1984a, 1984b) has argued that a limited
range of rhetorical devices such as contrasts and three-part lists are con-
sistently effective in evoking applause from audiences. He has also pro-
posed that skilled use of these devices is characteristic of "charismatic"
speakers (Atkinson, 1984a, pp. 86-123) and that such devices are often to
be found in those passages of political speeches which are selected for
presentation in the news media (Atkinson, 1984a, pp. 124-163).
Atkinson works within the framework of conversation analysis, so his
research is essentially qualitative in nature, based on the detailed analysis
of illustrative examples; hence, it is vulnerable to the criticism that he may
have selected isolated cases which are not typical of political speech-
making as a whole. However, Heritage and Greatbatch (1986) have carried
out a statistical analysis of 476 speeches delivered to the Conservative,
Labour and Liberal Party Conferences in 1981, representing all the
speeches televised from those three conferences. They investigated seven
basic rhetorical devices (contrasts, lists, puzzle-solution, headline-
punchline, combinations, position taking and pursuits), which they found
to be associated with more than two thirds of all the sustained applause
which occurred during speeches. Of these seven basic devices, the contrast
and the list were by far the most effective: contrasts were associated with
no less than 33.2% of the incidences of applause, lists with 12.6%. Thus,
Heritage and Greatbatch's data provide impressive quantitative support
for Atkinson's observations, since contrasts and lists were the two
rhetorical devices originally identified by Atkinson as significant in the
generation of applause.
An obvious criticism of all this research is that it fails to take into account
the role of speech content. Heritage and Greatbatch are well aware of this
problem, and they attempted to deal with it first of all by classifying each
sentence according to whether or not it was intrinsically applaudable. They
found that 21.8% of "applaudable" statements expressed in one of the
seven basic rhetorical devices were applauded, whereas the corresponding
figure for "applaudable" statements not presented in one of these devices
was 6.8%. They then looked at one particular class of statements the
audience might be expected to applaud, which they called "external
attacks": statements critical of outgroups such as other political parties,

which should evoke unambiguous agreement amongst the party conference
participants. Their results showed that whereas 71% of external attacks
expressed in one of the seven rhetorical devices were applauded, only 29%
of those not expressed in these devices were applauded.
In another such analysis, Heritage and Greatbatch looked at political
debates characterized by strongly defined majority and minority positions.
Two debates were singled out for this investigation: the economic policy
debate at the Conservative Party Conference and the defence debate at the
Labour Party Conference. In the former, there was a clear consensus in
favour of Thatcherite economic policies, while in the latter, there was an
overwhelming sentiment in favour of unilateral nuclear disarmament. Res-
ults showed that the seven rhetorical devices were employed in 76.3% of
the pro-majority statements and 90% of the pro-minority statements which
were applauded; in general, the pro-majority position was applauded nine
times as often as the minority one. Thus, Heritage and Greatbatch's data
suggest that although applause is clearly related (not surprisingly) to
certain types of speech content, nevertheless the chance of that speech
being applauded is greatly increased if it is expressed using an appropriate
rhetorical device.
Atkinson (1984a, pp. 63-66) also discusses the role of intonation, timing
and gesture in the delivery of political messages, arguing that non-verbal
behaviour can be used to signal additional information to the audience that
this is a point where applause is expected. Heritage and Greatbatch carried
out a quantitative analysis of the extent to which vocal and non-vocal stress
may influence the likelihood of a message being applauded. A sample of
speeches formulated in terms of one of the seven basic rhetorical devices
was coded in terms of its degree of stress. This was evaluated by taking
note of whether the speaker was gazing at the audience at or near the
completion point of the message, whether the message was delivered more
loudly than surrounding speech passages, or with greater pitch or stress
variation, or with some kind of rhythmic shift or accompanied by the use of
gestures. In the absence of any of these features, the message was coded
"no stress". One of these features was treated as sufficient for an "inter-
mediate" stress coding, while the presence of two or more features resulted
in a coding of "full stress". Results showed that well over a half of the
"fully stressed" messages were applauded, only a quarter of the "inter-
mediate" messages attracted a similar response and this figure fell to less
than 5% in the case of the "unstressed" messages. Thus, Heritage and
Greatbatch's results clearly suggest that the manner in which a message is
delivered plays a substantial role in influencing audience applause.
Heritage and Greatbatch have provided impressive statistical support
from a wide sample of political speeches for Atkinson's observations
concerning the role of rhetorical devices in evoking applause. But the
demands of sampling a large number of speeches means that in their

analysis of "stressed" and "unstressed" messages it is not possible to
provide a detailed examination of the way in which vocal and non-verbal
features of stress are organized. The alternative is to adopt a case-study
approach, in which an in-depth analysis can be carried out of the way in
which gesture is organized in relation to speech. This was the approach
adopted here, based on the detailed analysis of three speeches from a
Labour Party rally which took place at St. George's Hall, Bradford on 28
May 1983.
In the analysis of these three speeches, a number of hypotheses derived
from the research reviewed above were tested concerning the role of hand
gesture in political speeches. From the close relationship between body
movement and vocal stress demonstrated in the preceding study of infor-
mal conversation (Bull and Connelly, 1985), it was hypothesized that a
prime function of hand gesture in a political speech is to pick out the more
important elements of the politician's speech; this was tested by in-
vestigating what proportion of a speaker's hand gestures are synchronized
with vocal stress. A second related hypothesis is that hand gestures may
also serve to pick out phonemic clauses (often referred to as tone groups);
this was assessed by investigating to what extent hand gestures coincide
with the duration of the tone group. Finally, on the basis of the work of
Atkinson, Heritage and Greatbatch, it was also hypothesized that hand
gesture would be related to rhetorical devices which are used to evoke
applause.
Method
Subjects
The corpus of data on which these studies were based comprises
videotapes made by the author of twelve speeches given at four political
meetings held in the York region during the 1983 General Election
campaign. Two of these were Labour Party meetings; the other two were
for the Conservative Party and the Liberal/SDP Alliance respectively.
From this collection of speeches, three were selected for detailed
analysis. The three speakers were Arthur Scargill (President, National
Union of Mineworkers), Pat Wall (Labour Party candidate, Bradford
North, West Yorkshire) and Martin Leathley (Labour Party candidate,
Shipley, West Yorkshire); all the speeches were given as part of a Labour
Party rally in St. George's Hall, Bradford on 28 May 1983. The duration of
each speech was as follows: Arthur Scargill—22 minutes, 48 seconds; Pat
Wall—4 minutes 37 seconds; Martin Leathley—5 minutes, 8 seconds.
Pat Wall has a reputation both as a public speaker and as a consequence
of his association with Militant Tendency, a left-wing group in the Labour
Party. Martin Leathley in contrast is unknown in the national political
context; at the time of this General Election, he was a schoolteacher and a

local councillor, contesting a safe Conservative seat with a substantial
majority. Neither of these candidates were in fact returned to Parliament
in the 1983 General Election. The third speech selected for analysis was by
Arthur Scargill, President of the National Union of Mineworkers, a trade
unionist who acquired a national reputation during the miners' strikes of
1973 and 1974 and who also has a reputation as a highly effective public
speaker. This speech was chosen to investigate the relationship between
hand gesture and the rhetorical devices described by Atkinson, Heritage
and Greatbatch. It was selected for this analysis, because out of the twelve
speeches which were videotaped, Arthur Scargill was by far the most
effective in gaining applause and also made by far the most extensive use of
the rhetorical devices described by Atkinson, Heritage and Greatbatch; in
addition, he is extemely fluent in the use of hand gesture.
Thus, the three speeches can be seen as representing a continuum: one
speaker a national figure with a high reputation for oratory, the second
speaker less well known, but with something of a political reputation, the
third speaker a local councillor unknown in the national political context.
To avoid introducing too many other variables into the analysis, the
speakers were from the same political party and the speeches were de-
livered at the same public meeting. They all gave their speeches from the
rostrum and could all be seen to be speaking from notes.
Apparatus
A portable colour video camera mounted on a tripod was used to record
each of the four political meetings.
Procedure
Each of the political meetings was videorecorded with the full consent of
the meeting organizers. Care was taken in each case to provide a continu-
ous head and shoulders picture of each speaker so that his hand gestures
were always in view of the camera.
Hand gesture was transcribed by the author using the Body Movement
Scoring System (see Appendix B). Intonation (in terms of both vocal stress
and tone group boundaries) was transcribed by a trained phonetician; a
reliability check carried out independently by another phonetician on the
speech by Pat Wall showed 85% agreement on both vocal stress and tone
group boundaries. Vocal stress is indicated primarily by pitch movement,
but may also be affected by such features as loudness and word stress in
polysyllabic words. Some stressed syllables are marked out by a more
prominent pitch movement, which gives them added significance and are
referred to as the nucleus or tonic; these may be used to define units of
speech referred to as tone groups, characterized by a single nucleus or

tonic. Tone groups frequently correspond to grammatical clauses, but not
always; it is essentially a phonological rather than a syntactic unit.
A content analysis was carried out of the speech by Arthur Scargill to
identify the seven rhetorical devices described by Heritage and Greatbatch
as effective in evoking applause. In addition, the speech was classified into
different speech acts, following the principles for content analysis
employed by Thomas, Bull and Roger (1982) in Conversation Exchange
Analysis (CEA). In this system, speech is segmented into separate acts,
each of which can be seen to represent a single thought or idea. Acts can be
further classified along three dimensions: activity, type and focus. The type
dimension was used in this study to categorize the type of information
conveyed in the speech by Arthur Scargill; the type categories used were
based on CEA and on the work of Atkinson, Heritage and Greatbatch. A
high degree of reliability for CEA has been demonstrated in a previous
study: the division into speech acts was achieved with just 3.93% inter-
observer disagreement, while a k coefficient (Cohen, 1960) of 0.957 was
obtained for the type dimension (Thomas, Bull and Roger, 1982).
The type categories are listed individually below; since a speech act may
serve more than one communicative function, these categories were
sometimes used in combination with one another.
External attack: criticisms of other political parties and other external

groups.
Internal attack: criticisms of individuals or factions within the speaker's
own party.
Implicit attack: a statement which can be construed as an attack on another
individual or group, although the attack is not explicit.
Positive advocacy: advocates particular political policies.
Commendation: commends particular individuals or groups.
Naming: names particular individuals or groups without commendation.
Address: addresses the chairman or the audience.
Metastatement: statements which comment on the nature of the speech.
Personal experience: refers to past and present experiences of the speaker.
Reply to heckling: speaker responds to heckling from the audience.
Results
The results are presented with regard to the relationship between hand
gesture and intonation and with regard to its relationship with to rhetorical
devices used to evoke applause. All the data are presented in the form of
descriptive statistics only; no inferential statistics were employed, because it
was considered that the lack of independence between the observations made
them inappropriate for conventional techniques of statistical analysis.
Hand Gesture and Intonation

Two speeches were transcribed to investigate the relationship between hand
gesture and intonation: those by Pat Wall (Labour Party candidate, Bradford
North) and by Martin Leathley (Labour Party candidate, Shipley). The results
of these analyses are shown in Table 17. (N.B. In this table, a hand gesture is
defined as a single unit of movement; this might involve movement from more
than one point of articulation, e.g. from the shoulder and the elbow. Where a
movement is repeated on a number of occasions, e.g. flexes and extends
forearm (five times), this would be scored asfivemovements. Bilateral gestures
are scored as two separate movements; hence, it is possible for two gestures to
be related to a single incidence of vocal stress.)
TABLE 17. Relationship between hand gesture and vocal stress
Pat Wall Martin Leathley

Vocal stresses 74% 36%
accompanied by gesture (N = 293) (N — 354)
Gestures directly 65.5% 49%
related to stress (N = 362) (N = 266)
Gestures indirectly
related to stress:
(a) Preparatory gestures 3% 2%
(b) Terminating gestures 9% 1%
(c) Misplaced gesture in 10% 7%
a repeated sequence
Gestures unrelated to stress 10.5% 40%
Unscoreable because speech 2% 1%
is lost in the applause
The results for both speakers showed that a substantial proportion of their
hand gestures are directly related to vocal stress, in the sense that the
movement is timed to occur at the same time as the stress. But not all of the
remaining hand gestures can be dismissed as unrelated to vocal stress. Some
can be regarded as preparatory movements, in which, for example, the speaker
flexes his forearm before bringing it down to coincide with the stressed word.
Other movements can be seen to terminate a clause, where the speaker extends
his forearm after a sequence of stress-related movements. A third category
consists of movements in a repeated sequence of gestures, where the apex of
the movement does not always coincide with the vocal stress; for example, in a
sequence offiverepeated forearm movements, two may not actually coincide
directly with the vocal stress. If gestures indirectly related to vocal stress are
included in the total of stress-related movements, the proportion of gestures
related to vocal stress rises to 87.5% for Pat Wall and 59% for Martin Leathley.
In fact, only 10.5% of Pat Wall's hand gestures can be said to be totally
unrelated to vocal stress; these comprise mainly contact hand gestures in

which Pat Wall shifts his hand on the rostrum (10% of all hand
movements). He uses only two non-contact gestures (out of 283) which
appear to have no relation to vocal stress: in one of these movements, Pat
Wall raises his hands to quell the applause from the audience; the other
movement appears to be a mistake, in which he points without saying
something, but as if he is going to speak. In the case of Martin Leathley,
40% of his hand gestures appear to be totally unrelated to vocal stress.
Again, these are mainly contact gestures, in which Martin Leathley shifts
his hand on the rostrum (30% of all hand movements); but there are a
number of non-contact movements (N = 25, 9% of all hand movements)
which are unrelated to vocal stress, as well as a couple of movements in
which Leathley turns over his notes. However, the majority of his non-
contact hand gestures are related directly or indirectly to vocal stress (83%
of all non-contact hand gestures; N= 145).
The most common way in which hand gesture was related to vocal stress
in these two speeches was in terms of what were referred to in the previous
chapter as multiple apex peaks (Bull and Connelly, 1985). These multiple
apex peaks take the form of a repeated movement, such as flexing and
extending the forearm, where the movement is repeated continuously for
two or more occasions, often coinciding with the vocally stressed words. In
Pat Wall's speech, fifty-six of these multiple apex peaks were observed,
none of which crossed tone group boundaries, i.e. the total length of the
gestural sequence occurs within the duration of the tone group. Similarly,
in Martin Leathley's speech, there were fifteen multiple apex peaks, again
none of which violated tone group boundaries. Hence, these multiple apex
peaks seem to serve a dual function: they both pick out stressed words and
demarcate the extent of the tone group. Overall, the majority of the hand
movements of both speakers were related directly or indirectly to vocal
stress; where hand movements were not related to stress, they typically
take the form of contact movements, where the speaker adjusts the posi-
tion of his hand on the rostrum.
Hand Gesture and the Control of Applause

