In my experiment part 1 I found it incredibly complicated to communicate, I often would catch myself getting angry and wanting to scream at my partner because they were not making it easy for me at all to carry on the conversation. For the most part I was nodding, and using my facial expressions to communicate. My partner found this assignment absolutely insane from the beginning but then began having fun when they would stump me and I could not figure out how to respond. They too were becoming somewhat irritated because they said they felt as if they were,"talking to a wall," which one can understand because we are so use to being able to speak back and forth with each other. They also thought it was complicated because they were more or less the ones initiating the conversation and continuously having to change the topic because I would at some point become unable to further the conversation. My experience was tough because I never knew how much I am horrible at hand gestures, or being quick to come up with something non verbal. My partner definitely altered the way they communicated to me due to my absence of communication; they said they had to "dumb" down the way they structured their questions, and comments so I could respond.
My partner had most of the control in the conversation because I was unable to come up with my own conversation, I was mostly only able to answer back to them. They constantly changed the topic, unless I had given up I would then roll hands in a circular motion to let them know I could not follow up with whatever they were saying. I had another person join in for a second to try and see if they would have a different outlook and they too thought it was complex, and they did exclude me from the conversation to ask each other how to get me to respond better. In a balance of power my partner, and partners had the most power because they were not limited as I was, therefore winning over the power.
In an imaginative conversation of two different cultures speaking to each other, the culture that uses spoken language most surely has the advantage of communicating complex ideas, because they are not limited to how much they can express their thoughts with no restrictions, while the other one cannot fully express what they mean to say or have a complete understanding when it is unclear, as my experiment I was only able to give a limited amount of answers, and communication while my partner was able to give the elaborate communication. The attitudes of the spoken language towards the symbolic language could be impatient, or uninterested due to the fact that they need to be patient to try and understand them, and uninterested because of the lack of tone in voice that usually helps us stay focused and interested. A modern situation that mirrors the relationship between a culture that can speak and a culture that can not is a deaf individual, they use ASL and the interpretation of lip reading to help them understand because for them they are sometimes but not all unable to speak words, so they rely on hand gestures and sign language to help them communicate.
PART B: Permitted to speak, without expressions or body language.
This experience was easier than the first, because I am use to communicating with words it made it easy because it's my language, but it did put a burden that I was unable to express my words through hand gestures. I found that I use my hands a ton and I had to almost sit on them to stop using them. My partner found this one easier but found me to be more boring because I had no tone so he could not tell if I was being serious, mad, or humorous. They thought that this one went by quicker because I was able to carry on the conversation. My lack of body language was annoying to them because they didn't think I was interested in the conversation, again boring. The only difficulty they had was understanding my mood of my answers.
This experiment says that we use our body more than we realize, because when it is taken away from us we are limited as to how we feel the need to express what were saying. The type of information people receive from each other when reading body language is how they feel, emotions, and expression.
The adaptive benefit to possessing the ability to read body language is making it possible for us to respond the correct way, for example if we do not see the persons expression and assume something wrong due to the lack of tone, the conversation could go negatively, vs if you read the body language and understand it clearly you can make the conversation go as it should have been. The ability to read body language helps a person survive because they are able to communicate within others to work together to obtain resources, reproduce without causing any type of anger if one does not want to reproduce or does, and survive by using their voices to express any type of danger, or fear.
There are in fact people who have difficulty reading body language, for example a blind person relies on mostly sound and tone, but it is not possible for them to see exactly how the person is moving or acting. A situation where there is a benefit to not reading someones body language is when a person has a constant facial expression such as angry, and you glance at them and assume they are mad, in other words pre judging them incorrectly, therefore not giving you reliable information about the person because they could have been the sweetest person in the world.
Part A:
ReplyDeleteGood description of your first experiment and good discussion on the issue of power. I agree with your conclusions regarding speaking and non-speaking cultures. Yes, those conversations with those who are deaf do mirror the conditions many have learned to speak. We also see that in the interaction between English speakers and non-English speaking immigrant populations. Think about how non-English speaking immigrants are treated in Southern California? Are they treated as equals?
Part B:
Good description of your second experiment, particularly the description of your partner's response.
I don't disagree with your conclusions regarding the information we receive from body language, but you are only considering the situation where body language matches and supports the information you receive from spoken language. What does it tell you when the body language doesn't match the spoken language? Humans tend to use body language as a type of lie detector. If spoken words don't match with the body language, we are more inclined to believe the body language and doubt the words. Think about how being able to detect liars might help an individual's ability to survive and reproduce (which applies to the next section).
Okay on the benefits of body language, but what type of benefits do you get by being able to detect liars?
Yes, those who are blind do have more difficulty reading body language, though they can still hear vocal intonation. Another example are those in the autism spectrum.
Do people exist who always have the same facial expression? Even if that is the case, they will have some variation, and keep in mind that body language isn't just about the face. To answer this question, you have to consider if there are situations where body language gives you false information, not because someone is lying to you (body language usually belies a lie), but because you don't understand the system of body language they are using, just like you might not understand a different spoken language. Do all cultures use the same system of body language? If you travel to another country, can you trust the information you get from their body language?