Nonverbal communication (NVC) is usually understood as the process of communicationCommunication is a process that allows beings - in particular humans - to exchange information by several methods. Communication requires that some kinds of symbols from a kind of language are exchanged. There are auditory means, such as speaking or singing, and nonverbal, physical means, such as body language, sign language, paralanguage, touch or eye contact. Communication happens at many levels (even for one single action), ...communication through sending and receiving wordlessA word is a unit of language that carries meaning and consists of one or more morphemes which are linked more or less tightly together, and has a phonetical value. Typically a word will consist of a root or stem and zero or more affixes. Words can be combined ...wordless messages. Such messages can be communicated through gestureA gesture is a form of non-verbal communication made with a part of the body, used instead of or in combination with verbal communication. The language of gesture is rich in ways for individuals to express a variety of feelings and thoughts, from contempt and hostility to approval and ...gesture; body languageBody language is a term for communication using body movements or gestures (such as the Pinocchio Syndrome) "Liar, liar, nose on fire" (body language), Dr. Gifford Jones, December 2001, webpage: GeoC-Liar. instead of, or in addition to, sounds, verbal language or other communication. It forms part of the category of paralanguage, which describes all forms of human communication ...body language or postureHuman position refers to a position of a human body. It can also be called a person's attitude or bearing.posture; facial expressionA facial expression results from one or more motions or positions of the muscles of the face. These movements convey the emotional state of the individual to observers. Facial expressions are a form of nonverbal communication. They are a primary means of conveying social information among Humans, but also occur in most other mammals ...facial expression and eye contactEye contact is an event when two people look at each other's eyes at the same time."Eye contact". Cambridge Advanced Learner's Dictionary. Retrieved May 14, 2006. It is a form of nonverbal communication and has a large influence on social behavior. Frequency and interpretation of eye contact vary between cultures and species. Eye aversion is the avoidance of ...eye contact; object communication such as clothingClothing protects the vulnerable nude human body from the extremes of weather, other features of our environment, and for safety reasons. Every article of clothing also carries a cultural and social meaning. Human beings are the only creatures known to wear clothing, with the exception of pets ...clothing, hairstylesFor humans, haircut, hairstyle, or hairdo normally describe cutting or styling head hair. Unlike other animals, human beings of many cultures cut their hair, rather than letting it grow naturally. Hair styles are often used to signal cultural, social, and ethnic identity and can be used to illustrate social status or individuality. Men and women naturally have the same hair, with the primary component of hair fiber being keratin. Keratins are proteins, long chains of amino acids. Generally, hairstyles conform ...hairstyles or even architecture.]] Architecture is the art and science of designing buildings and structures. A wider definition often includes the design of the total built environment: from the macrolevel of town planning, urban design, and landscape architecture to the microlevel of construction details and furniture. The term "Architecture" is also used for the profession of providing architectural services. Architectural design involves the manipulation of mass, space, volume, texture, light, shadow, materials, program, and other elements in order to achieve ...architecture; symbols:The musical instrument is spelled cymbal. Symbols are objects, characters, or other concrete representations of ideas, concepts, or other abstractions. For example, in the United States and Canada, a red octagon is a symbol for the traffic sign meaning "STOP". In more psychological and philosophical terms, every perception is symbolic, and humans often react to symbolism on a subconscious level. Common examples of symbols are the symbols used on maps to denote places of interest, such as crossed sabers to ...symbols and infographicsInformation graphics or infographics are visual representations of information, data or knowledge. These graphics are used anywhere where information needs to be explained quickly or simply, such as in signs, maps, journalism, technical writing, and education. They are also used extensively as tools by computer scientists, ...infographics; prosodicIn linguistics, prosody describes all the acoustic properties of speech that cannot be predicted from a local window on the orthographic (or similar) transcription. So, prosody is relative to a default pronunciation of a phoneme/feature bundle/segment/syllable; it does not include coarticulation because coarticulation is predictable from the immediate phonological or orthographic neighborhood. Qualitatively, one can understand prosody as the difference between a well-performed play, and one on first reading. Syntactically, ...prosodic features of speech such as intonationIn linguistics, intonation is the variation of pitch when speaking. Intonation and stress are two main elements of linguistic prosody. Many languages use pitch syntactically, for instance to convey surprise and irony or to change a statement to a question. Such languages are called intonation languages. English and French are well-known examples. Some languages use pitch to distinguish words; these are known as tonal languages. Chinese, Thai, and Hausa are examples. An intermediate ...intonation and stressIn linguistics, stress is the relative emphasis that may be given to certain syllables in a word. The term is also used for similar patterns of phonetic prominence inside syllables. The word accent is sometimes also used with this sense. The ways stress ...stress and other paralinguisticParalanguage 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. ...paralinguistic features of speech such as voiceThe human voice consists of sound made by a human using the vocal folds for talking, singing, laughing, crying and screaming. The vocal folds, in combination with the lips, the tongue, the lower jaw, and the palate, are capable of producing highly intricate arrays of sound. The tone of voice may be modulated to suggest emotions such as anger, surprise, or happiness. Singers use the human voice as an instrument ...voice quality, emotionEmotion, in its most general definition, is a complex psychophysical process that arises spontaneously, rather than through conscious effort, and evokes either a positive or negative psychological response and physical expressions, often involuntary, related to feelings, perceptions or beliefs about ...emotion and speakingSpeech refers to a number of topics, usually dealing with interpersonal communication. Specifically, it may refer to: * Speech (public address), a speech given by an orator to an audience * Public speaking, the process or study of speaking in public * Speech ...speaking style.
