Resumen
This systematic review investigated the physiological and behavioral indicators of arousal, cognitive load, and emotional processing within the context of nonverbal behavior, aiming to inform the development of a nonverbal behavior–focused therapeutic intervention. 69 empirical studies encompassing 6,399 participants were identified through SCOPUS, Web of Science, and ProQuest for publications from 2014 to 2024. Inclusion criteria targeted healthy adults (≥18 years) and examined nine nonverbal channels: facial expressions, gestures, posture, body orientation, movement, paralanguage, proxemics, haptics, oculesics, appearance, and psychophysiology. A descriptive analysis revealed a rich spectrum of nonverbal behaviors associated with physiological arousal, cognitive load, and emotional responses across these channels. This review underscores the promise of harnessing nuanced nonverbal cues to enhance therapeutic outcomes and deepen understanding of human affective and cognitive processes.
Citas
Anikin, A. (2020a). A moan of pleasure should be breathy: The effect of voice quality on the meaning of human nonverbal vocalizations. Phonetica, 77(5), 327–349. https://doi.org/10.1159/000504855
Anikin, A. (2020b). The link between auditory salience and emotion intensity. Cognition & Emotion, 34(6), 1246–1259. https://doi.org/10.1080/02699931.2020.1736992
Anikin, A., & Lima, C. F. (2018). Perceptual and acoustic differences between authentic and acted nonverbal emotional vocalizations. The Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology, 71(3), 622–641. https://doi.org/10.1080/17470218.2016.1270976
Anikin, A., & Persson, T. (2017). Nonlinguistic vocalizations from online amateur videos for emotion research: A validated corpus. Behavior Research Methods, 49(2), 758–771. https://doi.org/10.3758/s13428-016-0736-y
Arble, E., Daugherty, A. M., & Arnetz, B. (2019). Differential effects of physiological arousal following acute stress on police officer performance in a simulated critical incident. Frontiers in Psychology, 10, 759. https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2019.00759
Ardito, R. B., & Rabellino, D. (2011). Therapeutic alliance and outcome of psychotherapy: Historical excursus, measurements, and prospects for research. Frontiers in Psychology, 2, 270. https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2011.00270
Arellano, D. G., Tokarchuk, L., & Gunes, H. (2017). Measuring affective, physiological and behavioural differences in solo, competitive and collaborative games. In S. Göbel, A. Garcia-Agundez, T. Tregel, M. Ma, J. B. Hauge, M. Oliveira, T. Marsh, & P. Caserman (Eds.), Serious Games: Third Joint International Conference, JCSG 2017 (pp. 184–196). Springer International Publishing. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-70111-0_18
Boussalis, C., & Coan, T. G. (2021). Facing the electorate: Computational approaches to the study of nonverbal communication and voter impression formation. Political Communication, 38(1–2), 75–97. https://doi.org/10.1080/10584609.2020.1784327
Burgoon, J. K., Guerrero, L. K., & Manusov, V. (2011). Nonverbal signals. In M. Knapp & J. Daly (Eds.), The SAGE handbook of interpersonal communication (pp. 239-280). SAGE.
Burgoon, J. K., Manusov, V., & Guerrero, L. K. (2021). Nonverbal communication. Routledge.
Burnham, J. F. (2006). Scopus database: A review. Biomedical Digital Libraries, 3(1), 1–8. https://doi.org/10.1186/1742-5581-3-1
Burzler, M. A., Voracek, M., Hos, M., & Tran, U. S. (2019). Mechanisms of mindfulness in the general population. Mindfulness, 10, 469–480. https://doi.org/10.1007/s12671-018-0988-y
Castillo, G., & Neff, M. (2019). What do we express without knowing? Emotion in gesture. In Proceedings of the 18th International Conference on Autonomous Agents and MultiAgent Systems (AAMAS '19) (pp. 702–710). International Foundation for Autonomous Agents and Multiagent Systems.
