The emergence of signaling systems has been observed in numerous experimental and real-world contexts, but there is no consensus on which (if any) shared mechanisms underlie such phenomena. A number of explanatory mechanisms have been proposed within several disciplines, all of which have been instantiated as credible working models. However, they…

Research suggests that learners will likely spend a substantial amount of time looking at the model's face when it is visible in a video-based modeling example. Consequently, in this study we hypothesized that learners might not attend timely to the task areas the model is referring to, unless their attention is guided to such areas by the model's…

Three experiments are presented that investigate the two-dimensional valence/trustworthiness by dominance model of social inferences from faces (Oosterhof & Todorov, 2008). Experiment 1 used image averaging and morphing techniques to demonstrate that consistent facial cues subserve a range of social inferences, even in a highly variable sample of…

The present study explores how well teacher trainees can detect liars. Moreover, a new method was applied to investigate beliefs that teacher trainees hold about liars. The results indicate that, overall, teacher trainees were not better than chance in detecting true and invented stories. Generally, participants reported to have used only a few…

A dynamic interactive theory of person construal is proposed. It assumes that the perception of other people is accomplished by a dynamical system involving continuous interaction between social categories, stereotypes, high-level cognitive states, and the low-level processing of facial, vocal, and bodily cues. This system permits lower-level…

Body movement provides a rich source of cues about other people's goals and intentions. In the present research, we investigate how well people can distinguish between different social intentions on the basis of movement information. Participants observed a model reaching toward and grasping a wooden block with the intent to cooperate with a…

Decades of research has shown that people are poor at detecting lies. Two explanations for this finding have been proposed. First, it has been suggested that lie detection is inaccurate because people rely on invalid cues when judging deception. Second, it has been suggested that lack of valid cues to deception limits accuracy. A series of 4…

Perception of emotion is critical for successful social interaction, yet the neural mechanisms underlying the perception of dynamic, audio-visual emotional cues are poorly understood. Evidence from language and sensory paradigms suggests that the superior temporal sulcus and gyrus (STS/STG) play a key role in the integration of auditory and visual…

We explored differences in the mental representation of facial identity between 8-year-olds and adults. The 8-year-olds and adults made similarity judgments of a homogeneous set of faces (individual hair cues removed) using an "odd-man-out" paradigm. Multidimensional scaling (MDS) analyses were performed to represent perceived similarity of faces…

Data from three experiments provide the first evidence that children, at least as young as age two, are vigilant of others' non-verbal cues to credibility, and flexibly use these cues to facilitate learning. Experiment 1 revealed that 2- and 3-year-olds prefer to learn about objects from someone who appears, through non-verbal cues, to be…

Recent research in neuroscience shows that observing attractive faces with direct gaze is more rewarding than observing attractive faces with averted gaze. On the basis of this research, it was hypothesized that object evaluations can be enhanced by associating them with attractive faces displaying direct gaze. In a conditioning paradigm, novel…

Two experiments were conducted to investigate generalized imitation of manual gestures in 1- to 2-year-old infants. In Experiment 1, 6 infants were first trained four baseline matching relations (e.g., when instructed "Do this," to raise their arms after they saw the experimenter do so). Next, four novel gestures that the infants did not match in…

Right hemispheric dominance in unconscious emotional processing has been suggested, but remains controversial. This issue was investigated using the subliminal affective priming paradigm combined with unilateral visual presentation in 40 normal subjects. In either left or right visual fields, angry facial expressions, happy facial expressions, or…

Analyzes and categorizes directional factors, and exploratory sequences related to them, via videotaped sessions of two teenage school work groups. Shows stimuli which initiate exploratory sequences are found for all directional factors in problem solving or decision making. Reveals rule-governed or routinized behavior relates to directional…

Examines the relative importance of verbal, nonverbal, and social normative information in judgments of honesty and deceit. Finds strong support for the nonverbal cue primacy model and no support for the social-normative model. Suggests additional research is warranted on the relative strength of these sources and the manner of combination to form…