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Debaters perception ofnonverbal stimuliJames Edward Sayer aa Doctoral Fellow in Speech , Bowling GreenState University , OhioPublished online: 06 Jun 2009.

To cite this article: James Edward Sayer (1974) Debaters perception of nonverbalstimuli, Western Speech, 38:1, 2-6, DOI: 10.1080/10570317409373802

To link to this article: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/10570317409373802

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Debaters Perception ofNonverbal Stimuli

JAMES EDWARD SAYER*

"DEBATERS ASK THEMSELVES this same question after eachround of debate, 'Did we convince the judge—did our team win the ballot?'(Barker, p. 17)." Barker's observation of that which occurs after each debateround is so obvious as to be almost meaningless. What gives it meaning, how-ever, is the means employed by the individual debater to assess the answerto that question, "Did we win or lose ?"

Naturally, if the decisions were given orally at the conclusion of eachdegate round, this win/loss issue would be immediately resolved. Since, how-ever, this practice seldom occurs, debaters do not receive such immediateoral feedback, except perhaps following the elimination or "out" rounds ofa typical intercollegiate debate tournament.

This situation—the lack of oral analysis of the debate by its judge—forces the debater to play a forensics guessing game in attempting to ascer-tain his won-lost record. The difficulty of this guessing game is demonstratedby the results of a study by Verderber (p. 30), wherein he found that seventypercent (70 fo) of the debaters studied "noted significant variations in judges'requirements." While it is true that this study scrutinized only twenty-fivedebaters and fourteen debate judges, the significance in the great variationin judging criteria cannot be overlooked. Truly, each judge will evaluate thesame debate round differently from any other judge. The debater faces amonumental task in attempting to ferret out the important criteria for eachindividual debate judge.

Barker's study, noted previously, attempted to deal with this debater/judge assessment problem. He found that debaters could not rate themselvesthe same way as they were rated by the judge, even though they used a self-evaluation scale that was "identical with the rating scale for the judges'evaluation of the debaters (Barker, pp. 18-19)." Barker concluded thatjudges and debaters "do not rate the debaters' performances the same."

Thus, a debater is unable to fathom decisions by means of an oral deci-sion, by oral critique, or by matching criteria with a judge. How do debatersdecide whether or not they won or lost a particular debate round? Theanswer to this question may conceivably lie in the consideration of nonverbalstimuli. Since the judge is not allowed to provide verbal stimuli during the

* Mr. Sayer is a Doctoral Fellow in Speech, Bowling Green State University, Ohio.[ 2 ]

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WESTERN SPEECH JAMES EDWARD SAYER

debate ("I like that argument;" "I don't buy that piece of evidence"), thedebater may be forced to make his approximation of the judge's decisionbased upon the nonverbal stimuli provided by the judge and interpreted bythe debater.

This area of concern has generated only one article in the Journal of theAmerican Forensic Association (see Ellis and Minter, pages 53-56). Thisarticle drew the correlation between judge attentiveness during a givenround of debate and the perception of judge credibility and reliability bythe debaters. Ellis and Minter found it necessary to prescribe recommenda-tions concerning attentiveness, but the issue of debater accuracy in perceivingjudges', decisions, based upon nonverbal stimuli, was not considered in thisstudy. This lack of nonverbal research in the area of forensics provided theimpetus and rationale for this study.

RESEARCH QUESTIONS • :

In evaluating debater assessment of judges' nonverbal cues, two researchquestions were considered:

(1) Is there a meaningful relationship between a debater's evaluation ofthe judge's nonverbal stimuli and the subsequent won-loss decision by thatjudge?;and

(2) Are "better" debaters no more expert at evaluating judges' non-verbal stimuli than their not-as-successful counterparts ?

The first question called for a matching relationship between debatersand their judges as to the ultimate decision of the debate. The second ques-tion was concerned with any improved accuracy of this relationship whenconsidering only the "better" debaters, those with a favorable won-lossrecord. This procedure is suggested in the study by Hufford (pp. 120-125).

METHOD AND PROCEDURE

To secure the necessary data; the first three preliminary rounds of theBowling Green Open Debate Tournament were utilized on November 10,1972. All of the following analysis is based upon those data.

At the general meeting that immediately preceded the first three roundsof debate, it was announced to all the coaches/judges and debaters that astudy was being conducted during that day's debate activities. While thenature of the study was not disclosed at this meeting, the tournament par-ticipants were assured that the study's demands upon them would be simpleand brief. This assurance was given in an attempt to mitigate any negativereaction to taking part in this study that might jeopardize the validity of thedata collected.

For each of these three preliminary rounds, each judge's envelope con-

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WESTERN SPEECH WINTER 1974

tained five pieces of material besides the usual AFA "Form C" ballot: onesheet of instructions to the judge and four forms, one each for the debaters.

