Who is approachable?

"The consequences of social interaction can be variable, sometimes harmful, but often rewarding. The adaptive social perceiver must therefore determine which interactions are worthwhile pursuing and which are not. The present research investigated whether subtle but meaningful differences in facial expressions are perceived in terms of the affordance of approachability. Participants engaged in simulated social encounters with targets displaying enjoyment smiles, non-enjoyment smiles or neutral expressions while fluctuations in their posture were measured. The results indicated systematic differences in perceived approachability as a function of facial expression and target sex. These findings are discussed in terms of the functional coupling between social perception and action with respect to the information that specifies the affordance of approachability." [author's abstract

Sync or sink? Interpersonal synchrony impacts self-esteem

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Visual perspective and the characteristics of mind wandering

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Coordination Matters : Interpersonal Synchrony Influences Collaborative Problem-Solving

The authors thank Martha von Werthern and Caitlin Taylor for their assistance with data collection, Cathy Macpherson for her assistance with the preparation of the manuscript, and Mike Richardson, Alex Paxton, and Rick Dale for providing MATLAB code to assist with data analysis. The research was funded by the British Academy (SG131613).Peer reviewedPublisher PD

The rhythm of rapport: interpersonal synchrony and social perception

The temporal coordination of behavior during dyadic interactions is a foundation for effective social exchange with synchronized actions enhancing perceptions of rapport and interpersonal connectedness. What has yet to be established, however, are the precise characteristics of behavioral coordination that give rise to such effects. Informed by a dynamical systems approach, the current investigation considered whether judgments of rapport are influenced by the mode of interpersonal synchrony. In two experiments, participants rated the degree of rapport manifest by a simulated pair of walkers exhibiting various configurations of synchronized strides. The results revealed that the highest levels of rapport were associated with the most stable forms of interpersonal coordination (i.e., in-phase and anti-phase synchrony), regardless of whether coordination between the walkers was conveyed via the presentation of visual (Expt. 1a) or auditory (Expt. 1b) cues. These findings underscore the importance of interpersonal coordination to core aspects of social perception

When Imagining Yourself in Pain, Visual Perspective Matters : The Neural and Behavioral Correlates of Simulated Sensory Experiences

© 2015 Massachusetts Institute of TechnologyPeer reviewedPublisher PD

Coordination and Collective Performance : Cooperative Goals Boost Interpersonal Synchrony and Task Outcomes

Acknowledgments The authors gratefully acknowledge the assistance of Cathy Macpherson and Hope Fawcett-Lipscombe with data collection and coding as well as Mike Richardson for generously sharing Matlab code and providing invaluable guidance. Supplementary Material The Supplementary Material for this article can be found online at: http://journal.frontiersin.org/article/10.3389/fpsyg.2016.01462Peer reviewedPublisher PD

Your space or mine? : Mapping self in time

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Smiles, affordances, and social interaction

This thesis describes a program of research designed to investigate the sensitivity of perceivers to the ontological distinctions between simulated expressions of happiness unrelated to positive emotional experience, or, posed smiles, and spontaneous, veridical expressions of positive affect, or, genuine smiles. Importantly, this research was conducted from within the theoretical framework of Gibsonian ecological psychology, an alternative approach to the information processing theories that dominate contemporary psychological theorising. Four experiments were conducted that employed an original set of ecologically valid facial displays generated specifically for the present research. In Experiments I a and 1 b, it was demonstrated that when jUdging from either photographs or video, participants could determine whether a smile reflected a positive emotional experience or not. Furthermore, for both of these studies, participants exhibited a bias toward misidentifying posed smiles that expose the teeth as genuine smiles. Experiment 2 also revealed findings consistent with the notion that perceivers are sensitive to the meaningful differences between posed and genuine smiles. In this study, participants were required to judge the valence of a series of target words, each of which was preceded by a briefly presented facial expression (i.e. a prime). The results of this study indicated that the identification of positive words was facilitated when preceded by a genuine smile, but not a posed smile. Experiment 3 was conducted to further investigate how such sensitivity may be manifest in regard to guiding effective social interaction. PartiCipants were required to play several rounds of the Prisoners' Dilemma game with partners (actually video recordings) exhibiting Xll either posed or genuine smiles. The results of this experiment indicated that genuine smiles facilitated cooperative interaction, but posed smiles did not. The results of all four experiments are discussed in terms of the functionality provided by accurate social perception with regard to the acquisition of information specifying the emotional state, and more broadly, the dispositional properties of conspecifics. Finally, these results will be considered in terms of the ecological conceptualisation of psychological activity, with an emphasis on the social affordances specified by posed and genuine smiles respectively

Exploring the impact of social anxiety on behavioural variability

Traditionally considered random noise, variability in behaviour in fact contains meaningful structure. Healthy functioning can be characterised by behavioural variability that is statistically self-similar (i.e., exhibits 1/f scaling), while disease or injury can result in deviations from this pattern. To date this work has focused predominantly on physical conditions. Little is known about the link between mental health and 1/f scaling. To address this gap, in the present study participants completed a simple walking task during which their gait variability was captured. Cognitive load, a factor known to impact 1/f scaling, was manipulated and symptoms of social anxiety assessed. As expected, being distracted by a cognitive task led to deviations in gait structure away from 1/f scaling. Notably, this effect was influenced by symptoms of social anxiety. This provides initial evidence that difference in mental health status impacts the structure of behaviour