The other major function of hand gesture which was investigated in this
study was its relationship to the elicitation and control of applause. Of all
the twelve speeches recorded on videotape, Arthur Scargill was by far the
most successful in evoking applause from the audience, and made by far
the most extensive use of the rhetorical devices identified by Atkinson,
Heritage and Greatbatch, so this speech was selected for the purpose of
this analysis.
The content analysis showed that rhetorical devices were used to present
twenty-five of the statements in Arthur Scargill's speech. Applause was
categorized into sustained and isolated applause: sustained applause refers

to clapping from a substantial proportion of the audience, whereas isolated
applause refers to claps from just one or two people. The importance of
this distinction is that if rhetorical devices are effective in signalling to the
audience when applause is appropriate, then they should be associated
with sustained rather than isolated applause. The results showed that the
use of rhetorical devices evoked sustained applause on twenty-two
occasions (out of a total of thirty-three incidences of sustained applause),
while only two incidences of isolated applause (out of a total of eighteen
occurred in response to rhetorical devices. Thus, the overall pattern of
results supported the proposition that the use of rhetorical devices is
effective in arousing audience applause.
Nevertheless, it could still be argued that audience applause occurs in
response to the content rather than to the form of political speeches. Thus,
a further content analysis was carried out of the types of statements used by
Arthur Scargill in his speech. The results of this analysis for sustained
applause are shown in Table 18, for isolated applause in Table 19. A full
description of the speech categories has already been given in the section
on Procedure.
TABLE 18. Sustained Applause in Arthur Scargill's Speech in Relation to Speech

Content
(The percentages given are the proportion of speech acts in each category which evoked
sustained applause. Figures in brackets represent the total number of observations of each
speech category.)
Type of Statement
With Without
Content category Rhetorical device Rhetorical device
External attacks 86% (7) 13%(91)
Positive advocacy 100% (2) 0%(4)

Positive advocacy/ 100% (6) 33% (3)
external attack
Implicit attack 67% (3) 0%(6)
Commendation 100% (2) 50% (2)
Internal attack/ 100% (1) (0)
commendation
Reply to heckling 0%(1) 100% (2)
Naming (0) 0%(2)
Address (0) 0%(2)
Metastatement (0) 0%(1)
Personal experience (0) 0%(34)
TAB LE 19. Isolated Applause in A rth ur ScargiWs Speech in Relation to Speech Content
(The percentages given are the proportion of speech acts which evoked isolated applause. The
figures in brackets are the total numbers of speech acts in each category).
Type of Statement
With Without
Content category Rhetorical device Rhetorical device
External attacks 14% (7) 15%(91)
Positive advocacy 0%(2) 25% (4)
Positive advocacy/ 0%(6) 0%(3)
external attack
Implicit attack 0%(3) 0%(6)
Commendation 0%(2) 50% (2)
Commendation/internal attack 0%(1) (0)
Reply to heckling 100%(1) 0%(2)
Naming (0) 100% (2)
Address (0) 0%(2)
Metastatement (0) 0%(1)
Personal experience (0) 0%(34)
The results of these content analyses are clearly consistent with the argument
that rhetorical devices are effective in evoking applause. A large proportion of
Arthur Scargill's speech is made up of external attacks (58% of the total
number of speech acts): 86% of external attacks using rhetorical devices
receive sustained applause in contrast to only 13% of external attacks which did
not employ rhetorical devices. All of the other types of speech act which evoke
sustained applause received more sustained applause when using rhetorical
devices with the exception only of replies to heckling, of which there were only
three examples in the whole speech. In contrast, isolated applause occurs more
frequently in response to types of speech act which were not expressed using
rhetorical devices, again with the exception only of replies to heckling.
The demonstration that rhetorical devices in this speech were clearly
associated with sustained applause was then employed as the basis for an
analysis of Arthur Scargill's use of hand gesture in relation to audience
applause. The three most commonly occurring rhetorical devices employed in
the speech were contrasts (e.g. "There's something criminally insane about a
government which puts war before peace"), three-part lists (e.g. "We want an
end to Cruise, an end to Trident, an end to Polaris") and a device which
Heritage and Greatbatch refer to as a headline-punchline. Within this device,
the speaker proposes to make a declaration, or pledge or announcement and
then makes it, thus making it totally explicit that here is a place where it is
appropriate for the audience to applaud. A detailed analysis was carried out of
the way in which hand gesture was associated with each of these three rhetorical
devices. (N.B. It should be noted that rhetorical devices are sometimes used in
combination with one another; for example, the second part of a contrast might
take the form of a three-part list. In the preceding analysis of rhetorical devices
in relation to applause, such a combination would be regarded as part of one
rhetorical device; but in the ensuing analysis of gesture, this would be treated as
an example of both a contrast and a three-part list. Hence, the number of
FIGURE 7. Use of Ambidextrous Gesturing in Relation to a Contrast.

'Of course our nation is facing the most crucial election not since 1945. . .
.but the most crucial election in Britain's history.'

examples in the gesture analysis comes to more than the twenty-five
rhetorical devices discussed in the analysis of applause.)
Of the ten contrasts which occur during the course of the speech, eight
are followed by sustained applause, one by an isolated incidence of
applause. In the case of contrasts, Arthur Scargill makes use of a particu-
larly interesting device, that of ambidextrous gesturing. In eight out of the
ten contrasts, he illustrates one part of the contrast with one hand, the
FIGURE 8. Another Example of Ambidextrous Gesturing in Relation to a Contrast.

'There's something criminally insane about a government that puts war. . .
'. . .before peace.'

other part of the contrast with the other hand (see Figs 7 and 8). However,
this should not be seen as a device which is simply confined to illustrating
contrasts. Switching from one hand to the other is a characteristic feature
of Arthur Scargill's speaking style; in fact, in this speech it occurs on no less
FIGURE 9. Gesture in Relation to a Three-Part List.

'We are facing an economic. . .
'. . .social.
'. . .and political crisis unparalleled in the history of our nation.'

FIGURE 10. Another Example of Gesture in Relation to a Three-Part List.

'We want an end to Cruise. . .
'. . .an end to Trident. . .
'. . .an end to Polaris'

than 80 occasions. Contrasts typically involve a transition from one syntac-

tic clause to another (eight out of the ten contrasts in this speech), and an
examination of the speech as a whole shows that 62.5% of the hand
switches occur at clause boundaries. The other incidences of hand
switching also occur at syntactic boundaries: at the end of a prepositional
phrase (12.5%), at a subject/verb boundary (5%), at a verb/object bound-
ary (5%) and to separate items in a list (14%). Thus, it seems that the use
of ambidextrous gesturing to illustrate contrasts is merely a special case of
the way in which Arthur Scargill seems to make use of this device to mark
out syntax.
During the course of the speech, there are also nine three-part lists, six
of which are followed by sustained applause, one by isolated applause. The
three items in a list are also marked out by carefully synchronized gestures.
Where a three-part list comprises three words, each word is stressed
vocally and accompanied with a single hand gesture; where a three-part list
includes a phrase or a clause with more than one vocal stress, then a
repeated movement is usually employed picking out two or more vocal
stresses and terminating at the end of the list item, a new gesture starting
on the next line. Scargill typically uses non-contact gestures in the form of
single or multiple apex peaks to pick out words, phrases or clauses (see
FIGURE 11. Bilateral Gesture in Relation to a Headline-Punchline Device.
'All I want to say to those lads and lasses who say that they're members of the NUJ is that
those people who are guarding the concentration camps also pleaded that they had no
alternative.'
(Gesture occurs on 'no alternative')
FIGURE 12. Another Example of a Bilateral Gesture in Relation to a Headline-Punchline

Device.
'I'll tell you the most important task: it's to say to the Lord Matthews, it's to say to the Lord
Rothermeres, it's to say to the Rupert Murdochs that the first obligation of a new Labour
government will be to take into common ownership. . .'
(Bilateral gesture begins on 'will be to take into common ownership')
.the Press.'
Fig. 9), but on one occasion he actually smacks one hand on the other on the
stressed word in each of the three phrases which make up the list (see Fig. 10).
The headline-punchline device is used on seven occasions during the course
of the speech, and on every occasion it is greeted with sustained applause. On
three occasions, thefinalpart of the punchline is presented with a gesture using
both hands (see Figs. 11 and 12). Although bilateral gestures are used
frequently throughout the speech, they are only used on one other occasion in
relation to a rhetorical device. In association with the headline-punchline
device, they seem to have the effect of bringing the punchline to a climax,
highlighting the fact that here is an appropriate point in the speech for the
audience to applaud.
Thus, Arthur Scargill's use of hand gesture is closely related to rhetorical
devices which he uses to arouse applause. However, it cannot be concluded
from these data that his use of gesture is instrumental in arousing applause,
since his rhetorical devices are always accompanied by hand gesture;
hence, it is not possible to compare how effective those devices would be in
arousing applause without the use of hand gesture. Nevertheless, what his
use of gesture does seem to do is to pick out the structure of these
rhetorical devices, singling out pairs of statements in a contrast, picking out
the items in three-part lists, and highlighting climaxes.
If Scargill's hand gestures are closely intertwined with rhetorical devices
which have the effect of arousing applause, they also constitute a
significant part of the way in which he attempts to control applause. Where
incidences of isolated applause occur (iV=18), he consistently talks
through them; on four of these occasions, he also holds up his hand to
suppress the applause, either with hand or index finger outstretched (see
Fig. 13). In the thirty-three instances of sustained applause, he always
starts speaking before the applause ends (except of course in the final
ovation!) In twenty-one of these instances, applause begins before Scargill
has reached the end of his sentence, but he continues speaking into the
applause, even though on nine occasions he becomes completely inaudible.
He always resumes speaking before the applause ends, typically as it tails
off (18/33 instances), but sometimes he attempts to interrupt the applause
after a brief pause (11/33), and on three occasions he simply continues
talking through the applause. On eight occasions he gestures to stop the
applause, typically with hand(s) outstretched.
A further analysis was carried out of points in the speech where these
twelve applause-suppressing gestures occurred. On four occasions, they
occurred at the end of a long burst of sustained applause, presumably
because Arthur Scargill simply wished to continue with his speech. How-
ever, on the other eight occasions these gestures occurred just before a
point in the speech where applause might be considered more appropriate,
typically when Arthur Scargill was about to present a statement in one of
the rhetorical devices discussed above.
Thus, Arthur Scargill creates the impression of overwhelming

popularity, continually struggling to make his message audible both by
speaking into the applause and by using gesture to restrain it. At the same
FIGURE 13. Use of Gesture as an Applause Suppressor.
'We've had a number of speeches here tonight including one from the leader of our party and
the next prime minister about the important tasks. . .'
(Applause-suppressing gesture occurs after 'important tasks')
This applause-suppressing gesture is followed by the rhetorical device illustrated in Figure 12.
time, he whips up applause by presenting his speech in the kind of

rhetorical devices which Atkinson and Heritage have shown are highly
effective in evoking applause, the structure of these devices being high-
lighted by the carefully synchronised use of hand gesture. In fact, Arthur
Scargill actually seems to conduct his audience: his gestures not only
accompany rhetorical devices which evoke applause but also curtail the
applause once it has been aroused—even to the extent of indicating to the
audience the points at which they should or should not applaud.
Discussion
The purpose of this study was to investigate the functions of hand
gesture in political speeches by examining the way in which they are
organized in relation to speech. The results show that hand gesture is
related both to intonation (in terms of vocal stress and tone group bound-
aries) and to rhetorical devices used to evoke applause, as well as to the
control of applause once it has been aroused.
Although these findings were based on a very different situation to the
study of informal conversation reported in the previous chapter, they do
provide further support for a close relationship between body movement
and vocal stress, in that the majority of the hand movements of both Pat
Wall and Martin Leathley were related directly or indirectly to vocal stress.
A second way in which the results of these two studies show a striking
degree of consistency is in their lack of support for the view that particular
movements for the most part have explicit meanings (in the sense that they
have a direct verbal translation, such as nodding the head when meaning
"Yes", or shaking the head when meaning "No"). In the previous study of
informal conversations, subjects were asked to select out which
movements they considered to be emphatic. The results showed that a
wide variety of hand movements were selected (1094 categories in the
Body Movement Scoring System were needed to classify 1515
movements!), thus suggesting that there are no particular movements
which have an emphatic meaning. Instead, it was proposed that it is the
temporal relationship of body movement to vocal stress that leads to
movements being perceived as emphatic. Similarly, in this study of political
speeches, there seemed to be very few movements which could be seen as
having an explicit meaning, with the exception only of those gestures which
Arthur Scargill uses to try and restrain applause. Scherer (1980) has
proposed that non-verbal signs function semantically when they signify a
referent by themselves, or when they affect the meaning of co-occurring
verbal signs through the amplification, contradiction or modification of
speech. The results of both these studies suggest that most speech-related
movements do not have meanings in themselves; instead, they take their
meaning from their relationship to speech, thereby amplifying and
elaborating the spoken word.
The most important syntactic functions of non-verbal signs, Scherer
(1980) maintains, are the segmentation of the speech flow into
hierarchically organized units and the synchronization of verbal and non-
verbal signs. The data presented here provide evidence for both these
phenomena. Synchronization is clearly illustrated by the close relationship
shown between hand gesture and vocal stress. Hierarchical organization is
reflected by the way in which gesture demarcates higher-order units, such
as the tone group (through the use of multiple apex peaks) and clause
structure, in the case of Arthur Scargill's use of ambidextrous gesturing. As
a by-product of this relationship to syntax, gesture also provides infor-
mation about the structure of rhetorical devices used to evoke applause,
hence providing additional information to the audience that here is an
appropriate point where they may express their solidarity with the speaker.
The major limitation of the study is of course that it is based only on a
small sample of political speeches, which inevitably limits the generality of
the findings so obtained. However, the advantage of using a case-study
approach is that a highly detailed analysis can be carried out of the way in
which gesture is organized in relation to speech. This means that it would

be possible on the basis of these findings to give speakers explicit training
in the use of gesture. Not only does this have obvious practical applications
in the form of public speech training; it could also form the basis for an
experimental study, in which the use of gesture was systematically man-
ipulated to investigate whether it does in fact increase the effectiveness of
rhetorical devices used to arouse applause. Such a study would have the
very considerable advantage of being based on a highly detailed analysis of
the way in which gesture is used in a naturally occurring situation by
experienced public orators.
Despite this issue of sampling, in a wider context the results of this
investigation are entirely consistent with the other studies reported in this
section of the book, which show a close relationship between body
movement and speech. McNeill (1985) has in fact argued that the rela-
tionship between speech and gesture is so close that they should be re-
garded as part of the same process, in that they reflect a common com-
putational stage and hence should be regarded as part of the same psycho-
logical structure. This view has important theoretical and methodological
implications for the social psychology of language. As McNeill points out,
both linguists and non-verbal communication researchers have typically
followed a narrow approach, in which connected parts of a single psycho-
logical structure are studied separately. In fact, not only does it make
nonsense to investigate gesture independently of speech, it also im-
poverishes the study of language to study speech without reference to
gesture. In a political context, no account of oratory is complete without an
examination of the way in which gesture is related to the overall structure
of speech. To begin to unravel the role of gesture in political rhetoric was
the purpose of this study.
11
Theoretical and Practical
Significance of Research on
Posture and Gesture
In this final chapter, it is intended to summarize the main findings from the
studies presented in this book, to discuss their theoretical and practical
significance and to consider their implications for the way in which research
on non-verbal communication is carried out. The studies reported in this
book were concerned with three main issues: the measurement of body
movement (Chapter 3), the communication of listener emotions and
attitudes through posture (Chapters 4-6) and the relationship between
body movement and speech (Chapters 7-10). The significance of the re-
search findings on each of these themes will be discussed in turn.
(i) The Measurement of Body Movement

