Pain Expressions in Dementia: Validity of Observers’ Pain Judgments as a Function of Angle of Observation Abstract Facial expressions of pain are important in assessing individuals with dementia and severe communicative limitations. Though frontal views of the face are assumed to allow for the most valid and reliable observational assessments, the impact of viewing angle is unknown. We video-recorded older adults with and without dementia using cameras capturing different observational angles (e.g., front vs. profile view) both during a physiotherapy examination designed to identify painful areas and during a baseline period. Facial responses were coded using the fine-grained Facial Action Coding System, as well as a systematic clinical observation method. Coding was conducted separately for panoramic (incorporating left, right, and front views), and a profile view of the face. Untrained observers also judged the videos in a laboratory setting. Trained coder reliability was satisfactory for both the profile and panoramic view. Untrained observer judgments from a profile view were substantially more accurate compared to the front view and accounted for more variance in differentiating non-painful from painful situations. The findings add specificity to the communications models of pain (clarifying factors influencing observers’ ability to decode pain messages). Perhaps more importantly, the findings have implications for the development of computer vision algorithms and vision technologies designed to monitor and interpret facial expressions in a pain context. That is, the performance of such automated systems is heavily influenced by how reliably these human annotations could be provided and, hence, evaluation of human observers’ reliability, from multiple angles of observation, has implications for machine learning development efforts.

Patterns of Nonverbal Rapport Behaviors Across Time in Investigative Interviews with Children Abstract The present study evaluated whether the strength of relationship between child nonverbal behaviors (expressivity, attention, and coordination) across time points varied as a function of interviewer nonverbal behaviors (expressivity, attention, and coordination) under supportive versus neutral interviewing conditions. Children (n = 123) participated in an event where they were involved in breaking some rules. Three to four days later they were interviewed by either a supportive or neutral adult interviewer. Interviews were video recorded and nonverbal behaviors of both children and interviewers were coded. Multi-level modeling revealed that optimal interviewer nonverbal behaviors were predictive of optimal child nonverbal behaviors at the end of the interview. In contrast, explicitly manipulated interviewer supportiveness was related to suboptimal displays of child nonverbal behavior. Interestingly, as the interview progressed, optimally attentive interviewing was associated with suboptimal child expressivity scores. Likewise, displays of optimal interviewer coordination were associated with suboptimal child coordination scores over time. The implications of the findings for nonverbal behavior literature and professionals talking with children about sensitive information are discussed.

What Factors Affect Learners’ Ability to Interpret Nonverbal Behaviors in EFL Classrooms? Abstract This study examined how learners’ age, English proficiency, and years of learning English, affect the accuracy of the interpretation of nonverbal behaviors among English as a foreign language (EFL) learners. The participants consisted of four groups of Japanese students: (a) 32 sixth graders attending public schools, (b) 18 sixth graders attending English immersion schools, (c) 30 university students with lower English proficiency, and (d) 32 university students with higher English proficiency. They watched 48 video clips taken from EFL classrooms in Japanese elementary schools without sound and judged whether the teachers had asked a question. The accuracy of their judgements was statistically analyzed and their comments were qualitatively analyzed. Multiple regression analyses pointed to students’ years of learning English as the sole predictor almost significantly affecting accurate judgements but only when teachers’ utterances were accompanied by gestures. This indicates that learners’ ability to correctly decode nonverbal behaviors developed only for teacher gesture. In addition to this qualitative aspect, a quantitative aspect was also found to be affected by the duration of study. Precisely speaking, those learners with over 6 years of learning English noticed a larger number of nonverbal behaviors, including gestures, for correct judgements, which boosted the minimum accuracy of their judgements. This implies that the effect of age and nativeness observed in past literature on the interpretation of nonverbal behaviors may have been in fact under the disguise of the amount of exposure to the target language and culture.

The Association of Children’s Locus of Control Orientation and Emotion Recognition Abilities at 8 Years of Age and Teachers’ Ratings of Their Personal and Social Difficulties at 10 Years Abstract The purpose of the present study was to see if emotion recognition skill and locus of control in 8-year-old children predicted teacher rated Goodman Strengths and Difficulties (SDQ, Goodman in J Am Acad Child Adolesc Psychiatry 40:1337–1345, 2001) 2 years later. Children participating in the Avon Longitudinal Study of Parents and Children (ALSPAC; Golding in Eur J Endocrinol 151:U119–U123, 2004. https://doi.org/10.1530/eje.0.151U119) completed emotion recognition tests of child facial expressions and voices and a child locus of control scale when they were 8 years of age. Later at age 10, as part of ALSPAC’s on-going-assessment of children’s personal and social lives, teachers completed the SDQ. Based on past research and developmental theory (e.g., Nowicki and Duke in J Nonverbal Behav 18:9–35, 1994; Thomas et al. in Dev Sci 10(5):547–558, 2007) it was predicted and found that children who made more recognition errors, were more external, and male at age 8 had a greater number of teacher-rated psychological/behavioral difficulties at age 10 than those who made fewer errors, were internal, and female. Implications of the findings for children’s personal and social adjustment were discussed.

