Talk:Unconscious communication

Should this article be incorporated into the nonverbal communication article?


 * May be. Conan 14:10, 2 Jan 2005 (UTC)

No, these are very different things, though the articles should point to one another.

Verbal vs. non-verbal communication focus on the use (or not-use) of words. Sign language, visual language (Robert Horn & Scott McCloud type stuff,) linguistics, you are thinking a lot in that domain over there.

Conscious vs. un-conscious communications focuses on conscious vs. unconscious.

In any medium, you have to pay attention to what is conscious, unconscious, and everything in between. If you are writing a persuasive paper, you are thinking about the unconscious effects of your rhetoric technique. If you are creating clothing, you need to note what parts of the clothing pull people's conscious attention.

I believe that they are different axis, and require different articles with different focuses.

LionKimbro 21:56, 21 May 2005 (UTC)

There is now a nonverbal communication category, to which this maybe added later. The thing that really gets me is how much this article lacks. For example tonality, the tone of one's voice changes at times. This is quite important, as it has practical uses, e.g. in voice stress analysis. Another idea of significance is the choice of words:

e.g. "I can do it" AND "It can be done";

convey different meanings on the unconscious level. Dessydes 16:16, 23 May 2006 (UTC)


 * Speaking as a Ph.D. in communication, this article is dealing with an area of debate, and doing it poorly. Many scholars will insist that all communication must by definition be conscious; if you are interpreting another's behavior, it's YOU who are doing the communicating--they're not unless they have intent.


 * Moreover, "unconscious" refers in strict terms to the state of having no consciousness, e.g., comatose, knocked-out, perhaps asleep or hynotized (as the article notes). How is this to be equated with "subconscious" processes--those things you do when fully awake but of which you're not fully aware?  That term, in the strictest Freudian sense, would include those uncontrolled expressions of face, vocal tone, posture, and other phenomena that are often (but not exclusively) associated with nonverbal communication.


 * I'd favor deletion of this article if it can't be re-done to explore the controversy properly, with authoritative citations. I might do it but I haven't the time. Truddick 13:15, 15 October 2006 (UTC)

Improvement Suggestions
This article explicitly links unconscious communication and honest signals by essentially saying the terms are interchangeable. There is however a difference and the discussion of honest signals is very limited. Honest signals are not only involuntary behaviours but also physical attributes - for example, peacocks and their tail. This communication however is not unconscious, as peahens are aware their mate choice is based on male tail quality, and so the two should be clearly differentiated or explained. Real world examples to illustrate this, such as the aforementioned, would also help our understanding.

This leads me to my next point. Visual illustrations may allow for a better read and allow the audience to feel more engaged. With regards to Freud's theory, there are many visual models describing it and so one of these could be placed in the relevant section to increase readability. Tables or graphs illustrating the points of mentioned studies could also be included for this reason.

To finish, the article itself is very brief and so may not be clear enough for the layperson. Having to research or clarify points further when reading an article is not ideal and so it may be beneficial to expand the discussion further.

Psuneh (talk) 22:10, 3 February 2016 (UTC)

Bad article
How can an article use the word unconscious and totally neglect its meaning by ignoring psychoanalysis is beyond any explanation... Freud has used selected examples of unconscious communication that indicate its significance in the phenomena concerning the prevalence of the Unconscious. That is unconscious communication. Beickus (talk) 19:44, 7 June 2020 (UTC)