Modeling Emerging Interpersonal Synchrony and its Related Adaptive Short-Term Affiliation and Long-Term Bonding: A Second-Order Multi-Adaptive Neural Agent Model

Abstract

When people interact, their behavior tends to become synchronized, a mutual coordination process that fosters short-term adaptations, like increased affiliation, and long-term adaptations, like increased bonding. This paper addresses for the first time how such short-term and long-term adaptivity induced by synchronization can be modeled computationally by a second-order multi-adaptive neural agent model. It addresses movement, affect and verbal modalities and both intrapersonal synchrony and interpersonal synchrony. The behavior of the introduced neural agent model was evaluated in a simulation paradigm with different stimuli and communication-enabling conditions. Moreover, in this paper, mathematical analysis is also addressed for adaptive network models and their positioning within the landscape of adaptive dynamical systems. The first type of analysis addressed shows that any smooth adaptive dynamical system has a canonical representation by a self-modeling network. This implies theoretically that the self-modeling network format is widely applicable, which also has been found in many practical applications using this approach. Furthermore, stationary point and equilibrium analysis was addressed and applied to the introduced self-modeling network model. It was used to obtain verification of the model providing evidence that the implemented model is correct with respect to its design specifications.