Recipient design in tacit communication

The ability to design tailored messages for specific listeners is an important aspect of human communication. The present study investigates whether a mere belief about an addressee’s identity influences the generation and production of a communicative message in a novel, non-verbal communication ta...

Full description

Saved in:
Bibliographic Details
Published in:Cognition 2009-04, Vol.111 (1), p.46-54
Main Authors: Newman-Norlund, Sarah E., Noordzij, Matthijs L., Newman-Norlund, Roger D., Volman, Inge A.C., Ruiter, Jan Peter de, Hagoort, Peter, Toni, Ivan
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Adolescent
Adult
Audience
Audience design
Beliefs
Biological and medical sciences
Child
Communication
Design
Educational Games
Empathy
Female
Fundamental and applied biological sciences. Psychology
Games, Experimental
Humans
Individuality
Listeners
Messages
Motherese
Movement
Non-verbal communication
Nonverbal
Nonverbal Communication
Personality Traits
Psycholinguistics
Psychology. Psychoanalysis. Psychiatry
Psychology. Psychophysiology
Psychomotor Performance - physiology
Reaction Time - physiology
Social Behavior
Social game
Social interaction
Social interactions. Communication. Group processes
Social psychology
Young Adult
Citations: Items that this one cites
Items that cite this one
Online Access:Get full text
Tags: Add Tag
No Tags, Be the first to tag this record!
Description
Summary:The ability to design tailored messages for specific listeners is an important aspect of human communication. The present study investigates whether a mere belief about an addressee’s identity influences the generation and production of a communicative message in a novel, non-verbal communication task. Participants were made to believe they were playing a game with a child or an adult partner, while a confederate acted as both child and adult partners with matched performance and response times. The participants’ belief influenced their behavior, spending longer when interacting with the presumed child addressee, but only during communicative portions of the game, i.e. using time as a tool to place emphasis on target information. This communicative adaptation attenuated with experience, and it was related to personality traits, namely Empathy and Need for Cognition measures. Overall, these findings indicate that novel nonverbal communicative interactions are selected according to a socio-centric perspective, and they are strongly influenced by participants’ traits.
ISSN:0010-0277
1873-7838
DOI:10.1016/j.cognition.2008.12.004