A brief and simple guide discusses the place and purpose of coding experimental data in the research process. The trade-offs involved unitizing data are reviewed; it is noted that a decision that increases reliability may reduce the validity of results, but without reliability there will be no validity at all. A discussion of categorizing data…

Interest in quantifying nonverbal variables in human interaction has led to the development and application of several nonverbal observation systems. The authors present a selective overview of these approaches, briefly explaining the major assumptions in terms of their differences and similarities. Drawing largely from their own experiences in…