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Nonverbal communication is usually understood as the process of communication through sending and receiving wordless (mostly visual) cues

between people. Messages can be communicated through gestures and touch, by body language or posture, by facial expression and eye contact, which are all considered types of nonverbal communication. Speech contains nonverbal elements known as paralanguage, including voice quality, rate, pitch, volume, and speaking style, as well prosodic features such as rhythm, intonation, and stress. Likewise, written texts have nonverbal elements such as handwriting style, spatial arrangement of words, or the physical layout of a page. However, much of the study of nonverbal communication has focused on face-to-face interaction, where it can be classified into three principal areas: environmental conditions where communication takes place, physical characteristics of the communicators, and behaviors of communicators during interaction. Importance Nonverbal communication represents two-thirds of all communication. Nonverbal communication can portray a message both verbally and with the correct body signals. Body signals comprise physical features, conscious and unconscious gestures and signals, and the [1] mediation of personal space. The wrong message can be established if the body language conveyed does not match a verbal message. Nonverbal communication strengthens a first impression in common situations like attracting a partner or in a business [1] interview: impressions are on average formed within the first four seconds of contact. First encounters or interactions with another [2] person strongly affect a person's perception. When the other person or group is absorbing the message they are focused on the entire environment around them, meaning the other person uses all five senses in the interaction: 83% sight, 11% hearing, 3% smell, [3] 2% touch and 1% taste. History The first scientific study of nonverbal communication was Charles Darwin's book The Expression of the Emotions in Man and [3] Animals. He argued that all mammals reliably show emotion in their faces. Seventy years later Silvan Tomkins (19111991) began his classic studies on human emotions in Affects Imagery Consciousness volumes 1-4. Rudolf Laban (18791958) and Warren Lamb (1923-) raised body movement analysis in the world of dance to a high level. Studies now range across a number of fields, including, linguistics, semiotics and social psychology. Another large influence in nonverbal communication was Ray Birdwhistell, who "pioneered the original study of nonverbal communication what he called 'kinesics.' He estimated that the average person actually speaks words for a total of about ten or eleven minutes a day and that the average sentence takes only about 2.5 seconds. Birdwhistell also estimated [3] we can make and recognize around 250,000 facial expressions." First impression A study revealed that students who rated a professor as highly likeable from only a two-second first impression found the class much [1] more enjoyable throughout the semester versus the students who did not." Posture There are many different types of posture, including slouching, towering, legs spread, jaw thrust, shoulders forward, and arm crossing. Posture or a person's bodily stance communicates a variety of messages. Posture can be used to determine a participant's degree of attention or involvement, the difference in status between communicators, and the level of fondness a person has for the other [4] communicator, depending on body "openness". Studies investigating the impact of posture on interpersonal relationships suggest that mirror-image congruent postures, where one person's left side is parallel to the other person's right side, leads to favorable perception of communicators and positive speech; a person who displays a forward lean or decreases a backward lean also signifies positive [5] sentiment during communication. [6] Posture can be situation-relative, that is, people will change their posture depending on the situation they are in. Clothing Clothing is one of the most common forms of non-verbal communication. The study of clothing and other objects as a means of non[7] [8] verbal communication is known as artifactics or objectics. The types of clothing that an individual wears convey nonverbal clues [3] about his or her personality, background and financial status, and how others will respond to them. An individual's clothing style can demonstrate their culture, mood, level of confidence, interests, age, authority, value/beliefs, and their sexual identity. A study, carried out in Vienna, Austria, of the clothing worn by women attending discothques showed that in certain groups of women (especially women who were without their partners), motivation for sex and levels of sexual hormones were correlated with aspects of [9] their clothing, especially the amount of skin displayed and the presence of sheer clothing. Gestures Gestures may be made with the hands, arms or body, and also include movements of the head, face and eyes, such as winking, nodding, or rolling one's eyes. Although the study of gesture is still in its infancy, some broad categories of gestures have been
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identified by researchers. The most familiar are the so-called emblems or quotable gestures. These are conventional, culture-specific gestures that can be used as replacement for words, such as the hand wave used in western cultures for "hello" and "goodbye." A single emblematic gesture can have a very different significance in different cultural contexts, ranging from complimentary to highly [10] [3] offensive. For a list of emblematic gestures, see List of gestures. There are some universal gestures like the shoulder shrug.

