This experiment expanded the visual availability paradigm by subsuming it under the broader principle of recipient design. We varied recipient design by asking speakers to describe a picture to someone who would see a videotape of their description or only hear an audiotape. Second, speakers described pictures that varied in verbal encodability. Finally, in addition to gestural rate, we analysed the redundancy of gestures with words. The results (N = 40) confirmed our predictions that speakers gesture at a higher rate and use a higher proportion of nonredundant gestures when their recipient would see their videotape; that they also use more nonredundant gestures when describing a picture for which they have a poor vocabulary; and that these two factors interact to produce the strongest effects when vocabulary is limited and the recipient would see the videotape. These effects support the hypothesis that speakers design their gestures to communicate to recipients.

Contractions of the left hand and of the left side of the lower third of the face induce negative emotional states whereas right-sided contractions induce positive states. Contractions also have mood-congruent influences on perception. This article reports that contractions affect behavior as well. Persistence in attempting to solve insoluble problems is greater following right-sided contractions than following left-sided contractions. This effect is unrelated to dominance of the contracted muscles because right-handed individuals tend to be left-face dominant. Results support the hypothesis that unilateral contractions activate the contralateral cerebral hemispheres and arouse the hemispheres' respective functions with regard to emotion and behavior.

Because face-to-face dialogue is our first and most common form of communication, we can use it as a prototype to evaluate other forms of communication. Three features are fully present only in face-to-face dialogue: unrestricted verbal expression, meaningful non-verbal acts such as gestures and facial displays, and instantaneous collaboration between speaker and listener. In this paper, we explicate these three dimensions and then use them to measure other communication systems: written text, television, and electronic mail. Users of these other systems often spontaneously accommodate to their limitations by inventing dialogue-like features. Finally, we propose that the design of new communication systems could benefit by using face-to-face dialogue as both a standard and a source of solutions. Résumé: Notre principal outil pour communiquer, le plus universel, consiste en rapports verbaux directs: on peut donc s'en servir comme étalon afin de jauger d'autres moyens de communication. Cette analyse démontre que trois traits se retrouvent dans leur intégralité uniquement dans les rapports verbaux directs: a) une expression orale sans contraintes; b) un paralangage expressif significatif (gestuel, mimique); c) une interaction immédiate entre le sujet émetteur et le sujet récepteur. Dans ce travail, nous examinons en détail ces trois caractéristiques pour les utiliser ensuite dans l'appréciation d'autres moyens de communiquer: l'écrit, la télévision et le courrier électronique. Les personnes se servant de ces médias suppléent souvent aux lacunes de ces derniers en recréant instinctivement les particularités de la conversation. Pour terminer, nous voudrions dire que les rapports verbaux directs--utilisés comme norme, comme clé de problèmes--pourraient être utiles à la conception de nouveaux systèmes de communication.

In his 1993 paper `Finding a Home for a Psychology of Volition' Rick Ansoff claims that social constructionism `has no need for a concept of volition'. It is argued here that this claim is mistaken. Social constructionism necessarily entails such a concept, whether or not it is made explicit in particular social constructionist accounts. It is further argued that social constructionism not only provides a `home' for volition, it offers as well an understanding of the concept that escapes many of the problems associated with traditional accounts. It is thus less a matter of social constructionism's needing volition than it is one of volition's needing social constructionism.

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