Body language without a body: nonverbal communication in technology mediated settings

Abstract

Cognitive and psychological processes underlying social interaction are built around face-to-face interactions, the only possible and available communication setting during the long evolutionary process that has resulted into Homo Sapiens. As the fraction of interactions that take place in technology mediated settings keeps increasing, it is important to investigate how the cognitive and psychological processes mentioned above - ultimately grounded into neural structures - act in and react to the new interaction settings. In particular, it is important to investigate whether nonverbal communication - one of the main channels through which people convey socially and psychologically relevant information - still plays a role in settings where natural nonverbal cues (facial expressions, vocalisations, gestures, etc.) are no longer available. Addressing such an issue has important implications not only for what concerns the understanding of cognition and psychology, but also for what concerns the design of interaction technology and the analysis of phenomena like cyberbullyism and viral diffusion of content that play an important role in nowadays society.