Effectiveness of Visual Non-verbal Information on Feeling and Degree of Transmission in Face-to-Face Communication

Recently, the importance of non-verbal information is getting attention. Generally, it is believed that the more non-verbal information is exchanged, the better partner’s message can be understood. In this field, much research on effectiveness of non-verbal information in communication is performed. However, among these presents doubts about this effect. Prof. Sugiya investigated quality of information’s transmission from two points of view; degree of transmission and feeling of transmission, and she suggests that non-verbal information sometimes does not help us to understand partner’s message. We try to verify effectiveness of non-verbal information and types of communication on feeling or degree of transmission from these views. For this purpose, two experiments were conducted. The experimental results of the three communication modes—text chat, voice chat, and face-to-face communication—showed that the degree of transmission was lowest in face-to-face communication as evaluated with the listeners’ test accuracy rates and consistency of character impressions. Conversely, according to the questionnaire results, feeling of transmission was ranked highest for face-to-face communication, followed by voice chat, and lastly text chat. These results suggested that the communicability of information should be considered using feeling of transmission and degree of transmission as two separate factors.