TALK: The new science of social interaction

Recent advances in computer animation and cognitive neuroimaging have created powerful tools to study human social interaction. This talk will concentrate on what we are now learning about the specialized brain networks that underlie ‘first impressions’ based on facial appearance, speech and bodily movement. It will show how such first impressions determine who gets elected to the US Senate or who is chosen to run the biggest corporations. The talk will also touch on other automatic outcomes of social interaction such the interactive alignment of actions and emotions and how we come to pull together when we interact. The research indicates that humans are intrinsically social animals in a way that few other creatures are.

ARC Centre for Cognition and its Disorders - Person Perception Seminar Series