Part 1:
I found this part of the experiment to be fairly easy. I was engaging in conversation with my step sister. She is a big talker so it was easy to carry on a conversation without actually saying anything just nodding in agreement or shaking my head to disagree. At about the 12 minute mark she noticed I hadn’t said anything and started getting mad at me thinking I was making a joke about what she was saying, but before that – she didn’t notice that I was not verbally responding to what she was saying. It would be hard to say who would have the advantage in communicating complex ideas. I would assume it would be the person who cannot communicate with spoken language because you could kind of act things out which even the person who spoke with language could figure out. I used to work at the Apple Store and I once assisted someone who was deaf at first he was kind of acting things out. It took a few minutes to get on the same “page” but eventually things were okay and i got him what he was looking for. I think that if we were making up 2 fake cultures with the same specifications of the assignment the culture that had the vocal speech would think they were superior to the culture that did not use vocal speech. They would think they were uneducated or not as advanced . My answers were kind of backwards for this section.
Part 2:
I was able to last the whole 15 minutes with only vocally communicating. My partner wasn’t effected by it at all. I did this portion with my mom. I noticed that she uses her hands a lot to speak. I think that I noticed this a lot because I was actually paying attention to it. I come from a really Italian family. My Italian family is always waving their hands around when they speak. I think they would go nuts if you tied their hands down while they were speaking. My mom doesn’t come from an Italian background but I think that she picked something up from my dads family because she is insane with the hand movements when talking. I am currently watching my step-dad and my mom have a conversation and he is using his hands quite a bit – not as much as my mom is. I think that in our society it’s used to express feeling and seriousness. It definitely brings something to the conversation. If I was deaf and watching their conversation, I think I’d be able to tell the “tone” of the conversation just by watching their body language and hand movements. A lot of people have difficulty reading body language. The benefit to being able to read it would be if you were in the situation where someone was saying something to you that was “serious” but their body language showed they were joking. You would then know it was a joke and not take their statement as serious. The environmental condition where there might be a benefit in not reading body language would be if you were really cold and shivering. That would probably hinder the expression of any emotion because you’d probably bundled up and shivering.
I'm a little surprised you didn't have more difficulty with either experiment but perhaps this is because you did this with your mom who has been "reading" you since birth. :-)
ReplyDeleteYou say that there are some people who cannot read body language. Who are these people?
Hello, How are you today? Like Dr. Rodriguez, I to am surprised that you found this assignment fairly easy. I did my assignment with my sister in law, she knows me but not as much as your mother might know you. I am sure your mother knows your mannerisms since you were a child. I would like to know how you would do in this assignment if you had to do it with someone that maybe did not know you as well? I enjoyed reading your post.
ReplyDelete-Ralph Todd said-
ReplyDeleteThe cultural aspect of your family really clicked with me. My girlfriend's family are Armenian, and as such, they gesticulate a lot when they talk and use big gestures when they do. I seem to fit in though, because I too gesticulate when I talk and use body motion to try and communicate with the ones who don't speak English. I had difficulty restraining my speech patterns in this assignment, but everyone communicates differently.
I am surprised you found the assignments way and well good for you, I on the other hand was finding it hard to stay focus, maybe because most of the time I was laughing. And maybe that fact that it was your mom, you felt it easy, since parents can sometimes read us without us saying anything. Overall, good post.
ReplyDeleteWow! I was surprised to read that you did not have too much difficulty with this. I had so much dificulty, I found it it to be almost impossible. I think its interesting that you mentioned your heritage. I bet that people who come from different parts of the world use body language differently. Like how you said Italians use a lot of hand gestures
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