APA Handbook of Nonverbal Communication

Book excerpt: Provides scholarly reviews of state-of-the-art knowledge in the areas of nonverbal communication and nonverbal behaviours and includes an entire section devoted to new and improved methodologies and technologies that allow for the recording, capture, and analysis of nonverbal behaviours. The primary audience for the book is researchers in the area, as well as by students in graduate-level classes on nonverbal communication or behaviour. The handbook is organised around four broad themes, each of which led to a different section in this volume: The first concerns the history of the field and includes two chapters providing an overview and history of the area, all written by senior researchers with many years of experience. The second concerns the factors of influence of nonverbal communication and encompasses the main theoretical and conceptual frameworks within which research on nonverbal communication occurs. The third theme presents the separate sources of nonverbal communication and behaviour and includes chapters on the physical environment, appearance and physiognomy, olfactics and odour, facial expressions, voice, gesture, eye behaviour and gaze, and postures, gait, proxemics, and haptics. This section also includes a chapter on nonverbal communication in nonhuman primates. The final theme concerns advances in research methodologies, and includes chapters on the methods for measuring and analysing facial expressions, voice, gesture, eye behaviour, olfactics, body movements, and nonverbal sensitivity.