Human beings are inherently social creatures. Our capacity to collaborate within social structures is central to our success as a species.

 

To understand how successful interactions occur, researchers have traditionally examined neural processes or the social conditions that allow us to communicate and understand one another. But research examining how the way we perceive and use our own body influences our ability to understand the inner world of another person is rapidly expanding and shaping the research agenda across multiple domains including social, cognitive and clinical branches of psychology, as well as neuroscience, sociology and computer science. Each discipline has its own insights and methods but a comprehensive overview of how the body contributes to social interaction is missing.

 

The future of social interaction research would have to integrate lab-based research, clinical approaches and the development of new technologies. This one-day, free conference aims to facilitate the dialogue between these approaches and to consider how can changing the way that individuals perceive and use their bodies improve social interaction and initiate positive social change?