The measurement of body movement is of central importance because
the quality of the researchfindingswill only be as good as the measurement
technique allows. If, for example, the classification system distinguishes
only between contact and non-contact hand movements, then it will not be
possible to discover whether particular hand gestures are associated with
particular emotions or in what way hand gestures are synchronized with the
timing of speech. It may well be the case that in certain circumstances a
simple distinction between contact and non-contact movements is ade-
quate, but it should also be possible to make more subtle distinctions in
non-verbal communication. Hence, the scoring systems devised were in-
tended to be sufficiently detailed for fine-grained analysis of the use of
posture and gesture in interpersonal communication.
A second important decision was whether to use some kind of auto-
mated system of measurement or whether to rely on observer classification
of movement from a videotape or film. Automated systems obviously have
the advantage of being labour saving and reducing the risk of observer
error, but at the same time all the currently available automated systems
involve attaching some kind of recording device to the subjects of the
experiment. Inevitably, the subjects are made aware that it is their body
145
movement which is the focus of the investigation and this may as a con-
sequence alter their normal pattern of social behaviour. Indeed, in some
situations it is simply not possible to attach devices to the speaker to make
such observations. For example, in the study of political speeches reported
in the previous chapter, it would be hard to imagine any practising politi-
cian consenting to such a procedure while delivering a speech to a political
rally! Hence, the decision was made to use a manual coding procedure,
which retains the advantage of non-obtrusiveness.
Once having chosen this approach, it was necessary to decide on how the
categories in the system were to be derived, in particular whether the
system was to be based on movements or positions. In the original version
(the Posture Scoring System), it was decided to score only those body
movements which led to a position being taken up and maintained for at
least one second; however, in the revised version (the Body Movement
Scoring System) this criterion was dropped in order that all movement
could be scored, using as the unit of analysis the single movement act. The
argument for using movements rather than positions was that this was the
best way of characterizing the visual structure of body movement. This
argument was amply substantiated by the study reported in Chapter 9,
which showed a close relationship between body movement and vocal
stress, a relationship which would have been obscured by a system based
on positions rather than movements.
Through this procedure, it is possible to make highly detailed ob-
servations of body movement on the basis of a videotape or film record,
regardless of whether the observations are obtained in a social psychology
laboratory or in naturalistic settings. The role of posture and gesture has in
fact been comparatively neglected in non-verbal communication research,
and this must reflect at least in part simply the lack of detailed
measurement procedures. Eye contact, pupil dilation and interpersonal
distance do not present the same problems of devising a multiple range of
categories to describe them. Facial expression does present this problem,
but a large number of systems have been developed for describing facial
movements, culminating in the most sophisticated procedure, the Facial
Action Coding System (FACS), devised by Ekman and Friesen (1978).
Ekman and Friesen claim two main advantages for FACS. Firstly, the
system aims to describe only the physical appearance of facial movement,
rather than attempting to make any statements about its hypothesized
social meaning. They criticize other systems where these two principles are
confounded. For example, Grant (1969) in his system uses the category
"aggressive frown"; hence, the task of the observer is to decide not only
whether the person is frowning but also whether the frown is aggressive.
By focusing on physical description alone, the task of the observer is both
simplified and made more objective; he does not have to impute any
meaning to the facial behaviour he is attempting to describe. The second
Theoretical and Practical Significance of Research on Posture and Gesture 147
advantage Ekman and Friesen claim for their system is compre-

hensiveness. To achieve comprehensiveness, Ekman and Friesen rejected
a purely inductive approach, where categories are developed on an ad hoc
basis to describe instances of movement as they are observed; by con-
centrating instead on the anatomical basis of movement, they claim it is
possible to describe any facial expression in terms of their system. Ekman
(1979) maintains that all the facial movements described by other in-
vestigators can be categorized in terms of his own scoring procedure, as
well as many more facial movements which have been neglected by other
investigators; in fact, Ekman and Friesen's system is widely accepted as the
main technique for coding facial expression.
The Body Movement Scoring System developed in the course of this
research is an attempt to apply the same principles to the study of posture
and gesture. Hence, rather than using categories like illustrators and
manipulators (as do Friesen, Ekman and Wallbott, 1980), where the ob-
server must decide whether or not a hand gesture is illustrating theflowof
speech, the system simply distinguishes between contact and non-contact
movements. Non-contact acts are further classified into the different
movements which are possible from each of the major joints of the body,
thus establishing for the observer a finite but comprehensive range of
possible movements. Contact acts are scored in terms of the way the
contact is made, the part of the body which makes the contact and the
object or part of the body with which contact is made; again, the observer
has a finite but comprehensive range of categories from which to choose.
Thus, the task of the observer is only to make a decision about the physical
appearance of the movement, not to make guesses about its assumed social
significance. Hence, the Body Movement Scoring System has the
advantages of both comprehensiveness and objectivity: through this pro-
cedure, a detailed description can be given of the visual appearance of
particular movements in both experimental and naturally occurring situ-
ations. In the research reported in this book, the Posture Scoring System
and the Body Movement Scoring System were used to investigate the
relationship between body movement and speech and to what extent
posture communicates information about listener emotions and attitudes.
Using these highly detailed scoring systems, the results showed that a great
deal of information is available through body movement, hence supporting
the value of a micro-analytic approach to the study of posture and gesture
in interpersonal communication. The theoretical significance of the re-
search findings obtained through using these particular techniques are
discussed below.
(ii) The Communication of Listener Emotions and Attitudes

Through Posture
The studies reported in Part II were intended to investigate whether
information about different emotions and attitudes is encoded and de-
coded through posture. The results of Experiments 1 and 2 showed a
number of significant findings associated with interest and boredom which
were interpreted in terms of arousal and attentiveness. Whereas interest
was found to be associated with a more alert position of leaning forward
and drawing back the legs, boredom was found to be associated with
leaning back, dropping the head, leaning the head to one side, supporting
the head on one hand and stretching out the legs; in addition, subjects were
less attentive during boring extracts, turning their heads away from the
television monitor when the experimenter was not present with them.
These postures formed the basis of a decoding study (Experiment 5), in
which it was shown that all these significant postures were decoded
appropriately as conveying interest and boredom, although often in highly
specific postural combinations.
The results of Experiments 3 and 4 showed a number of significant
postures associated with disagreement and agreement which were interpre-
ted in terms of a defensive response to threat. Disagreement was found to
be associated with a more vigilant posture of head erect, arms folded and
legs crossed above the knee, whereas agreement was found to be
associated with the more relaxed position of leaning to one side. These
significant postures formed the basis of a decoding study (Experiment 6),
in which it was found that folding the arms was also decoded as conveying
disagreement, and hence can be regarded as a means of non-verbally
communicating disagreement.
Thus, the results of the experiments reported in Part II demonstrated
that interest, boredom, disagreement and agreement are encoded in post-
ure. For the most part, they are also decoded appropriately; hence, post-
ure can be regarded as a means of non-verbally communicating infor-
mation about different emotions and attitudes. In themselves, these
findings are of considerable theoretical interest. Whereas the facial expres-
sion of emotion has been quite intensively researched, there has been
comparatively little study of the role of posture in non-verbal communi-
cation. Indeed, Ekman (1965) put forward the view that the face is more
important than the body, because it conveys information primarily about
what emotion is being experienced, the body being perceived simply as
conveying information about the intensity of emotion. The results of the
studies presented in Part II of this volume obviously contradict this
hypothesis, showing that different emotions and attitudes can be distin-
guished on the basis of postural cues alone; hence, a reassessment is clearly
required of the role of posture in non-verbal communication.
The relative importance of facial expression and posture in judgements
of emotion can be used to illustrate this point. For example, the results
presented in Part II showed that leaning forward and drawing back the legs
were both encoded and decoded as conveying interest. In comparison, data
on facial expression are much less clear cut. Izard (1971) argued that in the
facial expression of interest, the eyebrows are raised, the lips parted and
the jaw slightly dropped. He showed photographs of facial expressions of
emotion to male and female university students from America, Japan and
six European countries, asking them to choose an appropriate emotion
label from a list of eight emotions which Izard at that time considered to be
fundamental (interest-excitement, en j oy ment-j oy, disgust-contempt,
anger-rage, shame-humiliation, surprise-startle, distress-anguish and
fear-terror). The students showed a high level of agreement (varying from
66% to 84.5%) in judging the photographs intended to represent
interest-excitement as conveying this emotion. However, Ekman and
Oster (1979) have criticized thesefindingson the grounds that the decoders
may have been influenced by the head positions in the photographs rather
than by the facial expressions. Certainly, in the photographs reproduced by
Izard (1971), interest is depicted with the head tilted to one side, which
Hass (1970) from some informal cross-cultural observations has argued is
associated with interest. The evidence regarding the facial expression of
interest is therefore highly equivocal, whereas the studies reported in Part
II of this volume demonstrate that interest can be communicated through
the postural cues of leaning forward and drawing back the legs. Indeed, it
is possible that not only does posture convey information about interest, it
may even be a more important source of information about interest than
facial expression.
This of course is only a hypothesis and any definitive answer to the
relative importance of the face and the body in the non-verbal communi-
cation of emotion must await further empirical investigation. The major
source of information concerning the role of facial expression in the com-
munication of emotion is Ekman and Friesen's work on the six emotions
they believe to be universal (e.g. Ekman and Friesen, 1975). But Ekman
and Friesen's work is based essentially on decoding designs, so there is very
little direct evidence on whether these emotions are encoded in the same
way as they are decoded. Moreover, there has been virtually no research
on the role of posture and gesture in the encoding of these emotions,
although folk wisdom would suggest that this might well repay systematic
investigation. Thus, we speak of people cowering in fear, clenching their
fists in rage or jumping for joy, so there may well be a great wealth of
information about emotion encoded through body movement. Nor have
there been to the author's knowledge either encoding or decoding studies
of facial expressions associated with boredom, disagreement or agreement,
so we do not even know whether people use distinctive facial expressions
to encode these emotions and attitudes. In the light of the available
evidence, it is not possible to make any definitive statement concerning the

role of posture and gesture in the communication of emotion.
Nevertheless, from the studies reported in Part II, it is clear that posture
does communicate information about different emotions and attitudes;
hence, a reassessment is certainly required of the role of the face and the
body in the communication of emotiop.
The research reported in Part II also has methodological implications for
the way in which research is carried out on non-verbal communication. The
use of both encoding and decoding designs in those studies was advocated
as a way of enabling the researcher to assess the communicative
significance of non-verbal behaviour. In Chapter I, it was argued that in
terms of the encoding/decoding distinction, there are three possible kinds
of status for non-verbal behaviour. There may be systematic encoding
without appropriate decoding, in which case non-verbal behaviour would
appear to be a useful but neglected source of information about others.
There may be systematic decoding without systematic encoding, such that
non-verbal behaviour constitutes a significant source of bias or error in the
judgements we make about others. Finally, there may be both systematic
encoding and appropriate decoding; it is only in this case that we are
entitled to refer to the behaviour as communicative. Typically, researchers
on non-verbal communication have tended to assume that it is sufficient to
rely on decoding designs alone, but the accuracy of information obtained
from this source cannot be adequately evaluated in the absence of satis-
factory encoding studies. Research based only on the study of decoding
may simply document systematic biases or popular stereotypes in the
perception of non-verbal behaviour rather than demonstrating its com-
municative significance. The results presented in Part II of this volume
were based on both encoding and decoding designs; they showed for the
most part that the postures which encode interest/boredom and dis-
agreement/agreement are decoded appropriately, hence that they can be
regarded as a form of non-verbal communication. However, it is only
possible to make this kind of assessment through the systematic use of both
encoding and decoding designs, where the decoding study is based on the
results obtained from the study of encoding; the use of both procedures in
non-verbal communication research is one of the main methodological
recommendations derived from the studies presented in Part II of this
volume.
One of the major reasons for the failure to study both encoding and
decoding has been the problem of devising suitable encoding designs. This
is particularly difficult if the researcher wishes to study the non-verbal
communication of emotions and attitudes. The procedure adopted in the
encoding studies reported in Part II was intended through the use of
videotaped extracts to arouse the emotions and attitudes of interest to the
experimenter while diverting the subjects' attention from the true purpose
of the experiment by presenting it as a rating task; at the same time, the