Gestures can also be categorized as either speech independent or speech related. Speech-independent gestures are dependent upon [4] culturally accepted interpretation and have a direct verbal translation. A wave or a peace sign are examples of speech-independent gestures. Speech-related gestures are used in parallel with verbal speech; this form of nonverbal communication is used to emphasize the message that is being communicated. Speech-related gestures are intended to provide supplemental information to a verbal message such as pointing to an object of discussion. Facial expressions, more than anything, serve as a practical means of communication. With all the various muscles that precisely control mouth, lips, eyes, nose, forehead,and jaw, human faces are estimated to be capable of more than ten thousand different expressions. This versatility makes non-verbals of the face extremely efficient and honest, unless deliberately manipulated. In addition, many of these emotions, including happiness, sadness, anger, fear, surprise, disgust, shame, anguish and interest are universally [11] recognized. Displays of emotions can generally be categorized into two groups: negative and positive. Negative emotions usually manifest as increased tension in various muscle groups: tightening of jaw muscles, furrowing of forehead, squinting eyes, or lip occlusion (when the lips seemingly disappear). In contrast, positive emotions are revealed by the loosening of the furrowed lines on the forehead, relaxation of the muscles around the mouth, and widening of the eye area. When individuals are truly relaxed and at ease, the head will also tilt to the side, exposing our most vulnerable area, the neck. This is a high-comfort display, often seen during courtship, that is nearly [12] impossible to mimic when tense or suspicious. Engagement Eye contact is when two people look at each other's eyes at the same time; it is the primary nonverbal way we indicate engagement, interest, attention, and involvement. Studies have found that people use their eyes to indicate their interest and not just with the frequently recognized actions of winking and movements of the eyebrows, but it can indicate social behavior. Men and women have different ways of eye contact. Men stare at the women they are interested in, whereas women tend to always keep their eyes roaming around the room to see who is there. Disinterest is highly noticeable when showing little eye contact in a social setting. Pupils dilate when they are interested in the other person. People, sometimes, even, without consciously doing so, probe each other's eyes and faces for positive or negative mood signs. Generally speaking, the longer the eye contact between two people the [1] greater the intimacy is felt inside According to Eckman, "Eye contact (also called mutual gaze) is another major channel of nonverbal communication. The duration of [13] eye contact is its most meaningful aspect." Gaze comprises the actions of looking while talking and listening. The length of a gaze, [14] the frequency of glances, patterns of fixation, pupil dilation, and blink rate are all important cues in nonverbal communication. "Liking [1] generally increases as mutual gazing increases." Along with the detection of disinterest, deceit can also be observed in a person. Hogan states "when someone is being deceptive their eyes tend to blink a lot more. Eyes act as leading indicator of truth or [1] deception," Eye aversion is the avoidance of eye contact. Eye contact and facial expressions provide important social and emotional information. Overall, as Pease states, "Give the amount of eye contact that makes everyone feel comfortable. Unless looking at others [3] is a cultural no-no, lookers gain more credibility than non-lookers" In concealing deception, nonverbal communication makes it easier to lie without being revealed. This is the conclusion of a study where people watched made-up interviews of persons accused of having stolen a wallet. The interviewees lied in about 50% of the cases. People had access to either written transcript of the interviews, or audio tape recordings, or video recordings. The more clues that were available to those watching, the larger was the trend that interviewees who actually lied were judged to be truthful. That is, people that [15] are clever at lying can use voice tone and face expression to give the impression that they are truthful. However, there are many cited examples of cues to deceit, delivered via nonverbal (Para verbal and visual) communication channels, through which deceivers [16] supposedly unwittingly provide clues to their concealed knowledge or actual opinions. Most studies examining the nonverbal cues to [17] deceit rely upon human coding of video footage (c.f. Vrij, 2008 ), although a recent study also demonstrated bodily movement [18] differences between truth-tellers and liars using an automated body motion capture system. Across cultures Nonverbal communication can have different meanings according to different cultures. Foreigners may even be confused about universal emotions. "In many cultures, such as the Arab and Iranian cultures, people express grief openly. They mourn out loud, while [19] in Asian cultures, the general belief is that it is unacceptable to show emotion openly." Gestures, postures, haptics, clothing, eye contact and proxemics all can be understood differently across the world.

