Effective communication is vital in both social and professional contexts, yet the nuanced relationship between nonverbal communication (NVC) and affectivity, particularly in relation to demographic factors, has not been fully understood. The lack of clarity in how these elements interact poses a challenge in developing tailored communication…

Research on gesture development has mostly focused on home environments. Little is known about early communicative development in other relevant contexts, such as early-year-schools. These settings, rich in diverse educative situations, objects, and communicative partners, provide a contrast to parent-child interactions, complementing our…

We care about others' opinions of us and regulate our emotions to make positive impressions. This form of impression management may change during ontogeny as children become increasingly sensitive to others. To examine whether self-conscious emotions are influenced by audience presence across the lifespan, we induced embarrassment and pride in n =…

The current study examined to what extent face and speech processing interact with each other and whether they enhance or impair the processing of the other in 5-year-olds (n = 51) and adults (n = 34). Using a computer-based speeded sorting task allowed to directly test the influence of auditory speech on face processing and the influence of face…

Children comprehend iconic gestures relatively later than deictic gestures. Previous research with English-learning children indicated that they could comprehend iconic gestures at 26 months, a pattern whose extension to other languages is not yet known. The present study examined Turkish-learning children's iconic gesture comprehension and its…

The present study aimed to investigate whether preschoolers can recognise the emotions conveyed in panels of the Asterix comic series. The sample consisted of 40 pre-school children (22 boys and 18 girls), aged 52-72 months. They were presented with 8 panels, which in pairs conveyed the emotions of happiness, sadness, fear and anger. Adult raters…

Purpose: Gesture delay in autistic infants and toddlers has been widely reported. The developmental trajectory of gesture production during early childhood is understudied. Thus, little is known about the possible changes of gesture production over time. The present study aimed to document the development of gesture production in autistic children…

Keeping a conversation going is the social glue of friendships. The DSM criteria for autism list difficulties with back-and-forth conversation but does not necessitate that all autistic children will be equally impacted. We carried out three studies (two pre-registered) with verbally fluent school children (age 5-9 years) to investigate how…

Being looked at is an important communicative signal, and attenuated responses to such direct gaze have been suggested as an early sign of autism. Using live eye tracking, we examined whether direct gaze elicits different gaze responses in infants at ages 10, 14 and 18 months with and without later autism in real-life interaction. The sample…

Purpose: Prior research extensively documented challenges in recognizing verbal and nonverbal emotion among older individuals when compared with younger counterparts. However, the nature of these age-related changes remains unclear. The present study investigated how older and younger adults comprehend four basic emotions (i.e., anger, happiness,…

This two-part study looks at disrespectful talk and behavior in tween's television programming (study 1) and its relationship to disrespectful talk and behavior by young viewers (study 2). First, a content analysis was conducted to examine the amount of disrespectful talk and disrespectful behavior in the top programs that children aged 6-12…

There is emerging evidence that young people have a good understanding of consent as a concept, but this does not align with real world practices. The perspectives of young people on the complexities of enacting consent are lacking, as are their views on the role of sex and relationships education. This study explored the topic of consent with 18…

Callous-unemotional (CU) traits are associated with severe conduct problems (CP) in youth. Causal theories for CU traits focus on emotion processing deficits that interfere with empathy development. However, though CU traits are consistently associated with deficits in affective empathy (i.e., emotional reactivity), the association between CU…

This study investigates the influence of lecturer non-verbal cues on student perceptions of teaching quality, considering the moderating effects of gender and age. Non-verbal communication is crucial in instructional settings, impacting students' engagement, learning experiences, and overall perceptions of teaching effectiveness. Drawing on the…

This study explores college professor perceptions of effective professor Characteristics through the lens of Media Naturalness Theory (MNT). A survey questionnaire was administered to samples of college professors in two countries (USA and Qatar) regarding their perceptions of effective professor's characteristics. Demographic variables such as…