Perceptions of rapport across the life span : gaze patterns and judgment accuracy

Although age-related deficits in emotion perception have been established using photographs of individuals, the extension of these findings to dynamic displays and dyads is just beginning. Similarly, most eye-tracking research in the person perception literature, including those that study age differences, have focused on individual attributes gleaned from static images; no previous research has considered cue use in dyadic judgments with eye-tracking. The current study employed a Brunswikian lens model analysis in conjunction with eye-tracking measurements to study age differences in the judgment of rapport, a social construct comprised of mutual attentiveness, positive feelings, and coordination between interacting partners. Judgment accuracy and cue utilization of younger (n = 47) and older (n = 46) adults were operationalized as correlations between a perceiver’s judgments and criterion values within a set of 34 brief interaction videos in which two opposite-sex college students discussed a controversial topic. No age differences emerged in the accuracy of judgments, however pathways to accuracy differed by age; younger adults’ judgments relied on some behavioral cues more than older adults. Additionally, eye-tracking analyses revealed that older adults spent more time looking at the bodies of the targets in the videos whereas younger adults spent more time looking at the targets’ heads. The contributions from both the lens model and eye-tracking findings provide distinct but complementary insights to our understanding of age-related continuities and shifts in social perceptual processing.This is an author's peer-reviewed final manuscript, as accepted by the publisher. The published article is copyrighted by the American Psychological Association and can be found at: http://www.apa.org/pubs/journals/pag/ This article may not exactly replicate the final version published in the APA journal. It is not the copy of record.Keywords: eye-tracking, social perception, rapport, lens mode

Effectiveness of a short audiovisual emotion recognition training program in adults

The ability to recognize emotions from others’ nonverbal behavior (emotion recognition ability, ERA) is crucial to successful social functioning. However, currently no self-administered ERA training for non-clinical adults covering multiple sensory channels exists. We conducted four studies in a lifespan sample of participants in the laboratory and online (total N = 531) to examine the effectiveness of a short computer-based training for 14 different emotions using audiovisual clips of emotional expressions. Results showed that overall, young and middle-aged participants that had received the training scored significantly higher on facial, vocal, and audiovisual emotion recognition than the control groups. The training effect for audiovisual ERA persisted over 4 weeks. In older adults (59–90 years), however, the training had no effect. The new, brief training could be useful in applied settings such as professional training, at least for younger and middle-aged adults. In older adults, improving ERA might require a longer and more interactive intervention