Çatak, E. N., Açık, A., & Göksun, T. (2018). The relationship between handedness and valence: A gesture study. Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology, 71(12), 2615–2626. https://doi.org/10.1177/1747021817750110
Choi, D. S., Park, J., Loeser, M., & Seo, K. (2024). Improving counseling effectiveness with virtual counselors through nonverbal compassion involving eye contact, facial mimicry, and head-nodding. Scientific Reports, 14(1), 506. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-023-51115-y
Civile, C., & Obhi, S. S. (2015). Towards a mechanistic understanding of the effects of body posture on facial emotion categorization. The American Journal of Psychology, 128(3), 367–377. https://doi.org/10.5406/amerjpsyc.128.3.0367
Cohen, S., Abukhalaf, A.H.I. & Rinker, M.E. (2022). The growing mental health crisis among America’s children, adolescents, and young adults. Academia Letters. https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Amer-Hamad-Issa-Abukhalaf/publication/359808566_The_Growing_Mental_Health_Crisis_Among_America's_Children_Adolescents_and_Young_Adults/links/624fa850d726197cfd451a8d/The-Growing-Mental-Health-Crisis-Among-Americas-Children-Adolescents-and-Young-Adults.pdf
Cordaro, D. T., Keltner, D., Tshering, S., Wangchuk, D., & Flynn, L. M. (2016). The voice conveys emotion in ten globalized cultures and one remote village in Bhutan. Emotion, 16(1), 117–128. https://doi.org/10.1037/emo0000100
Coulombe, V., Martel-Sauvageau, V., & Monetta, L. (2024). The expression of vocal emotions in cognitively healthy adult speakers: Impact of emotion category, gender, and age. Journal of Nonverbal Behavior. Advance Online Publication. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10919-024-00472-x
Daniali, H., Ruben, M. A., Aslaksen, P. M., Fiskum, C., Kaptchuk, T. J., & Flaten, M. A. (2024). The effect of singular nonverbal behaviours of experimenters on pain reports. Journal of Pain Research, 17, 1347–1360. https://doi.org/10.2147/JPR.S449150
Deen, B., Saxe, R., & Kanwisher, N. (2020). Processing communicative facial and vocal cues in the superior temporal sulcus. NeuroImage, 221, 117191. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.neuroimage.2020.117191
De Waele, A., Schoofs, L., & Claeys, A. S. (2020). The power of empathy: the dual impacts of an emotional voice in organizational crisis communication. Journal of Applied Communication Research, 48(3), 350–371. https://doi.org/10.1080/00909882.2020.1750669
Dickens, L., & DeSteno, D. (2014). Pride attenuates nonconscious mimicry. Emotion, 14(1), 7–11. https://doi.org/10.1037/a0035291
Droit-Volet, S., & Gil, S. (2016). The emotional body and time perception. Cognition & Emotion, 30(4), 687–699. https://doi.org/10.1080/02699931.2015.1023180
Ekman, P., & Friesen, W. V. (1969). The repertoire of nonverbal behavior: Categories, origins, usage, and coding. Semiotica, 1(1), 49–98. https://doi.org/10.1515/semi.1969.1.1.49
Ellingsen, D. M., Wessberg, J., Chelnokova, O., Olausson, H., Laeng, B., & Leknes, S. (2014). In touch with your emotions: Oxytocin and touch change social impressions while others’ facial expressions can alter touch. Psychoneuroendocrinology, 39, 11–20. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.psyneuen.2013.09.017
Engel, I., Dshemuchadse, M., Surrey, C., Roos, L., Kanske, P., & Scherbaum, S. (2024). How self-states help: Observing the embodiment of self-states through nonverbal behavior. PLOS ONE, 19(3), 0300682. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0300682
