Chapter 3: Media Naturalness

 Media Naturalness Theory

o Human communication is a process that develops over time
through evolution
o Explains constraints on communication as limitations in the
evolved human cognitive and biological abilities
o Face-to-face communication most natural since includes full
range of verbal and nonverbal cues
 Five Characteristics of Human Communication Naturalness
o Space – time dimension
 Importance of sitting or standing together face-to-face, in
the same place and time
 Collocation (seeing and hearing each other and being able
to share the same context and environment) and
conversational synchronicity (turn taking of exchanges in a
conversation)
o Expressive – perceptual dimension
 Ability to observe and convey meaning through voice
inflection, facial expressions, and physical body cues
 Space – time dimension collocation and synchronicity
characteristics
 Ability to hear spoken word, see facial expressions,
and assess physical cues
o Speech
 Conveys vocal qualities that amplify or qualifies the vocal
meaning
  Ex: hesitation, anxiety, excitement, etc.
o Facial expressions
 Add to the emotional content of the voice and words
o Physical body cues
 Expressed through gestures and bodily stance
 Cognitive Effort, Communication Ambiguity, and Physiological Arousal
o Less natural medium requires greater cognitive effort and
increases communication ambiguity and decreases physiological
arousal
o Cognitive Effort
 Amount of time and exertion needed to convey a certain
number of words or ideas to another person through a
communication medium
o Cognitive Schema
 Interpret the meaning of a communicated message
o Communication Ambiguity
 Probability that the meaning of a message will be lost,
misunderstood, or misinterpreted
o Physiological Arousal
 Heightened state of emotion
 The Speech Imperative, Cognitive Adaptation, and Schema Alignment
o Speech imperative
 Brains are wired for spoken language
o Cognitive adaptation
 Individual’s level of experience, skill, and schema
development in a communication medium
o Schema alignment

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  Similarity of the mental schema of the participants in a
conversation

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