The goal of this workshop was to advance the understanding of how cognition and action systems are integrated and operate synergistically. This knowledge of how humans efficiently interact and navigate in complex environments is vital for generating a comprehensive understanding of human behavior and will help shape the design of everyday objects and training and working environments. One poignant example is computer technology. Human-computer interfaces equipped with gestural and tangible technologies are becoming increasingly accessible and ubiquitous in educational, leisure, and work settings. A thorough understanding of the interactions between cognition and action is needed help designers engineer devices and environments that maximize the functionality and usability. Thus, the workshop will bring together a diverse group of scholars in the fields of psychology, neuroscience, kinesiology, and human-computer interactions to share and critically evaluate their cutting-edge theoretical, empirical, and translational developments.
Note: Some videos from this workshop may appear slightly altered to protect the privacy of individuals pictured in presentations.
Actions as Social Signals: Methods and a Framework for Studies of Human Social Interaction
Antonia Hamilton, University College London,
United Kingdom
Social interactions in real life are spontaneous, fluid and rarely repeated in exactly the same way again. How, then, can we pin down these ephemeral behaviours in the lab and achieve both ecological validity and experimental control? And what kind of a theoretical framework do we need to guide our experiments?To answer these questions, I will describe a series of studies which record movement kinematics and manipulate the knowledge of being watched. Obtaining precise measures of kinematics and finding appropriate ways to analyse and characterise kinematics is critical for advancing our understanding of the details of human social behaviour. But to place this in a broader framework, it is important to think about what a social behaviour is for – in particular – is an action performed only for one person, or is it intended as a signal which sends a message to another? Understanding actions as social signals allows us to develop and test hypothesis of how actions function in social interactions. A key prediction of the signalling hypothesis is that a signal is sent only when it can be received, that is, when someone is watching. Thus, experimental manipulation of the ‘knowledge of being watched’ is a critical test of whether a particular action or a particular kinematic pattern has a social-signalling function. Our data provide evidence that imitation is used as a social signal, and showcase how high-precision methods and strong theories are both needed to advance studies of human social interaction.
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