CMN 122: Nonverbal Communication -
Exam 2 Study Guide with Actual
Answers.
Paralanguage - Answer - The way we say words, rather than the actual words spoken.
-Referring to our vocal qualities’ w/o words like: accents, pitch, pauses, and rate/speed
Behavioral Terminology in Paralanguage (3) - Answer VOCAL QUALITIES: vary from speaker to
speaker.
- Don't vary within a speaker, only from person to person. So, you can't change these aspects of
your voice.
- Everyone has a different voice (i.e. nasally, raspy, etc.)
VOCAL PROPERTIES: characteristics that are modified by all speakers.
- Ex: stressing words, pitch increase or decrease, etc.
- we CAN change, not based on anatomy
TEMPORAL CHARACTERISTICS: aspects of speech that are a function of time.
How do researchers measure paralanguage? - Answer Through spectrograms, which are
unique and hard to interpret.
Types of Pauses (4) - Answer PHONETIC:
- 250 ms or ¼ of a second or less
- Very fast pause, we can't detect by human ear or hear
SILENT:
- More than 250 ms
- A pause without sound, but can be detected clearly.
FILLED:
- More than 250 ms
A pause with sound (filled with "ummm's", "likes") kind of acts like a placeholder.
,RESPONSE LATENCY:
- Amount of time in between 2 people's conversation, when the speakers switch.
Functions of Paralanguage - Answer EMOTIONAL STATES:
- Used to communicate emotion
REGULATING THE FLOW OF THE CONVERSATION:
- Use it for: turn yielding cue (pitch increase. when ask a ?), turn requesting cue (audible
inhalation), maintain floor (increase volume, inhale say "um"), turn deny (remain in silence)
COGNITION:
- Processing info ("um's", quiet pauses)
SPEAKER CHARACTERISTICS:
- Attractiveness, personality traits, age, etc. can affect
Methods for Studying Emotional Qualities of the Voice (content free/without the words, just
qualities of voice) - Answer Strategies:
READ A STANDARD PASSAGE:
- Take some people who had won the lottery vs people diagnosed with depression
- People were able to accurately decode emotion and identify which group read the passage
RANDOM SPLICING:
- Record people with variety of emotions with casete tapes, cut up casete tapes, and randomly
paste back together (destroys words spoken, but preserves paralanguage)
- People are able to decode
ELECTRONIC CONTENT FILTERING:
- Muffling a voice, where. you can't hear words, but you can still hear paralanguage
- One limitation: sometimes hard to pick up higher frequencies
SYNTHESIZE VOICES (TONE GENERATOR):
- Machine speaking, not human (they modify paralanguage)
- Way to see paralanguage cues
, Pitch (h/l), Pitch Range (wid/nar), Loudness (loud/soft), Tempo (fast/slow) for...
Anger: (H), (W), (L), (F)
Joy: (H), (W), (L), (F)
Sadness: (L), (N), (S), (S)
- Words still matter
- People encode in voice and people can decode emotion
*Cognitive State and Vocal Behavior: - Answer Our cognitive load can impact our
paralanguage. Speech production can be very cognitively demanding. In decision making we see
speech hesitation. People tend to hesitate at the beginning of their speech, maybe because they
are planning what to say.
A study was done- students were asked to describe abstract v.s. concrete nouns. Found longer
response latency, more silent pauses, and filled pauses when describing abstract noun. This is
known as the hesitation phenomenon.
Another study was done- ambiguous interview probes v.s. specific. Found that ambiguous
interviewer probes, had more filled and silent pauses than specific.
Common %
90% of utterances are 10 words or less
33% are 3 words or less
*Personality and Paralanguage - Answer Extraversion- have a very short response latently,
few pause, more fluent speech, faster, louder
Introversion- Opposite from extraversion, use silent and filled pauses, more repetition
Dominance- loud, fast, fluent (few errors)
Type A behavior- very outgoing and competitive- have super fast speech!
*Anxiety and Vocal Behavior - Answer Studies refer to mostly trace and some state anxiety.
Characteristics include more silent pauses. Increase in speech disturbances- more disfluency.
Anxious ppl. take more time before speaking- increase in response latency. People with state
anxiety tend to have an increased speech rate. The effect of state anxiety on performance is
known as the Yerkes- Dodson law. The law states that a certain amount of anxiety can be
Exam 2 Study Guide with Actual
Answers.