ratings given by the subjects could be used to analyse the behaviour
displayed by the subjects on videotape.
The main advantage of this encoding design was that it facilitated the
analysis of the postures displayed by the subjects without alerting them to
the fact that it was posture which was the focus of the investigation. The
main limitation of this technique was that it was intended primarily to
investigate whether information about different emotions and attitudes is
conveyed through posture, rather than to assess the role of posture in
social interaction. Nevertheless, the findings of these studies do have a
number of implications for social interaction and these are considered
below.
Although the encoding studies were intentionally based on a design
which minimized the possibility of social interaction, there was one inter-
esting difference between the results of the two experiments intended to
investigate interest/boredom. This was the finding that boredom was
associated with "turns head to person" and "turns head away from per-
son", but only in the absence of the experimenter. This can be related to
the literature on the non-verbal communication of deception, in which
Ekman and Friesen (1969b, 1974b) have hypothesized that greater control
is exerted over the facial muscles than over the body, hence that the body is
more likely to "leak" information that deception is being practised. The
encoding studies on interest/boredom reported here were not set up to
investigate this particular hypothesis, but they do seem broadly consistent
with the concept of non-verbal leakage. Since it is well established that
people look longer at what they find interesting (Berlyne, 1971), it seems
quite possible that in the presence of the experimenter, subjects were
careful to control their facial orientation presumably in order not to offend
him. At the same time, they could still be said to be "leaking" the fact that
they were bored by leaning back and supporting their head on their hand.
With reference to the discussion above concerning the role of the face and
the body in non-verbal communication, this would suggest an additional
reason for believing that body posture is an important source of infor-
mation about emotions and attitudes, which would certainly merit further
research.
The encoding studies reported in Part II used a design in which people
were asked to listen to videotaped extracts. This is in itself a perfectly
legitimate situation to investigate. People commonly watch television and
films, listen to lectures and are addressed by speakers in many different
situations; clearly, the findings obtained here have most direct relevance to
these kinds of social contexts. Audiences typically are constrained by
convention from interrupting a speaker; even when it is acceptable for
them to ask questions, many people (especially in larger groups) feel
inhibited about doing so. In this context, visual cues provide an important
source of information about how well the speaker is being received by the
audience. Reference has already been made to the difficulty of establishing
whether there are particular facial expressions which encode interest
(Izard, 1977); consequently, it may well be the case that for a public
speaker, posture constitutes the prime source of information about
whether an audience is interested or bored by what he is saying. Dis-
agreement might be conveyed by facial expressions of irritation, anger or
even disgust, but nevertheless posture could still be an important source of
information for the speaker, especially in larger groups where the facial
expressions of the audience may not be easily discernible due to the greater
distances involved.
If the encoding studies reported here are most directly analagous to
situations where a speaker is addressing an audience, nevertheless they
also have implications for the study of conversation. If somebody is
listening to someone else talking in a conversation, they will probably use
the same repertoire of postural cues to convey interest/boredom and dis-
agreement/agreement as the subjects displayed while listening to the
videotapes. Obviously such cues would then constitute a useful source of
information for the speaker about how the listener is reacting to what he is
saying. If the speaker responds to these cues, posture may also serve a role
in regulating the flow of conversation. Previous research has shown that
the amount a person says may be influenced by both listener head-nodding
(e.g. Matarazzo et al., 1964) and by smiling (e.g. Brunner, 1979). How-
ever, if posture communicates interest/boredom and disagreement/
agreement, then it seems highly likely that these postural cues will also
influence the amount that a speaker says. In addition, they ,may interact
with smiling and head-nodding. For example, if a person is leaning back,
with his legs stretched out and his head supported on his hand, then head-
nodding and smiling may have much less influence in encouraging his
partner to speak than if he adopted postures indicative of greater interest.
Hence, this suggests a number of possibilities for further research on the
role of non-verbal cues in regulating conversation.
The practical significance of the research reported in Part II for our
understanding of conversation may be elaborated through using interviews
as an illustrative example. Thus, for the interviewee, it is important to
realise that the postures he adopts will convey to the interviewer something
about his degree of interest. Hence, if while the interviewer is talking, he
leans back, stretches out his legs and supports his head on his hand, he will
encode an attitude of boredom which may well be decoded as such by the
interviewer. For the interviewer, information about posture may also be
useful. It would be naive to assume that posture is going to convey an
applicant's "real" feelings, as the popular literature on "body language"
seems to suggest. Nevertheless, it is still arguable that an awareness of the
way attitudes are encoded in posture may be of use to the interviewer in
assessing the attitude of the interviewee; Ekman and Friesen's (1969b,

1974b) hypothesis of "non-verbal leakage" would suggest that people exert
greater control over facial expression than over the body, and hence that
negative attitudes are more easily discernible from bodily cues.
Awareness of posture may also be of value for the interviewer in respect
of his own behaviour. Interviewers often claim that it is difficult to get
candidates to talk sufficiently. But if, as has been hypothesized in the
preceding chapter, posture influences the amount that people say, then the
interviewer who finds it difficult to get candidates to talk may fail in this
respect because his postures continually convey an attitude of boredom or
disagreement with what the candidate is saying. Consequently, it may well
be the case that by adopting a reasonably attentive posture combined with
head nodding and smiling, an interviewer may be able to relax a candidate
and to help him talk more freely.
The studies presented in Part II were intended essentially to ascertain
whether different emotions and attitudes are communicated through post-
ure. By using an encoding design which did not rely on role play, it was
possible to observe and interpret spontaneously occurring behaviour; de-
coding studies were then carried out based on the results of the encoding
experiments to evaluate the communicative status of posture. The results
showed that different emotions and attitudes are communicated through
distinctive postures; this has significant implications for our assessment of
the relative importance of the face and the body in emotional communi-
cation. A number of hypotheses were also advanced concerning the role
ascribed to posture in social interaction. Posture may "leak" information
about specific emotions and attitudes in deceptive communications; it may
be a useful source of information for a public speaker about the response of
an audience; it may also be important in conversation, providing feedback
to the speaker about listener emotions and attitudes and possibly reg-
ulating the flow of speech. Given that the studies reported in Part II
demonstrate distinctive postures communicate information about different
emotions and attitudes, all these hypotheses concerning the role of posture
in social interaction certainly merit further investigation.
(iii) The Relationship Between Body Movement and Speech

The studies presented in Chapters 7-10 of this volume were concerned
with the relationship between posture, gesture and speech. These studies
showed that body movement is related to speech in terms both of its
semantic and phonemic clause structure, which is in itself of considerable
theoretical interest. Previous research workers have simply maintained
that there is a close relationship between body movement and speech, and
their approach has been typically qualitative rather than quantitative. In
contrast, the studies reported in Part III were based on quantitative tech-
PAG—K
niques and showed much more specifically the way in which body
movement is related to speech: different speech acts are accompanied by
different changes in posture, while gesture is closely synchronized with
vocal stress.
The main inspiration for the studies presented in this volume on posture
and speech content were the observations of Scheflen (e.g. 1964, 1973),
who claimed to demonstrate that postural change is significantly related to
hierarchical units of conversation. In Chapter 7, two studies were reported
which were based on Scheflen's observations. One of these, a study of
television newsbroadcasts, showed that two television newsbroadcasters
both appeared to make use of a particular hand movement to indicate they
were moving on to a new topic, thus dividing the broadcast into clearly
delineated topics. The second study was based on informal conversations,
which was intended to test Scheflen's hypothesis of a "programme",
according to which new stages in social interaction are indicated by post-
ural markers. The results showed that the more a speech category intro-
duced a new stage in conversation, the more likely it was to be
accompanied by a change in posture. Thus, offers were significantly
associated with the posture categories of "points one hand", "holds up one
hand", "draws back legs" and "raises one foot" (all in comparison to
reactions) and with more changes in trunk and legs/feet postures in
comparison to replies. Furthermore, the other two significant findings were
also in agreement with the main hypothesis, requests and replies both
being associated with "holds up one hand" in comparison to reactions.
Reactions were never significantly associated with more postural change
than the other three categories.
An alternative explanation of this study of informal conversation is that
the significant findings may be related to the exchange of turns in con-
versation. Whereas offers, requests and replies can all be seen as con-
stituting speaking turns, reactions simply acknowledge continued listener
interest and attention but do not in themselves constitute a claim to the
turn; in this context, it is interesting that there were no postural changes
significantly associated with reactions. Duncan (1972) observed that
ceasing to gesture was one of six cues used to yield the turn to the other
speaker, while continuing to gesture constituted an attempt-suppressing
signal which had the effect of preventing a listener taking over the turn
when the other speaker wished to continue talking. On the basis of
Duncan's findings, one would not expect either "points one hand" or
"holds up one hand" to be associated with reactions, since reactions do not
constitute an attempt to take the turn, and this is precisely what was found
in the study reported here. It may be the case that "draws back legs" and
"raises one foot" were also not associated with reactions because they too
could be seen as signalling a wish to take a speaking turn.
The relationship of posture to turn-taking was explored in further detail
in Study 9. This study was intended to investigate whether particular types

of postural change precede particular speech acts. The results showed that
there is a strong relationship between different types of speech act and
specific changes in head posture. In particular, "turns head to person" was
associated predominantly with requests and, to a lesser extent, with offers
and reactions, "raises up head" was associated specifically with requests
and "turns head away from person" specifically with replies. These results
seemed to fit well into Duncan's model of turn-taking, in that the use of the
"raises up head" preceding requests can be seen as a turn-yielding cue,
indicating that the listener is about to be offered the turn, while "turns
head away" preceding replies can be seen as an acceptance of the turn: by
looking away, the new speaker both inhibits any response from the pre-
vious speaker whilst an answer is being prepared (Kendon, 1967, p. 35)
and indicates a switch to the speaker state (Duncan and Niederehe, 1974).
The results of this study are of interest for a number of reasons. Previous
analyses of turn-taking have paid little attention to the role of speech
content and to the way in which it interacts with non-verbal cues, whereas
these findings suggest that the relationship between particular speech acts
and posture may be much more specific than hitherto realized. The results
of this study also suggest that posture is related to speech in another way
apart from that described by Scheflen. Whereas Scheflen proposed that
posture is related to the hierarchical structure of speech, these data show
that posture conveys information about the speech acts themselves and
hence about how the listener should respond to what is being said. Speech
act theory has scarcely been considered in relation to non-verbal communi-
cation, but its potential relevance is considerable. Whether a remark is
taken as a joke or an insult, or a threat depends very much on the manner
in which it is said; information is integrated from different sources to
contribute to the overall communicative effect. Speech act theory provides
a framework in within which a whole series of studies could be carried out
on the semantics on non-verbal communication. For example, are dissents
accompanied by different non-verbal cues from consents? Do people signal
dissents in advance by certain kinds of preparatory movements? Is it
possible for people to detect the nature of a speech act from visual infor-
mation alone? Such an analysis might be of particular value in the study of
acting: one aspect of successful acting may be the skilful use of non-verbal
communication in relation to particular speech acts, so that the audience
are able to pick up the underlying subscript of the performance. The
advantage of this approach is that it provides a framework within which
non-verbal cues can be investigated as part of the overall process of
communication.
The study reported in Chapter 9 was intended to investigate the way in
which body movement facilitates the communication of emphasis in
speech. In one procedure, subjects were asked to select from the videotape
(without sound) the movements which they considered communicated

emphasis both for themselves and for their partners. This was intended to
investigate both the movements which subjects perceived as emphatic and
whether it is something about the visual appearance of movements alone
which leads to them being regarded as emphatic. The results of this
analysis showed that it was mainly the hands and arms which were
perceived both as communicating emphasis and communicating different
levels of emphasis. Given that a wide range of hand/arm, and to a lesser
extent head and trunk movements were selected by the subjects, it was
concluded that there are no particular movement shapes which communi-
cate emphasis.
The second procedure involved scoring body movements associated with
tonic stress; the results of this study showed that most tonic stresses were
accompanied by a wide range not only of hand/arm movements but also of
movements of the head, trunk and legs/feet, most typically in the form of
apex peaks. Research workers (e.g. Condon and Ogston, 1966; Freedman
and Hoffman, 1967) have frequently commented on how certain body
movements appear to be closely related to the rhythm of speech, but the
analysis reported here suggests much more specifically one way in which
body movement is related to speech, namely, in terms of its relationship to
tonic stress. When combined with the results of the first analysis, it suggests
that emphatic movements take their meaning not from their particular
visual appearance alone, but from their temporal relationship to tonic
stress, most notably in the form of apex peaks, where the apex of the
movement is synchronized to occur at the same time as the tonic. Hence, it
may be possible for a person to use quite idiosyncratic forms of body
movement (in terms of their visual appearance), but which communicate
emphasis quite clearly through their temporal relationship to tonic stress.
The striking disparity in results from the two methodological procedures
is also interesting in that whereas the movements which subjects explicitly
recognize as communicating emphasis were predominantly movements of
the arms/hands, movements of all parts of the body were related to tonic
stress and only a small proportion of these tonically-related movements
(including the hands/arms) were explicitly recognized by the subjects as
communicating emphasis. This suggests either that people grossly under-
estimate the information about stress that is available from the body and
particularly information that is available from other parts of the body
besides the hands/arms, or that people simply fail to perceive the nature of
most stress-related movements when given information from the vision
alone.
The close relationship between body movement and stress was further
investigated in the final study reported in this book on the use of hand
gesture in political speeches (Chapter 10). An analysis was also carried out
of the way in which hand gesture is related to rhetorical devices identified
by Atkinson (e.g. 1983,1984a, 1984b) and Heritage and Greatbatch (1986) as

effective in evoking applause. Political speeches were chosen on the grounds
that hand gesture may be a particularly important form of non-verbal com-
munication in this situation. Typically, there is a considerable physical dis-
tance between the speaker and his audience, so that hand gesture may be of
especial significance because of its greater visibility than, say, facial expression
or gaze; during television presentations, in contrast, a speaker's facial expres-
sion and gaze can be observed in much greater detail and hence may play a
correspondingly more important role.
Thus, the study was intended to investigate the way in which hand gestures
in political speeches are organized in relation to intonation and to the
elicitation and control of applause. A case-study approach was adopted in
which a detailed analysis was carried out of the organization of hand gesture
in three political speeches. The results showed that hand gesture is closely
related to intonation, both in terms of vocal stress and tone group boundaries.
The results also showed that hand gesture is linked to the elicitation and
control of applause. For example, a speech by Arthur Scargill showed that he
was highly successful in arousing applause through the use of rhetorical
devices such as three-part lists and contrasts, which he typically accompanied
with carefully synchronized hand gestures. He also frequently used hand
gesture to quell the applause, so that he actually seemed to conduct his
audience: his gestures both accompany rhetorical devices which evoke
applause and curtail the applause once it has been aroused.
Thus, the five studies reported in Chapters 7-10 all share the common
theme of the relationship between posture, gesture and speech. They show
that body movement is related to a number of different aspects of speech:
topic change, speech acts, vocal stress and tone group boundaries.
Conclusion
The studies presented in this volume were concerned with three main
issues: the measurement of body movement, the communication of listener
emotions and attitudes through posture, and the relationship between body
movement and speech. The value of developing highly detailed coding
systems was demonstrated by the results of the empirical studies, which
showed that body movement both communicates information about listener
emotions and attitudes, and provides very specific information about different
aspects of speech. Posture and gesture have in fact been comparatively
neglected in non-verbal communication research, although the studies re-
ported here show that body movement is significant for both speaker and
listener communication; indeed, further detailed analysis using the kind of
micro-analytic techniques employed here should lead us to a much fuller
understanding of the role of posture and gesture in interpersonal
communication.
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APPENDIX A
The Posture Scoring System
Criteria for Scoring Postures

