Part 4 (1/2)

Sraphicalwith hospitals, railway stations have distinct sical studies have shown that this is not surprising, given that the primary olfactory cortex of the brain is linked directly to the adala and the hippoca of e What is rated with the rest of memory knots (visual, verbal, phonemic and so on representations of an object or idea); it is also the slowest a all the other stienerationally linked as a result of shared product experiences and lifestyle Far fewer people bake bread or live in the country than used to for associated with the scents of warm bread, or cut hay or fresh horse e cohort

Certainly buildings and different parts of them have characteristics smells as a function of orks in them, what they do and how they are furnished So materials and others of food of various types Aromatherapy may not, as yet, be an accepted therapy, but there is no doubt that people do change their behavior in response to smell The whole perfuanizations and the people in thereat deal of attention to smell These include hotels and restaurants, and airlines and other transport systes are clean and orderly, and they do this with scent People may not be conscious of the smell but do respond to it very obviously

People, of course, douse themselves in scent, from shampoo and toothpaste to perfume Women kno men respond to certain perfumes Various studies have shown that people who have a particularly desirable s clever, her morale and so on

Music and sh they can profoundly influence both thinking (decision-, for example) The process can even be semisubliminal: while people are initially aware of particular scents, they reed by the attraction (the effects of body odor), decision- and brain cheical consequences occur once positive and negative moods are induced and familiar scents are detected But they still do not kno people are able to distinguish between pepper and pepperht of as a very serious area of enquiry until the commercial consequences were spelt out

It is possible to i our knowledge of the link between smell and mood, and mood and behavior Some will object to a twenty-first-century version of a new ”hidden persuader”; others will be pleased to find that so, travelling and shopping environment

BEYOND WORDS AND SOUNDS

Voice and speech pattern

It is a co said However, vocal properties of speech can stress, highlight, or change completely, one and the same statement Thus, voice and speech patterns, such as pauses, accents, emphases, intonations, variations in pitch, tempo, rhythm and tonality work in a similar fashi+on to punctuation A classic school exercise illustrates this idea: 'A wo' Once you have decided which words to punctuate, the intonation will follow accordingly What ison how you choose to stress each of the words and where you pause in the sentence, the overallof the state: ”Call me fool, if you will” with ”Call me, fool, if you will” or ”Panda eats, shoots and leaves” with ”Panda eats shoots and leaves”

Vocal and speech patterns coer, joy, sadness);dimensions of personality (extraversion/introversion, roup affiliation, such as social class or regional background;assertiveness, dominance, credibility

Dominance, for example, is characterized by faster speech, fewer pauses, louder voice and h lower tone and volume of speech Extraverted individuals usually speak faster and use more pitch variations

Research into voice and speech patterns is the study of how things are said, not (so much) what is said It is the study of prosody Consider the six sentences below Place emphasis on the words in italics and you will see how the ave cash to his PA

The director gave cash to his PA

The director gave cash to his PA

The director gave cash to his PA

The director gave cash to his PA

The director gave cash to his PA

Voice researchers, coaches and actors can identify, and when appropriate reproduce, very specific and recognizable types of voices Voices can be thin or flat or nasal They can be breathy or tense or throaty They can be shrill or sexy; strained or tired They conveyand impression, often different for males compared to females Consider the ”voice-over” in advertisements A throaty (husky) voice in a male is often used to indicate wisdoht seeent Think of how voice trainers ith actors and politicians

So than others They are in part a function of our age, social class and ee various acoustic features (pitch, tone, te and the topic of the conversation

Those in the business of persuasion tend to speak faster and louder with more pitch variation; they are often very fluent, non-hesitant and speak with fewer pauses

We use vocal cues to do conversational turn-taking A conversation is a tay process with (ideally) a speaker and one (or more) listeners The question is, hoe ”coordinate” speech autoet a turn to speak We yield to another person to give them a turn We also vocally request a turn, often by ”starter-starts” such as trying to begin another sentence ”And I But But” or back-channel”Get on with it; I want a go”

Soe in turn denying and turnTo do this they increase their speed and volu to interview them; they decrease their pauses and eliminate all silent breaks or hesitations

Many therapists and researchers are particularly interested in hesitations, pauses and slips of the tongue as well as when and why people ”go silent” There are grammatical pauses (the end of the sentence; before a conjunction; before an adverbial clause) as well as non-grammatical pauses There are ”um, er” pauses and empty pauses There are pauses for effect and pauses for uncertainty

