Journal of Nonverbal Behavior最新文献

An important task in criminal justice is to evaluate the accuracy of eyewitness testimony. In this study, we examined if machine learning could be used to detect accuracy. Specifically, we examined if support vector machines (SVMs) could accurately classify testimony statements as correct or incorrect based purely on the nonverbal aspects of the voice. We analyzed 3,337 statements (76.61% accurate) from 51 eyewitness testimonies along 94 acoustic variables. We also examined the relative importance of each of the acoustic variables, using Lasso regression. Results showed that the machine learning algorithms were able to predict accuracy between 20 and 40% above chance level (AUC = 0.50). The most important predictors included acoustic variables related to the amplitude (loudness) of speech and the duration of pauses, with higher amplitude predicting correct recall and longer pauses predicting incorrect recall. Taken together, we find that machine learning methods are capable of predicting whether eyewitness testimonies are correct or incorrect with above-chance accuracy and comparable to human performance, but without detrimental human biases. This offers a proof-of-concept for machine learning in evaluations of eyewitness accuracy, and opens up new avenues of research that we hope might improve social justice.

This study examines the ability to express distinct emotions of negative and positive valences through voice modulations (i.e., affective prosody production) and how the speaker’s gender and age influence this ability. A sample of 31 neurologically healthy adults (17 women and 14 men, aged 41–76) were asked to say “papa” with six emotional tones—sadness, anger, fear, pleasant surprise, joy, and awe—in response to affect-evoking scenarios. The speakers’ vocal expressions were recorded and then assessed by five expert raters and 30 naive listeners using an emotion recognition task. Results showed that negative emotions were expressed more accurately than positive ones, highlighting a valence effect. In addition, female speakers showed higher recognition rates for their expressions of vocal emotions than male speakers. Furthermore, aging was associated with a moderate decline in the accuracy of prosodic emotional expression. Despite generally lower recognition rates from naive listeners compared to expert raters, recognition rates for all emotions, with the exception of awe, were not statistically different between listener groups. In conclusion, cognitively healthy adults can convey discrete emotions through prosody, including distinct positive emotions, but there are significant differences depending on the emotion expressed and individual speaker characteristics. These results highlight the complexity of affective prosody production and contribute to the understanding of individual differences in nonverbal emotional expression.

Since the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic in early 2020, face masks have become a common experience for many people to reduce the spread of the disease. Although recent research has shown that face masks impair emotion recognition, it is unclear how this impairment differs from other familiar types of face covering, such as sunglasses. In the present study, participants identified expressions and rated their confidence in this assessment of six affective expressions (anger, disgust, fear, surprise, sadness, and happiness) on faces wearing masks or sunglasses at four different time points during the pandemic (June 2020, March 2021, September 2021, June 2022). They also provided judgements of emotion intensity and genuineness. Overall, emotion identification of faces with masks was less accurate and had lower ratings of confidence and emotion intensity than faces with sunglasses. Faces with sunglasses, alternatively, were rated as less genuine than faces with masks. Furthermore, this pattern for both masks and sunglasses remained stable across two years of the pandemic. This study provides new insights on the differential effects of face masks and sunglasses on emotion perception and highlights the importance of face coverings for emotion communication and social interactions.

Child abuse is a major concern worldwide. While live-link interviews have been successful in legal and medical contexts, its potential for eyewitness interviews remains insufficiently studied, particularly in terms of non-verbal misinformation. This study explored tele-forensic interviewing (tele-FI), where video-conferencing software such as Zoom or Skype are used to conduct forensic interviews, as an alternative to face-to-face interviews. Focus was given to the susceptibility of eyewitness memory to the gestural misinformation effect (GME) where post-event information in the form of gesture can distort recall of a witnessed incident. Forty-seven children were recruited ranging in age from 5- to 8-years-old (M = 6 years 11 months). Comparisons were made to face-to-face conditions from prior published work by the authors (N = 63, M = 7 years 2 months) using the same methodology, video, and question sets. Results find support for the GME during tele-FI, with 1.23 misinformation details recorded on average and tele-FI showing a similar response pattern as face-to-face interviews. Accuracy was shown to be comparable in tele-FI (M = 16.21) compared to face-to-face interviews (M = 14.02), with a notable increase in the amount of relevant information provided in the tele-FI condition. Developmental age showed significant increases in the quality and quantity of data. This study provides evidence for tele-FI as a viable alternative to face-to-face interviews, and represents the first exploration of the GME in tele-FI, to the best of our knowledge. Discussion focuses on the benefits of tele-FI and the implications for police interview guidelines.

