The Nature of Arousal and Nonverbal Indices

Abstract

Thecurrent monographasserts that nonverbal behaviorscan serveas usefulovert indices of experienced arousal. Various conceptualizutions of arousal and factors eliciting arousnl in communication situations are examined. It is proposed that, from a communicntion standpoint, indices of arousal and arousal change are best classijied along two dimensions of arousal intensity and arousal valence. Diverse bodies of literature on nonverbal coiicornitaii ts ojarousnlare reviewed. As afirst test ofwhether separate profiles exist for negatively, as opposed to positively or neutrally, valenced arousal, data are analyzed from a mock-interview experiment in which, following a baseline interview, participants (N=52) were subjected by an interviewer to either increased or decreased involvement. 717e involvement changes were expected to elevate arousal intensity for all participants nnd induce positively or negatively valenced arousal in the two respective conditions. Polynomial regressions and z-test comparisons of correlations revealed that 16 composites, comprising a total of47 nonverbal vnriables, showed significant associations with clinnges in arousal.

On the Validity of Nonverbal Indicators as Measures of Physiological Arousal A Response to Burgoon, Kelley, Newton, and Keeley-Dyreson

“…Sparks, Greene / MEASURING PHYSlOLOGICAL AROUSAL 469 2. Our manipulation of involvement differed from the one reported by Burgoon et al (1989) in several respects. First, we employed a conversational confederate from the outset, whereas Burgoon et al recruited one of the naive partiapants to act as a confederate during the second phase of the study.…”

A Reply From the Heart Who Are Sparks and Greene and Why Are They Saying All These Horrible Things?

“…First is the matter of nonlinear relationships. As noted earlier, Burgoon et al (1989) tested and confirmed numerous nonlinear relationships between specific nonverbal behaviors and global arousal. (Le Poire's, 1991, experiment and one by Burgoon et al, 1991, in which nonverbal arousal indices were validated in a psychotherapeutic context, subsequently also found curvilinear relationships.)…”

“…To protect against measurement-induced multicollinearity, different pairs of coders were responsible for separate blocks of behavior, which further increased the independence of ratings across the various subsets. Thus we feel confident that the Burgoon et al (1989) findings can be trusted.…”

Affective Arousal During Blaming in Couple Therapy: Combining Analyses of Verbal Discourse and Physiological Responses in Two Case Studies

“…Movements by the participants can increase their level of arousal, and such movements were indeed observed in the videorecordings during some blaming moments. However, preparing to act causes the level of arousal to rise before the actual body movement (Burgoon et al 1989). Self-touching has also been linked to emotion regulation (Grunwald et al 2014;Ekman and Friesen 1969), and thus observations of hand movements may rather enrich the analysis than interfere with the findings.…”