Activities

1. To enrich your understanding of the chapter, check out:

   LearningCurve for adaptive quizzing for the chapter.

   The “Browse Resources for this Unit” tab to view videos illustrating key concepts.

2. Question

   Record a new episode of your favorite scripted television show. Try watching it with the sound turned all the way down (and closed captions turned off ). Can you guess what’s going on in terms of plot? How about in terms of what the characters are feeling? Now watch it again with the sound on. How accurate were your interpretations of the nonverbal behaviors shown? How successful do you think you would have been if it were an unfamiliar show, one with characters you don’t know as well?

3. Question

   Shake up your clothing and artifacts today. Wear something completely out of character for you, and consider how people react. If you normally dress very casually, try wearing a suit, or if you’re normally quite put together, try going out wearing sweatpants, sneakers, or a T-shirt; if you’re normally a clean-shaven man, try growing a beard for a week, or if you’re a woman who never wears makeup, try wearing lipstick and eyeliner. Do you get treated differently by friends? How about strangers (such as clerks in stores) or any professionals (such as doctors or mechanics) with whom you interact?

   Shake up your clothing and artifacts today. Wear something completely out of character for you, and consider how people react. If you normally dress very casually, try wearing a suit, or if you’re normally quite put together, try going out wearing sweatpants, sneakers, or a T-shirt; if you’re normally a clean-shaven man, try growing a beard for a week, or if you’re a woman who never wears makeup, try wearing lipstick and eyeliner. Do you get treated differently by friends? How about strangers (such as clerks in stores) or any professionals (such as doctors or mechanics) with whom you interact?

4. Question

   Observe the nonverbal behaviors of people leaving or greeting one another at an airport or a train station. Do you think you can tell the relationship they have from their nonverbal behaviors? Describe the variety of behaviors you observe, and categorize them according to the codes and functions detailed in this chapter.

5. Question

   Try smiling (genuinely) more than you usually do—and with people you might not usually smile at. See what happens. Do you feel differently about yourself and others? Do others respond with more smiles of their own? (A group of thirty of our students tried this one day and reported back that they thought they had made the whole campus a happier place—though there were a few people they encountered who remained their solemn selves.)

   Try smiling (genuinely) more than you usually do—and with people you might not usually smile at. See what happens. Do you feel differently about yourself and others? Do others respond with more smiles of their own? (A group of thirty of our students tried this one day and reported back that they thought they had made the whole campus a happier place—though there were a few people they encountered who remained their solemn selves.)

6. Question

   Play with text-to-speech features on your computer. Compare the way the machine reads a passage of text to the way you would read it. Do you have a choice of voices from which to choose, and is there one you prefer? Would you rather listen to an audiobook performance by a noted actor or a computer-generated voice reading the same material?

   Play with text-to-speech features on your computer. Compare the way the machine reads a passage of text to the way you would read it. Do you have a choice of voices from which to choose, and is there one you prefer? Would you rather listen to an audiobook performance by a noted actor or a computer-generated voice reading the same material?