Interpreting speech, expression, movement

Researchers and software examine conversational content, turn-taking, tone, facial or bodily expression, movement, co-presence, handling. They compare those observations with the participant's earlier accounts, object histories, the surrounding social situation. The purpose involves developing possible interpretations and useful encounter proposals.

A participant may return to a painting, speak about it with different guests, change vocabulary, remain silent while another person explains it. Software can locate relevant intervals or propose descriptions. Researchers inspect the material, distinguish visible action from attributed meaning, consider the participant's wider context. An acoustic or bodily pattern can have several explanations.

The analysis includes apparent non-interaction. Researchers examine visibility, route, crowding, competing conversation, familiarity, available time before interpreting an absence of contact. They can compare the same participant across the evening or several visitors around the same object. Opportunity, within-person comparison, between-person comparison retain this context.

Later participant accounts can support, revise, complicate an earlier reading. Researchers preserve the sequence while preparing profiles, encounters, object histories. The site describes proposed interpretive methods and their evaluation through actual responses.