Multimodal Networks of Interpersonal Interaction and Conversational Contexts

In interpersonal interaction, the terms synchrony or alignment refer to the way in which communication channels like speech or body movement become intertwined over time, both across interlocutors and within a single individual. A recent trend in alignment research has targeted multimodal alignment, exploring how various communication channels affect one another over time (e.g., Louwerse et al., 2012). While existing research has made significant progress in mapping multimodal alignment during task-based or positively valenced interactions, little is known about the dynamics of multimodal alignment during conflict. We visualize multimodal alignment during naturalistic affiliative and argumentative interactions as networks based on analyses of body movement and speech. Broadly, we find that conversational contexts strongly impact the ways in which interlocutors’ movement and speech systems self-organize interpersonally and intrapersonally.