ABSTRACT
Sensitivity to nonverbal communication begins within hours of your arrival into this world. Even babies are aware of the X-Factor! Research by Johnson et al. in 1991 found that within hours of birth, we are sensitive to nonverbal communication. Newborn babies will look longer at stimuli that appear face-like. They will also track these stimuli with their eyes. Indeed, after just a few days of life, babies will imitate certain facial expressions and gestures (Field et al., 1982). One of the great studies in this area concerned the ‘over the cliff’ study by Sorce et al., in 1985. Undertaken with babies who were one year old, the study involved presenting babies with a visual cliff. The majority of babies crossed the cliff when their mothers posed happy expressions. However, no infants crossed the cliff when their mothers posed fearful expressions. Needless to say, the experiments did not actually involve babies crawling off cliffs! The point here is simple. The ability to perceive and detect nonverbal signals is innate and starts from your first week on this earth.