1. To score a posture, the basic criterion is any change in bodily
position which is taken up and maintained for at least one second.
(i) Maintained means there is no visible movement within that
posture. Thus, if a person was moving his hand, or moving his foot, no
arms or leg posture could be scored until that movement had ceased for
at least one second.
(ii) Changes in bodily position refers to the adoption of new post-
ures. If a person takes up a particular posture, moves without establishing
a new posture, and then returns to the same posture, then no new posture
would be scored.
2. Timing the length of postures.
(i) Where the total duration of a posture is timed (as in Experiments
1-4), the timing takes place from the point where the posture was taken
up to the point where the person moved that body part again.
(ii) If a person takes up a posture, moves without establishing a new
posture, and then returns to the same posture, the time spent moving is
excluded from the total time length given to that posture.
The Classification System

Postures are classified into four main types: head, trunk, arms and legs.
1. Head Postures
Head postures are described relative to a position in which the person
is looking straight ahead in alignment with the direction of his chair,
neither to right or left. In this position, a horizontal axis is assumed to run
along the line of the eyes, and a vertical axis along the line of the nose;
postures are described relative to these two main axes. Postures are also
described relative to the other person in the room, people sitting at right
angles to one another in pairs in Experiments 1-4.
163
164 Appendix A
RaUHd Raises up head. The head is raised so that the

eyes are above the horizontal axis.
DsHd Drops head. The head is lowered so that the
eyes are below the horizontal axis.
LHdF Leans head forward. The neck is craned
forward but without actually dropping the
head.
THdP Turns head to person. The head is turned
(without dropping) towards the other person
and within the side of the vertical axis nearer
that person.
SHd(THdP) Straightens head (from turns head to person).
The head is straightened from "turns head to
person" without crossing the vertical axis.
THdAP Turns head away from person. The head is
turned (without dropping) away from the other
person and within the side of the vertical axis
further from that person.
SHd(THdAP) Straightens head (from turns head away from
person). The head is straightened from "turns
head away from person" but without crossing
the vertical axis.
LHdP Leans head to person. The head is tilted
(without dropping or turning) towards the
other person and within the side of the vertical
axis nearer that person.
SHd(LHdP) Straightens head (from leans head to person).
The head is straightened from "leans head to
person" but without crossing the vertical axis.
LHdAP Leans head away from person. The head is
tilted (without dropping or turning) away from
the other person and within the side of the
vertical axis further from that person.
SHd(LHdAP) Straightens head (from leans head away from
person). The head is straightened from "leans
head away from person" but without crossing
the vertical axis.
2. Trunk Postures
The main axis for the position of the trunk is taken to be an upright
position, facing straight ahead in alignment with the direction of the chair,
the trunk at 90 degrees to the chair seat. Postures are described relative to
this axis and to the other person in the room, people sitting at right angles
The Posture Scoring System 165
to one another in pairs in Experiments 1-4. To score a trunk posture, there

must be a visible movement from the hips; movements from the shoulders
are scored as changes in arm postures. The trunk postures classified are as
follows:
LF Leans forward. The trunk is moved forward.
LB Leans back. The trunk is moved back.
In the case of LF and LB, the position of the trunk is recorded as a forward
lean (FL) if the trunk is forward of the main axis, and a backward lean
(BL) if the trunk is backward of the main axis.
TP Turns to person. The trunk is turned towards
the other person and within the side of the
main axis nearer that person.
TAP Turns away from person. The trunk is turned
away from the other person and within the side
of the main axis further from the other person.
LS Leans sideways. The trunk is leaned to one
side of the main axis without turning. If
combined with a forward or backward lean,
"leans sideways" is scored only if the degree of
sideways lean is judged to be greater than
either the forward or backward lean; otherwise
"leans forward" or "leans back" are scored.
S(LS) Straightens (from leans sideways). The trunk is
straightened from "leans sideways" without
crossing the main axis.
LoT Lowers trunk. The spine is collapsed from a
sitting straight position.
ReT Raises trunk. The trunk is straightened from a
collapsed position.
LFCr Leans forward on chair. The back of the chair
is raised to lean the trunk forward. To score
this posture, both chair and trunk must be held
still for at least one second; this also applies to
the "leans back on chair" posture.
LBCr Leans back on chair. The front of the chair is
raised to lean the trunk back.
LCrD Lets chair down. The front or back of the chair
is returned to the floor after "leans forward on
chair" or "leans back on chair".
166 Appendix A
3. Arm Postures
Arm postures are scored according to the position of the hand, i.e.
whether it is touching the head, trunk, arms, legs, furniture or not
touching anything. In scoring arm postures, the particular hand is re-
corded to assist accuracy of scoring, although these data are not actually
analysed (RH —right hand, LH—left hand, BHs—both hands).
(a) Hand-to-hand postures

PHHd Puts hand to head. The hand is placed on any
part of the head excluding the face and neck.
PHNk Puts hand to neck.
PHFe Puts hand to face.
SHdH Supports head on hand. The fact that the head
is supported by the hand is inferred from a
movement of the head towards the hand, as
well as of the hand towards the head. The
movement of the head towards the hand must
take place for this category to be employed.
Each of these four hand postures may be modified by putting the hand to
a different part of the head, neck or face, e.g. if a person puts his hand to
his face for at least one second, and then puts that same hand to a
different part of the face, it would be recorded as PHFe followed by
PHDPFe (puts hand to a different part of the face). But such changes in
posture within a given category are not regarded as independent ex-
amples of that category for statistical analysis in terms of frequency of
occurrence; they are however included in the total time length for the
particular postural category, and are also included in both the frequency
and time measures for the analysis of overall changes in arm postures.
The same principles apply to the other arm postures described below.
(b) Hand-to-arm postures

Hand-to-arm postures are scored separately depending on whether they
involve one or both hands.
(i) One-handed postures

PHSr Puts hand to shoulder.
PHUAm Puts hand to upper arm (between shoulder
and elbow).
PHEw Puts hand to elbow.
PHLAm Puts hand to lower arm (between elbow and

wrist).
PHWr Puts hand to wrist.
(ii) Two-handed postures

FAs Folds arms.
JHs Joins hands. If the joined hands are placed on
some part of the body or on the furniture, this
is also specified, e.g. joins hands on abdomen
(JHs—An).
(c) Hand-to-trunk postures

PHCt Puts hand to chest.
PHRs Puts hand to ribs.
PHAn Puts hand to abdomen.
PHB Puts hand to back.
(d) Hand-to-leg postures

PHUBs Puts hand under backside.
PHTh Puts hand to thigh. Information on the specific
hand and thigh is recorded so that "puts one
hand to same thigh" would refer to putting the
left hand to the left thigh or the right hand to
the right thigh. "Puts one hand to opposite
thigh" would refer to putting the left hand to
the right thigh or the right hand to the left
thigh. The same principle applies to the other
hand to leg postures described below.
PHK Puts hand to knee.
PHCf Puts hand to calf.
PHAe Puts hand to ankle.
PHBLs Puts hand between legs.
PHF Puts hand to foot.
(e) Hand-to-furniture postures

PHCrAM Puts hand to chair arm. This posture is
subdivided into "puts one hand to same chair
arm" and "puts one hand to opposite chair arm'
in the same way as the hand to leg postures.
168 Appendix A
PHCrBk Puts hand to chair back.
PHCrSt Puts hand to chair seat.
PHTe Puts hand to table.
(f) Hand-to-clothes postures

HP Holds pullover.
PHIPt Puts hand into pocket.
PHTr Puts hands to trousers. This posture is scored
only when the hand is clearly put to the
trousers as distinct from the legs.
(g) Hand not touching

Hand not touching postures are scored when the hand or lower arm is not
touching an object or any other part of the body.
PoH Points hand. To score a "points hand" posture,
the fingers must be in a pointing position, i.e.
with at least one finger outstretched.
HUH Holds up hand. The "holds up hand" posture
refers to hand not touching positions which do
not involve pointing.
4. Leg Postures
Leg postures can be seen as varying along four main dimensions—
crossing the legs, moving the legs apart or together, drawing the legs back
or stretching them out, and changing the orientation of the foot. In scoring
leg postures, the particular leg is recorded to assist accuracy of scoring,
although these data are not actually analysed.
(RL—Right leg, LL—left leg, BLs—both legs).
(a) Legs crossed

XLs Crosses legs. The legs are crossed from an
uncrossed position.
RXLs Re-crosses legs. The legs are crossed from an
already crossed leg position but in a different
way.
The way in which the legs are crossed is specified in brackets after the
classification, stating which leg is crossed over which (right or left). The
type of leg cross is also classified according to the following four categories:
(i) At ankles (Ae).

(ii) Ankle over thigh (Ae/Th).
(iii) At knees (K)
(iv) Above the knee (AK). This position is scored
only if the knee of the lower leg is actually
visible.
(b) Legs apart/together

Postures are described relative to the other person in the room, people
sitting at right angles to one another in pairs in Experiments 1-4.
MLP Moves leg to person. The leg is moved such
that the whole foot is placed nearer the other
person.
MLAP Moves leg away from person. The leg is moved
such that the whole foot is placed further away
from the other person.
LSF Leans sideways on foot. The foot is raised from
the floor leaning the leg to one side but without
actually shifting the foot to a new orientation.
SLSF Stops leaning sideways on foot. The foot is
returned to the floor from "leans sideways on
foot".
(c) Legs drawn back/stretched out

DBLs Draws back legs. The legs are moved back
towards the chair.
SOLs Stretches out legs. The legs are moved forward
away from the chair.
The actual position of the leg is specified in brackets after the classification
according to the following categories:
(i) Leg forward (LF). The heel of the foot is in
front of the knee,
(ii) Leg backward (LB). The heel of the foot is
behind the knee.
(d) Orientation of the foot

A change in the orientation of the foot is only scored if there are no
other changes in leg posture. The orientation of the foot is taken from an
axal position in which the foot is pointing straight ahead in alignment with
the direction of the chair, and postures are described relative to this main
PAG—L
170 Appendix A
axis. Postures are also described relative to the other person in the room,
people sitting at right angles to one another in pairs in Experiments 1 to 4;
in an earlier version of this scoring system (Study 8), foot positions were
described with reference to the left and right of the main axis.
MFP Moves foot to person. The foot is moved
towards the other person and within the side of
the main axis nearer that person.
SF(MFP) Straightens foot (from moves foot to person).
The foot is straightened from "moves foot to
person" but without crossing the main axis.
MFAP Moves foot away from person. The foot is
moved away from the other person and within
the side of the main axis further from that
person.
SF(MFAP) Straightens foot (from moves foot away from
person). The foot is straightened from "moves
foot away from person" but without crossing
the main axis.
MFL Moves foot to left (Study 8 only). The foot is
moved to the left within the left side of the
main axis.
MFR Moves foot to right (Study 8 only). The foot is
moved to the right within the right side of the
main axis.
RaF Raises foot. The toes of the foot are raised.
LoF Lowers foot. The toes of the foot are lowered
from a "raises foot" position.
PoFD Points foot downwards. The toes of the foot
are pointed downwards.
PFF Puts foot on foot. One foot is put on top of the
other.
APPENDIX B
The Body Movement Scoring
System
1. General Assumptions
Posture and gesture together form a dynamic system of body movement.
This scoring system is intended to provide a description of seated bodily
movements in terms of their physical appearance without attempting to
infer the meaning or function of such movements. Activity is described
separately for each of four main body regions (head, trunk, upper limbs,
lower limbs), since there are important differences in the movements
possible for each body region; all the movement categories are presented
in detail in Section 2. The system has been developed for use with pairs of
people in conversation with one another; however, it could easily be
adapted for use with larger groups.
The unit of activity is defined as the time from the beginning of one act to
the beginning of the next, the criterion for the act unit being a change in
the use of a particular part of the body. Descriptions of act units are not
mutually exclusive, and several activity categories may be required to
describe one act unit (e.g. turns head to person and nods head; extends
lower arm and rotates outwards). When the same movement is repeated
more than once, it should be scored as one act if there is no perceivable
break in the action; such a movement is scored as a multiple act (e.g.
multiple head nod). Only if a clear rest period occurs before the re-
sumption of an act are they scored as separate units.
Movements of the upper and lower limbs can be either unilateral or
bilateral, and the laterality of the act is indicated as follows:
H I , LI This indicates the
hand or leg closest
to the other
person.
H2, L2 This indicates the
hand or leg
furthest from the
other person.
171
172 Appendix B
BL This indicates that

the act is bilateral.
Laterality is viewed as a possible variant of any act type of the upper or
lower limbs, so there is no special list of bilateral acts, with the exception of
those acts which can only be bilateral, e.g., folding the arms. The point of
entry or exit of the second limb does not affect the classification of the act
as bilateral, provided the same activity is adopted as that used by the first
limb. But if the second limb is used in a manner different from the first, the
movements are classified as two separate unilateral acts.
2. Activity
Body movements are divided into four main areas for ease of analysis:
head, trunk, upper limbs, lower limbs. Each of these areas is discussed
separately for the movements possible from that part of the body.
2.1 Head Movements