Equally, there is the power of silence Skilful inquisitorial interviewers all know the power of silence, particularly when refusing to accept ”their turn” in the conversation They ht ask a direct question, ”Did you have sex with that woman?” The other person responds, ”No, I did not”, but the interviewer then chooses to re pressure on the interviewee to speak further The silence here indicates an unwillingness to accept the answer

There are places of silence (courtrooe rumination and reflection Skilful orators, chairmen and actors kno to use (albeit very short) silences (more than pauses) to accentuate, to punctuate and to convey powerful eust

Silence can reward thoughtfulness and contenorance It can indicate that one is evaluating a state to a conclusion Silence occurs in revelations when so known Perhaps because we live in such a noisy, communication-filled world, silence is all the more powerful as a communication style

Finally, there is the fascination with parapraxis or slips of the tongue,word, often the opposite of what they meant to say analysts claim that the incorrect word reflects what people really believe and want A famous pun captures the definition of Freudian slips precisely, ”A Freudian slip is when you intend to say one thing, but instead you say your estive nature Spoonerisue uishable from other speech errors by their pattern of substitution: it usually involves a changeover of the first or last letters or syllables in an expression, such as ”You have hissed my mystery lessons” instead of ”You have h psychoanalysts claim such es, cognitive psychologists have noticed the rules according to which such overning slips of the tongue:stick in the e)ad hoc > odd hack (vowel sege)unanihly (suffix e)my sister went to the Grand Canyon > the Grand Canyon went to ists, these errors sho language is organized and structured in our es

CONCLUSION

We communicate by verbal, vocal and visual cues The e look before we open our es about us The e sit, stand and move tells others about our estures, eye contact patterns and posture can contradict or underline our verbal e How close or far ae prefer to stand, and at what angle, is important The quality of our voice, our clothes and jewelry are noted by others Together, these cues, processed quickly and often without awareness, create impressions that can have an impact on all we do, and these impressions sometie at work is ie can be unpacked or understood through various channels, cues or esture However, while they tend to be researched and discussed separately, they co-occur Thus, anxiety or anger are communicated by all channels simultaneously Both researchers in the area and popular writers on the topic have come to the conclusion that it is safest and wisest to interpret body language signs together; that is, to look for patterns of nonverbal behavior, to spot the one after another or sinals rather than single, individual cues

However, when there is a nals, there are usually tooto watch (true) experts' commentary on film clips They usually draw your attention to very particular, seenificant cues that, in context and with interpretation, seem to mean so much Naturally, those involved tend to be politicians, celebrities or royalty: in other words, people who tickle public curiosity The analyses are usually evento hide or disguise their emotions or intentions (and TV producers s) What these exae, body language reading can reveal a great deal, but that it is easiest when the reader is not taking part in the actual interaction Not only does it give the advantage of being able to concentrate on minute details not noticeable to the naked eye in real time, but also provides theain Perspective and distance have always been of benefit for those in the know and with kno

3

EVERYDAY SIGNS AND SIGNALS

As well as the thoroughly investigated cues and channels discussed in the previous chapter, there are many other nonverbal cues we use to co lives In this chapter we shall consider briefly three of these: physical appearance, dress, and color Each has clear analogies in the animal world For many animals there is a clear correlation between their physical features and strength or reproductive success; nearly all ani special feathers and

THE INFLUENCE OF NONVERBAL SIGNS IN IMPRESSION FORMATION

How long does it take to fore research points to the obvious answer: not long at all In fact, it take just few seconds for us to make up our mind about another person More i is appearance-based, which has clear is It is therefore not surprising that people spend a huge chunk of their ti and i their looks

What sort of infore? Potentially, we can infer both qualities and states mind of people As pointed out earlier in the book, we detect emotional states froer and frustration, disgust and surprise More than that, we deduce characteristics of people too, such as their coence, do at theical research that studies im called thin slices of behavior Participants are presented with a peek, a tiny slice of information for five seconds or less which shows a person either static (photographed) or active (video-taped) They are then asked to rate the person shown against a nus have been astonishi+ng Students' teacher evaluations prior to the start of classes correlated highly with the ratings given to the sa ability to pinpoint other people accurately on a range of different personality and qualities scales without any deliberation or conscious thought on our part These unconscious iiven time to consider their choices

PHYSICAL APPEARANCE