UTA researchers find strangers reach mutual understanding mainly through talking and asking questions, not from non-verbal communication
Psychologists at The University of Texas at Arlington have discovered that when two strangers meet and interact for the first time, the extent to which they develop mutual understanding depends on how much they talk and ask questions rather than on non-verbal cues such as gestures or exchanging glances. The UTA researchers used a specialized linguistic program to measure the extent that two strangers “get in synch” linguistically, providing new insight into the processes that underlie how people come to understand each other when they meet for the first time. “Beginning in the 1970s,