Head movements are described relative to a position in which the person
is seated, looking straight ahead in alignment with the direction of the
chair. A horizontal axis is assumed to run along the line of the eyes, and a
vertical axis along the line of the nose.
Activity categories
HA1 DsHd Drops head so that eyes go below the
horizontal axis.
HA2 DsDHd Drops head down further from DsHd
(can only occur after DsHd).
HA3 RaHd Raises head from DsHd (eyes do not go
above the horizontal axis).
HA4 RaUHd Raises up head so that eyes are above the
horizontal axis.
HA5 LoHd Lowers head from RaUHd (eyes do not
go below the horizontal axis).
HA6 THdP Turns head to person within that side of
the vertical axis nearer to the other
person.
HA7 RHdTP Reduces head turn to person from HA6,
but without crossing the vertical axis.
HA8 THdAP Turns head away from person within that
side of the vertical axis furthest from the
other person.
The Body Movement Scoring System 173
HA9 RHdTAP Reduces head turn away from person,

HA 10 LHdP Leans head to person within that side of
the vertical axis nearer to the other
person.
HAH RHdLP Reduces head lean to person, but without
crossing the vertical axis.
HA 12 LHdAP Leans head away from person within that
side of the vertical axis furthest from the
other person.
HA13 RHdLAP Reduces head lean away from person,
HA14 HdFo Forward head movement.
HA15 HdBa Backward head movement.
HA16 HdRt Head rotation. Head makes circular
movement; this need not be a complete
circle, but may only be part of an arc.
HA17 HdNd Head nod. Head moves up and down in a
single continuous movement on a vertical
axis, but the eyes do not go above the
horizontal axis. If the activity is not
continuous, then score as HA1 and HA3.
HA18 HdJk Head jerk. Head moves up and down in a
single continuous movement on a vertical
axis, the eyes going above the horizontal
axis. Again, if the activity is not
continuous, then score as HA4 and HA5.
HA19 HdSh Head shake. Head turns from side to side
in a single continuous movement.
HA20 HdRk Head rock. Head leans from side to side
HA21 HdFoBa Head forward and back. Head moves
forward and back in a single continuous
movement.
When head activities are scored, there are very often two or more
movements involved, and all the movements involved in a particular unit
should be scored. It is important to look for more than one type of axis of
movement, since some of the movements involved are quite subtle.
2.2 Trunk Movements

Trunk movements are described relative to a position in which the
person is sitting in an upright position, facing straight ahead with the trunk
in alignment with the chair. There must be visible movement from the hips
174 Appendix B
if a trunk movement is to be scored; other kinds of movement which involve the

trunk to some degree are articulated from the shoulder or shoulder girdle, and
are scored in the upper limb group.
Activity categories
TA1 LF Leans forward, so that the trunk is moved
forward of the vertical axis.
TA2 RFL Reduces forward lean, without the trunk
crossing back over the vertical axis.
TA3 LB Leans back, so that the trunk is moved back
of the vertical axis.
TA4 RBL Reduces backward lean, without the trunk
crossing forward of the vertical axis.
TA5 TP Turns to person, so that the trunk is turned
towards the other person within that side of
the vertical axis closest to him.
TA6 RTP Reduces turn to person, without crossing
back over the vertical axis.
TA7 TAP Turns away from person, so that the trunk is
turned away from the other person, within
that side of the vertical axis furthest from
him.
TA8 RTAP Reduces turn away from person, without
crossing back over the vertical axis.
TA9 LP Leans to person. Sideways movement on
the side of the vertical axis closest to the
other person.
TA10 RLP Reduces lean to person, without crossing
over the vertical axis.
TA11 LAP Leans away from person. Sideways
movement away from the other person on
the side of the vertical axis furthest from the
other person.
TA12 RLAP Reduces lean away from person, without
crossing over the vertical axis.
TA13 LoT Lowers trunk, so that the spine is collapsed
from a straight sitting position.
TA14 RaT Raises trunk, so that the trunk is
straightened from a collapsed position.
TA15 LFCr Leans forward on chair, so that the back of
the chair is raised.
TA16 LBCr Leans back on chair, so that the front of the
chair is raised.
TA17 LCrD Lets chair down from TA15 and TA16.

TA18 MBF Moves body forward, so that the whole
body is moved forward on chair.
TA19 MBB Moves body back, so that the whole body
is moved back on the chair.
TA20 MBSP Moves body sideways to person, so that
the whole body is moved sideways
towards the other person.
TA21 MBSAP Moves body sideways away from person,
so that the whole body is moved sideways
away from the other person.
TA22 RBU Raises body completely off chair.
TA23 LBD Lowers body down on to chair after
TA22.
TA24 LFB Leans forward and back in a single,
continuous movement.
TA25 TT Trunk twist, so that the trunk is turned
from side to side in a single continuous
movement.
TA26 LSS Leans from side to side in a single
TA27 RaLoT Raises and lowers trunk, so that the spine
is straightened and collapsed in a single
TA28 LFCrLCrD Leans forward on chair and lets chair
down in a single continuous movement.
TA29 LBCrLCrD Leans back on chair and lets chair down
TA30 MBFB Moves body forward and back, so that
the whole body is moved forward and
back in a single continuous movement.
TA31 MBSS Moves body from side to side, so that the
whole body is moved from side to side in
a single continuous movement.
TA32 RBULBD Raises body off chair and lowers body
down in a single continuous movement.
When trunk activities are scored, there are very often two or more
movements involved, and all the movements along each axis or of each
type should be scored.
176 Appendix B
2.3 Upper Limb Movements

Hand and arm movements are divided into contact and non-contact acts;
contact acts involve contact with an object or part of the body, while non-
contact acts involve no such contact.
(A) Contact acts

For contact acts, information about how the limb is moved in space to
achieve contact is considered unimportant; what is regarded as essential to
score is the part of the hand/arm used to make the contact (e.g. palm of hand,
fingertips), the type of contact which is made (e.g. scratching, rubbing), and
the body part or object in contact (e.g. face, nose).
Parts of upper limb used in contact acts

BCP1 Ft Fingertips; this must only be the tips of the
fingers, otherwise score as BCP2 or BCP3.
BCP2 Fi(p) Fingers, palm side.
BCP3 Fi(b) Fingers, back of hand side.
BCP4 PU Palm up, so that back of hand is in contact.
BCP5 PD Palm down, so that palm of hand is in
contact.
BCP6 PLF Palm little finger side, so that this side of
the hand is in contact.
BCP7 PTbS Palm thumb side, so that this side of the
hand is in contact.
BCP8 Wr Wrist only in contact.
BCP9 LA Lower arm in contact. May also include
hand; if so, score as BCP9, rather than
BCP4-7.
BCP10 El Elbow only in contact.
Activity categories
BCA1 Sc Scratching.
Only nails and/or fingertips in contact.
Open hand shape.
Contact light and rhythmic.
BCA2 Ru Rubbing.
Larger area of hand in contact with
surface.
Variable hand shape.
Contact vigorous and rhythmic.
BCA3 St Stroking.
Larger area than scratching in contact with
surface.
Contact light and slowly rhythmic.
N.B. If in doubt whether to score an act as a stroke or a rub, always score a
stroke. A rub is only scored if the action is clear.
BCA4 To Touching.
Area of hand in contact variable.
Contact light and sustained.
BCA5 Gr Grasping.
Hand encloses part of body or object.
Hand shape is open or closed.
Contact is vigorous and sustained.
BCA6 Ta Tapping.
Hand area in contact variable, although
usually fingertips.
Contact is light, rhythmic and intermittent.
BCA7 Pi Picking.
Thumb and finger in contact with surface.
Thumb-finger hold hand shape.
Variable contact: intermittent or sustained.
BCA8 Su Supports.
Hand supports part of body (usually head).
Contact variable and sustained.
BCA9 Ro Rotation.
Movement of the hand on an axis while
maintaining position on body surface.
BCA10 Re Resting.
Terminates BCA1-9 (except BCA4, from
which it is indistinguishable).
Hand shape that of previous contact act.
Contact light and sustained.
N.B. This category can only occur after
one of the other kinds of contact activity.
BCA11 Puts Puts.
Puts hand inside some article of clothing,
e.g. pocket.
BCA12 Pulls Pulls.
Pulls on some article of clothing or hair.
178 Appendix B
Location of contact acts

(a) Face
BCL1 Fa Face. Primary region, used when contact
location is unclear. Includes the whole of
the face region bounded by the collar line
and the hair line.
BCL2 Hd Head. Whole of head bounded by all the
relevant areas below. No distinction is
made between different areas of the
head.
BCL3 Ne Neck. Immediately above collar line to
below lower jaw line.
BCL4 Cn Chin. Line of lower jaw and immediately
surrounding area.
BCL5 Ck Cheek. Below eye socket to line of lower
jaw, and from side of nose to just before
ear.
BCL6 Fhd Forehead. Immediately above eyebrows
to hairline.
BCL7 Eb Eyebrow. Eyebrow only.
BCL8 Er Ear. Ear only.
BCL9 Mo Mouth. Mouth and lips only.
BCL10 No Nose. Nose only.
BCL11 Eye Eye. Eye and eyelid only (eyesocket
area).
BCL12 Ha Hair. This category is only scored if it is
clear that there is no contact with the
surface of the head, otherwise score as
BCL2.
For each of the above categories, an act is only scored if there is a clear
contact with the area as described. Otherwise a contact is scored as a
border region; for example, a touch to the side of the nose would be scored
as BCL10/BCL5, and so forth.
(b) Trunk
BCL13 Ba Back. Whole of back, no distinction is
made between different areas.
BCL14 Ct Chest. Chest, above mid-line of trunk.
BCL15 An Abdomen. Below mid-line of the trunk to
the top of the thighs.
BCL16 STO Side towards other person.
BCL17 SAO Side away from other person.
(c) Upper limbs

BCL18 Sh Shoulder.
BCL19 El Elbow.
BCL20 UA Upper arm. Anywhere below shoulder to
above elbow.
BCL21 LA Lower arm. Anywhere below elbow to
above wrist.
BCL22 Wr Wrist.
BCL23 BH Back of hand (from wrist tofingerjoints).
BCL24 PH Palm of hand (from wrist tofingerjoints).
BCL25 Ft Fingertips.
BCL26 IF Index finger.
BCL27 MF Middle finger.
BCL28 RF Ring finger.
BCL29 LF Little finger.
BCL30 Tb Thumb.
BCL31 LFSH Little finger side of hand.
BCL32 TbSh Thumb side of hand.
(d) Lower limbs

BCL33 Bu Buttocks.
BCL34 Th Thigh. From just above knee to bottom
of lower abdomen.
BCL35 Kn Knee. Knee only, otherwise score as
BCL34 or BCL36.
BCL36 LL Lower leg. From just above ankle to just
below knee.
BCL37 Ae Ankle. Ankle only, otherwise score as
BCL36.
BCL38 Ft Foot.
(e) Clothes
BCL39 Pu Pullover.
BCL40 Tr Trousers.
BCL41 Sk Skirt.
BCL42 Pt Pocket.
BCL43 SI Sleeve.
BCL44 Jt Jacket.
180 Appendix B
(f) Objects
BCL45 CAP Chair arm on the same side as the other
person.
BCL46 CAAP Chair arm on the opposite side from the
other person.
BCL47 es Chair seat.
BCL48 CB Chair back.
BCL49 Ta Table.
(B) Non-contact acts

For non-contact acts, information about how the limb is moved in space
is considered to constitute the activity, and movement categories are given
from five points of articulation: shoulder girdle, shoulder, elbow, wrist and
finger joints. Where movement occurs from more than one point of
articulation, activity categories must be given for each point of articulation
involved. Movement categories are not mutually exclusive, and several
categories may be needed to describe a particular act unit. Categories for
each of the major points of articulation are given below:
Shoulder girdle activity categories

SGAl RaSh Raises shoulder.
SGA2 LoSh Lowers shoulder.
SGA3 MShF Moves shoulder forward.
SGA4 MShB Moves shoulder back.
SGA5 ShS Shoulder shrug. Raises and lowers
shoulder in a single continuous
movement.
SGA6 ShTw Shoulder twist. Moves shoulder forward
and back in a single continuous
movement.
Shoulder activity categories

Shoulder movements are described relative to a vertical axis which is
assumed to run through the shoulder joint perpendicular to the floor.
SA1 RShO Rotates shoulder outwards (away from
the vertical axis).
SA2 RShI Rotates shoulder inwards (towards the
vertical axis).
SA3 MAF Moves arm forward (of the vertical axis).
SA4 RAFM Reduces arm forward movement (but

without crossing the vertical axis).
SA5 MAB Moves arm back (of the vertical axis).
SA6 RABM Reduces arm backward movement (but
without crossing the vertical axis).
SA7 MASO Moves arm
sideways and
outwards (to the
side of the vertical
axis away from the
body).
SA8 RASOM Reduces arm sideways outward
movement (but without crossing the
vertical axis).
SA9 MASI Moves arm sideways and inwards (to the
trunk side of the vertical axis).
SA10 RASIM Reduces arm sideways inward movement
(but without crossing the vertical axis).
SAH OCAM Outward circular arm movement. The
arm describes the whole or part of a
circle, away from the body.
SA12 ICAM Inward circular arm movement. The arm
describes the whole or part of a circle
towards the body.
SA13 RShIO Rotates shoulder inwards and outwards
SA14 MAFB Moves arm forward and back in a single
SA15 MASS Moves arm from side to side in a single
Elbow activity categories

EA1 ELA Extends lower arm.
EA2 FLA Flexes lower arm.
EA3 RLAO Rotates lower arm outwards (away from
body).
EA4 RLAI Rotates lower arm inwards (towards
body).
EA5 EFLA Extends andflexeslower arm in a single
EA6 RLAOI Rotates lower arm outwards and inwards
PAO-M
182 Appendix B
Wrist activity categories

In describing movements from the wrist, an axis is assumed to run along
the line of the lower arm.
WAl BHB Bends hand back (above the axis to
reveal the palm of the hand).
WA2 RHBB Reduces hand backward bend (without
crossing the axis).
WA3 BHF Bends hand forward (below the axis to
conceal the palm of the hand).
WA4 RHFB Reduces hand forward bend (but without
crossing the axis).
WA5 MHSO Moves hand sideways and outwards
(away from the body).
WA6 RHSOM Reduces hand sideways and outward
axis).
WA7 MHSI Moves hand sideways and inwards
(towards the body).
WA8 RHSIN Reduces hand sideways and inward
axis).
WA9 OCHM Outward circular hand movement. The
hand describes the whole or part of a
circle, away from the body.
WA10 ICHM Inward circular hand movement. The
hand describes the whole or part of a
circle towards the body.
WAll BHFB Bends hand forward and back in a single
WA12 MHSS Moves hand from side to side in a single
Finger activity categories