Engelhard, S. E. (2018). Being together in time: Body synchrony in couples’ psychotherapy. The Arts in Psychotherapy, 60, 41–47. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.aip.2018.06.003
Foley, G. N., & Gentile, J. P. (2010). Nonverbal communication in psychotherapy, Psychiatry, 7(6) 38–44. https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC2898840/pdf/PE_7_6_38.pdf
Frosina, P., Logue, M., Book, A., Huizinga, T., Amos, S., & Stark, S. (2018). The effect of cognitive load on nonverbal behavior in the cognitive interview for suspects. Personality and Individual Differences, 130, 51–58. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.paid.2018.03.012
Furley, P., & Roth, A. (2021). Coding body language in sports: The Nonverbal Behavior Coding System for Soccer Penalties (NBCSP). Journal of Sport and Exercise Psychology, 43(2), 95–109. https://doi.org/10.1123/jsep.2020-0066
Goldin-Meadow, S., Nusbaum, H., Kelly, S. D., & Wagner, S. (2001). Explaining math: Gesturing lightens the load. Psychological Science, 12(6), 516–522. https://doi.org/10.1111/1467-9280.00395
Gullestad, S. E. (2022). Finding the Mind in the Body. Psychoanalytic Inquiry, 42(4), 244–252. https://doi.org/10.1080/07351690.2022.2059277
Guetterman, T. C., Sakakibara, R., Baireddy, S., & Babchuk, W. A. (2024). Incorporating verbal and nonverbal aspects to enhance a model of patient communication in cancer care: A grounded theory study. Cancer Medicine, 13(14), e70010. https://doi.org/10.1002/cam4.70010
Hall, J. A. (2010). Nonverbal behavior in social psychology research: The good, the bad, and the ugly. Oxford Academic. https://doi.org/10.1093/acprof:oso/9780195377798.003.0021
Hass-Cohen, N., Kim, S. K., & Mangassarian, S. (2015). Art mediated intra-interpersonal touch and space: Korean art therapy graduate students’ cultural perspectives on sharing attachment based cloth albums. The Arts in Psychotherapy, 45, 31–40. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.aip.2015.07.001
Hatfield, E., Cacioppo, J. T., & Rapson, R. L. (1993). Emotional contagion. Cambridge University Press.
Hess, U. (2022). Nonverbal communication. In Reference module in neuroscience and biobehavioral psychology. Elsevier. https://doi.org/10.1016/B978-0-323-91497-0.00133-8
Ismail, N. A. S., Mageswaran, N., Bujang, S. M., & Awang Besar, M. N. (2024). Beyond words: Analyzing non-verbal communication techniques in a medical communication skills course via synchronous online platform. Frontiers in Medicine, 11, 1375982. https://doi.org/10.3389/fmed.2024.1375982
Israelsson, A., Seiger, A., & Laukka, P. (2023). Blended emotions can be accurately recognized from dynamic facial and vocal expressions. Journal of Nonverbal Behavior, 47(2), 267–284. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10919-023-00426-9
Ito, K., Ishii, Y., Ishii, R., Eitoku, S. I., & Otsuka, K. (2024). Exploring Multimodal Nonverbal Functional Features for Predicting the Subjective Impressions of Interlocutors. IEEE Access. https://doi.org/10.1109/ACCESS.2024.3426537
Joyce, P., & Sills, C. (2018). Skills in Gestalt counselling & psychotherapy (4th ed.). SAGE Publications.
Kabat-Zinn, J. (1982). An outpatient program in behavioral medicine for chronic pain patients based on the practice of mindfulness meditation: Theoretical considerations and preliminary results. General Hospital Psychiatry, 4(1), 33–47. https://doi.org/10.1016/0163-8343(82)90026-3
Knapp, M. L., & Hall, J. A. (2014). Nonverbal communication in human interaction (8th ed.). Cengage Learning.
