title: Eye contact enhances mimicry of intransitive hand movements.
abstract: When two people meet in a bar, a subtle interplay of social behaviours, including eye contact and unconscious mimicry of actions play an important role in how much the individuals like each other by the end of the evening. However, it is not known how these different social signals interact. Here, we adopt a rapid mimicry paradigm, to test if eye contact can modulate mimicry on a second by second time scale. Our results show that direct eye contact rapidly and specifically enhances mimicry of hand actions. These findings have implications for understanding the role of eye contact as a controlling signal in human non-verbal social behaviour.
authors.affiliation: School of Psychology, University of Nottingham, , University Park, Nottingham NG7 2RD, UK. mirrorneuronwang@gmail.com
authors.forename: Yin
authors.initials: Y
authors.lastname: Wang
authors.forename: Roger
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Newport
authors.forename: Antonia F de C
authors.initials: AF
authors.lastname: Hamilton
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D005133:Eye Movements / Q000502:physiology*; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D007100:Imitative Behavior / Q000502:physiology*; D008297:Male; D011597:Psychomotor Performance / Q000502:physiology*; D012919:Social Behavior; D055815:Young Adult