Discusses Giambattista Vico's "The New Science," emphasizing the importance of his treatment of metaphor and its relation to rhetorical criticism. (SRT)

Confirms the debilitating effects of accountability on bargaining. Finds that (1) when accountable, bargainers with authority strayed further from group's position but deviated less on their final offer; (2) delegated authority significantly reduced the number of deadlocks; and (3) high self monitors strayed less from group's position but deviated…

Corroborates previous research that communication is more equal in dual-career marriages. (PD)

States that the system of local political journalism has become fragile and that steps should be taken to remediate the situation, such as developing tax incentives that invite television news, distributed in nonbroadcast form, to enter the arena of local political information. (DF)

Investigates children's ability to distinguish the literal meaning of a message and a speaker's communicative intent. Either knowing or not knowing the speaker's intended referent, first- and second-grade children evaluated brief referential communication messages for ambiguity. In the first experiment, messages were written on cards and read to…

This study concluded that judges' critical responses to interpretation performances reflect a view of interpretation as primarily a performing art rather than a communicative act or literature study. (PD)

Strongly confirmed the hypothesis that groups employing an interacting decision procedure would produce better decisions than groups employing procedures that are either nominal (Delphi) or "staticized" (individual judgments statistically pooled). Provides clear and consistent support for the value of social interaction in small group…

Indicates the recognition on the part of chief executive officers that they are the company spokespersons and must have good communication skills in order to communicate effectively to the media and special interest groups. (EL)

Examines research from several fields and evaluates techniques for managing discomfort when making presentations. (Written for business communication teachers and presentation-skills trainers in business.) (PD)

Surveyed business communication educators and found widespread confusion about the existence and nature of Plain English laws. Concludes that legally compelling business to use plain language in consumer documents may be futile. (PD)

Preschool children's evaluation and integration of visual and auditory information in speech perception was compared with that of adults. Results were used to test current views of the development of perceptual categorization and speech perception. (Author/RH)

Proposes that young children employ two ordered, nonverbal classification strategies to interpret vague referential instructions: first, they rely on context; then, if the first strategy fails, they guess. If the guess goes uncorrected, they conclude that it was correct. Two studies provide evidence supporting children's use of the hypothesized…

Results indicate that individuals who experience a high degree of communication apprehension demonstrate higher vocal stress levels during prepared lies. (PD)

Supported the hypothesis that the more employees perceive their supervisors as high in argumentativeness and low in verbal aggressiveness, the more the subordinates also will be argumentative (i.e., assertive) and have job satisfaction. (PD)

Supported previous research stating that audio-only channels are highly satisfactory and often superior to video channels for teleconferences in which information dissemination is the primary task. (PD)