Koval, P., Butler, E. A., Hollenstein, T., Lanteigne, D., & Kuppens, P. (2015). Emotion regulation and the temporal dynamics of emotions: Effects of cognitive reappraisal and expressive suppression on emotional inertia. Cognition & Emotion, 29(5), 831–851. https://doi.org/10.1080/02699931.2014.948388
Kret, M. E., Stekelenburg, J. J., Gelder, B., & Roelofs, K. (2017). From face to hand: Attentional bias towards expressive hands in social anxiety. Biological Psychology, 122, 42–50. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.biopsycho.2015.11.016
Laborde, S., Strack, N., & Mosley, E. (2019). The influence of power posing on cardiac vagal activity. Acta Psychologica, 199, 102899. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.actpsy.2019.102899
Lamer, S. A., Reeves, S. L., & Weisbuch, M. (2015). The nonverbal environment of self-esteem: Interactive effects of facial-expression and eye-gaze on perceivers’ self-evaluations. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, 56, 130–138. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jesp.2014.09.010
Lansley, C. (2017). Getting to the truth. EIA Group.
Levine, P. A., Blakeslee, A. & Sylvae, J. (2018). Reintegrating fragmentation of the primitive self: Discussion of “somatic experiencing”. Psychoanalytic Dialogues, 28(5), 620–628. https://doi.org/10.1080/10481885.2018.1506216
Lewis, C., Lovatt, P., & Kirk, E. (2015). Many hands make light work: The facilitative role of gesture in verbal improvisation. Thinking Skills and Creativity, 17, 149–157. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.tsc.2015.06.001
Li, Y. (2023). Depression and suicide risk prediction based on machine learning models. Journal of Education, Humanities and Social Sciences, 15, 302–307. https://doi.org/10.54097/ehss.v15i.9312
Li, S., Ding, R., Zhao, D., Zhou, X., Zhan, B., & Luo, W. (2022). Processing of emotions expressed through eye regions attenuates attentional blink. International Journal of Psychophysiology, 182, 1–11. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ijpsycho.2022.07.010
Lopez, R. M. L., León, F. G., & Olivares, M. G. (2016). Comportamiento no verbal: Más allá de la comunicación y el lenguaje. Ediciones Pirámide.
Matsumoto, D., & Hwang, H. C. (2013a). Cultural similarities and differences in emblematic gestures. Journal of Nonverbal Behavior, 37(1), 1–27. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10919-012-0143-8
Matsumoto, D., & Hwang, H. C. (2016). Facial expressions. In D. Matsumoto, H. C. Hwang, & M. G. Frank (Eds.), APA handbook of nonverbal communication (pp. 257–288). American Psychological Association.
McCall, C., & Singer, T. (2015). Facing off with unfair others: Introducing proxemic imaging as an implicit measure of approach and avoidance during social interaction. PLOS ONE, 10(2), 0117532. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0117532
Morgan, S. E., Occa, A., Mouton, A., & Potter, J. (2017). The role of nonverbal communication behaviors in clinical trial and research study recruitment. Health Communication, 32(4), 461–469. https://doi.org/10.1080/10410236.2016.1140266
Olson, M. A. (2017). Gestalt theory. Mindfully Healing. https://mindfullyhealing.com/gestalt-theory/
Muñoz, P., & Farkas, C. (2017). Gestural Representation of Emotions: A Comparative Study on Chilean and American Women. Journal of Child and Family Studies, 26, 2166–2174. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10826-017-0724-6
Naruse, S. M., & Moss, M. (2021). Positive massage: An intervention for couples’ wellbeing in a touch-deprived era. European Journal of Investigation in Health, Psychology and Education, 11(2), 450–467. https://doi.org/10.3390/ejihpe11020033
Neumann, N., Drewes, V., Konstantinidis, I., Reinecke, K. H. C., Lausberg, H., & Helmich, I. (2022). Neuropsychological functions of nonverbal hand movements and gestures during sports. Journal of Cognitive Psychology, 34(3), 362–374. https://doi.org/10.1080/20445911.2021.1998075
Oya, R., & Tanaka, A. (2023). Touch and voice have different advantages in perceiving positive and negative emotions. I-Perception, 14(2), 1–12. https://doi.org/10.1177/20416695231160420
