Individual Differences Correspond with Attention to the Eyes of White Versus Black Faces Abstract Black, relative to White, individuals have experienced discrimination for centuries in the United States. Recent work suggests that subtle differences in how novel Black faces are initially perceived relate to prejudicial behavior. One such difference is that non-Black people attend more to the eyes of White versus Black novel faces. The present study sought to better characterize this difference by assessing how distinct individual differences widely shown to relate to prejudicial behavior—internal motivation to respond without prejudice (IMS), external motivation to respond without prejudice (EMS), and implicit race bias—relate to disparities in attending to the eyes of novel Black and White faces. Participants viewed novel Black and White faces one at a time on the right or left side of the display. Replicating a race-based disparity in visual attention to the eyes, non-Black perceivers fixated more on the eyes of White in comparison to Black faces. Individual differences among perceivers corresponded with the extent of this race-based disparity. IMS had a negative relationship with a race-based disparity in attention to the eyes, such that higher levels of IMS among perceivers corresponded with lower disparities in attention. Implicit race bias had a positive relationship with this disparity, such that higher levels of implicit race bias among perceivers corresponded with higher disparities in attention. Together, these findings illustrate that two individual differences known to affect prejudicial behavior are associated with preferential gaze patterns in visual attention toward faces on the basis of race.

All Roads Lead to Rome: Instructors’ Pointing and Depictive Gestures in Video Lectures Promote Learning Through Different Patterns of Attention Allocation Abstract This study focused on how an instructor’s pointing gestures and depictive gestures differentially affected learners’ retention, transfer, and visual attention allocation. Eighty-five Chinese undergraduates were randomly assigned to view one of three video lectures in a laboratory. The videos varied in terms of the instructor’s use of gesture: pointing gestures, depictive gestures, or no gestures. As hypothesized, the results showed better learning performance after the videos that included either pointing gestures or depictive gestures relative to the no gestures video; interestingly, the effect of gestures in video lectures was greater for participants with low and medium prior knowledge. In addition, the type of gesture differentially affected learners’ visual attention allocation: pointing gestures directed attention to the relevant learning content of the PowerPoint slides, and depictive gestures drew learners’ attention to the instructor. The findings have practical implications: instructors are encouraged to use pointing gestures and depictive gestures in video lectures.

Coordinated Collaboration and Nonverbal Social Interactions: A Formal and Functional Analysis of Gaze, Gestures, and Other Body Movements in a Contemporary Dance Improvisation Performance Abstract This study presents a microanalysis of what information performers “give” and “give off” to each other via their bodies during a contemporary dance improvisation. We compare what expert performers and non-performers (sufficiently trained to successfully perform) do with their bodies during a silent, multiparty improvisation exercise, in order to identify any differences and to provide insight into nonverbal communication in a less conventional setting. The coordinated collaboration of the participants (two groups of six) was examined in a frame-by-frame analysis focusing on all body movements, including gaze shifts as well as the formal and functional movement units produced in the head–face, upper-, and lower-body regions. The Methods section describes in detail the annotation process and inter-rater agreement. The results of this study indicate that expert performers during the improvisation are in “performance mode” and have embodied other social cognitive strategies and skills (e.g., endogenous orienting, gaze avoidance, greater motor control) that the non-performers do not have available. Expert performers avoid using intentional communication, relying on information to be inferentially communicated in order to coordinate collaboratively, with silence and stillness being construed as meaningful in that social practice and context. The information that expert performers produce is quantitatively less (i.e., producing fewer body movements) and qualitatively more inferential than intentional compared to a control group of non-performers, which affects the quality of the performance.

How People Really Suspect Lies: A Re-examination of Novotny et al.’s (2018) Data Abstract Previous research has shown that in real-life situations people detect lies mostly from non-behavioral information (e.g., physical evidence, third-party information, confessions…) rather than from behavioral cues. Novotny et al. (J Nonverbal Behav 42:41–52, 2018. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10919-017-0263-2) argued that while lies are detected primarily from non-behavioral information, initial suspicion of a lie can be triggered primarily from behavioral cues. They conducted two studies and claimed support for their hypotheses. However, there are a number of problematic issues with Novotny et al.’s research and conclusions. We conducted analyses based on the frequencies and percentages they reported, and used meta-analytical techniques to combine their findings concerning discovered lies with those of previous research. The results show that lies are indeed detected from non-behavioral information more often than from behavioral cues. However, contrary to Novotny et al.’s assertions, suspicion is not triggered primarily from behavioral cues—rather, there is a trend in favor of non-behavioral information. Even so, behavioral cues play a bigger role in eliciting suspicion than in lie discovery.

