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When people speak, they gesture. However, is the audience watching a speaker who is sensitive to this link? We translated the body movements of politicians into stick-figure animations and separated the visual from the audio channel. We then asked participants to match a selection of five audio tracks (including the correct one) with the stick-figure animations. The participants made correct decisions in 65% of all cases (chance level of 20%). Matching voices with animations was less difficult when politicians showed expansive movements and spoke with a loud voice. Thus, people are sensitive to the link between motion cues and vocal cues, and this link appears to become even more apparent when a speaker shows expressive behaviors. Future work will have to refine and validate the methods applied and investigate how mismatches between communication channels affect the impressions that people form of politicians.

When people speak, they gesture. However, is the audience watching a speaker who is sensitive to this link? We translated the body movements of politicians into stick-figure animations and separated the visual from the audio channel. We then asked participants to match a selection of five audio tracks (including the correct one) with the stick-figure animations. The participants made correct decisions in 65% of all cases (chance level of 20%). Matching voices with animations was less difficult when politicians showed expansive movements and spoke with a loud voice. Thus, people are sensitive to the link between motion cues and vocal cues, and this link appears to become even more apparent when a speaker shows expressive behaviors. Future work will have to refine and validate the methods applied and investigate how mismatches between communication channels affect the impressions that people form of politicians.

People ascribe purposeful behaviour to the movements of artificial objects and social qualities to human body motion. We investigated how people associate simple motion cues with social categories. For a first rating-experiment we converted the body movements of speakers into stick-figure animations; for a second rating-experiment we used animations of one single dot. Rating-experiments were “reversed” because we asked participants to alter the movements (i.e., vertical amplitude, horizontal amplitude, and velocity) of the stimuli according to different instructions (e.g., create a stimulus of high dominance). Participants equipped stick figures and dot animations with expansive movements to represent high dominance. Expansive and fast movements (i.e., high velocity) were mainly associated with high aggressiveness. Fast movements were also associated with low friendliness, low trustworthiness, and low competence. Overall, patterns found for stick figure and dot animations were similar indicating that certain motion cues convey social information even when only a dot and no body form is visible. The “reverse approach” we propose here makes the impact of different components directly observable. The data generated by this method offers better insights into the interplay of these components and the ways in which they form meaningful patterns. The proposed method can be extended to other types of nonverbal cues and a variety of social categories.

Men and women score differently on some personality traits and people’s behavior reflects who they are. Therefore, males and females could be expected to express themselves differently on a behavioral level. To test this idea we turned the public performances of speakers (20 female and 20 male) into stick figure movies. Students of the University of Vienna ( n = 150) rated these movies on scales measuring the Big Five personality traits. The participants experienced difficulties in ascribing the correct sex to the stick figures. Nevertheless, stick figures representing male speakers received higher ratings for extraversion and emotional stability than stick figure animations of female speakers. In addition, gender stereotypes seemed to influence the participants’ ratings. Agreeableness, for instance, was preferably classified as female trait. In conclusion, our results suggest that body motion conveys social information, that men and women present themselves differently, and that people’s judgments are influenced by gender stereotypes.

People often ascribe intentions and personalities to simple motion cues. Two experiments were conducted to examine how variations in motion quality, such as amplitude and frequency, influence a simple stimulus’ ratings on different aspects of personality. In experiment one participants were asked to adjust the motion behavior of a computer animated ball according to different items, which were based on the five factor model of personality. In experiment two participants had to assign the ‘correct’ personality to stimuli that were based on data of experiment one. Recognition rate was high for most personality traits, but there were also some misidentifications. Results suggest that simple features of motion partly influence social perception and human communication.

When people form impressions about others, they are mostly influenced by non-verbal cues. Thus, politicians and other leaders are judged by the behavior they display. To analyze the relation between non-verbal behavior and impression formation body movements of politicians giving a speech were transformed into animated stick figures. Subjects then rated the stick-figure movies on the five factor model of personality. Motion analysis revealed that observers associate extraversion, agreeableness, conscientiousness, emotional stability and openness with different motion qualities such as the amount of motion and its flow. Additionally, we found significant correlations between these personality traits and dominant activation of different body parts. The current study underlines that body motion is a powerful signal in human communication.

Communicative feedback refers to unobtrusive ( usually short) vocal or bodily expressions whereby a recipient of information can inform a contributor of information about whether he/she is able and willing to communicate, perceive the information, and understand the information. This paper provides a theory for embodied communicative feedback, describing the different dimensions and features involved. It also provides a corpus analysis part, describing a first data coding and analysis method geared to find the features postulated by the theory. The corpus analysis part describes different methods and statistical procedures and discusses their applicability and the possible insights gained with these methods.

© 2015 Elsevier Inc. There is more to female attractiveness than a pretty face. Human mate choice decisions are guided by different cues, which in combination may give a better estimate of a general condition. We hypothesized that such signal redundancy might be true for vocal and visual cues of human female attractiveness. To test this we used photographs of women's faces, recorded their voices and asked men to rate both types of stimuli on attractiveness. We found a significant relationship between males' ratings of female faces and voices. Moreover, low levels of fluctuating asymmetry of women's bodies and faces were associated with high ratings on facial and vocal attractiveness. Applying the Geometric Morphometric Methodology we performed a multivariate regression analysis of attractiveness ratings with landmark data obtained from women's faces. We found similar facial shape changes for ratings of facial and vocal attractiveness that are both negatively related to facial and body FA. Findings suggest that females with an attractive face also tend to have an attractive voice and that this redundant information is reflected in female facial shape.

Highlights • People rated themselves and video clips of politicians on personality. • People gave an estimate of the probability that they would vote for the politicians. • Ratings of some personality traits were strongly related to voting behavior. • For the preferred personality traits people gave themselves higher ratings. • People’s voting decisions may be guided by traits they value high in themselves., Participants were asked to assess their own personality (i.e. Big Five scales), the personality of politicians shown in brief silent video clips, and the probability that they would vote for these politicians. Response surface analyses (RSA) revealed noteworthy effects of self-ratings and observer-ratings of openness, agreeableness, and emotional stability on voting probability. Furthermore, the participants perceived themselves as being more open, more agreeable, more emotionally stable, and more extraverted than the average politician. The study supports previous findings that first impressions affect decision making on important issues. Results also indicate that when only nonverbal information is available people prefer political candidates they perceive as having personality traits they value in themselves.

The current study presents a methodology to analyze first impressions on the basis of minimal motion information. In order to test the applicability of the approach brief silent video clips of 40 speakers were presented to independent observers (i.e., did not know speakers) who rated them on measures of the Big Five personality traits. The body movements of the speakers were then captured by placing landmarks on the speakers' forehead, one shoulder and the hands. Analysis revealed that observers ascribe extraversion to variations in the speakers' overall activity, emotional stability to the movements' relative velocity, and variation in motion direction to openness. Although ratings of openness and conscientiousness were related to biographical data of the speakers (i.e., measures of career progress), measures of body motion failed to provide similar results. In conclusion, analysis of motion behavior might be done on the basis of a small set of landmarks that seem to capture important parts of relevant nonverbal information., Highlights • Body movements of politicians making a speech were captured. • Short video clips of these speeches were rated on personality. • Motion cues were related to personality traits and measures of career progress. • Simple motion cues and simple cognitive processes may guide impression formation. • Simple motion cues may play an important role in human communication.