Social interaction, specially face to face interaction,
defines who we are.
Telecommunication is fairly easy and common,
but when it comes to important decisions,
such as a job interview,
or a negotiation, is to like to see each other in person.
This is because in any face to face encounter,
we constantly exchange and evaluate social signals with
each other through both verbal and non-verbal channels.
We become very good at it.
From a very young age,
we learn to copy each other's facial expression, posture, gesture,
and mannerism to achieve
a smoother interaction which could then lead to a more desirable outcome.
However, our conscious brain or our main CPU has a limited bandwidth.
It can possibly cope with processing and
triggering all sorts of social signals at the same time.
Therefore, a big chunk of
this very complex procedure happens automatically subconsciously.
This has been described by Bargh and Chartrand in
1999 as the Unbearable Automaticity of Being.
This is very good for us because what I'm giving a lecture,
I just need to remember the text,
and my facial expression and gesture will happen automatically.
The fact these mechanisms are hidden from
our conscious perception makes them very difficult to study.
So nobody really understand what's going on in
the brain that drives our social interaction.
But why do we need to understand social interaction?
It's because nowadays,
our modern society becomes so much more demanding our social skills.
We are relying on our social skills to make more friends,
find a partner, get a better job,
or even get a better bargain when you shop at a market.
This is becoming problematic for those who are not so good at social interactions.
For instance, people diagnosed with autism
a cause for between 1-3 percent of the populations in the UK.
The diagnosis of autism has increased dramatically in the past decade.
Not because we all of a sudden had more cases of autism.
Autism is a neurological disorder that has always existed.
The increased diagnosis is caused by the fact that people with
autism find out more than life more and more difficult to cope with,
and this is costing a lot of money.
A recent study has shown,
autism on its own is costing the UK government at least 32 billion pounds per year.
On the other side of the spectrum,
you have people who were very good at interpreting and expressing social signals.
For instance, actors.
Some of them are making a lot of money.
As a computer scientist,
this makes me think if I can create of
which character who can act like one of those actors,
I can make a lot of money.
But in order to simulate realistic virtual characters,
I want you to first understand a bit more about social interaction.
And this works both ways.
If we can assimilate better virtual characters,
now we can use them for research in social interaction.
So basically, research in these two areas can really benefit from each other.
And if we get this right,
we could have a lot of related applications.
Training for example, for medical students to practice how to
communicate more effectively with their patients, or education.
We can have a very encouraging virtual character to teach people a foreign language.
And also entertainment.
If we can create better social agents,
then we can make games more engaging and immersive.
And at the same time,
study in social interaction also races a philosophical question.
If we behave to a great extent automatically and subconsciously,
how much is our conscious brain really responsible for our actions?
This is an important question for policymakers and research in ethics.
So the research in social interaction is also something they care about.