Proceedings of the Annual Meeting of the Cognitive Science Society

To explain the importance of interaction for a truthful performance in acting, the present study captures the characteristics of interaction and attempts to probe the underlying intrapersonal changes through interaction during an acting course which emphasizes paying attention to a partner. Novice participants tend to change their way of communication as the course progresses, the pattern of which further differs from that of professional actors. While actors devote themselves more to the connection with their partner and demonstrate more balanced communication, novices rely on general inference to speculate about others’ affective states. This study offers a new perspective to elucidate the construction of interaction in acting, and emphasizes the significance of involvement in interaction when applying acting approaches to general training with the aim of improving social understanding.