Research Design Connections: Ancient Nonverbal Communication

Recent research indicates just how long we’ve been using things to send nonverbal messages.  A press release from the University of Arizona reports that “The necklace, nametag, earrings or uniform you chose to put on this morning might say more than you realize about your social status, job or some other aspect of your identity. Anthropologists say humans have been doing this—finding ways to communicate about themselves without the fuss of conversation – for millennia.  But shell beads recovered from a cave in western Morocco, determined to be between 142,000 and 150,000 years old, suggest that this behavior may go back much farther than previously thought.”  The study related to the Morocco find is published in Science Advances, and its lead author is El Mehdi Sehasseh.

“Those Earrings Are So Last Year – But the Reason You’re Wearing Them Is Ancient.”  2021.  Press release, The University of Arizona, https://news.arizona.edu/story/those-earrings-are-so-last-year-reason-yo..

Sally Augustin, PhD, a cognitive scientist, is the editor of Research Design Connections (www.researchdesignconnections.com), a monthly subscription newsletter and free daily blog, where recent and classic research in the social, design, and physical sciences that can inform designers’ work are presented in straightforward language. Readers learn about the latest research findings immediately, before they’re available elsewhere. Sally, who is a Fellow of the American Psychological Association, is also the author of Place Advantage: Applied Psychology for Interior Architecture (Wiley, 2009) and, with Cindy Coleman, The Designer’s Guide to Doing Research: Applying Knowledge to Inform Design (Wiley, 2012). She is a principal at Design With Science (www.designwithscience.com) and can be reached at sallyaugustin@designwithscience.com.