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Smiles Can Be Back Channels - Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, Vol 37 (5), May 1979, 728-734
Smiles Can Be Back Channels - Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, Vol 37 (5), May 1979, 728-734
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729
LAWRENCE J. BRUNNER
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Method
Conversations and Transcription
The four conversations on which this report is
based are a subset of the ones described by Duncan
and Fiske (1977). Conversations 1, 2, and 3 are 7
minutes long. All three were between female law
students and male social work students at the University of Chicago; the participants were paid volunteers who were previously unacquainted. Conversation 4 is 19 minutes long and, unlike the other three
conversations, would have occurred whether or not
it was videotaped. It was between two 40-year-old
male psychotherapists from the Counseling Center at
the University of Chicago. They were good friends
and had known each other for about 10 years. The
subject of their conversation was a client whom both
of them had been seen recently. Duncan and Fiske
give more detailed background information about
these conversations. They refer to Conversations 1
through 4 as numbers S, 6, 7, and 2, respectively.
In all four conversations, the participants were
seated in adjacent chairs turned slightly toward each
other, facing a video camera. The participants in the
first three conversations were requested to get acquainted and carry on a short conversation, and in
the fourth they-were asked to continue a conversation that they had been unable to complete on a
previous occasion.
The conversations have been transcribed in considerable detail, but for the present study, only the
following actions were important: spoken syllables,
completions of subject-predicate clauses, intonation
(according to Trager & Smith's, 19S7, system), gestures, head movements, and smiles. In this study, the
term smile refers to apparent bilateral or unilateral
contraction of the risorius and buccinator muscles.
Each event was carefully located with respect to the
other events in the conversation so as to produce a
transcript in which the sequence of actions is represented, accurate to one syllable.
In transcribing body motion for this study, the
author and a research assistant worked together with
the goal of making a transcription on which they
completely agreed; in cases of doubt, other people
familiar with the transcription system were consulted. Typically, agreement between observers is
very high without discussion, and previous studies
of the reliability of the transcription system used
in the present investigation have yielded a median
kappa (Cohen, 1960) of .81 (roughly 95% agreement) between separate observers (Duncan & Fiske,
1977, p. 342).
Data Analysis
Unit of analysis. In order to assess behavioral
regularities within an interaction, it must be divided
into units to which scores are assigned. The reason is
that in order to present evidence that some action,
A, precedes B more often than one would expect by
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Results
The Within-Turn Signal
Previous research has shown that the
speaker's within-turn signal regularly precedes auditor back channels whose location
with respect to segment boundaries is late or
between units, but not those which are early
or occur before or during a sociocentric sequence. This is also the case for auditor smile
beginnings.
Table 1 shows that in both the exploratory
and replication conversations, the speaker's
within-turn signal (composed of grammatical
completion or head direction toward the auditor or both) preceded a high percentage of
the auditor's late and between-units smile beginnings and was significantly related to their
occurrence. In Conversations 1 and 2, 23 of
24, or 95.8%, of the auditor's smile beginnings occurred while the within-turn signal
was present. For the 2 X 2 table relating the
Table 1
Relationship Between Display of Speaker's Within-Turn Signal and
Subsequent Display of A uditor Smile Beginning
Speaker's within-turn signal
Auditor's smile
beginning
Proportion of
segments with
signal absent
Proportion of
segments with
signal present
Row total
of segments
Absent
Present
153
24
Absent
Present
487
IS
Absent
Present
697
12
a Q = .79, p = .00006.
b
Q = 1.00, / > ^ 0 .
"<2 = -.26, p = .36.
732
LAWRENCE J. BRUNNER
of Speaker's Gesticulation
Fre-
Auditor smile
beginnings
Fre-
Location
1 and
8
16
8
1
3 and 4)
2
11.8
9
52.9
6
35.3
Speech overlap
Speech overlap
2)
24.2
48.5
24.2
3.1
33
0
17
Nods and vocal back channels seem intuitively to belong together, because they both
seem to say, in effect, "Yes, you are understood. Proceed." Although it is not immediately obvious that smiles belong in this category, I believe that auditor smile beginnings,
like auditor back channels, make communication more efficient by providing the speaker
with feedback.
