INTERPERSONAL PROXIMITY IN SOCIAL AND COGNITIVE SPACE

We explore how humans solve some problems of living in a social world. In particular, we focus on the ability to see affiliation or alliance patterns in social communities. We draw on dat. from two naturalistic studies in which subjects were observed interacting and required to r eveal their perceptions of the patterning of that interaction. In both cases, the observed interaction patterns and the subjects' reports co rrespond closely. But in both cases, subjects are shown to simplify an d exaggerate the observed patterning. Individual subjects, moreover, a ppear able to reveal more details about interaction patterns among tho se with whom they interact frequently, while they gloss over details i nvolving interaction among others with whom their own interaction is i nfrequent.