Hidden real-time patterns in intra- and inter-individual behavior: Description and detection

It is widely believed that human interaction is much more regular than has yet been detected. What kinds of hidden regularities exist is, however, unsettled. In this paper a structural hypothesis is proposed where each continuous human interaction is seen as the performance of a set of a particular type of temporal patterns. Some of these repeated intra- and inter-individual real-time behavior patterns may be mutually exclusive in time while others may overlap in various ways. Perceptual limitations making such patterns hidden to the naked eye are illustrated. A computerized detection method and illustrative empirical findings from various types of face-to-face interactions in children and adults are presented. The specially developed pattern detection and analysis software, THEME, is also shortly described.