Developmental changes in decoding discrepant and nondiscrepant nonverbal cues.

Abstract

In this study we examined developmental changes in responses to consistent and discrepant video and audio nonverbal cues. A videotaped Nonverbal Discrepancy Test was administered to children aged 9-15 years. The discrepancy test measures (a) decoding accuracy—the extent to which subjects are able to identify affects (positivity and dominance) from visual (facial and body) cues and audio (content-filtered and random-spliced) cues—and (b) video primacy—the extent to which subjects are more influenced by video (face or body) than by audio cues. It was found that older children were more accurate at decoding affects than were younger children, particularly dominance-submission cues. Video primacy increased with age for facial cues (but not for body cues) and for cues of positivity (but not for cues of dominance). Relative to males younger female subjects showed more video primacy and older female subjects showed less video primacy, particularly for cues of dominance-submission. Relative to younger children older children showed less video primacy in decoding extremely discrepant audio and video cues than in decoding moderately discrepant audio and video cues. The development of nonverbal sensitivity to video and audio cues is discussed.