The idea of communicative efficiency lies
behind much of the turn system, though it
has not been given a great deal of emphasis.
For example, the turn signal was constructed
so that at least one cue would be present before each smooth exchange of turns, but not
before instances of simultaneous turns. The
reasoning was that a system of rules for taking speaking turns ought to result in smooth
exchanges when it is working properly, because human beings have only a limited capacity to send and receive information simultaneously.
The people who have written about the actions that we call back channels generally
agree that the auditor uses them to provide
the speaker with information. There is less
unanimity, however, concerning the exact sort
of information that back channels convey.
Fries (1952, p. 49) suggests that they are
primarily signs of attention and involvement
in the conversation. Yngve (Note 1) agrees,
but proposes that they are also "very important in providing for monitoring of the
quality of the communication" (p. 568). Dittmann and Llewellyn (1967) imply that in
addition, they are sometimes used for directly requesting further information or explanation (this is consistent, of course with
Duncan's treatment of short questions as back
channels).
Kendon (1967) distinguishes between
"point granting" and "assenting" signals, both
of which we would describe as back channels.
This distinction merely reflects the fact that
usually the auditor's feedback indicates that
he or she is following what the speaker says,
and sometimes it also indicates agreement. It
is important to mention in this connection
that head shakes and verbal statements of
disagreement were treated as back channels
in the present study and in Duncan's earlier
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investigations. This was done mostly on intuitive grounds (they "felt" like back channels), but the implicit rationale was that feedback need not always be positive in tone,
although it usually is.
There is a consistency among the various
sorts of information that back channels are
supposed to provide. I would like to suggest
that back channels (including smiles) give
the speaker feedback on three levels. On the
first level, back channels signal the auditor's
involvement and participation in the interaction. They indicate that the auditor is attending to what the speaker says and that a conversation, not a monologue, is occurring.
On the second level, back channels provide
information about the auditor's level of understanding, allowing the speaker to adjust
his or her communicative endeavor so as to
get the ideas across efficiently. "Mhm's" and
head nods tell the speaker that the message
is being decoded successfully; when the location of these signals is "speech overlap"
(before the end of a segment of speech is
reached), they may indicate that the auditor
is "ahead" of the speaker and a little less
elaboration would be in order; a puzzled or
blank look may indicate that more information is needed (no work has been done on the
actions that signify the auditor's lack of understanding, except for clarifying questions).
On the third level, back channels can signal
the auditor's personal response to what the
speaker has just said. This might mean agreement or disagreement, shock, amusement,
scorn, or any number of other reactions. In
general, if an action functions on a higher level
it also functions on the ones below it; any
indication of a personal reaction implies understanding (or the lack of it), and any indication of a degree of understanding implies
some involvement in the conversation. Smiles
are higher level back channels, providing
feedback on all three levels. They indicate a.
positive personal reaction (often merely polite), as well as understanding of the preceding statement and participation in the conversation.
We do not know how far the results of the
present investigation can be generalized. The
findings of the exploratory study were fully
LAWRENCE J. BRUNNER
734
References
Berlyne, D. E. Laughter, humor and play. In G.
Lindzey & E. Aronson (Eds.), The handbook of
social psychology (2nd ed.). New York: Academic
Press, 1969.
Brunner, L. J. Smiling and laughter in four two-person conversations. Unpublished doctoral dissertation, University of Chicago, 1977.
Chapman, A. J. Social aspects of humorous laughter.
In A. J. Chapman & H. C Foot (Eds.), Humor and
laughter: Theory, research and applications. New
York: Wiley, 1976.
Chapman, A. J., & Foot, H. C. (Eds.). Humor and
laughter: Theory, research, and applications. New
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Cohen, J. A. A coefficient of agreement for nominal
scales. Educational and Psychological Measurement, 1960, 20, 37-46.
Dittmann, A. T., & Llewellyn, L. G. The phonemic
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Duncan, S., Jr. Some signals and rules for taking
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