Mehrabian 7-38-55 research packet

Source content

Mehrabian 7-38-55 research packet

Status: author packet complete; fresh-clone independent review pending. This is research input,

not an admitted How We Know dossier, public verdict, or deployment.

Task: EM-0033

Target question:

What did the 7-38-55 weighting represent in the examined primary editions, how was it

derived, and what supports or undercuts its circulation as a general rule of communication?

Evidence cutoff: 2026-08-27

Current author recommendation

GO, pending independent review, for a later Case 004 dossier about a narrow historical

weighting that was generalized beyond its source conditions. The packet's useful result is not

another context-free percentage:

• P1 crossed isolated words with vocal tone in an inconsistent attitude task;
• P2 crossed facial and vocal attitude using the neutral word maybe;
• P2's discussion proposed .07/.38/.55 by integrating the linked studies rather than testing

three channels in one experiment;

• the 1971 book calls the numbers approximate and limits the equation to one feeling dimension;
• the author's public qualification says the equation does not apply outside feelings or

attitudes;

• a direct all-channel rebuttal reported message-specific equations rather than one fixed rule;

and

• the exact source calculation for the .07 verbal coefficient remains unresolved and receives

no credit.

The broad proposition that 93 percent of all communication is nonverbal is explicitly prohibited.

Institutional and web-sample recirculation objects receive zero scientific evidence credit.

Packet identity

• candidate packet:

em:research-packet:sha256:a73dc29f0a0c3f05a112b7c392d115cfcc38a1136a683325bf74bebf0c6b2e40;

• 12 source records and 40 quote-minimal or explicitly structured spans;
• 11 scoped claims and 6 deterministic derivations;
• 6 lineage groups, 5 participant-data roots, and 11 typed evidence-linked dependence edges;
• 3 propagation objects with zero scientific-rule credit; and
• 5 bounded follow-up dispositions.

The two 1967 papers remain distinct participant-data roots within one linked UCLA research

program. Shared author, grant, stimulus, material, method, scale, and citation relations prevent

them from being presented as independent replications of the circulated rule. Unknown participant

or speaker overlap remains unknown.

Files

• source-records.json — source, edition, capture, license, span, claim, lineage, propagation,

negative-search, and limitation records;

• candidate-packet.json — deterministic content-addressed packet;
• build_packet.py — offline deterministic builder and structural source validator;
• verify_packet.py — exact set/count/math/lineage verifier, adversarial receipt tests, and

fail-closed independent-review gate; and

• independent-review-receipt.json — absent until a separate reviewer completes exact-head

review.

No source PDF, HTML, XML, recording, photograph, participant data, or restricted full text is

committed. Readable but unlicensed carriers are represented only by identity, digest, access

history, locator, and quote-minimal spans.

Reproduce

python research/how-we-know/mehrabian-7-38-55/build_packet.py --check
python research/how-we-know/mehrabian-7-38-55/verify_packet.py --self-test
python research/how-we-know/mehrabian-7-38-55/verify_packet.py --require-review
make check

Before independent review, the third command must fail with

independent review receipt missing. After review, it must bind the exact base, author head,

tree, packet bytes, complete source/capture/span/claim/calculation/lineage coverage, command-output

digests, limitations, clean state, and recommendation. Forged, incomplete, self-authored, stale,

or open-finding receipts fail closed.

Hard boundary

This packet does not authorize a Case 004 dossier, catalog admission, feature, Pages deployment,

provider call, credential use, spend, public launch, or a general claim about communication.

Those remain separate governed tasks.