Albert Mehrabian’s scientific contributions

3 DEGREES OF ATTITUDE (I.E., POSITIVE, NEUTRAL, AND NEGATIVE) IN FACIAL EXPRESSION WERE EACH COMBINED WITH 3 DEGREES OF ATTITUDE COMMUNICATED VOCALLY. THE VOCAL COMMUNICATIONS OF ATTITUDE WERE SUPERIMPOSED ON A NEUTRAL WORD. IN PREPARING THE 2-COMPONENT COMMUNICATIONS, THE COMPONENTS WERE SELECTED SO THAT THE DEGREE OF POSITIVE ATTITUDE COMMUNICATED FACIALLY WAS EQUIVALENT TO THAT COMMUNICATED VOCALLY-I.E., THE INDEPENDENT EFFECTS OF THE 2 COMPONENTS WERE COMPARABLE. IT WAS FOUND THAT ATTITUDES INFERRED FROM COMBINED FACIAL-VOCAL COMMUNICATIONS ARE A LINEAR FUNCTION OF THE ATTITUDES COMMUNICATED IN EACH COMPONENT, WITH THE FACIAL COMPONENT RECEIVING APPROXIMATELY 3/2 THE WEIGHT RECEIVED BY THE VOCAL COMPONENT. IMPLICATIONS OF THE FINDINGS FOR MORE GENERAL ATTITUDE-COMMUNICATION PROBLEMS ARE DISCUSSED.