One common example in the United States, is the gesture of a finger or hand to indicate "come here please". This is the gesture used to beckon dogs in some cultures. Pointing with one finger is also considered to be rude in some cultures and Asians typically use their [20] entire hand to point to something. In mainstream Western culture, eye contact is interpreted as attentiveness and honesty. In many cultures, however, including Hispanic, Asian, Middle Eastern, and Native American, eye contact is thought to be disrespectful or rude, and lack of eye contact does not mean that a person is not paying attention. Women may especially avoid eye contact with men because it can be taken as a sign of sexual [21] interest. The acceptable physical distance is another major difference in the nonverbal communication between cultures. In Latin America and the Middle East the acceptable distance is much shorter than what most Europeans and Americans feel comfortable with. This is why an American or a European might wonder why the other person is invading his or her personal space by standing so close, while the [22] other person might wonder why the American/European is standing so far from him or her. Indigenous communities In Indigenous Mayan communities of the Americas, children learn how to partake in adult activities through nonverbal communication. Children are able to learn in this manner due to their exposure to adult activities at a young age. At a young age, children intently observe and listen in on adult activities, and this helps provide them with a running knowledge on how to participate. As a result, when children take on adult activities for themselves the first time they do not need verbal communication in the form of directions from [23] adults. They can learn how to do the adult activity themselves through physically participating in it. In fact, talk acts only as a supplement to engagement in an activity. For instance, when a child engages in adult activities, spoken communication can be used to explore ideas or discuss need-to-know information. Otherwise, caregivers and adults primarily help guide their children through an [24] activity using non-verbal communication such as visual demonstration, gestures, gaze and touch. In Indigenous Mayan communities, when a child needs assistance adults will primarily use illustrative acts in the form of nonverbal communication to guide the child in a successful direction for the activity. For example, a Mayan parent could demonstrate to their child how to hold dough in a manner which allows for smooth flattening when making tortillas. In effect, when the child sees that the dough was flattened from the demonstration, they could try it for themselves and learn first hand how to make it flat. In that sense, by [25] observing a nonverbal demonstration of the activity and trying it firsthand, Mayan children learn how to participate in adult activities. Nonverbal communication is important as a way of learning for children of Indigenous Mayan communities, because it allows for children's autonomy and for horizontal collaboration. Mayan parents do not need to give lots of forceful verbal directives to their children to make sure they are participating effectively. Instead, parents collaborate non verbally with their children to guide them through the activity, and doing so is enough to ensure children do the activity successfully. By communicating nonverbally, parents allow their [25] children to have more individual development during their participation in adult activities. Furthermore, by having nonverbal collaboration, children benefit from the assistance of people who are skillful at the adult practice. The result is that on top of their initial knowledge of adult activities, children's understanding can be further be strengthened through the nonverbal guidance from adult [25] expertise. Genetics "In the study of nonverbal communications, the limbic brain is where the action is...because it is the part of the brain that reacts to the [26] world around us reflexively and instantaneously, in real time, and without thought." There is evidence that the nonverbal cues made [3] from person-to-person do not entirely have something to do with environment. Other than gestures, phenotypic traits can also convey certain messages in nonverbal communication, for instance, eye color, hair color and height. Research into height has generally found that taller people are perceived as being more impressive. Melamed and Bozionelos (1992) studied a sample of managers in the United Kingdom and found that height was a key factor in who was promoted. Height can have benefits and depressors too. "While tall people often command more respect than short people, height can also be detrimental to some aspects of one-to-one communication, for instance, where you need to 'talk on the same level' or have an 'eye-to[3] eye' discussion with another person and do not want to be perceived as too big for your boots." Proxemics Proxemics is the study of how people use and perceive the physical space around them. The space between the sender and the receiver of a message influences the way the message is interpreted. In addition, the perception and use of space varies significantly [27] across cultures and different settings within cultures. Space in nonverbal communication may be divided into four main categories: intimate, social, personal, and public space. The term territoriality is used in the study of proxemics to explain human behavior regarding personal space. (2004, p. 69) identify 4 such territories:
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Hargie & Dickson

1. 2.

3.

4.

Primary territory: This refers to an area that is associated with someone who has exclusive use of it. An example is a house that others cannot enter without the owner's permission. Secondary territory: Unlike primary territory, there is no "right" to occupancy of secondary territory, but people may still feel some degree of ownership of such space as they develop the custom of occupying it. For example, someone may sit in the same seat in church every week and feel irritated if someone else sits there. Public territory: this refers to an area that is available to all, but only for a set period, such as a parking space or a seat in a library. Although people have only a limited claim over that space, they often extend that claim. For example, it was found that people take longer to leave a parking space when someone is waiting to take that space. Interaction territory: this is space held by others when they are interacting. For example, when a group is talking to each other on a footpath, others will walk around the group rather than disturb their interaction territory.