FA1 HF Hand fist. Hand must be completely
closed, otherwise score as FA2.
FA2 HC Hand closed. Fingers are curled in
towards the palm.
FA3A HSOA Hand semi-open with fingers spaced
apart.
FA3B HSOB Hand semi-open with fingers together.
FA4 HO Hand open. AHfingersare fully
outstretched, and together.
FA5 HOs Hand outstretched. Allfingersare fully

outstretched, and spaced apart.
FA6 IFO Index finger outstretched. Other fingers
unimportant, except for FA4 and FA5,
which take precedence over FA6.
FA7 IMFOT Index and middle finger outstretched and
touching.
FA8 IMFO Index and middle finger outstretched and
open.
FA9 3FOT First three fingers outstretched and
touching.
FA10 3FO First three fingers outstretched and open.
FA11 4FO Four fingers outstretched, thumb against
palm.
FA12 TbO Thumb outstretched alone, other fingers
relaxed or curled in.
FA13 TbIFT Thumb and index finger touch at tips;
other fingers relaxed or curled in.
FA14 TbIFSO Thumb and index finger semi-open; other
fingers relaxed or curled in.
FA15 TbFT Thumb and fingers touch at tips.
FA16 TbFSO Thumb and fingers semi-open.
FA17 TbFC Thumb and fingers make cup. Similar to
FA2, but none of the fingers touch.
For categories FAl and FA4 to FA17, the finger activities must be clearly
discriminable; otherwise use FA2, FA3A or FA3B.
(C) Bilateral acts

All these hand/arm activities can be scored as either unilateral or
bilateral. In addition, the following two items of information should be
entered for bilateral acts (these categories also apply to movements of the
lower limbs):
1. MT Moves limbs together.
MA Moves limbs apart.
MTA Moves limbs together and apart.
MAT Moves limbs apart and together.
2. MS Moves limbs symmetrically (i.e. in
phase).
MAS Moves limbs asymmetrically (i.e. out of
phase).
184 Appendix B
Bilateral activity categories

There are also a number of acts which only exist as bilaterals, which for
ease of scoring are listed below. When the hands/arms are linked in one of
the ways described below, the action is regarded as a contact act; if the
person gestures with the hands already in a linked position, the action is
regarded as a non-contact act.
BAI FA Folds arms. One or both hands are
hidden from view by the lower or upper
arm.
BA2 XA Crosses arms. Both hands are visible.
BA3 JHs-FI Joins hands fully interlocked. Fingers are
outstretched or curled.
BA4 JHs-Ft Joins hands at fingertips only.
BA5 JHs-FC Joins hands so that fingers interlock and
clasp other hand.
BA6 JHs-F Joins hands with closed fists, wrists
together.
BA7 JHs-P Joins hands together in a prayer-like
attitude, palms together.
BA8 JHs-PB Joins hands with palm over back of other
hand.
BA9 JHs-It Joins hands with index tip (may also
include up to the first threefingersof
each hand).
2.4 Lower Limb Movements

Lower limb movements are unlike any other body region in that the legs/
feet are usually in contact with either the floor, the chair or each other; this
places a number of positional constraints upon the types of leg movements
which can occur. Each articulatory point in the leg can produce a distinct
set of movements, but these movements are modified by the position of the
legs at the time of the movements. For this reason, a positional description
of the limb in movement is always given when scoring activity. It is only
necessary to give the position of the leg for that leg which is in motion when
the act is unilateral and the legs are uncrossed; in other circumstances, a
positional description should be given of both legs.
Position categories
LP1 FC Floor contact, so that one or both feet are
in contact with the floor.
LP2 FF Foot on foot, so that the feet are in

contact with one another.
LP3 CC Chair contact, so that the thigh only is in
contact with the chair, and the feet are
raised off the floor.
LP4 X/An Legs crossed at ankles.
LP5 X/AnKn Legs crossed ankle over knee.
LP6 X/Kn Legs crossed at knees.
LP7 X/AKn Legs crossed above the knee, so that the
knee of the lower leg is visible.
These are the main positions which occur for the lower limbs when a
person is sitting down. As well as being positional categories, they can
sometimes function as activities in themselves, e.g. when the legs are
crossed from an uncrossed position. In this case, these positional des-
criptions are used as activity categories. If the legs are re-crossed from an
already crossed position, the activity is coded as RX (e.g. RX/An: re-
crosses legs at ankles). Whether used as activities or positions, it should
always be stated for any crossed leg position which leg is on top of the
other.
Activity categories
Leg/feet activities are scored on the basis of three points of articulation:
the hip, the knee and the ankle. Care should be taken not to confuse the
point of articulation with the part of the leg which seems most obviously to
have moved; these are not always the same. For example, many foot
movements are in fact the results of movements at the knee or the hip.
Where leg activities are described relative to a vertical axis, the axis is
based on the trunk position where a person is sitting upright, facing straight
ahead in alignment with the chair. Where leg movements involve a rotation
with the foot on the floor, a "t" or "h" should be added to the movement
description to indicate whether the fulcrum of the movement is the toes or
the heel. The activities for each point of articulation are as follows:
Hip activity categories

HAl MLSP Moves leg sideways to person.
HA2 MLSAP Moves leg sideways away from person.
HA3 RLO Rotates leg outwards (away from the
vertical axis).
HA4 RL1 Rotates leg inwards (towards the vertical
axis).
HA5 RaL Raises leg.
186 Appendix B
HA6 LoL Lowers leg.

HA7 OCLM Outward circular leg movement, such
that the whole leg describes whole or part
of a circle, outwards from the vertical
axis.
HA8 ICLM Inward circular leg movement, such that
the whole leg describes whole or part of a
circle, inwards towards the vertical axis.
HA9 MLSS Moves leg from side to side in a single
HA10 RLOI Rotates leg outwards and inwards in a
single continuous movement.
HAU RaLoL Raises and lowers leg in a single
Knee activity categories

KAl EL Extends leg.
KA2 FL Flexes leg.
KA3 RKO Rotates knee outwards (away from the
vertical axis).
KA4 RKI Rotates knee inwards (towards the
vertical axis).
KA5 OCKM Outward circular knee movement, such
that the lower leg describes whole or part
of a circle, outwards from the central
vertical axis.
KA6 ICKM Inward circular knee movement, such
that the lower leg describes whole or part
of a circle, inwards towards the central
vertical axis.
KA7 EFL Extends andflexesleg in a single
KA8 RKOI Rotates knee outwards and inwards in a
Ankle activity categories

AA1 BeABa(T) Bends ankle back so that the toes are
raised.
AA2 StA Straightens ankle so that the foot is
perpendicular to the leg.
AA3 BeAFo Bends ankle forward so that the heel is
raised.
AA4 BeABa(H) Bends ankle back (from AA3) so that the

heel is lowered, and the foot returns to a
perpendicular position relative to the leg.
AA5 MAO Moves ankle outwards (so that the foot is
bent inwards).
AA6 RAOM Reduces ankle outward movement (so
that the foot is returned from AA5 to a
position in alignment with the ankle).
AA7 MAI Moves ankle inwards (so that the foot is
bent outwards).
AA8 RAIM Reduces ankle inward movement (so that
the foot is returned from AA7 to a
position in alignment with the ankle).
AA9 OCAM Outward circular ankle movement, such
that the foot describes whole or part of a
circle, outward from the vertical axis.
AA10 ICAM Inward circular ankle movement, such
that the foot describes whole or part of a
circle, inwards towards the vertical axis.
AA11 BeBaStA Bends back and straightens ankle in a
AA12 BeAFoBa Bends ankle forward and back in a single
AA13 MAORAOM Moves ankle outward and reduces ankle
outward movement in a single continuous
movement.
AA14 MAIRAIM Moves ankle inward and reduces ankle
inward movement in a single continuous
movement.
Author Index
Abramovitch, R. 12,158 Darwin, C. 7,159

Allen, B.V. 161 Deutsch, F. 5,14,159
Ansbacher, H.L. and Ansbacher, K.R. 3, Devoe, S. 162
158 DiMatteo, M.R. 162
Archer, D. 162 Dittman, A.T. 28,29,34,110,116,117,
Argyle, M. 11,12,22,32,158,160,162 121,159
Atkinson, J.M. 122-124,126-127,129,139, Duncan, S. 30, 31, 97, 98-100,102,106,
157,158 154-155,159
Austin, J.L. 48,92,158
Ayling, K. 162
Efron, D. 9, 29, 32, 33,108,159
Eibl-Eibesfeldt, I. 7-8, 31,159
Barnard, P. J. 101,158 Ekman, P. 3-4,7, 8,9,15, 20-22,29, 31,
Barrett-Lennard, G. 24,158 34, 39-40,43,45, 60, 83,10&-109,121,
Beattie, G.W. 100-101,110,117,158,159 146-149,151,153,159-160,161
Beavin,J.H. 162 Ellsworth, P.C. 45,160
Benjamin, G.R. 12,158 Everitt,B.S. 101,160
Berlyne,D.E. 60,151,158 Exline, R.V. 44,160
Birdwhistell, R.L. 28,40,110,158
Bitti, P.R. 22,160
Bond,M.H. 23,24,158 Fast,J. 6,9,96,160
Bower, G.H. 68,161 Fiske, D.W. 30,98-100,106,159
Broadbent, M. 18,161 Freedman,N. 120,156,160
Breed,G. 23,158 Fretz,B. 24,160
Brown, R. 47,48,92-94,103,159 Frey,S. 40-41,43,160
Brunner, L.J. 99,152,158 Friar, J.T. 20,23,24,25,26,161
Bryant, B. 11,162 Friesen, W.V. 3, 8, 9,15,20-22,29, 31, 34,
Buck, R.W. 45,158 39-40,43,45, 60, 83,108-109,121,
Bull, P.E. 6, 8,10,38,44,45,47-50,53,54, 146-147,151,153,159-160
92-94,98,103,106,108,122,125,127, Frith, C D . 101,160
129,158-159
Butterworth, B. 110,117,159
Geller, J. 162
Goffman, E. 30,160
Caul, W.F. 158 Graham, J. A. 22,32,35,160
Charny, E.J. 17,159 Grant, E. C. 146,160
Cohen,A.A. 34-35,159 Greatbatch, D. 122-124,126-127,129.
Cohen, J. 127,159 157,160
Collett, P. 161
Condon, W.S. 27,120,156,159
Connelly, G. 49,108,122,125,129,159 Haase,R. F. 23,24,160
Creider, C.A. 12,158 Hadar, U. 39,160
Haines, J. 39,160
Hall, J. A. 10,160,162
Dabbs,J.M. 20,159 Halliday, M. A. K. 49,109, 116,160
Daly, E.M. 12,158 Hass, H. 149,160
Danehy, J.J. 9,28,29,33,109-110,116,161 Hedge, B.J. 101, 160
189
190 Author Index
Heritage, J. 122-124,126-127,129,139, Reich, W. 14,15,162
157,158,160 Riseborough, M. G. 33,162
Heywood, S. 35,160 Robinson, S. 162
Hockett, C. F. 9, 28, 29, 33,109-110,116, Roger, D. R. 47, 92,103,106,127,162
161 Rogers, P. L. 162
Hoffman, S. P. 120,156,160 Rogers, W. T. 32, 33,162
Rose, F. C. 160
Rosenfeld, H. M. 19,162
Ickes, W. 19,161 Rosenthal, R. 6,10,162
Izard, C. E. 20,149,152,161 R u t t e r , D . R . 100,101,162
Jackson, D. D. 162 Sainsbury, P. 39,162

Jonckheere, A. R. 68, 94,161 Saslow, G. 161
Savin, V. J. 158
Scheflen, A. E. 9,14,15-17,20, 28, 29,33,
Kendon, A. 11, 31, 32, 34, 87, 96, 99-100, 36, 47-49, 87-88, 92, 96-97,106,
106,155,158,161 109-110,154-155,162
Kenny, D. A. 19,161 Scherer, K. R. 140,162
Kiritz, S. A. 34,161 Schlosberg, H. 21,162
Kirk, R. E. 74, 79,104,161 Searle,J.R. 48,92,162
Shiraishi,D. 23,24,158
Smith, H. L. 49,109,162
LaFrance,M. 18,19,20,161 Spiegel, J. 23,25,26,46, 70,162
Lefevre, R. 161 Steiner, T.J. 160
Levy,E. 111,161 Stephenson, G. M. 101,162
Lindenfeld, J. 9,33,161
Lippa, R. 10,161
Llewellyn, L. G. 28, 29, 34,110,116,117, T e p p e r , D . T . 23,24,160
121,159 Thomas, A. P. 47,48,92, 98,103,106,
Lowen,A. 14,15,161 127,162
Trager, G. L. 49,109,162
Trout, D . L . 19,162
Machotka, P. 23, 25,26, 46, 70,162 Trower,P. 11,162
Marsh, P. 161
Matarazzo,J. D. 152,161
Macdonald, C. J. 162 von Cranach, M. 40, 43,160
Manstead, A. S. R. 162
McGinley, H. 26,161
McGinley, P. 161 Wagner, H. L. 45,162
McNeill, D. 35-36, 111, 141,161 Wallbott,H. 39,43,147,160
Mehrabian, A. 20, 23, 24, 25, 26, 34,40, Watzlawick, P. 4,162
44,45,161 Weitman, M. 161
Miller, R. E. 158 White, P. A. 162
Morris, D. 31,32,114,161 Wiener, M. 4,109,162
Wiens, A. M. 161
Williams, N. 20, 23,25, 34,161
Niederehe, G. 30, 98-99,106,155,159 Winters, L. C. 44,160
Woods, E. 39,162
O'Shaughnessy, M. 161
Ogston, W. D. 27,120,156,159 Yngve, V. H. 30,99,162
Oster, H. 8,149,161
Pittenger, R. E. 9,28, 29, 33,109-110,

