MESSAGES OF THE BODY.

By John P.Spiegel '34 and Pavel Machotka. New York:The Free Press, A Division of MacmillanPublishing Co., Inc., 1974. 440 pp. With 74 illustrations.$17.50.

Spiegel and Machotka have come up with a new theory for one of the behavioral sciences' hot topics, non-verbal communication. I say topic" not only because of a resurgence of interest in non-verbal communication among capable researchers and scholars, but also several recent popular treatments of behavior leaning heavily on the evolution and weaning of non-verbal displays and presentation like Ardrey's Territorial Imperative, Morris's Naked Ape, and Fast's BodyLanguage.

The casual reader may be disappointed in Messages of the Body except for the first four chapters where are discussed the approaches of the arts (dance, drama, and mime) and of the behavioral sciences (psychology, sociology, and anthropology).

Spiegel and Machotka reject the theories which hold that the body serves solely to express "... some item of a subjectively experienced inner state ..." or that "... body behavior be regarded as a conditioned response to immediate external contingencies - the situational stimuli." Instead, they borrow from both points of view and advance the idea "... that the observable actions of the body function as a link between the internal process and the external situation."

The theoretical chapters speculate about the structure of this link, which is seen as not merely an interface but rather as an interactive system. That is, the internal state in part determines perception and interpretation of the external world, but the nature of the external world and the context in which it is presented in part determines internal state.

In the first steps of empirical tests of the theory, one series of experiments is an analysis of the ratings persons give to a variety of drawings designed to test the authors' theory about the meaning of various body positions in different contexts. A second series involves the converse.

People were given the extremes of a dimension, such as active-passive or erotic-non-erotic and asked to position manikins in the appropriate body position.

Although one may quibble about some methodological questions and statistical procedures used in the data analysis, there is modest support for the Spiegel-Machotka theory. Furthermore, the authors are appropriately cautious in drawing conclusions. An appendix will permit serious students of non-verbal communication to agree or disagree.

Dartmouth Visiting Associate Professor ofPsychology, Mr. Graf teaches courses in SensoryPsychology and Physiological Psychology.