The interaction of social and spatial cognitive processes in naturalistic social interactions

Background: Coordinating actions in human social interactions relies on visual information about the interaction partner as well as knowledge about one’s own body. However, these processes have rarely been examined in realistic human interactions. Aims: Our research aims at deepening our understanding about social spatial interactions in human interaction by examining an important cognitive representation of the human body underlying perception and action, namely the body model. In addition, we also present work on how visual social information influences action execution in naturalistic interactions. Method: We use psychophysical methods to compare shape and size distortions between the body and objects in localization judgement tasks. We also examine the influence of a partner’s body appearance on movement trajectories in naturalistic human interactions using an interactive virtual reality setup. Participants executed a high-five with an avatar that either looked like a robot or a human. Results: We found evidence that distortions previously selectively attributed to the body, e.g. hand, are also observed with objects. In addition, actions were influenced by task irrelevant factors such as the visual appearance of the interaction partner. Conclusions: Non-verbal social interactions are influenced by nonbody specific spatial representations and non-action related social information about the interaction partner