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. 2021 Jan 22;16(1):e0244929.
doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0244929. eCollection 2021.

Physiological responses to proposals during dyadic decision-making conversations

Melisa Stevanovic  1 , Samuel Tuhkanen  2 , Milla Järvensivu  3 , Emmi Koskinen  3 , Enikö Savander  4 , Kaisa Valkia  3
Affiliations

Physiological responses to proposals during dyadic decision-making conversations

Melisa Stevanovic et al. PLoS One. .

Abstract

A novel conversation-analytically informed paradigm was used to examine how joint decision-making interaction, with its various types of proposal sequences, is reflected in the physiological responses of participants. Two types of dyads-dyads with one depressed and one non-depressed participant (N = 15) and dyads with two non-depressed participants (N = 15)-engaged in a series of conversational joint decision-making tasks, during which we measured their skin conductance (SC) responses. We found that the participants' SC response rates were higher and more synchronized during proposal sequences than elsewhere in the conversation. Furthermore, SC response rates were higher when the participant was in the role of a proposal speaker (vs. a proposal recipient), and making a proposal was associated with higher SC response rates for participants with depression (vs. participants without depression). Moreover, the SC response rates in the proposal speaker were higher when the recipient accepted (vs. not accepted) the proposal. We interpret this finding with reference to accepting responses suggesting a commitment to future action, for which the proposal speaker may feel specifically responsible for. A better understanding of the physiological underpinnings of joint decision-making interaction may help improve democratic practices in contexts where certain individuals experience challenges in this regard.

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Conflict of interest statement

The authors have declared that no competing interests exist.

Figures

Fig 1
Fig 1. Examples of proposal sequences.
Proposal sequences with different outcomes: acceptance, non-acceptance, and rejection.
Fig 2
Fig 2. An example time series of the SC signal.
The deconvoluted and z-normalized SC signal is depicted by the blue line. The blue dots indicate the peaks of individual SC responses. The black vertical line indicates the end of a proposal and the green vertical line the end of an accepting response (derived from the annotations).
Fig 3
Fig 3. SC response rates in non-depressed and depressed proposers (prop) and recipients (rec).
The black dots indicate means while the black bars represent 95% confidence intervals.
Fig 4
Fig 4. SC response rates in non-depressed and depressed proposers (prop) when the responses were accepting (accept) or non-accepting (non-accept).
The black dots indicate means while the black bars represent 95% confidence intervals.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

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