The Repertoire of Nonverbal Behavior: Categories, Origins, Usage, and Coding

Ir we arc to understand fully any instance of a person's non-verbal behavior that is, any movement or position of the face and/or the bodywe must discover how that behavior became part of the penon's repertoire, the circumstances of its usc, and the rules which explain how the behavior contains or conveys information. We will call these three fundamental considerations ORIGIN, USAGE. and CODING. The interrelationships among and the differences within these three aspects of nonverbal behavior are extremely complex. The task of unraveling nonverbal behavior in these terms is enormously difficult; and it becomes impossible if we fail to consider the possibility of multiple categories of nonverbal behavior. The need to develop such a categorical scheme bas emerged from the results of our empirical studies over the past eight years, and has been crystallized by our two current research projects, the study of crosscultural differences in nonverbal behavior, and the study of nonverbal leakage of information during deceptive situations. We will briefly trace how some of the findings raised questions which led us to attempt to