About

Norah Dunbar is a Professor of Communication at UC Santa Barbara and a Fellow of the International Communication Association. Her research focuses on credibility and deception across various contexts, with particular attention to how nonverbal behaviors such as dominance, nonverbal synchrony, and other nonverbal cues influence interpersonal impressions. She has pioneered methods for measuring nonverbal behaviors and has examined interpersonal power as it relates to credibility and persuasion. Dr. Dunbar teaches courses in nonverbal and interpersonal communication, communication theory, and deception detection. She holds affiliate faculty positions in several centers, including the Center for Information, Technology & Society, the Center for Responsible Machine Learning, the Center for Digital Games Research, and the Quantitative Methods in the Social Sciences program. Her extensive research has been funded by agencies such as the National Science Foundation, the Department of Defense, and the Intelligence Advanced Research Projects Activity, totaling over $18 million in research funding. She has published over 100 journal articles, book chapters, and encyclopedia articles, and has presented at numerous national and international conferences. Her work has appeared in top journals within her discipline and interdisciplinary journals, and she has served on the editorial boards of multiple disciplinary journals. Additionally, she served as the Chair of the Nonverbal Division of the National Communication Association from 2014 to 2016 and is the immediate past Chair of the UCSB Communication Department.

Research topics

• Computer Science
• Psychology
• Psychiatry
• Sociology
• Medicine
• Family medicine
• Gerontology
• Social psychology
• Clinical psychology
• Cognitive psychology
• Human–computer interaction
• Communication

Selected publications

• Face Masks and Interpersonal Perceptions: Null Effects on Perceived Trust and Credibility

  Journal of Nonverbal Behavior · 2025-08-28

  articleOpen access1st authorCorresponding

  Abstract During the COVID-19 pandemic, many courtrooms implemented physical distancing protocols, including face-mask requirements for testifying witnesses. These precautions prompted debate among academics and practitioners about whether face coverings might impair jurors’ ability to assess a witness’s credibility. To examine this question, we conducted two experimental studies using simulated video-recorded testimony. We hypothesized that face masks would reduce perceived credibility as measured by ratings of trustworthiness and overall witness credibility. Across both studies, our results provided no evidence that face masks diminished perceptions of credibility or trust. These results suggest that, in such settings, face mask use may not significantly interfere with jurors’ interpersonal assessments. We discuss implications for future courtroom procedures should witnesses be required to wear a medical mask, either for public or personal health reasons.

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• 1.28 AI in Pediatric Bipolar Disorder: Enhancing Clinical Evaluation Through the Behavioral Health Avatar

  Journal of the American Academy of Child & Adolescent Psychiatry · 2025-10-01

  article
  PublisherDOI

• Power and Synchrony in Human Collaboration with Exoskeletons

  2024-09-09

  book-chapter
  PublisherDOI

• Beyond the Face: Nonverbal Messages from the Voice, Head, Eyes and Posture

  2024-01-01 · 2 citations

  book-chapter
  PublisherDOI

• A Review of Automatic Lie Detection from Facial Features

  Journal of Nonverbal Behavior · 2024-03-01 · 9 citations

  reviewSenior author
  PublisherDOI

• Truth-tellers' and liars' synchrony during attitude-inconsistent conversations

  Frontiers in Communication · 2023-02-14 · 5 citations

  articleOpen access1st authorCorresponding

  The recently-proposed strategic synchrony hypothesis holds that deceivers (more than truth-tellers) use nonverbal synchrony as a way to maintain their credibility and the smooth flow of interactions. However, important questions remain as to how an interaction partner's behavior and the topic of interaction qualify the strategic synchrony hypothesis. This study considered whether naïve participants (i.e., truth-tellers and deceivers) synchronize differently to high- and low-involvement partners (i.e., confederates) depending on whether the partners discuss climate change or tuition increases, two salient conversational topics for our participants. Deceivers who discussed climate change with a high-involvement partner were especially likely to subjectively perceive that both they themselves and their partner initiated synchrony during the discussion of climate change. However, objective automated analyses of bodily movement synchrony revealed a different set of findings: Dyads with a truth-teller demonstrated higher increases in synchrony than dyads with a deceiver when moving from a superficial discussion of what they liked about their university to a direct discussion of climate change. Results are discussed in terms of how they advance the strategic synchrony hypothesis.