116,161
Subject Index
Access rituals 30 Contempt 21,149

Adler, Alfred 3 Contact movements 40,114-116,118,119,
Affiliation 44 129,137, 145,147,176-180
see also Liking see also Body-contact movements, Object
Agreement 46-47,148,149,152 contact movements
decoding through posture 70-76,79-84, Content analysis of speech 47-48,127,
85 130-131
encoding through posture 62-69, 72-74, see also Conversational Exchange Analysis
79 Context Analysis 16
Anger 7,21,22,149,152 Conversation 44, 47-49, 85, 87, 92-121,
Aphasia 36 139-140,152-156
Applause 122-125,127,129-139,156-157 Conversation analysis 44,123
Arm positions and movements Conversational Exchange Analysis (CEA)
see Hand/arm positions and movements 47-48, 92-93, 96,103,106,127
Arms akimbo 25 see also Consents, Dissents, Offers,
Arousal 60-61,72,148 Reactions, Replies, Requests
Attempt-suppressing signals 30,97,98-99, Cross-lag panel correlations 19
102,154 Crossed legs 25,42, 62, 67, 68, 74, 82,
see also Turn-taking 168-169,185
Attentiveness 72,148 see also Crosses legs at the knee, Crosses
legs above the knee
Crosses legs above the knee 74, 75, 79-80,
Back channels 30-31,98-100,102,106 82-83,148,169,185
see also Reactions, Turn-taking Crosses legs at the knee 74, 75, 79-82,169,
Backward lean 23-24,71, 72,73,76-79 185
see also Leans back
Body Movement Scoring System 29,41^43,
49,50,89,108,111-116,126,140, Decoding 4^7,12,13
146-147,171-187 disagreement/agreement 70-76,79-84,
Body-contact movements 42,176-179 85
Body language 3,6,9,11,12,96,152 emotional expressions 7,149
Body orientation 23,25 face and body, relative importance of in
Boredom 4-5,45,46-47, 63, 68-69,148, emotional expression 20-23
149,151-153 individual differences in 10-11
decoding through posture 70-79, 82-84, interest/boredom 70-79, 82-84, 85
85 interpersonal attitudes 23-27
encoding through posture 53-61, 62,68, methodology 44,46-47,150
72, 77, 78 postural congruence and 19-20
Burke, Michael 88-92 Defensive response to threat 68-69, 72,148
Depression 34
Disagreement 46-47,148, 149, 152-153
Closed body positions 25-26, 62-76, 79-84 decoding through posture 70-76, 79-84,
see also Crossed legs, Crosses legs above the 85
knee, Crosses legs at the knee, Folded encoding through posture 62-69, 72-73,
arms 79,83
Consents 93,103-106,155 Disgust 7,21,149,152
see also Conversational Exchange Analysis Dislike 24,25
191
192 Subject Index
Dissents 93,103-106,155 43,94-95,110,113-116,119,
see also Conversational Exchange Analysis 120-121, 140,154, 156,166-168,
Draws back legs 57-58,60, 71,72,78,95-97, 176-184
148-149,154,169 see also Arms akimbo, Contact
see also Legs drawn back movements, Emblems, Folded arms,
Drops head 41,45,57-61,72,73,76-78, 82, Gesture, Holds up one hand,
104,105,148, 164,172 Illustrators, Joins hands fingers
interlocked, Joins hands on abdomen,
Joins hands on thigh, Joins hands with
Emblems 9,29,31,40,108 palm over back of other hand,
cheek-screw 31 Manipulators, Non-contact
nose-thumb 31 movements, Points hand, Puts hand
ring 31 to chair arm, Puts hand to face, Puts
Emphasis in speech 36, 49,108-121,140, hand to thigh, Supports head on one
155-156 hand
Encoding 4-7 Happiness 7,21
individual differences in 10 Head jerk 118,173
interpersonal attitudes and emotions 20, Head lean 72,73,75,76-82
23-27,53-69,70,72-74,77-79, 85,149 Head movements and positions 40, 41, 43,
methodology 44-46,150-151,153 59-60,110,113,115,116,118,120,
postural congruence and 17-19 149,156,163-164,172-173
see also Role play see also Drops head, Head jerk, Head
Eyes and eye contact 3, 9,10,14, 23, 37, 44, lean, Head nod, Head rock, Head
55,64,99-101,110,123,146,157 shake, Head straight, Lowers head,
Straightens head (from leans head),
Supports head on one hand, Turns
Facial Action Coding System (FACS) 8, head.
146-147 Head nod 41,99,113-114,117,118,152,
Facial expression 3,7-9,10,12,14,20-22, 153,173
37,45,71,83-84,99,123,146, Head rock 118,173
148-150,152-153,157 Head shake 99,113,118,173
Farewells 30 Head straight 72, 73, 75-78, 80-83,148
Fear 7,21,22,149 Holds up one hand 95-97,104,105,154,
Folded arms 25-26,62,66,68,74,75,79-83, 168
148,167,184 Humphries, John 88-92
Forward lean 23-24,71,72,73, 76-79,82
see also Leans forward
Freud 14-15 Illustrators 9, 29, 32-35, 40,108-109,121,
Friendliness 81-82 147
Innate hypothesis of emotional
expression 7-9
Gaze see Eyes and eye contact Interest 46-47, 63, 69,148-149,151-152,
Gesture 3, 9,10,13,14, 37,145-157 154
emotions and attitudes 34 decoding through posture 70-79, 82-84,
ideographic 33,121 85
measurement 38-43,145-147,157 encoding through posture 53-61, 62, 68,
physiographic 32-33 72,77, 78
political speeches and 50,122-141, Interpersonal distance 3,10,14,146
156-157 Interviews 11, 152-153
speech and 27-36,47-50, 85,107-141, Intimacy 23-24
147,153-157
turn-taking and 97,9S-99,102,154
see also Contact movements, Non-contact Joins hands fingers interlocked 89-91,184
movements, Hand/arm movements Joins hands on abdomen 72, 73, 74, 75,
and positions, illustrators 76-82,104,105,167
Greetings 30 Joins hands on thigh 95
Joins hands with palm over back of other
hand 89-90, 184
Hand/arm movements and positions 40,42, Juncture 28,29
Subject Index 193
Leans back 41, 57-61,71, 72,104,105, role in social interaction 7-13
148,151-152,165,174 sex differences in 10,13
see also Backward lean speech and 9-10,13,14
Leans forward 41,57-60,71,72,104,105, see also Body language, Eyes and eye
114,148-149,165,174 contact, Facial expression, Gesture,
see also Forward lean Interpersonal distance, Posture,
Leans head on one hand see Supports head on Pupils and pupil dilation
one hand Non-verbal leakage 8, 60-61,151,153
Leans head 58-60,72,77,113,148,164,
173
Leans sideways 41,65-66,68,72,79, 83, Object-contact movements 42,176-177,180
114,118,148,165,174 Offers 48, 93-96,103-106,154-155
see also Sideways lean see also Conversational Exchange Analysis
Leathley, Martin 125-126,128-129,140 Open body positions 25-26, 62-76, 79-84
Legs drawn back 71,72,73,76-79 Oral personality 15
see also Draws back legs
Legs/feet movements and positions 40-42.
87, 94-96,110,113-116,119,120, Persuasiveness 23, 26, 34
Phonemic clause 28, 29, 49, 109-110,117,
154,156,168-170,184-187
125,153
see also Crossed legs, Draws back legs,
Pleasantness/unpleasantness 21-22
Legs drawn back, Legs straight, Legs
Points hand 42,95-97,154,168
stretched out, Legs uncrossed,
Polarized-light goniometry 39, 43
Lowers one foot, Moves one foot to
Politeness 74,81-82
left, Moves one foot to right, Raises
Political speeches 29, 36-37, 44, 47, 50, 85,
one foot, Stretches out legs
Legs straight 72,73,74,76-78 122-141,146,156-157
Legs stretched out 72,73,76-79, 82,152 Positive attitude 23-24, 25-26
Posture 3, 9, 10,14-37,145-157
see also Stretches out legs
clinical studies of 14-17
Legs uncrossed 74,75,79-82
Liking 25,44,84 emotions and interpersonal
Line drawings 23,25,26,46,70-84 attitudes 20-27,44-47, 53-84,147-
Lowers head 113,172 153,157
Lowers one foot 95,170 measurement 3S-43,145-147,157
Luther, Martin 3 postural congruence 15-16,17-20
sex differences in 24-26
speech and 27-28,47-48, 85-107,147,
Manipulators 40,147 153-155,157
Markovian process 101,106 turn-taking and 98-107
Movement transducers 28-29,110,116, Posture Scoring System 41-42, 50, 57,65,
117 94,103,108,146-147,163-170
Moves one foot to left 95,170 Profile of Nonverbal Sensitivity (PONS) 10
Moves one foot to right 95,170 Psychoanalysis 5-6,14-15
Psychopathology 10,14-15
Psychotherapy 14-18,19-20, 26-27, 87,99
Neuro-cultural model of emotional Public speaking 46-47, 85,141,151-153
expression 8 see also Political speeches
Newsbroadcasts see Television Pupils and pupil dilation 3, 9,14,146
newsbroadcasts Puts hand to chair arm 42,167
Non-contact movements 40,42-43,114- Puts hand to face 95, 104,105,166
115,117,118,119,129,136,145,147, Puts hand to thigh 42, 58-60, 95,167
180-183
Non-verbal communication 3-13,37
concept of 3-7,70,109,150 Raises one foot 65-66, 68,95-97,154,170
emotion and 7-9,13,14 Raises up head 41,104-106,155,164
individual differences 10-11,13,14 Reactions 48, 93-97,103-106,154
interpersonal relationships and 12-13, see also Back channels, Conversational
15-16,17-20 Exchange Analysis
methodology in non-verbal Regulators 9-10, 29,108-109
communication research 38,150-151 Relationships 12
194 Subject Index
see also Postural congruence Syntax 9,33,109,127,136,140
Relaxation 24,26,40,68,79,81-82,148
Reliability studies 39,40,42,43,57,67,94, Television newsbroadcasts 28,43,44,47,
103,113,116,126,127 49-50,85,88-92,97,154
Replies 48,93-96,98,103-106,154-155 Tension 21,26,34
see also Conversational Exchange Analysis Trunk movements and positions 40,41, 87,
Requests 48,93-96,98,103-106,154,155 94-96,113-116,118,120,154,156,
see also Conversational Exchange Analysis 164-165,173-175
Role play 20,23-27,36,44,62-63,153 see also Backward lean, Forward lean,
Leans back, Leans forward, Leans
sideways, Sideways lean, Trunk
Sadness 7,22,45,53 straight, Trunk turn
Scargill, Arthur 125-127,129-140,157 Trunk Straight 72,73,75,76-82
Self-synchrony 27 Trunk turn 114,174
Sideways lean 24,72,75,80-83 Turns head 41,58-60,72,73,76-79,100,
see also Leans sideways 102,104-106,113,117,118,148,151,
Sleep/tension 21 155,164,172
Social context 12,13,14 Turn-yielding cues 30,97,98-100,106,
Social skills model 11 154-155
Social skills training 11-12 see also Turn-taking
Speaker-state signals 30-31,98-100,102, Turn-taking 30-31,36,48,97,98-107,
106 154-155
see also Turn-taking see also Attempt-suppressing signals, Back
Speech acts 48-49,92-93,98,102-106,
channels, Turn-yielding cues,
127,154-155,157 Within-turn signals
Speech content 15,28,33,36,102,106-
107,108-109,123-124,153-155
Status 24-26,74 Ultra-sound 39
Straightens head (from leans head) 65-66,
68,72,79,83,103,164
Stretches out legs 58-60,72,78,95,148, Vocal stress 9,28-29,33,37,49,109-110,
169 112,115-121,122-125,126,128-129,
see also Legs stretched out 136,139-140,146,154,156-157
Superior 74,81-82
Supports head on one hand 45,57-61,66,
68,72,73,76-79,82,148,151,152, Wall, Pat 125-126,128-129,139-140
166 Within-turn signals 30, 98,100
Surprise 7,21,149 see also Turn-taking

P. E. Bull - Posture & Gesture

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INTERNATIONAL SERIES IN EXPERIMENTAL SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGY

Series Editor: MICHAEL ARGYLE, University of Oxford

Vol 6. SMITHSON,AMATO and PEARCE

Vol 10. BOISE and MUNGNY

Vol 11. BROWN

Vol 12. HOLLIN and TROWER

Vol 13. Handbook of Social Skills Training, Volume 2

Vol 14. FOSTER

Vol 15. RUTTER

Vol 16. BULL

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data

Printed in Great Britain by A. Wheaton & Co. Ltd., Exeter

There is nothing new in the belief that non-verbal communication is more

(i) The Concept of Non-verbal Communication

can be regarded as non-verbal communication. A radically different view

through the analyst's interpretation of the particular postures adopted.

this volume. The importance of this distinction for empirical research is

(ii) The Role of Non-verbal Cues in Social Interaction

sions in appropriate situational contexts as do children born without such

flow of conversation, influencing both who is to speak and how much is

may not always be accurately decoded; if certain groups of people fail to

decoders can utilize such information to discern the relationship between

non-congruence of posture he argued is used to indicate marked di-

order on each occasion. But such a rule is in fact an inference from

(i) Postural Congruence

between mirror-image congruent postures, where one person's left side is

LaFrance (LaFrance and Broadbent, 1976; LaFrance, 1979) has in-

correlation between mirror-congruent postures and the measure of

female students on a number of rating scales (e.g. the therapy relationship

(ii) Emotion and Interpersonal Attitudes

phases of the interview, which were shown in pairs to American students

particular emotions. But it is only through systematic studies of encoding

(a) Forward and Backward Lean

the confederate as measured by ratings, thus supporting the relationship

(b) Sideways Lean

(c) Body Orientation

(d) Arms Akimbo

(e) Body Openness

liked; however, there were no corresponding differences when they were

The results of all these encoding and decoding studies of interpersonal

particularly important source of information about interpersonal attitudes.

(iii) Posture, Gesture and Speech

of Scheflen and of Pittenger, Hockett and Danehy on the grounds that

contexts there may be distinct advantages in using gesture. Gesture is

message more comprehensible, but to convey information about the

common computational stage: as such, gesture provides a second channel

Summary and Outline of Research

Methodological questions in research on non-verbal communication can be

(i) The Measurement of Posture and Gesture

unique number given to each frame and as a method of measuring the

Hand/arm postures are described according to the position of the hand,

(ii) Research Design

experimentation, while sociologists working in the framework of conversation

(a) Studies of Listener Emotions and Attitudes (Part II)

However, another experiment carried out by Ekman, Friesen and

these studies (Chapter 4) were intended to investigate how interest and

(b) Posture, Gesture and Speech (Part III)

representing individual ideas. CEA is then used to classify speech along

The final study of conversation to be presented in this book (Chapter 9;

the postures occurring while listening to the extracts to be compared with

The talks were recorded by a male and a female speaker, and

FIGURE 2. Seating arrangements in Experiments 1 and 2 (Not to scale).