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One particular process in communication is to send and receive wordless messages. This kind of information transmission is commonly referred to as “nonverbal communication” (NVC). Nonverbal signals include facial expressions, bodily orientation, movements, posture, vocal cues (other than words), eye gaze, physical appearance, interpersonal spacing, and touching. As such, they support and moderate speech, facilitate the expression of emotions, help communicating people’s attitudes, convey information about personality, and thus negotiate interpersonal relationships, even in the form of rituals. (…) There seems to be some kernel of truth in the proverb that “actions speak louder than words.” (…)
Some support on the significance of NVC in social life comes from studies that have investigated non-verbal cues in human courtship situations. In these studies, first encounters of opposite-sex strangers were covertly filmed in “unstaged interaction” to investigate flirting behavior. When opposite sex strangers meet for the first time, they both face the risk of being deceived. Neither opponent is aware of the other’s intention, thus both have to rely heavily on non-verbal cues. Grammer (1990) reported that, in such a situation, there is a remarkable consistency in the repertoire of female solicitation behaviors in the presence of a male stranger, including eye- contact, followed by looking away, special postures, ways of walking, and so on. Interestingly, men were found to approach women who expressed high rates of signaling these behaviors more frequently.
In later study, Grammer et al. (1999) found that some information about female interest is not only inherent in the number of certain non-verbal signals, but is also encoded in the quality of body movements, such as their amplitude and speed. For example, women moved more frequently, but also displayed smaller and slower movements when they were interested in a man. Men in turn reacted to the quality of these movements positively and judged the situation to be more pleasant.
