The Science
Receptiviti interprets people's language from a psychological perspective – recognizing that the unique ways people use language is a direct reflection on their uniqueness as an individual.
When people communicate, they use two different categories of words – “content words” and “function words.” Content words are the nouns, verbs, adjectives, and adverbs people use to articulate the specifics of what they are talking about.
Function words are primarily pronouns, prepositions, and conjunctions – they provide no context, but these words exist to explain or create structural relationships into which the content words fit.
From a physiological perspective, function words are also unique because they are processed differently in the brain – unlike content words they are processed largely unconsciously.
Decades of research has been conducted to understand the relationship between people's use of function words and what they tell us about people's personality, psychology, and cognitive state.
As Chair of the Psychology Department at the University of Texas at Austin, Receptiviti Co-founder, Dr. James W. Pennebaker, was a pioneer in language psychology who recognized the importance of function words in understanding human psychology. As Receptiviti Co-founder, Dr. Pennebaker continues to investigate and apply this research while solving a wide variety of challenges across industries.
