Part 1: This was the easier of the two parts. While it was hard to keep a complex conversation going, because while my partner could convey complex concepts I could only respond in very simple terms. That forced my partner to do most of the talking. She found it very challenging to hold a conversation while trying to keep me involved as much as possible. She had to make complex questions have simple answers in order for me to communicate.
Clearly the people with a verbal language can convey the more complex ideas. To the that culture the ones who only spoke with gestures would be deemed inferior to the people with verbal language. it would also make people who spoke verbally not want to interact with the other culture. A group of people that would be in similar circumstances would be the deaf. While some could communicate with them using sign language most people do not know it resulting in the deaf having an extreme disadvantage. It is easy for the non deaf to communicate with those around them, but the deaf struggle to convey their intentions to people who do not speak sign language.
Part 2: This was the much harder part of the assignment. It is easy to not to talk, but to not be able to show body language made it hard to judge emotion. The only conversations that could be kept were ones of purely intellectual nature where emotion was not needed in order to explain fact, but unfortunately that did not last for the full 15 minutes. My partner was not able to get any real reaction out of me since I could not convey emotion.
Body language is extremely necessary to use body language in a conversation. Without it there is no way to show reaction and emotion without showing it. Conversation becomes bland and robotic and on top of that there is no sarcasm. How can I live without sarcasm? A group of people who may experience this would be the blind. While they still can hear alterations in tone and voice they are still at a huge disadvantage. Body language is necessary in order to know how to react to a person. If a person conveys sadness with their body it is often right response to reply with sympathy, but a person who could not see this, could not respond to it adequately. The only time that it is efficient to not show body language is when giving factual information.
Good discussion and description of your Part A experiments. So would you say that your partner was in control and how the power over this conversation?
ReplyDeleteThorough description of Part B. Other than emotion, what other information can you derive from body language? Yes, non-spoken language contributes meaning and clarification, but it also allows people to verify what you are saying, kind of like a lie-detector. If your body language doesn't match the words you are saying, this tells the person that you aren't telling the truth and perhaps can't be trusted. Why would this be beneficial in an adaptive sense?
Can you think of a group that has difficulty reading body language?
The last question doesn't ask about showing body language but about reading body language. Is there a situation where reading body language might mislead you? Do all cultures use the same system of body language?