Page, M. J., Moher, D., Bossuyt, P. M., Boutron, I., Hoffmann, T. C., Mulrow, C. D., Shamseer, L., Tetzlaff, J. M., Akl, E. A., Brennan, S. E., Chou, R., Glanville, J., Grimshaw, J. M., Hróbjartsson, A., Lalu, M. M., Li, T., Loder, E. W., Mayo-Wilson, E., McDonald, S., … McKenzie, J. E. (2021). PRISMA 2020 explanation and elaboration: Updated guidance and exemplars for reporting systematic reviews. BMJ (Clinical Research Ed, 372, 160. https://doi.org/10.1136/bmj.n160
Parkinson, C., Walker, T. T., Memmi, S., & Wheatley, T. (2017). Emotions are understood from biological motion across remote cultures. Emotion, 17(3), 459–477. https://doi.org/10.1037/emo0000194
Paulmann, S., & Uskul, A. K. (2017). Early and late brain signatures of emotional prosody among individuals with high versus low power. Psychophysiology, 54(4), 555–565. https://doi.org/10.1111/psyp.12812
Poyo Solanas, M., Zhan, M., Vaessen, M., Hortensius, R., Engelen, T., & de Gelder, B. (2018). Looking at the face and seeing the whole body. Neural basis of combined face and body expressions. Social Cognitive and Affective Neuroscience, 13(1), 135–144. https://doi.org/10.1093/scan/nsx130
Persky, S., Ferrer, R. A., & Klein, W. M. (2016). Nonverbal and paraverbal behavior in (simulated) medical visits related to genomics and weight: A role for emotion and race. Journal of Behavioral Medicine, 39, 804–814. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10865-016-9747-5
Philippot, P., Feldman, R. S., & Coats, E. J. (Eds.). (2003). Nonverbal behavior in clinical settings. Oxford University Press.
Preti, E., Suttora, C., & Richetin, J. (2016). Can you hear what I feel? A validated prosodic set of angry, happy, and neutral Italian pseudowords. Behavior Research Methods, 48(1), 259–271. https://doi.org/10.3758/s13428-015-0570-7
Quarmley, M., Zelinsky, G., Athar, S., Yang, Z., Drucker, J. H., Samaras, D., & Jarcho, J. M. (2023). Nonverbal behavioral patterns predict social rejection elicited aggression. Biological Psychology, 183, 108670. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.biopsycho.2023.108670
Quesque, F., Behrens, F., & Kret, M. E. (2019). Pupils say more than a thousand words: Pupil size reflects how observed actions are interpreted. Cognition, 190, 104–112. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cognition.2019.04.016
Ray, C. D., Floyd, K., Mongeau, P. A., Mark, L., Shufford, K. N., & Niess, L. (2019). Planning improves vocal fluency and the appearance of concern when communicating emotional support. Communication Research Reports, 36(1), 57–66. https://doi.org/10.1080/08824096.2018.1560251
Reed, C. L., Moody, E. J., Mgrublian, K., Assaad, S., Schey, A., & McIntosh, D. N. (2020). Body matters in emotion: Restricted body movement and posture affect expression and recognition of status-related emotions. Frontiers in Psychology, 11, 1961. https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2020.01961
Rodero Anton, E., Larrea Estefanía, O., Dios, I., & Lucas, I. (2022). The expressive balance effect: Perception and physiological responses of prosody and gestures. Journal of Language and Social Psychology, 41(6), 659–684. https://doi.org/10.1177/0261927X221078317
Saneiro, M., Santos, O. C., Salmeron-Majadas, S., & Boticario, J. G. (2014). Towards emotion detection in educational scenarios from facial expressions and body movements through multimodal approaches. The Scientific World Journal, 2014(1), 484873. https://doi.org/10.1155/2014/484873
Sauter, D. A., & Fischer, A. H. (2018). Can perceivers recognise emotions from spontaneous expressions? Cognition and Emotion, 32(3), 504–515. https://doi.org/10.1080/02699931.2017.1320978
Senecal, S., Cuel, L., Aristidou, A., & Magnenat-Thalmann, N. (2016). Continuous body emotion recognition system during theater performances. Computer Animation and Virtual Worlds, 27(3–4), 311–320. https://doi.org/10.1002/cav.1714
Siritanawan, P., Chaiyaroj, A., Tantawanich, P., Sirinaksomboon, K., & Kotani, K. (2023). Facial expression analysis interpreting emotion in multicultural settings. 2023 62nd Annual Conference of the Society of Instrument and Control Engineers SICE, 1127–1132. https://doi.org/doi:10.23919/SICE59929.2023.10354080.