Are we Revealing Hidden Aspects of our Personality When we Walk? Abstract Research suggests that certain individuals exhibit vulnerability through their gait, and that observers select such individuals as those most likely to experience victimization. It is currently assumed that the vulnerable gait pattern is an expression of one’s submissiveness. To isolate gait movement, Study 1 utilized kinematic point-light display to record 28 individuals walking. The findings suggested that victimization history was related to gait vulnerability. The results also indicated that, contrary to expectation, individuals with more vulnerable features in their gait were more likely to self-report dominant personality characteristics, rather than submissive characteristics. In Study 2, a sample of 129 observers watched the point-light recordings and rated the walkers on their vulnerability to victimization. The results suggested that observers agreed on which walkers were easy targets; they were also accurate in that the walkers they rated as most likely to experience victimization tended to exhibit vulnerable gait cues. The current research is one of the few to explore the relationship between internal dispositions and non-verbal behavior in a sample of self-reported victims. The findings provide exciting insights related to the communicative function of gait, and the characteristics that may put some individuals at a greater risk to be criminally targeted.

People Can Accurately (But Not Adaptively) Judge Strangers’ Antigay Prejudice from Faces Abstract The ecological theory of social perception suggests that people’s first impressions should be especially accurate for judgments relevant to their goals. Here, we tested whether people could accurately judge others’ levels of antigay prejudice and whether gay men’s accuracy would exceed straight men’s accuracy in making these judgments. We found that people judged men’s (but not women’s) levels of antigay prejudice accurately from photos of their faces and that impressions of facial power supported their judgments. Gay men and straight men did not significantly differ in their sensitivity to antigay prejudice, however. People may therefore judge others’ levels of prejudice accurately regardless of their personal stake in its consequences.

Impression Formation of Male and Female Millennial Students Wearing Eye Glasses or Hearing Aids Abstract The purpose of this study was to examine impressions of persons wearing hearing aids (HA) and glasses. A survey consisting of impression formation measures was administered to 569 participants. Factor analysis and a series of T-tests were used to examine the effect of wearing glasses and hearing aids on first impressions. T-tests indicated significant differences between the control and glasses style for both the male and female model. Male and female control models (without glasses) were rated more positively. Another series of t-tests between hearing aid styles and the control indicated significant differences for the heavier, more visible hearing aid with the control model being rated higher on every factor except “reliable”. There were almost no significant differences between the control and the light, less visible hearing aid for either the male or the female. Correlations among traits differ as a function of both stimulus person and relevance of trait. Data indicates that different types of hearing aids stimulate varying impressions. The findings have implications for advising potential HA users who are disinclined to wear a device for cosmetic reasons. Findings support other literature on impression formation and the hearing aid effect. However, the findings are encouraging, as hearing aid use has historically been associated with an impression of lower cognitive function, yet participants did not indicate a significant perceptual difference between the hearing aid user and the control, possibly indicating stronger social acceptance.

Kissing Right? Absence of Rightward Directional Turning Bias During First Kiss Encounters Among Strangers Abstract When leaning toward a partner for a kiss, the direction that individuals turn their head when planting the kiss is found to vary based on the kiss’s context; romantic kissing between adult couples is consistently directed rightward, though recently, a non-romantic kiss between parent–child couples was observed to be leftward. The current study further examines the lateral head-turning direction between non-romantic couples using a novel context: a first kiss between strangers. Observing strangers kissing was feasible due to a unique social media phenomenon; since 2014, 23 “First Kiss” online videos have emerged which depict kisses facilitated by the video’s director between consenting strangers. The turning direction of 230 kissing couples were coded from the 23 First Kiss videos, and the proportion of right to left turns were almost equal; 51% of couples displayed a right-turn kiss, and 49% conveyed a left-turn kiss. Further, the proportion of right and left turns observed from our sample of strangers kissing were compared to Güntürkün’s (in Nature 421:711, https://doi.org/10.1038/421711a, 2003) original study that examined authentic kissing between adult couples. A significantly different turning bias was exhibited. Because the kissing criterion was parallel between these studies, our study demonstrates that the context influenced the direction of bias, namely, that of a non-romantic kiss. We discuss the potential role of context and emotional lateralization on kissing laterality, and propose future directions to test these predictions.

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.

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.