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Abstract
Despite the substantial literature identifying visual cues of importance in social interaction, comparisons of conversations with and without vision have not indicated that the communication processes are much affected by the absence of vision. This lack of results could in part be due to the novelty engendered by the experimental situations. This paper reports a study in which telephone and face-to-face conversations from the White House tapes are content analysed. Evidence is found to support three hypotheses: (1) that there are verbal substitutes for visual cues, (2) that the uncertainty engendered by lack of feedback on the telephone influences verbal processes, (3) that telephone conversations are, and are felt to be, less pleasant than face-to-face conversations. However, since this is, strictly speaking, a nonexperimental study, some other hypotheses to explain the observed results are also possible.