Spapé, M., Harjunen, V., Ahmed, I., Jacucci, G., & Ravaja, N. (2019). The semiotics of the message and the messenger: How nonverbal communication affects fairness perception. Cognitive, Affective, & Behavioral Neuroscience, 19, 1259–1272. https://doi.org/10.3758/s13415-019-00738-8
Stewart, C. A., Mitchell, D. G. V., MacDonald, P. A., Pasternak, S. H., Tremblay, P. F., & Finger, E. C. (2024). The nonverbal expression of guilt in healthy adults. Scientific Reports, 14, 10607. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-024-60980-0
Stubbe, D. E. (2018). The therapeutic alliance: The fundamental element of psychotherapy. Focus, 16(4), 402–403. https://doi.org/10.1176/appi.focus.20180022
Suwinyattichaiporn, T., Guerrero, L. K., & Generous, M. A. (2021). Conceptualizing and operationalizing empathic expressions: A communication perspective. Communication Studies, 72(3), 285–302. https://doi.org/10.1080/10510974.2021.1899009
Tickle-Degnen, L., & Rosenthal, R. (1990). The nature of rapport and its nonverbal correlates. Psychological Inquiry, 1(4), 285–293. https://doi.org/10.1207/s15327965pli0104_1
Vincente, B. R., McIntosh, D. N., & Reed, C. L. (2024). Relative contributions of the face and body to social judgements: Emotion, threat and status. Cognition & Emotion, 38(8), 1285–1302 https://doi.org/10.1080/02699931.2024.2365851
Visch, V. T., Goudbeek, M. B., & Mortillaro, M. (2014). Robust anger: Recognition of deteriorated dynamic bodily emotion expressions. Cognition & Emotion, 28(5), 936–946. https://doi.org/10.1080/02699931.2013.865595
Voss, R., & Das, J. (2024). Mental status examination. StatPearls. StatPearls Publishing.
Waaramaa, T. (2016). Gender differences in identifying emotions from auditory and visual stimuli. Logopedics Phoniatrics Vocology, 42(4), 160–166. https://doi.org/10.1080/14015439.2016.1243725
Walsh, J., Eccleston, C., & Keogh, E. (2014). Pain communication through body posture: The development and validation of a stimulus set. PAIN, 155(11), 2282–2290. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.pain.2014.08.019
Werner, P., Al-Hamadi, A., Limbrecht-Ecklundt, K., Walter, S., & Traue, H. C. (2018). Head movements and postures as pain behavior. PLOS ONE, 13(2), 0192767. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0192767
Xiao, W. (2024). The language of the body: The role and significance of body shaping in drama art education. Arts Educa, 38. https://artseduca.com/submissions/index.php/ae/article/view/252/74
Zhou, H. Y., Su, P. X., & Cai, Y. Q. (2024). Development and validation of the Social Touch Experiences and Attitudes Questionnaire-Chinese version (STEAQ-C): How interpersonal touch relates to subclinical traits and symptoms. Journal of Psychiatric Research, 178, 114–124. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jpsychires.2024.08.010

Esta obra está bajo una licencia internacional Creative Commons Atribución-NoComercial-SinDerivadas 4.0.
Derechos de autor 2025 Behavior & Law Journal