Movement and body position Kinesics The term "kinesics" was first used (in 1952) by Ray Birdwhistell, an anthropologist who wished to study how people communicate through posture, gesture, stance, and movement. Part of Birdwhistell's work involved making films of people in social situations and analyzing them to show different levels of communication not clearly seen otherwise. Several other anthropologists, including Margaret Mead and Gregory Bateson, also studied kinesics. Haptics: touching in communication Main article: Haptic communication Haptics is the study of touching as nonverbal communication, and haptic communication refers to how people and other animals communicate via touching. Touches among humans that can be defined as communication include handshakes, holding hands, kissing (cheek, lips, hand), back slapping, high fives, a pat on the shoulder, and brushing an arm. Touching of oneself may include licking, picking, holding, and [4] scratching. These behaviors are referred to as "adapters" or "tells" and may send messages that reveal the intentions or feelings of a communicator and a listener. The meaning conveyed from touch is highly dependent upon the culture, the context of the situation, the [29] relationship between communicators, and the manner of touch. Touch is an extremely important sense for humans; as well as providing information about surfaces and textures it is a component of nonverbal communication in interpersonal relationships, and vital in conveying physical intimacy. It can be both sexual (such as kissing) and platonic (such as hugging or tickling). Touch is the earliest sense to develop in the fetus. Human babies have been observed to have enormous difficulty surviving if they do not possess a sense of touch, even if they retain sight and hearing. Babies who can perceive through touch, even without sight and hearing, tend to fare much better. In chimpanzees the sense of touch is highly developed. As newborns they see and hear poorly but cling strongly to their mothers. Harry Harlow conducted a controversial study involving rhesus monkeys and observed that monkeys reared with a "terry cloth mother," a wire feeding apparatus wrapped in soft terry cloth that provided a level of tactile stimulation and comfort, were considerably more emotionally stable as adults than those with a mere wire mother.(Harlow,1958) Touching is treated differently from one country to another and socially acceptable levels of touching vary from one culture to another (Remland, 2009). In Thai culture, for example, touching someone's head may be thought rude. Remland and Jones (1995) studied groups of people communicating and found that touching was rare among the English (8%), the French (5%) and the Dutch (4%) [30] compared to Italians (14%) and Greeks (12.5%). Striking, pushing, pulling, pinching, kicking, strangling and hand-to-hand fighting are forms of touch in the context of physical abuse. Functions of nonverbal communication Argyle (1970) put forward the hypothesis that whereas spoken language is normally used for communicating information about events external to the speakers, non-verbal codes are used to establish and maintain interpersonal relationships. It is considered more polite or nicer to communicate attitudes towards others non-verbally rather than verbally, for instance in order to avoid embarrassing [32] situations. Argyle (1988) concluded there are five primary functions of nonverbal bodily behavior in human communication:
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Express emotions Express interpersonal attitudes

To accompany speech in managing the cues of interaction between speakers and listeners Self-presentation of one's personality Rituals (greetings)