Previous research has found that higher-pitched female voices elicit jealousy among women. However, it is unknown whether jealousy towards higher-pitched female voices is driven by perceptions of the rival’s mating strategy or by beliefs about the speaker’s attractiveness to one’s romantic partner. In addition, the degree to which higher-pitched female voices elicit jealousy could be associated with variation in trait jealousy among women listeners. Here, I manipulated women’s voices to be higher or lower in pitch, and tested whether variation in jealousy towards female voices was more strongly associated with perceptions of mate poaching, beliefs about the speaker’s attractiveness to listeners’ romantic partner, or with individual differences in trait jealousy. I replicated findings that higher voice pitch elicits more jealousy from women, which was positively associated with perceptions of mate poaching. I found no evidence of an association between trait jealousy and any voice-based perception. The findings suggest that perceptions of a target’s proclivity to mate poach better explain the jealousy-inducing nature of higher-pitched female voices than do beliefs about the speaker’s attractiveness to one’s romantic partner.

Whereas research has documented how atheists are perceived, none has considered their perceptibility. Atheists must first be identified as atheists in order to experience the stigma associated with them (i.e., as distrusted, disliked, and widely maligned). Although atheism is considered a concealable aspect of one’s identity, substantial research has found that a variety of ostensibly concealable attributes about a person are indeed legible from small and subtle cues. We merged these lines of inquiry here by considering the perceptibility of religious and spiritual (dis)belief. Studies 1A-1B showed that atheists could be reliably discerned from Christians based on brief glimpses of 100 standardized male faces. Experiment 2 replicated these results using female faces. Experiments 3 A-E then interrogated the facial features that support perceivers’ detection of atheism, showing that various parts of faces suffice for independently conveying atheism. Experiment 4 investigated and showed a potential mechanism for atheism detection – expressive suppression. Thus, across nine studies (N = 677), these data show robust evidence that atheists can be categorized from facial cues.

Hearing loss severely hampers verbal exchange and thus social interaction, which puts a high burden on hearing-impaired and their close partners. Until now, nonverbal interaction in hearing-impaired dyads has not been addressed as a relevant factor for well-being or quality of social relationships. Nonverbal synchrony of head- and body-movement was analysed in N = 30 dyads of persons with hearing impairment (PHI) and their significant others (SO). In a 10-minute conversation before (T1) and 6 months after cochlear implantation (T2), Motion Energy Analysis (MEA) automatically quantified head- and body-movement. Self-report measures of both dyad members were used to assess aspects of quality of life and closeness in the partnership. After cochlear implantation, nonverbal synchrony showed a downward trend and was less distinct from pseudosynchrony. Higher synchrony was associated with worse hearing-related quality of life, shorter duration of hearing impairment and less closeness in the relationship. This negative association was interpreted as an indication for the effort one has to make to cope with difficulties in a dyad`s relationship. Endorsing a holistic approach in auditory rehabilitation, we propose the assessment of nonverbal synchrony as a suitable tool to detect subtle imbalances in the interpersonal relation between PHI and SO outside conscious control and to provide cues for possible therapeutical strategies.

The present study investigated the differences in movement synchrony and therapeutic alliance between solution-focused and problem-focused counseling. Thirty-four participants each attended two counseling sessions with different counselors, one with a solution-focus and one with a problem-focus, in randomized order. The sessions consisted of three consecutive parts: problem description, standardized intervention and free intervention. Movement synchrony, including leading and pacing synchrony, was measured using Motion Energy Analysis (MEA) and windowed cross-lagged correlation (WCLC) based on video recordings of the sessions. The Helping Alliance Questionnaire (HAQ) was used to assess therapeutic alliance. Results showed that movement synchrony was significantly higher in solution-focused than in problem-focused counseling, driven by differences in the problem description part. This difference may be explained by the allegiance of the counselors to the solution-focused approach, as we observed more leading synchrony during the problem description part in solution-focused sessions. There was no significant difference in therapeutic alliance between the two conditions. This study expands the understanding of counseling approaches in the field of movement synchrony and contributes valuable insights for practitioners and researchers alike.

There appears to be no attempt to categorize the specific classes of behavior that the tactile system underpins. Awareness of how an organism uses touch in their environment informs understanding of its versatility in non-verbal communication and tactile perception. This review categorizes the behavioral functions underpinned by the tactile sense, by using three sources of data: (1) Animal data, to assess if an identified function is conserved across species; (2) Human capacity data, indicating whether the tactile sense can support a proposed function; and (3) Human impaired data, documenting the impacts of impaired tactile functioning (e.g., reduced tactile sensitivity) for humans. From these data, three main functions pertinent to the tactile sense were identified: Ingestive Behavior; Environmental Hazard Detection and Management; and Social Communication. These functions are reviewed in detail and future directions are discussed with focus on social psychology, non-verbal behavior and multisensory perception.