Emotional synchrony and covariation of behavioral/physiological reactions between interlocutors

Covariation of behavioral/physiological reactions may cause emotional synchrony between interlocutors. Based on this assumption, this paper investigated (1) how emotions between the interlocutors are synchronized during a dialog and (2) what types of behavioral or physiological reactions correlate with each other. Speaker's verbal and non-verbal emotional behavior (vocal/facial) and physiological responses (heart rate/skin conductance) were recorded when they engaged in competitive/cooperative tasks. After recording, the speakers annotated their own and their interlocutor's emotional states (arousal/valence/positivity). An analysis of variance test with correlation coefficients between emotional states suggested that male speakers were less emotionally synchronized than female speakers in the competitive dialog. It also suggested that they believed that their emotions would have been more synchronized with each other than they actually were. Moreover, the results of the correlation tests revealed that the behavioral or physiological reactions of most of the pairs in the same dialog were positively correlated.