Investigating real-time social interaction in pairs of adolescents with the Perceptual Crossing Experiment

Abstract

The study of real-time social interaction provides ecologically valid insight into social behavior. The objective of the current research is to experimentally assess real-time social contingency detection in an adolescent population, using a shortened version of the Perceptual Crossing Experiment (PCE). Pairs of 148 adolescents aged between 12 and 19 were instructed to find each other in a virtual environment interspersed with other objects by interacting with each other using tactile feedback only. Across six rounds, participants demonstrated increasing accuracy in social contingency detection, which was associated with increasing subjective experience of the mutual interaction. Subjective experience was highest in rounds when both participants were simultaneously accurate in detecting each other's presence. The six-round version yielded comparable social contingency detection outcome measures to a ten-round version of the task. The shortened six-round version of the PCE has therefore enabled us to extend the previous findings on social contingency detection in adults to an adolescent population, enabling implementation in prospective research designs to assess the development of social contingency detection over time.

The Feeling Is Mutual: Clarity of Haptics-Mediated Social Perception Is Not Associated With the Recognition of the Other, Only With Recognition of Each Other

“…First, on average, participants’ perceptual experience of the other’s presence became clearer during the experiment. This change in experience tended to stabilize within six trials, and our study thereby supports Hermans et al’s ( 2020 ) decision to run a shorter experiment of six trials. However, it is noteworthy that we did not find compelling evidence that, on average, participants improved their capacity to click correctly.…”

“…However, given that this was an isolated experiment, it remained to be seen whether it could be replicated. This has now been accomplished by Hermans et al ( 2020 ), as well as by the present study. Hermans et al ( 2020 ) implemented a shorter variation of Froese et al’s ( 2014a ) perceptual crossing paradigm as part of a longitudinal population study of adolescents.…”

“…This has now been accomplished by Hermans et al ( 2020 ), as well as by the present study. Hermans et al ( 2020 ) implemented a shorter variation of Froese et al’s ( 2014a ) perceptual crossing paradigm as part of a longitudinal population study of adolescents. Importantly, despite this reduction in overall interaction time, as well as differences in the target population and in the assessment of participant’s experience, they also found that subjective experience was highest specifically in trials when both participants were jointly correct in detecting each other’s presence.…”

“…This has now been accomplished by Hermans et al (2020), as well as by the present study. Hermans et al (2020) implemented a shorter variation of Froese et al's (2014a) perceptual crossing paradigm as part of a longitudinal population study of adolescents. Importantly, despite this reduction in overall interaction time, as well as differences in the target population The physical setup.…”

“…Then each pair was tested for 20 trials, consisting of 60 s each (due to errors the last five trials and the last trial of teams 1 and 6, respectively, were not recorded). This is the first time the perceptual crossing experiment has been run for 20 trials; Froese et al ( 2014a ) had employed 15 trials, whereas Hermans et al ( 2020 ) used only six trials. The aim of using 20 trials was to see if there would be a change in results if participants have more time to interact.…”