Dyadic differences in empathy scores are associated with kinematic similarity during conversational question–answer pairs

Trujillo, James P., Dyer, Rebecca M. K. and Holler, Judith 2025. Dyadic differences in empathy scores are associated with kinematic similarity during conversational question–answer pairs. Discourse Processes 10.1080/0163853x.2025.2467605

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Abstract

During conversation, speakers coordinate and synergize their behaviors at multiple levels, and in different ways. The extent to which individuals converge or diverge in their behaviors during interaction may relate to interpersonal differences relevant to social interaction, such as empathy as measured by the empathy quotient (EQ). An association between interpersonal difference in empathy and interpersonal entrainment could help to throw light on how interlocutor characteristics influence interpersonal entrainment. We investigated this possibility in a corpus of unconstrained conversation between dyads. We used dynamic time warping to quantify entrainment between interlocutors of head motion, hand motion, and maximum speech f0 during question–response sequences. We additionally calculated interlocutor differences in EQ scores. We found that, for both head and hand motion, greater difference in EQ was associated with higher entrainment. Thus, we consider that people who are dissimilar in EQ may need to “ground” their interaction with low-level movement entrainment. There was no significant relationship between f0 entrainment and EQ score differences.

Item Type:	Article
Date Type:	Published Online
Status:	In Press
Schools:	Schools > Psychology
Additional Information:	License information from Publisher: LICENSE 1: URL: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/, Start Date: 2025-02-26
Publisher:	Taylor and Francis Group
ISSN:	0163-853X
Date of First Compliant Deposit:	7 March 2025
Last Modified:	07 Mar 2025 10:00
URI:	https://orca.cardiff.ac.uk/id/eprint/176693

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