What is body language and nonverbal communication?
The importance of body language in communication cannot be stressed enough.
Body language is also known by another term called Nonverbal Behavior. Nonverbal behavior is a complex signal system of the body to communicate our mental states, thoughts and feelings.
Body language is one of the most complex signal systems of the body because it includes different channels like:
Each of those channels are important in communication and can communicate different messages.
They communicate specific or generic emotions. They communicate cognitive processes or specific cognitions; some kind of physiological states and some other things.
When you put all those channels together with all those signals it’s really easy to see why nonverbal behavior or body language is one of the most, or the most, complex signal system in the body. When we’re trying to observe and understand body language, it’s just so overwhelming because there’s so many channels and messages.
Research has shown that of all of the channels and all of the messages coming at us, one of the most important is facial expressions of emotion. That’s why we focus on facial expressions of emotion.
That doesn’t mean that everything else is not important because we also focus on the other things, like gesture and voices and everything else. But facial expressions of emotion are the most important channel that we have.
One thing that’s unique about our work and our approach to body language is that we focus on what we call validated indicators.
These are behaviors that have been validated by research and science over the last thirty to fifty years and that have been vetted in the field by the thousands of people that we have been fortunate enough to train and use our system in their daily lives.
Fortunately, research and practical experience can tell us which behavior to pay attention to and which to ignore, which are more important than others, and the kinds of messages we can get.
