Nonverbal Ambiguity

Nonverbal messages can often be misunderstood. Often this misinterpretation is said to be socio-cultural. I remember an instance myself when I was in high school and a miscommunication happened between my friends and I. It was only so unfortunate that it happened in the course of passing our exams. Naturally, we knew we could increase our ability to pass if we worked as a team. One of my classmates suggested that we come up with hand gestures that would represent each of the four letters that almost always appear in our test document a, b, c, and d. Hence, it was agreed that the hand gestures would be used as a tool during our exam week.Our hand gestures comprised a set of inconspicuous behaviors such as calorie-free scratching of ones nose for the letter a, pinching lightly ones ears for letter b, wiping ones handkerchief to the face for letter c and ultimately, shifting from one side to the other in ones stinker for letter d. So during the exam week we started with a relish. His tory was our first exam and with our tool we went through it like breeze.Naturally, physics being the most thought-provoking of all subjects was where I highly depended on my classmates the most. My best friend, who was sitting a row in front of me, was excellent at physics and I practiceed faithfully to the hand gestures he showed. Finally, results were given the following week and I was amazed at the result of my physics test an F. I was shocked, since I was certain to require a B or A.So after the class, my friend and I had a little chitchat and it turned out he wasnt opinion so well at the time, which must have explained why he kept shifting from side to side. I thought his side shifting was an answer to the physics questions when they were a response from feeling uncomfortable during the time. The result of that misinterpretation was a failing grade. My experience of nonverbal ambiguity was nevertheless simple for which at that place was no any catastrophic reaction howev er for people belonging to different cultures or backgrounds the implications for any misinterpretation maybe enormous.ReferencesMontshire Minute Non-Verbal ways of chat . 8 June 1998. 29 June 2007 .