Abstract
Research in scene perception has demonstrated that humans are able to accurately recognize static visual stimuli with very brief exposures to a scene (Oliva, 2005). This ability is also true of the perception of social information. Very brief exposures or ‘thin slices’ of behavioral information are sufficient for accurately perceiving properties of social situations. Studies of this phenomena examine how the correlation of movement between two people vary as a result of their affiliation, and how this variation results in accurate perception of affiliation while observing conversation. Coordination of movement is ubiquitously present in social interactions, and this is more prominent when individuals are familiar with each other (Ambady & Rosenthal, 1992; Ng & Dunne). Experiment 1 quantified the variation in how individuals move during conversation based on their affiliation. New methodology using optical flow analysis to quantify motion was used. Results demonstrated that the correlation of movements between friends is significantly greater than the correlation during stranger interaction. Experiment 2 investigated how the perception of this coordination may contribute to accurate judgments of affiliation while observing interaction. We used the previous analysis of movement to examine how correlation serves as a cue for the accurate perception of affiliation by observers. Results demonstrated that although correlation was not a significant cue in affiliation perception, participants could indeed do the perceptual task. We suggest that the perception of social information is multi-faceted and cues may be differentially prioritized based on their availability for perception (i.e. viewing full-body versus facial correlation). These studies also highlight how the visual system may be examined using more complex yet ecologically valid stimuli. Further investigation is being conducted to determine how these visual cues may be perceived and prioritized in specific ways when making accurate social judgments.
Meeting abstract presented at VSS 2013