HIDDEN REAL-TIME PATTERNS IN INTRAINDIVIDUAL AND INTERINDIVIDUAL BEHAVIOR - DESCRIPTION AND DETECTION

It is widely believed that human interaction is much more regular than has yet been detected. What kinds of hidden regularities exist is, ho wever, unsettled. In this paper a structural hypothesis is proposed wh ere each continuous human interaction is seen as the performance of a set of a particular type of temporal patterns. Some of these repeated intra- and inter-individual real-rime behavior patterns may be mutuall y exclusive in time while others may overlap in various ways. Perceptu al limitations making such patterns hidden to the naked eye are illust rated. A computerized detection method and illustrative empirical Find ings from various types of face-to-face interactions in children and a dults are presented. The specially developed pattern detection and ana lysis software, THEME, is also shortly described.