Interpersonal Movement Synchrony Responds to High- and Low-Level Conversational Constraints. 2017

Alexandra Paxton, and Rick Dale
Institute of Cognitive and Brain Sciences, University of California, BerkeleyBerkeley, CA, United States.

Much work on communication and joint action conceptualizes interaction as a dynamical system. Under this view, dynamic properties of interaction should be shaped by the context in which the interaction is taking place. Here we explore interpersonal movement coordination or synchrony-the degree to which individuals move in similar ways over time-as one such context-sensitive property. Studies of coordination have typically investigated how these dynamics are influenced by either high-level constraints (i.e., slow-changing factors) or low-level constraints (i.e., fast-changing factors like movement). Focusing on nonverbal communication behaviors during naturalistic conversation, we analyzed how interacting participants' head movement dynamics were shaped simultaneously by high-level constraints (i.e., conversation type; friendly conversations vs. arguments) and low-level constraints (i.e., perceptual stimuli; non-informative visual stimuli vs. informative visual stimuli). We found that high- and low-level constraints interacted non-additively to affect interpersonal movement dynamics, highlighting the context sensitivity of interaction and supporting the view of joint action as a complex adaptive system.

UI MeSH Term Description Entries

Related Publications

Alexandra Paxton, and Rick Dale
October 2014, Journal of experimental psychology. Human perception and performance,
Alexandra Paxton, and Rick Dale
January 2021, Social cognitive and affective neuroscience,
Alexandra Paxton, and Rick Dale
December 1979, Journal of abnormal psychology,
Alexandra Paxton, and Rick Dale
January 2018, Developmental science,
Alexandra Paxton, and Rick Dale
June 2025, Journal of Alzheimer's disease : JAD,
Alexandra Paxton, and Rick Dale
February 2023, Quarterly journal of experimental psychology (2006),
Alexandra Paxton, and Rick Dale
April 2022, Acta psychologica,
Alexandra Paxton, and Rick Dale
April 2017, Nonlinear dynamics, psychology, and life sciences,
Alexandra Paxton, and Rick Dale
February 2020, Current psychiatry reports,
Copied contents to your clipboard!