Obituary: Professor Michael Argyle ; Interpreter of 'Body Language' and Nonverbal Communication

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MICHAEL ARGYLE was one of the handful of British psychologists to have gained an international reputation. He was a pioneer in the scientific study of social behaviour. His research on interviews and conversations established that nonverbal rather than verbal communication dictate the impressions people make on others. So much is the primacy of "body language" now taken for granted that it is easy to forget that it required Argyle's research and that of others in the 1960s to demonstrate how it works.

The painstaking examination of the functions and interplay of gaze, gesture, posture, touch, proximity and facial expression was a significant part of the revolutionary …