Physical Disability and the Perception of Social Interaction

Abstract

Observers watched a videotape of a stimulus person under one of four instructional sets. It was the subject's presumption that the target person thought her interactant was either: (a) physically normal; (b) taking medication for an allergy; (c) taking medication for epilepsy; or (d)facially scarred. Observers performed a perceptual segmentation task and commented upon breakpoints established in the stimulus tape. Persons given the facial scar set engaged in a fine-grained analysis of the stimulus tape and focused on nonverbal aspects of the behavior stream. A second study examined the effects of instructional sets (allergy or scar) and behavior focus (verbal or nonverbal) on the segmentation task. The latter variable influenced breakpoint frequency while the former did not. Results are discussed in terms of selective attention, level of analysis, and change of meaning explanations.