The Role of Physiology and Voice in Emotion Perception During Social Stress Abstract Deciphering others’ affect is ubiquitous in daily life and is important for navigating social interactions and relationships. Research has found that behavioral components, such as facial expressions or body language, are critical channels by which people understand other people’s affect. In the current research, we examined how people’s perceptions of targets’ positive affect (PA) and negative affect (NA) are associated with targets’ physiological reactivity, and whether behavioral indices mediate these associations. A total of 94 participants (i.e., observers) watched videos of targets completing a social stress task during which targets’ physiological reactivity [i.e., changes in respiratory sinus arrhythmia (RSA), cardiac output (CO), and ventricular contractility (VC)] was assessed. We predicted (1) targets’ RSA reactivity would be negatively associated with observers’ perceptions of PA and NA (to a lesser magnitude than PA); (2) targets’ CO reactivity would be positively associated with observers’ perceptions of PA and unrelated to perceptions of NA; and (3) targets’ VC would be positively associated perceptions of PA or NA (VC was an exploratory hypothesis). Our hypotheses were largely supported. Mediational analyses revealed that vocal prosody was a significant mediator of the association between perceptions of targets’ affect and their physiological reactivity. The findings suggest that observers can reliably detect targets’ emotional experiences as they manifest at a physiological level and that voice is an especially useful marker of how people perceive others’ affective experience. The findings have implications for aspects of relationships involving emotion perception, including affect contagion and interpersonal emotion regulation.

The Interplay Between Face-to-Face Contact and Feedback on Cooperation During Real-Life Interactions Abstract Cooperation forms the basis of our society and becomes increasingly essential during times of globalization. However, despite technological developments people still prefer to meet face-to-face, which has been shown to foster cooperation. However, what is still unclear is how this beneficial effect depends on what people know about their interaction partner. To examine this question, 58 dyads played an iterated Prisoner’s Dilemma game, sometimes facing each other, sometimes without face contact. Additionally, explicit feedback regarding their decisions was manipulated between dyads. The results revealed that participants were more cooperative when they saw each other compared to when they could not, and when receiving reliable compared to unreliable or no feedback. Contradicting our hypothesis that participants would rely more on nonverbal communication in the absence of explicit information, we observed that the two sources of information operated independently on cooperative behavior. Interestingly, although individuals mostly relied on explicit information if available, participants still cooperated more after their partner defected with face-to-face contact compared to no face-to-face contact. The results of our study have implications for real-life interactions, suggesting that face-to-face contact has beneficial effects on prosocial behavior even if people cannot verify whether their selfless acts are being reciprocated.

Ambiguous Bodies: The Role of Displayed Arousal in Emotion [Mis]Perception Abstract Emotions of other people cannot be experienced directly but are often inferred from a variety of verbal and nonverbal information, including expressive body movement (EBM). Inferring emotional states is critical in social interaction, and questions remain about the factors contributing to ambiguity of EBM. In addressing this issue, researchers have looked to the link between displayed arousal, or the intensity of the emotional expression, and the potency of a nonverbal signal to convey emotional content such as valence or category. This study reports experimental results that address limitations of prior research regarding the ambiguity of EBM. Using motion-capture technology that permits isolation of expressive cues, the results suggest that for displays of anger and happiness (a) the ambiguity of the emotional valence and category increases as a linear function of the displayed arousal, and (b) observers show a negative response bias and greater sensitivity to negative cues. Implications of these findings for research on emotion perception are discussed.

Mimicking Others’ Nonverbal Signals is Associated with Increased Attitude Contagion Abstract Observing nonverbal signals being directed toward unfamiliar individuals is known to influence attitudes and behavior toward those individuals. Specifically, observing biased nonverbal signals in favor of one individual over another can produce nonverbal signal-consistent attitudes among preschool children. Research has also shown that people have a tendency to mimic the behavior of others. The phenomenon of mimicking another’s nonverbal emotional response and “catching” their emotions has long been established. However, it has yet to be examined whether this phenomenon is associated with attitude contagion. We hypothesized that preschool children who mimic the biased nonverbal signals of others will be more likely to adopt their social attitudes. Results of the current study indicated that as emotional mimicry became more frequent, children showed an increasingly greater probability of acquiring nonverbal signal-consistent attitudes. Moreover, the frequency of negative—but not positive—emotional mimicry was related to an increased probability of showing nonverbal signal-consistent attitudes. Our findings provide initial support for the notion that mimicking others’ biased nonverbal signals may help facilitate attitude contagion.

Nonverbal Synchrony of Facial Movements and Expressions Predict Therapeutic Alliance During a Structured Psychotherapeutic Interview Abstract Nonverbal synchrony (NVS) of a patient’s and therapist’s body parts during a therapy session has been linked with therapeutic alliance. However, the link between NVS of face parts with therapeutic alliance remains unclear. The clarification of this link is important in understanding NVS. Accordingly, we used a video imaging technique to provide quantitative evidence of this link. The 55 participants in this study were the same as in a previous study. Both the participants’ and the therapist’s faces were video recorded during structured psychotherapeutic interviews. Our machine quantified 500,500 participants’ faces and 500,500 therapists’ faces from the perspectives of facial movements and expressions. Results show that absolute synchrony of happy and scared expressions were positively related to therapeutic alliance. However, symmetrical synchrony of left eye movements negatively predicted therapeutic alliance, although participants’ sex, age, volume of facial movements, and volume of facial expressions were controlled. Absolute synchrony of facial expressions was regarded as emotional interaction within 2 s delay, whereas symmetrical synchrony of left eye movements was regarded as a blocker of emotional interaction.

Introduction to the Special Issue on Nonconscious Mimicry: History, Applications, and Theoretical and Methodological Innovations Abstract The study of mimicry has a rich history of investigation in nonverbal communication research, although the area has struggled with inconsistent operationalizations of the construct. The Special Issue on Nonconscious Mimicry includes empirical, methodological and theoretical innovations, and provides guidance about future directions. This introduction highlights a number of emerging themes in this Special Issue, and places these themes in historical context.