Scholars in this field usually use a strict sense of the term "verbal", meaning "of or concerned with words," and do not use "verbal communication" as a synonym for oral or spoken communication. Thus, sign languagesA sign language (also signed language) is a language which uses manual communication, body language and lip patterns instead of sound to convey meaning—simultaneously combining hand shapes, orientation and movement of the hands, arms or body, and facial expressions to express fluidly a speaker's thoughts. Sign languages commonly develop in deaf communities, which can include interpreters ...sign languages and writingWriting, in its most common sense, is the preservation of and the preserved text on a medium, with the use of signs or symbols. In that regard, it is to be distinguished from illustrating such as cave drawings and paintings on the one hand, and recorded speech such as tape recordings and movies, on the other. Writing was first invented by the ancient Mesopotamians.writing are generally understood as forms of verbal communication, as both make use of words — although like speech, both may contain paralinguistic elements and often occur alongside nonverbal messages. Nonverbal communication can occur through any sensoryA sensory system is a part of the nervous system responsible for processing sensory information. A sensory system consists of sensory receptors, neural pathways, and parts of the brain involved in sensory perception. Commonly recognized sensory systems are those for vision, hearing, somatic sensation (touch), taste and olfaction (smell). The receptive field is the specific part of the world to which a receptor organ and receptor cells respond. For ...sensory channelChannel, in communications (sometimes called communications channel), refers to the medium used to convey information from a sender (or transmitter) to a receiver.channel — sightIn psychology, visual perception is the ability to interpret visible light information reaching the eyes which is then made available for planning and action. The resulting perception is also known as eyesight, sight or vision. The various components involved in vision are known as the visual system.sight, soundSound is a disturbance of mechanical energy that propagates through matter as a wave. Sound is characterized by the properties of waves, which are frequency, wavelength, period, amplitude, and speed. Humans perceive sound by the sense of hearing. By sound, we commonly mean the vibrations that travel through air and are audible to people. However, scientists and engineers use a wider definition of sound that includes low and high frequency vibrations in air that cannot ...sound, smellOlfaction (also known as olfactics) is the sense of smell driven by the detection of volatile chemicals. The chemicals themselves, generally at very low concentrations, are called odors.smell, touchSomatic sensation consists of the various sensory receptors that trigger the experiences labelled as touch or pressure, temperature (warm or cold), pain (including itch and tickle), and the sensations of muscle movement and joint position including posture, movement, and facial expression (collectively also called proprioception). A more complex concept comes into play when the term is used in reference to human beings. The sense of touch is mediated by the somatosensory system. Touch ...touch or tasteThis article refers to the sensory system. For the social and aesthetic aspects of taste, consult taste (sociology). For other uses, see taste (other uses). Taste (or more formerly, gustation) is a form of direct chemoreception and is one of the traditional five senses. It refers ...taste.
Nonverbal communication is distinguished from unconscious communicationUnconscious (or intuitive) communication is the transfer of information unconsciously between humans. It is sometimes intrapersonal, like dreaming or cognition under the effects of hypnosis, and is not necessarily nonverbal communication. Research has shown that our conscious attention can attend ...unconscious communication, which may be verbal or non-verbal.
