Nonverbal communication percentage

What is the real division between verbal and non verbal communication in terms of significance in our interactions?

You probably heard the 7-38-55 rule of communication: 55% of our total communication is delivered by body language, 38% by vocal signals and the last slim 7% is delivered by words. But is that really true? How the researchers did come to this interesting conclusion?

Today I'll try to answer that, I'm going to explore the distinction between verbal and non verbal communication, and do something that might seem a little strange since my site promotes nonverbal communication: I'm going to explain why body language, with all of its power, is not enough.

Let's Use Logic

Before going into depth of how this formula came to be and is it possible, let's apply some good old fashioned logic to answer the question – If the verbal communication plays such a little role in our interactions, do we really need it? Can we manage to communicate without it?

Hmm… well it seems to me that we can, to some extent. I can express my feelings easily enough and I can try to use pantomime that hopefully you will understand. But other than that, it seems like a very difficult task nowadays. Try to say anything more complex than "pass me the salt" and you're into some trouble. Hell, we couldn't make this conversation without words.

How it came to be?

But let's try the science way – let's try to dissect our verbal and non verbal communication to get a perfect formula that will explain how we actually interact…

So we made an experiment, and by we - I mean Dr Albert Mehrabian, and by experiment I mean 2 studies done in 1967 on 30 Participants, all female.

How they were done?