In regards to expressing interpersonal attitudes, humans communicate interpersonal closeness through a series of nonverbal actions known as immediacy behaviors. Examples of immediacy behaviors are smiling, touching, open body positions, and eye contact. Cultures that display these immediacy behaviors are considered high-contact cultures. Criticism An interesting question is: When two people are communicating face-to-face, how much of the meaning is communicated verbally, and [34][35] how much is communicated non-verbally? This was investigated by Albert Mehrabian and reported in two papers. The latter paper concluded: "It is suggested that the combined effect of simultaneous verbal, vocal, and facial attitude communications is a weighted sum of their independent effects - with coefficients of .07, .38, and .55, respectively." Since then, other studies have analysed the relative contribution of verbal and nonverbal signals under more naturalistic situations. [31] Argyle, using video tapes shown to the subjects, analysed the communication of submissive/dominant attitude and found that nonverbal cues had 4.3 times the effect of verbal cues. The most important effect was that body posture communicated superior status in a [36] very efficient way. On the other hand, a study by Hsee et al. had subjects judge a person on the dimension happy/sad and found that words spoken with minimal variation in intonation had an impact about 4 times larger than face expressions seen in a film without sound. Thus, the relative importance of spoken words and facial expressions may be very different in studies using different set-ups. Interaction of verbal and nonverbal communication When communicating, nonverbal messages can interact with verbal messages in six ways: repeating, conflicting, complementing, substituting, regulating and accenting/moderating. Conflicting Verbal and nonverbal messages within the same interaction can sometimes send opposing or conflicting messages. A person verbally expressing a statement of truth while simultaneously fidgeting or avoiding eye contact may convey a mixed message to the receiver in the interaction. Conflicting messages may occur for a variety of reasons often stemming from feelings of uncertainty, ambivalence, or frustration.[23]When mixed messages occur, nonverbal communication becomes the primary tool people use to attain additional information to clarify the situation; great attention is placed on bodily movements and positioning when people perceive mixed messages during interactions Complementing Accurate interpretation of messages is made easier when nonverbal and verbal communication complement each other. Nonverbal cues can be used to elaborate on verbal messages to reinforce the information sent when trying to achieve communicative goals; [37] messages have been shown to be remembered better when nonverbal signals affirm the verbal exchange. Substituting Nonverbal behavior is sometimes used as the sole channel for communication of a message. People learn to identify facial expressions, body movements, and body positioning as corresponding with specific feelings and intentions. Nonverbal signals can be used without verbal communication to convey messages; when nonverbal behavior does not effectively communicate a message, [38] verbal methods are used to enhance understanding. Clinical studies of nonverbal communication From 1977 to 2004, the influence of disease and drugs on receptivity of nonverbal communication was studied by teams at three [39] separate medical schools using a similar paradigm. Researchers at the University of Pittsburgh, Yale University and Ohio State University had subjects observe gamblers at a slot machine awaiting payoffs. The amount of this payoff was read by nonverbal transmission prior to reinforcement. This technique was developed by and the studies directed by psychologist, Dr. Robert E. Miller and [40] psychiatrist, Dr. A. James Giannini. These groups reported diminished receptive ability in heroin addicts and phencyclidine [41] [42] abusers was contrasted with increased receptivity in cocaine addicts. Men with major depression manifested significantly decreased ability to read nonverbal cues when compared with euthymic men. In some subjects tested for ability to read nonverbal cues, intuitive paradigms were apparently employed while in others a cause and [43] effect approach was used. Subjects in the former group answered quickly and before reinforcement occurred. They could not give a rationale for their particular responses. Subjects in the latter category delayed their response and could offer reasons for their [44] choice.The level of accuracy between the two groups did not vary nor did handedness. Freitas-Magalhaes studied the effect of smile in the treatment of depression and concluded that depressive states decrease when you [45] smile more often.

Obese women and women with premenstrual syndrome were found to also possess diminished abilities to read these cues. In [48] contradistinction, men with bipolar disorder possessed increased abilities. A woman with total paralysis of the nerves of facial [49] expression was found unable to transmit or receive any nonverbal facial cues whatsoever. Because of the changes in levels of accuracy on the levels of nonverbal receptivity, the members of the research team hypothesized a biochemical site in the brain which was operative for reception of nonverbal cues. Because certain drugs enhanced ability while others diminished it, the neurotransmitters dopamine and endorphin were considered to be likely etiological candidate. Based on the available data, however, the primary cause [50] and primary effect could not be sorted out on the basis of the paradigm employed.

