Unobtrusive tracking of interpersonal orienting and distance predicts the subjective quality of social interactions

TY - JOUR

T1 - Unobtrusive tracking of interpersonal orienting and distance predicts the subjective quality of social interactions

AU - Lahnakoski, Juha

AU - Forbes, Paul A.G.

AU - McCall, Cade Andrew

AU - Schilbach, Leonhard

N1 - © 2020 The Authors.

PY - 2020/8/12

Y1 - 2020/8/12

N2 - Interpersonal coordination of behaviour is essential for smooth social interactions. Measures of interpersonal behaviour, however, often rely on subjective evaluations, invasive measurement techniques or gross measures of motion. Here, we constructed an unobtrusive motion tracking system that enables detailed analysis of behaviour at the individual and interpersonal levels, which we validated using wearable sensors. We evaluate dyadic measures of joint orienting and distancing, synchrony and gaze behaviours to summarize data collected during natural conversation and joint action tasks. Our results demonstrate that patterns of proxemic behaviours, rather than more widely used measures of interpersonal synchrony, best predicted the subjective quality of theinteractions. Increased distance between participants predicted lower enjoyment, while increased joint orienting towards each other during cooperation correlated with increased effort reported by the participants. Importantly, the interpersonaldistance was most informative of the quality of interaction when task demands and experimental control were minimal.These results suggest that interpersonal measures of behaviour gathered during minimally constrained social interactions are particularly sensitive for the subjective quality of social interactions and may be useful for interaction-based phenotyping for further studies.

AB - Interpersonal coordination of behaviour is essential for smooth social interactions. Measures of interpersonal behaviour, however, often rely on subjective evaluations, invasive measurement techniques or gross measures of motion. Here, we constructed an unobtrusive motion tracking system that enables detailed analysis of behaviour at the individual and interpersonal levels, which we validated using wearable sensors. We evaluate dyadic measures of joint orienting and distancing, synchrony and gaze behaviours to summarize data collected during natural conversation and joint action tasks. Our results demonstrate that patterns of proxemic behaviours, rather than more widely used measures of interpersonal synchrony, best predicted the subjective quality of theinteractions. Increased distance between participants predicted lower enjoyment, while increased joint orienting towards each other during cooperation correlated with increased effort reported by the participants. Importantly, the interpersonaldistance was most informative of the quality of interaction when task demands and experimental control were minimal.These results suggest that interpersonal measures of behaviour gathered during minimally constrained social interactions are particularly sensitive for the subjective quality of social interactions and may be useful for interaction-based phenotyping for further studies.

U2 - 10.1098/rsos.191815

DO - 10.1098/rsos.191815

M3 - Article

SN - 2054-5703

VL - 7

JO - Royal Society Open Science

JF - Royal Society Open Science

IS - 8

M1 - 191815

ER -