Experts agree that a huge part of our daily messages are passed through nonverbal communication. At almost every interaction we are always responding to lots of behaviours and nonverbal cues such as tone of the voice, gestures, facial expression, micro expressions, postures and eye gazes. From your hairstyle to the firmness of your handshake, nonverbal communication reveals the condition of your character and your relationship with other individuals.
These signals are not very clear to many but research that has been done since 1871 has tried to narrow down the various manifestations of nonverbal cues. In a number of cases, it is important to ensure information has been communicated in nonverbal methods through behaviours such as crossing your arms and frowning or looking away in shame or sneering in contempt while touching your mouth. Facial expression, a well researched part of nonverbal communication, is believed to play a huge part in conveyance of messages. For instance, a lot can be deduced from your frown or smile and these also varies from one culture to another in the way we express fear, anger, sadness and happiness.
Micro expressions are also a part of nonverbal communication and mostly occur in between facial expressions and are so fast, sometimes taking the fraction of a second and most individuals do not know them. For instance, a salesman might sneer in contempt in the flash of a millisecond before recovering to continue with his tirade and favourable facial expression. Another form of nonverbal communication is gestures, usually deliberate signals and movements that help us to be understood better such as pointing, waving and directing with the finger.
Paralinguistics are others and refer to anything beyond the use of actual language such as pitch, inflection, loudness and tone of voice. Posture is also a nonverbal communication technique that passes a lot of information to those looking at you.