Four Misconceptions About Nonverbal Communication.

Research and theory in nonverbal communication have made great advances toward understanding the patterns and functions of nonverbal behavior in social settings. Progress has been hindered, we argue, by presumptions about nonverbal behavior that follow from both received wisdom and faulty evidence. In this article, we document four persistent misconceptions about nonverbal communication-namely, that people communicate using decodable body language; that they have a stable personal space by which they regulate contact with others; that they express emotion using universal, evolved, iconic, categorical facial expressions; and that they can deceive and detect deception, using dependable telltale clues.

The case for Douglas Merritte: Should we bury what is alive and well?

In 2012, we (Fridlund, Beck, Goldie, & Irons, 2012) suggested that a neurologically impaired infant, Douglas Merritte, was the likeliest candidate for John B. Watson's "Albert B." In advancing the case for their alternative candidate, Albert Barger, Harris (2020) and Digdon (2020) both pronounce the Merritte case moribund.

Facial Displays Are Tools for Social Influence.

Based on modern theories of signal evolution and animal communication, the behavioral ecology view of facial displays (BECV) reconceives our 'facial expressions of emotion' as social tools that serve as lead signs to contingent action in social negotiation. BECV offers an externalist, functionalist view of facial displays that is not bound to Western conceptions about either expressions or emotions. It easily accommodates recent findings of diversity in facial displays, their public context-dependency, and the curious but common occurrence of solitary facial behavior.

A Multidisciplinary Approach to Research in Small-Scale Societies: Studying Emotions and Facial Expressions in the Field.

Although cognitive science was multidisciplinary from the start, an under-emphasis on anthropology has left the field with limited research in small scale, indigenous societies. Neglecting the anthropological perspective is risky, given that once-canonical cognitive science findings have often been shown to be artifacts of enculturation rather than cognitive universals. This imbalance has become more problematic as the increased use of Western theory-driven approaches, many of which assume human uniformity ("universality"), confronts the absence of a robust descriptive base that might provide clarifying or even contrary evidence.