{"status":"ok","message-type":"work","message-version":"1.0.0","message":{"indexed":{"date-parts":[[2026,10,24]],"date-time":"2026-10-24T04:41:21Z","timestamp":1792816881625,"version":"4.5.0"},"reference-count":58,"publisher":"Public Library of Science (PLoS)","issue":"10","license":[{"start":{"date-parts":[[2021,10,5]],"date-time":"2021-10-05T00:00:00Z","timestamp":1633392000000},"content-version":"vor","delay-in-days":0,"URL":"http:\/\/creativecommons.org\/licenses\/by\/4.0\/"}],"funder":[{"name":"UKRI Future Leader Fellowship","award":["MR\/T041471\/1"],"award-info":[{"award-number":["MR\/T041471\/1"]}]},{"DOI":"10.13039\/501100000265","name":"Medical Research Council","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","award":["MR\/S003576\/1"],"award-info":[{"award-number":["MR\/S003576\/1"]}],"id":[{"id":"10.13039\/501100000265","id-type":"DOI","asserted-by":"publisher"}]},{"DOI":"10.13039\/100014589","name":"Chief Scientist Office, Scottish Government Health and Social Care Directorate","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","id":[{"id":"10.13039\/100014589","id-type":"DOI","asserted-by":"publisher"}]},{"name":"Leverhulme Trust through a British Academy, Royal Academy of Engineering and Royal Society APEX award","award":["APX\\R1\\201093"],"award-info":[{"award-number":["APX\\R1\\201093"]}],"id":[{"id":"https:\/\/ror.org\/0526snb40","id-type":"ROR","asserted-by":"crossref"}]}],"content-domain":{"domain":["www.plosone.org"],"crossmark-restriction":false},"short-container-title":["PLoS ONE"],"abstract":"<jats:p>When people interact, they fall into synchrony. This synchrony has been demonstrated in a range of contexts, from walking or playing music together to holding a conversation, and has been linked to prosocial outcomes such as development of rapport and efficiency of cooperation. While the basis of synchrony remains unclear, several studies have found synchrony to increase when an interaction is made challenging, potentially providing a means of facilitating interaction. Here we focus on head movement during free conversation. As verbal information is obscured when conversing over background noise, we investigate whether synchrony is greater in high vs low levels of noise, as well as addressing the effect of background noise complexity. Participants held a series of conversations with unfamiliar interlocutors while seated in a lab, and the background noise level changed every 15-30s between 54, 60, 66, 72, and 78 dB. We report measures of head movement synchrony recorded via high-resolution motion tracking at the extreme noise levels (i.e., 54 vs 78 dB) in dyads (n = 15) and triads (n = 11). In both the dyads and the triads, we report increased movement coherence in high compared to low level speech-shaped noise. Furthermore, in triads we compare behaviour in speech-shaped noise vs multi-talker babble, and find greater movement coherence in the more complex babble condition. Key synchrony differences fall in the 0.2\u20130.5 Hz frequency bands, and are discussed in terms of their correspondence to talkers\u2019 average utterance durations. Additional synchrony differences occur at higher frequencies in the triads only (i.e., &gt;5 Hz), which may relate to synchrony of backchannel cues (as multiple individuals were listening and responding to the same talker). Not only do these studies replicate prior work indicating interlocutors\u2019 increased reliance on behavioural synchrony as task difficulty increases, but they demonstrate these effects using multiple difficulty manipulations and across different sized interaction groups.<\/jats:p>","DOI":"10.1371\/journal.pone.0258247","type":"journal-article","created":{"date-parts":[[2021,10,5]],"date-time":"2021-10-05T23:59:23Z","timestamp":1633478363000},"page":"e0258247","update-policy":"https:\/\/doi.org\/10.1371\/journal.pone.corrections_policy","source":"Crossref","is-referenced-by-count":28,"title":["Synchrony as a measure of conversation difficulty: Movement coherence increases with background noise level and complexity in dyads and triads"],"prefix":"10.1371","volume":"16","author":[{"ORCID":"https:\/\/orcid.org\/0000-0001-6587-3644","authenticated-orcid":true,"given":"Lauren V.","family":"Hadley","sequence":"first","affiliation":[],"role":[{"vocabulary":"crossref","role":"author"}]},{"ORCID":"https:\/\/orcid.org\/0000-0002-9637-6066","authenticated-orcid":true,"given":"Jamie A.","family":"Ward","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[],"role":[{"vocabulary":"crossref","role":"author"}]}],"member":"340","published-online":{"date-parts":[[2021,10,5]]},"reference":[{"issue":"4","key":"pone.0258247.ref001","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"423","DOI":"10.1017\/S0140525X12001926","article-title":"Talking to each other and talking together: Joint language tasks and degrees of interactivity","volume":"36","author":"C Gambi","year":"2013","journal-title":"Behav Brain Sci"},{"issue":"04","key":"pone.0258247.ref002","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"393","DOI":"10.1017\/S0140525X12000660","article-title":"Toward a second-person neuroscience","volume":"36","author":"L Schilbach","year":"2013","journal-title":"Behav Brain Sci"},{"key":"pone.0258247.ref003","first-page":"240","volume-title":"Handbook of interpersonal communication","author":"JK Burgoon","year":"2002","edition":"3"},{"issue":"1","key":"pone.0258247.ref004","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","DOI":"10.1038\/s41598-019-46416-0","article-title":"Speech, movement, and gaze behaviours during dyadic conversation in noise","volume":"9","author":"LV Hadley","year":"2019","journal-title":"Sci Rep"},{"key":"pone.0258247.ref005","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"393","DOI":"10.2307\/1129157","article-title":"The analysis of dominance and bidirectionality in social development","volume":"52","author":"JM Gottman","year":"1981","journal-title":"Child Dev"},{"issue":"1","key":"pone.0258247.ref006","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"3","DOI":"10.1023\/A:1022986608835","article-title":"The courtship dance: Patterns of nonverbal synchronization in opposite-sex encounters","volume":"22","author":"K Grammer","year":"1998","journal-title":"J Nonverbal Behav"},{"issue":"1","key":"pone.0258247.ref007","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"173","DOI":"10.1007\/s10919-019-00315-0","article-title":"Rhythmic features of movement synchrony for bonding individuals in dyadic interaction","volume":"44","author":"K Fujiwara","year":"2020","journal-title":"J Nonverbal Behav"},{"issue":"3","key":"pone.0258247.ref008","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"349","DOI":"10.1109\/T-AFFC.2012.12","article-title":"Interpersonal synchrony: A survey of evaluation methods across disciplines","volume":"3","author":"E Delaherche","year":"2012","journal-title":"IEEE Trans Affect Comput"},{"issue":"1685","key":"pone.0258247.ref009","article-title":"Interpersonal coordination: methods, achievements, and challenges","volume":"8","author":"C Cornejo","year":"2017","journal-title":"Front Psychol"},{"key":"pone.0258247.ref010","first-page":"401","volume-title":"Studies in emotion & social interaction Fundamentals of nonverbal behavior","author":"FJ Bernieri","year":"1991"},{"issue":"516","key":"pone.0258247.ref011","article-title":"Evaluating interpersonal synchrony: Wavelet transform toward an unstructured conversation","volume":"7","author":"K Fujiwara","year":"2016","journal-title":"Front Psychol"},{"key":"pone.0258247.ref012","article-title":"Hamilton AF d. 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