Abstract
Interactional synchrony refers to the coordination of movements between individuals in both timing and form during interpersonal communication. Most previous studies in Western culture used a coding methodology and concluded that interactional synchrony occurred for positive episodes but not for negative episodes (e.g., Charny, E. J. (1966). Psychosomatic Medicine, 28, 305–315). In this study, we examined interactional synchrony using a between-participants pseudosynchrony experimental paradigm (Bernieri, F. J., & Rosenthal, R. (1991). In R. S. Feldman & B. Rime (Eds.), Fundamentals of nonverbal behavior (pp. 401–432). New York: Cambridge University Press). Sixty Japanese female university students viewed interaction clips and judged the level of perceived synchrony. The results show that interactional synchrony was perceived in negative episodes as well as in positive episodes. The degree of perceived synchrony was higher in positive episodes than in negative episodes.
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Notes
For the terms used in discussing the pseudosynchrony experimental paradigm, we followed the example of Bernieri and Rosenthal (1991), which systematically reviewed the studies of interactional synchrony.
There may be some differences between men and women in nonverbal behavior perception (Hall, 1984). Although we only report the results for female participants, we also analyzed the results for male participants. Our results were limited by the much smaller male sample size. However, we did not find significant difference between male and female participants on scores of perceived synchrony.
The rating items used in the pilot study were the same as in the following experiment. We describe some details about the rating items in the following procedure.
We made comparisons of the mean ratings for the three aspects of perceived synchrony between the positive and negative episodes conditions. The results showed the same tendency. The mean ratings of simultaneous movement (t(59) = 6.70, p < .001), tempo similarity(t(59) = 6.72, p < .001), and coordination and smoothness (t(59) = 6.60, p < .001), were significantly higher for the positive episodes condition than for the negative episodes condition.
There was not a significant difference between internal pseudo-interaction and external pseudo-interaction.
In this study, we first conducted a one-way ANOVA with one factor of three levels (genuine, internal pseudo-interactions, and external pseudo-interactions) for each emotional condition to test Hypothesis 1. Next, to compare perceived synchrony in the conversations about positive episodes with that in the conversations about negative episodes, we conducted a 3 × 2 ANOVA. We considered the one-way ANOVA as desirable for the test of Hypothesis 1, because the pseudosynchrony experimental paradigm was a method in which stimuli were compared to each other to illustrate the occurrence of interactional synchrony. After that, we conducted a 3 × 2 ANOVA as an additional analysis to compare perceived synchrony in the conversations about positive episodes with the conversations about negative episodes to reveal more details about the effect of the emotional tone of the conversation.
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Kimura, M., Daibo, I. Interactional Synchrony in Conversations about Emotional Episodes: A Measurement by “the Between-Participants Pseudosynchrony Experimental Paradigm”. J Nonverbal Behav 30, 115–126 (2006). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10919-006-0011-5
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10919-006-0011-5