A study investigated the influence of conversational dyads' sexual composition upon the accommodation of speaking characteristics--turn duration, speaking rate, and vocal jitter. Subjects, 130 undergraduate students, were assigned to 65 dyads (with control for male-male, male-female, and female-female). In a sound studio, each participant in the…

A study used a communication perspective to examine the extent to which the civilian/military First Amendment dichotomy is warranted and to add to First Amendment theory the subject of the First Amendment rights of servicemembers. The study was limited to the freedoms of speech, press, assembly, petition, and association. It did not include…

At the Educational Research Centre (S.C.O.) in Amsterdam, a study determined the applicability and construct validity of ratings of speaking performances by examining tape-recordings of subjects in four dimensions. Subjects were 200 pupils of 11 and 12 years of age, and performances on four different oral tasks were investigated. The rating…

A review of the research studies of individual and small group interaction suggests ideas for enhancing the effectiveness of group performance. The more salient aspects include collaboration, commitment, and interaction of group members. The key seems to be the dynamic role of interaction in the group structure. The degree to which the group…

Adopting the position, expressed by A. P. Bochner in his critique of small group communication research, that placing measurement in a secondary role increases the danger of accepting the claims of experiments with excessive error, this paper examines nine current quantitative small-group communication studies. Using a schema developed by J. F.…

A total of 60 infants of 7 weeks of age were tested in a habituation-dishabituation looking procedure to determine if they could discriminate between infant-directed talk (IDT) and adult-directed talk (ADT) uttered by the same speaker. One group of 12 infants was habituated to a female speaker's ADT and dishabituated to the same speaker's IDT,…

The mind as organization metaphor asserts an optimistic and multi-faceted foundation for the examination of intrapersonal communication. Definitions of intrapersonal communication have not been developed without debate and controversy. As with many other ambiguous terms and definitions in the field of communication, an operational definition of…

A study of group member satisfaction investigated which communication behaviors satisfy and dissatisfy people in their group experiences, and whether satisfaction and dissatisfaction are bi-polar opposites or are two crucially different variables. The baseline data generated in this project, which included the participation of 20 upper-grade…

To learn whether the problem of misunderstanding in brand names might be caused by the content of advertisements or whether it stemmed from a failure in the exposure-processing chain with respect to the effect of the ads on consumers, a study investigated the extent to which marketers provide information in their advertising that clarifies the…

To identify: (1) the disciplines integrated in Chinese communication studies; (2) the contribution of Chinese studies and communication journals and authors to the field; and (3) active research areas, a study employed the citation and co-citation network analysis method. The study selected articles about Chinese communication in 11 Chinese/Asian…

In order to consider the study of human communication from an interpretive perspective, this paper addresses two questions: (1) What count as data? and (2) What do data count as? The paper's first section reviews the 1977 Symposium issue of the Western Journal of Speech Communication to identify what constitutes legitimate human communication…

Three related experiments investigated the impact of happy and sad moods on the processing of persuasive communications. These experiments suggest that subjects in a happy mood are less likely to elaborate the content of a persuasive message than subjects in a sad mood. Sad subjects' attitudes and cognitive responses (in experiment 2, with 87…

Arguing that understanding human interaction requires both a study of symbol use and a study of human action, this paper focuses on one function served by symbolization--fantasizing. Drawing upon the work of R. F. Bales, who identified the sharing of group fantasies as a useful communication function and who observed the process by which group…

Forensic directors (n=102) affiliated with Phi Delta Kappa responded to a survey to determine perceptions regarding participation of host school students in their respective forensics tournaments. When asked whether they permitted host school students to compete in their respective tournaments, 56% indicated that they did, but 75% of those had…

A study examined the relationship between communication apprehension (CA) and student achievement among elementary and middle school students. It was hypothesized that students high in CA would demonstrate lower academic achievement than students moderate in CA who, in turn, would demonstrate lower levels of achievement than students low in CA.…