BEHAVIOURS OF DYADS SITTING OUTSIDE IN NEW YORK’S TIMES SQUARE: EXPLORATORY OBSERVATION USING WEBCAM VIDEOS

Abstract

High sociality is a prominent characteristic of humans. To further understand this aspect, the present study has interest in behaviour related to communication and interaction between two individuals in everyday life. The author exploratorily observed 518 dyads sitting outside by using more than 107-hour videos from a webcam set up in New York’s Times Square in 2018. Such a unique method enabled observation of people in a natural setting with little intervention with the subjects. Probably, most of the subjects were tourists. The observation found that all subjects uttered something (moved their mouth) while they were seated and that they occasionally used gesture and did body contact. More than half of the dyads stayed there shorter than about seven minutes. Results of multiple linear regressions showed that both subjects’ characteristics, such as sex and age, and day/time conditions affected nonverbal types of behaviour. Potential sex differences in opposite-sex pairs are also considered. This observation contributes to accumulating novel fundamental results on social behaviour. These findings are discussed from biosocial perspectives, including reference to the evolution of language. This paper carefully explains merits and limitations of the new methodology, and then gives some implications for future work.