Paralanguage - Answer - The way we say words, rather than the actual words spoken.
-Referring to our vocal qualities’ w/o words like: accents, pitch, pauses, and rate/speed
Behavioral Terminology in Paralanguage (3) - Answer VOCAL QUALITIES: vary from speaker to
speaker.
- Don't vary within a speaker, only from person to person. So, you can't change these aspects of
your voice.
- Everyone has a different voice (i.e. nasally, raspy, etc.)
VOCAL PROPERTIES: characteristics that are modified by all speakers.
- Ex: stressing words, pitch increase or decrease, etc.
- we CAN change, not based on anatomy
TEMPORAL CHARACTERISTICS: aspects of speech that are a function of time.
How do researchers measure paralanguage? - Answer Through spectrograms, which are
unique and hard to interpret.
Types of Pauses (4) - Answer PHONETIC:
- 250 ms or ¼ of a second or less
- Very fast pause, we can't detect by human ear or hear
SILENT:
- More than 250 ms
- A pause without sound, but can be detected clearly.
FILLED:
- More than 250 ms
A pause with sound (filled with "ummm's", "likes") kind of acts like a placeholder.
,RESPONSE LATENCY:
- Amount of time in between 2 people's conversation, when the speakers switch.
Functions of Paralanguage - Answer EMOTIONAL STATES:
- Used to communicate emotion
REGULATING THE FLOW OF THE CONVERSATION:
- Use it for: turn yielding cue (pitch increase. when ask a ?), turn requesting cue (audible
inhalation), maintain floor (increase volume, inhale say "um"), turn deny (remain in silence)
COGNITION:
- Processing info ("um's", quiet pauses)
SPEAKER CHARACTERISTICS:
- Attractiveness, personality traits, age, etc. can affect
Methods for Studying Emotional Qualities of the Voice (content free/without the words, just
qualities of voice) - Answer Strategies:
READ A STANDARD PASSAGE:
- Take some people who had won the lottery vs people diagnosed with depression
- People were able to accurately decode emotion and identify which group read the passage
RANDOM SPLICING:
- Record people with variety of emotions with casete tapes, cut up casete tapes, and randomly
paste back together (destroys words spoken, but preserves paralanguage)
- People are able to decode
ELECTRONIC CONTENT FILTERING:
- Muffling a voice, where. you can't hear words, but you can still hear paralanguage
- One limitation: sometimes hard to pick up higher frequencies
SYNTHESIZE VOICES (TONE GENERATOR):
- Machine speaking, not human (they modify paralanguage)
- Way to see paralanguage cues
, Pitch (h/l), Pitch Range (wid/nar), Loudness (loud/soft), Tempo (fast/slow) for...
Anger: (H), (W), (L), (F)
Joy: (H), (W), (L), (F)
Sadness: (L), (N), (S), (S)
- Words still matter
- People encode in voice and people can decode emotion
*Cognitive State and Vocal Behavior: - Answer Our cognitive load can impact our
paralanguage. Speech production can be very cognitively demanding. In decision making we see
speech hesitation. People tend to hesitate at the beginning of their speech, maybe because they
are planning what to say.
A study was done- students were asked to describe abstract v.s. concrete nouns. Found longer
response latency, more silent pauses, and filled pauses when describing abstract noun. This is
known as the hesitation phenomenon.
Another study was done- ambiguous interview probes v.s. specific. Found that ambiguous
interviewer probes, had more filled and silent pauses than specific.
Common %
90% of utterances are 10 words or less
33% are 3 words or less
*Personality and Paralanguage - Answer Extraversion- have a very short response latently,
few pause, more fluent speech, faster, louder
Introversion- Opposite from extraversion, use silent and filled pauses, more repetition
Dominance- loud, fast, fluent (few errors)
Type A behavior- very outgoing and competitive- have super fast speech!
*Anxiety and Vocal Behavior - Answer Studies refer to mostly trace and some state anxiety.
Characteristics include more silent pauses. Increase in speech disturbances- more disfluency.
Anxious ppl. take more time before speaking- increase in response latency. People with state
anxiety tend to have an increased speech rate. The effect of state anxiety on performance is
known as the Yerkes- Dodson law. The law states that a certain amount of anxiety can be
