ABSTRACT
Effectively communicating affect is an art; rarely do we explicitly announce that we feel happy or we feel sad. Instead we rely on verbal context as well as nonverbal cues such as gestures, vocal tone, and facial expressions, some involuntary and some deliberate, presented within a situation, in the context of what we know about a person, and embedded within shared common ground, to communicate affect. This informational richness clues us into an understanding of another person’s internal world—how they feel—and lets others know our own, which can help each of us respond to each other appropriately as well as predict future behavior. The importance of this ability cannot be understated: communicating affect is at the heart of all human relationships. In this chapter, we are able to explore only a piece of this puzzle: the cues upon which we place the greatest importance as we express and interpret affect when speaking, writing, and using computer-mediated platforms.