The judges were instructed to give out the debaters' forms only at theconclusion of the debate and that the debaters were not to consult their col-leagues in completing their forms. The debaters were similarly instructedas to the completion of their forms, requiring only that they note the numberof the debate round, the side of the proposition they were defending, and whatdecision they felt the judge had rendered, based upon their observation andinterpretation of the nonverbal cues. The debaters were told that this studywas being used in the completion of a Ph.D. dissertation in the hope thatsuch a statement might reduce the number of spurious responses that can beexpected in any study.

The completed forms were returned to the tabulation room with thejudge's ballot, and the debaters' responses were matched with the decision ofthe judge.

RESULTS

Sixty teams competed in the 1972 Bowling Green Open, providing amaximum of 120 possible responses per round. However, due to incom-pleted or non-returned forms, the following number of responses were ana-lyzed for the three preliminary rounds:

I—90 responsesII—94 responsesIII—94 responsesData tend to indicate a positive relationship within the first research

question ("Is there a meaningful relationship between debaters' evaluationof nonverbal stimuli and the judge's decision?"). The data indicate a highdegree of accuracy: 66.5% for the three rounds taken as a whole (see TableI) . Accuracy of responses average a positive two-to-one relationship for thestudy as a whole and for the three rounds taken individually: 1=69.2%;11=62.6%; 111=68.1%. All of these statistics must be considered abovemere chance, because this statistical relationship is maintained throughoutthe individual debate rounds, despite the variable of being on the affirmativeor the negative during any given round (see Table I ) .

TABLE I

I.II.III.To t

Right

21252470

AffirmativeWrong No Decision

10141337

159

1337

Right

24222369

NegativeWrong

10149

33

No Decision

10101232

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WESTERN SPEECH JAMES EDWARD SAYER

Data indicate a negative relationship within the second research question("Are 'beter' debaters no more adept at evaluating nonverbal stimuli thantheir not-as-successful counterparts?"). Again, data tend to demonstrate ahigh relationship between the "better" debaters, as adjudged by their teamwon-loss record, and their ability to evaluate the judges' nonverbal stimuli.Those teams possessing a won-loss record of 5-3 or better provided sixty-seven correct responses and only sixteen incorrect for an accuracy percentageof 80.7%.

DISCUSSION

As a former intercollegiate debater and debate coach, this writer wasmore than mildly surprised by the results of this study. It has been an un-written maxim of forensics competition that "debaters possess the worst per-ception of what has happened during any round of debate." Studies such asthat by Barker have served to provide empirical proof for this assertion.However, the area of nonverbal stimuli has not been studied, for it probablyhas been assumed that if debaters cannot accurately analyze a judge's writtenand verbal stimuli, then they most likely cannot accurately assess the judge'snonverbal cues.

This study suggests that debaters do possess the potential for such accu-rate nonverbal assessment. While we cannot know what particular aspectsof nonverbal communication are most significant to the debater's analysis, wecan postulate that the debater carefully considers such areas as the amount ofeye contact, facial expression, and bodily movement and posture. These arethe three areas most available for "leakage" by the judge while listening to adebate, and these are the areas most visible to the debaters. A follow-up study,centering upon the areas of leakage, is most certainly warranted.

Certainly, these results cannot be taken as conclusive. Only three roundsof debate at one tournament were scrutinized; no specific factor analysis wasattempted; and the large number of "no decision" responses militates againstuniversal conclusions. There is also no assurance that nonverbal stimuli pro-vided the data upon which the debaters made their decisions, despite the factthat the debaters were explicitly instructed to consider only nonverbal cuesin ascertaining judges' decisions. Instead, the results of this study shouldserve as an impetus for further study to determine the extent and accuracyof debaters' evaluation of nonverbal stimuli. Much more research is needed toconfirm or deny the tentative results of this study and to answer the follow-ing additional questions: Can debaters react positively during a given debateround to take advantage of perceived nonverbal stimuli ? Can debaters effec-tively analyze the nonverbal stimuli they perceive ? Should the debaters facethe judge while seated so as to maximize the amount of perceptible nonverbalstimuli ?

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WESTERN SPEECH • WINTER 1974

Debating has its roots in the sophistic arguments of the early Greekrhetoricians of 2400 years ago. Since that time, "who has won ?" has beenthe major immediate consideration of every single debate confrontation. Yet,despite the fact that the judges are prevented from orally revealing theirdecisions, minimal work has been done in the area of forensic nonverbalcommunication. When one considers the fact that there are hundreds ofdebate tournaments held every year, the research potential is seen to existfor further studies in this crucial area.

REFERENCES

Barker, Larry L., "A Comparative Analysis of Debater-Judge Ratings," Journal ofthe American Forensic Association, 11 (January, 1965), 17-20.

Ellis, Dean S., and Robert Minter, "How Good Are Debate Judges," Journal of theAmerican Forensic Association, IV (Spring, 1967), 53-56.

Hufford, Roger, "Toward Improved Tournament Judging," Journal of the AmericanForensic Association, II (September, 1965), 120-125.

Verderber, Rudolph, "Judges' Criteria and Debater Adaptations: Empirical Evi-dence," Journal of the American Forensic Association, V (Winter, 1968), 28-30.

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