Synchrony and Entrainment in Human Interaction

Add to your list(s) Download to your calendar using vCal

• Satinder Gill, University of Cambridge
• Thursday 29 October 2009, 14:15-15:15
• Computer Laboratory, William Gates Building, Room SS03.

If you have a question about this talk, please contact Shazia Afzal.

An analysis of how our bodies engage and cue ways of understanding and providing feedback in communication shows patterns of rhythmic synchrony and collective action that seem to have a musical quality. The pull of one body with another (in synchrony and entrained) or withdrawal of one body from another (out of sync) gives us a sense of how we are making sense of each other and the nature of our commitment to be together. The most powerful form of synchrony is simultaneous motion. Condon said that this was so vital to human sociality that every culture has devised the short cut to it, in the form of greetings. Shaking someone’s hand, touching noses, kissing, bowing, is awkward if it is not simultaneously synchronised. Some of the patterns of rhythmic synchrony one finds in body movement is akin to the accents and moments of crescendo found in music performance, and these seem to help us to maintain attention and reach a heightened state of emotion and resonance. This work seeks to attain a better understanding of how the body/gesture and sound move together in sense-making, and how various kinds of technological interfaces afford, inhibit, or alter, these movements.

This talk is part of the Rainbow Interaction Seminars series.

This talk is included in these lists:

• Cambridge talks
• Computer Laboratory, William Gates Building, Room SS03
• Human-Computer Interaction
• Rainbow Interaction Seminars
• Trust & Technology Initiative - interesting events

Note that ex-directory lists are not shown.