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• The Analysis of Nonverbal Communication: The Dangers of Pseudoscience in Security and Justice Contexts

  2023-02-14

  preprintOpen access

  <p>For security and justice professionals (e.g., police officers, lawyers, judges), the thousands of peer-reviewed articles on nonverbal communication represent important sources of knowledge. However, despite the scope of the scientific work carried out on this subject, professionals can turn to programs, methods, and approaches that fail to reflect the state of science. The objective of this article is to examine (i) concepts of nonverbal communication conveyed by these programs, methods, and approaches, but also (ii) the consequences of their use (e.g., on the life or liberty of individuals). To achieve this objective, we describe the scope of scientific research on nonverbal communication. A program (SPOT; Screening of Passengers by Observation Techniques), a method (the BAI; Behavior Analysis Interview) and an approach (synergology) that each run counter to the state of science are examined. Finally, we outline five hypotheses to explain why some organizations in the fields of security and justice are turning to pseudoscience and pseudoscientific techniques. We conclude the article by inviting these organizations to work with the international community of scholars who have scientific expertise in nonverbal communication and lie (and truth) detection to implement evidence-based practices. </p>

  PublisherDOI

• Understanding the effect of vocal behaviors in high-conflict situations in personal relationships.

  Professional Psychology Research and Practice · 2023-10-12 · 1 citations

  article
  PublisherDOI

• Sensemaking, adaptation and agency in human-exoskeleton synchrony

  Frontiers in Robotics and AI · 2023-10-12 · 6 citations

  articleOpen access

  Introduction: Wearable I robots such as exoskeletons combine the strength and precision of intelligent machines with the adaptability and creativity of human beings. Exoskeletons are unique in that humans interact with the technologies on both a physical and cognitive level, and as such, involve a complex, interdependent relationship between humans and robots. The aim of this paper was to explore the concepts of agency and adaptation as they relate to human-machine synchrony, as human users learned to operate a complex whole-body powered exoskeleton. Methods: Qualitative interviews were conducted with participants over multiple sessions in which they performed a range of basic functional tasks and simulated industrial tasks using a powered exoskeleton prototype, to understand their expectations of the human-technology partnership, any challenges that arose in their interaction with the device, and what strategies they used to resolve such challenges. Results: Analysis of the data revealed two overarching themes: 1) Participants faced physical, cognitive, and affective challenges to synchronizing with the exoskeleton; and 2) they engaged in sensemaking strategies such as drawing analogies with known prior experiences and anthropomorphized the exoskeleton as a partner entity in order to adapt and address challenges. Discussion: This research is an important first step to understanding how humans make sense of and adapt to a powerful and complex wearable robot with which they must synchronize in order to perform tasks. Implications for our understanding of human and machine agency as well as bidirectional coadaptation principles are discussed.

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• Deception Detection in Videos Using Robust Facial Features with Attention Feedback

  2023-01-01 · 2 citations

  book-chapter
  PublisherDOI

Recent grants

• EXP: Teaching Bias Mitigation through Training Games with Application in Credibility Attribution

  NSF · $549k · 2015–2017

Frequent coauthors

• Judee K. Burgoon

  University of Arizona

  64 shared

• Matthew L. Jensen

  39 shared

• Samantha Lapka

  Purdue University West Lafayette

  28 shared

• Kevin Koidl

  Trinity College Dublin

  28 shared

• Panteha Farmanesh

  Arkın Yaratıcı Sanatlar ve Tasarım Üniversitesi

  28 shared

• Kristina Kapanova

  Trinity College Dublin

  28 shared

• Pouya Zargar

  28 shared

• Lydia Mhango

  Copperbelt University

  28 shared

Labs

• Norah Dunbar LabPI

Awards & honors

• Fellow of the International Communication Association
• Chair of the Nonverbal Division of the National Communicatio…