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Paralanguage From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia Jump to: navigation, search "gasp" and "sigh" redirect here. For other uses, see gasp (disambiguation) and sigh (disambiguation). Paralanguage refers to the non-verbal elements of communication used to modify meaning and convey emotion. Paralanguage may be expressed consciously or unconsciously, and it includes the pitch, volume, and, in some cases, intonation of speech. Sometimes the definition is restricted to vocally-produced sounds. The study is known as paralinguistics. The term 'paralanguage' should not be confused with kinesics, or the study of body language. While kinesics is non-linguistic, it is not necessarily related to vocal or written language: paralanguage is. Paralinguistic information, because it is phenomenal, belongs to the external speech signal (Ferdinand de Saussure's parole) but not to the arbitrary conventional code of language (Saussure's langue). The paralinguistic properties of speech play an important role in human speech communication. There are no utterances or speech signals that lack paralinguistic properties, since speech requires the presence of a voice that can be modulated. This voice must have some properties, and all the properties of a voice as such are paralinguistic. However, the distinction linguistic vs. paralinguistic applies not only to speech but to writing and sign language as well, and it is not bound to any sensory modality. Even vocal language has some paralinguistic as well as linguistic properties that can be seen (lip reading, McGurk effect), and even felt, e.g. by the Tadoma method. Contents Aspects of the speech signal Perspectival aspects Speech signals that arrive at a listeners ears have acoustic properties that may allow listeners to localize the speaker (distance, direction). Sound localization functions in a similar way also for non-speech sounds. The perspectival aspects of lip reading are more obvious and have more drastic effects when head turning is involved. Organic aspects The speech organs of different speakers differ in size. As children grow up, their organs of speech become larger and there are differences between male and female adults. The differences concern not only size, but also proportions. They affect the pitch of the voice and to a substantial extent also the formant frequencies, which characterize the different speech sounds. The organic quality of speech has a communicative function in a restricted sense, since it is merely informative about the speaker. It will be expressed independently of the speakers intention. Expressive aspects Paralinguistic cues such as loudness, rate, pitch, pitch contour, and to some extent formant frequencies of an utterance, contribute to the emotive or attitudinal quality of an utterance. Typically, attitudes are expressed intentionally and emotions [citation needed] [citation needed] without intention , but attempts to fake or to hide emotions are not unusual . Consequently, paralinguistic cues relating to expression have a moderate effect of semantic marking. That is, a message may be made more or less coherent by adjusting its expressive presentation. For instance, upon hearing an utterance such as "I drink a glass of wine every night before I go to sleep" is coherent when made by a speaker identified as an adult, but registers a small semantic anomaly [1] when made by a speaker identified as a child. This anomaly is significant enough to be measured through electroencephalography, as [2] an N400. Individuals with disorders along autism spectrum have a reduced sensitivity to this and similar effects. Emotional tone of voice, itself paralinguistic information, has been shown to affect the resolution of lexical ambiguity. Some words have homophonous partners; some of these homophones appear to have an implicit emotive quality, for instance the sad "die" contrasted with the neutral "dye"; uttering the sound /dai/ in a sad tone of voice can result in a listener writing that word significantly more often [3] than if the word is uttered in a neutral tone. Linguistic aspects Ordinary phonetic transcriptions of utterances reflect only the linguistically informative quality. The problem of how listeners factor out the linguistically informative quality from speech signals is a topic of current research. Some of the linguistic features of speech, in particular of its prosody, are paralinguistic or pre-linguistic in origin. A most fundamental [4] and widespread phenomenon of this kind is described by John Ohala as the "frequency code". This code works even in communication across species. It has its origin in the fact that the acoustic frequencies in the voice of small vocalizers are high while

they are low in the voice of large vocalizers. This gives rise to secondary meanings such as 'harmless', 'submissive', 'unassertive', which are naturally associated with smallness, while meanings such as 'dangerous', 'dominant', and 'assertive' are associated with largeness. In most languages, the frequency code also serves the purpose of distinguishing questions from statements. It is universally reflected in expressive variation, and it is reasonable to assume that it has phylogenetically given rise to the sexual dimorphism that lies behind the large difference in pitch between average female and male adults. In text-only communication such as email, chatrooms and instant messaging, paralinguistic elements can be displayed by emoticons, font and color choices, capitalization and the use of non-alphabetic or abstract characters. Nonetheless, paralanguage in written communication is limited in comparison with face-to-face conversation, sometimes leading to misunderstandings.

Chronemics Chronemics is the study of the use of time in nonverbal communication. The way that an individual would perceive and value time, structure our time and react to time is a powerful communication tool, and helps set the stage for the communication process. Across cultures, time perception plays a large role in the nonverbal communication process. Time perceptions include punctuality, willingness to wait, and interactions. The use of time can affect lifestyles, daily agendas, speed of speech, movements and how long people are willing to listen. Time can also be used as an indicator of status. For example, in most companies the boss can interrupt progress to hold an impromptu meeting in the middle of the work day, yet the average worker would have to make an appointment to see the boss. The way different cultures perceive time can influence communication as well. Cultures are usually put into two time system categories: monochronic and polychronic.

Haptics Haptics refers to the sense of touch (from Greek = "I fasten onto, I touch"). It is a form of nonverbal communication. Haptic customs differ greatly throughout the world. In many Spanish-speaking countries of Latin America, people greet each other with one kiss on the cheek, for example in Argentina. In Spain, people greet each other with two kisses on the cheek. In Colombia shaking hands or verbal greeting is common and probably without hugging. In Peru when men greet one another they usually do so shaking hands or with a verbal greeting, otherwise, whenever a woman is involved, greeting involves kissing on the cheek or verbal greeting. In the United States, the main form of greeting is shaking hands, though when greeting friends it is not uncommon for them to hug. In Japan, people bow to each other in greeting and think it's rude to touch. Every country has a different perception of touch as communication.
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