Detecting Politeness and efficiency in a cooperative social interaction

We developed a cooperative time-sensitive task to study vocal expression of politeness and efficiency. Sixteen dyads completed 20 trials of the ‘Maze Task’, where one participant (the ‘navigator’) gave oral instructions (mainly ‘up’, ‘down’, left’, ‘right’) for the other (the ‘pilot’) to follow. For half of the trials, navigators were instructed to be polite, and for the other half to be efficient. The simplicity of the task left few ways to express politeness. Nevertheless it significantly affected task accuracy, and pilots’ subjective ratings indicate that it was perceived. Efficiency was not as clearly perceived. Preliminary acoustic analysis suggests relevant dimensions.