When conversing with a potential romantic partner, it can be difficult to determine if the attraction is mutual. To know if you like this person, you have to pay attention to the speed at which they respond.
- To know if the current passes between two people, it is advisable to be attentive to the response time during a discussion.
- When the conversation is flowing, both people bridge a 250 millisecond gap between speaking turns and feel more connected.
Insistent looks, compliments, sudden and awkward movements… Several signs can show that a person is attracted to you. But not everyone is demonstrative, and it’s sometimes hard to tell if the romantic interest is mutual. Researchers at Dartmouth College, United States, have discovered a new sign that would let you know if you have caught the eye of your interlocutor. According to them, the response time during a conversation can tell a lot about how the person is feeling.
To reach this conclusion, the scientists conducted a study published in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences January 25. They did several experiments. The authors of the works asked pairs of friends and strangers to tackle a topic of their choice. The discussions were recorded on video so that participants could assess the connection they felt with their interlocutor.
“We’ve all had the experience of having a chemistry with some people but not with others. We wanted to see if something in the conversations reveals an attraction”, said study co-author and Dartmouth College graduate student Emma Templeton.
Response time, a sign of attraction during a conversation
According to the results, the more the conversation is fluid, the more the participants felt connected to their interlocutor. “For friends and strangers alike, response speed is a strong predictor of feeling connected. Conversations with faster response times feel more connected than conversations with faster response times. is slower”, can we read in the searches.
The researchers indicated that there was on average a quarter of a second of difference between the turns of speech during a discussion. “When people feel like they can almost finish each other’s sentences, they close that 250 millisecond gap, and that’s when two people feel connected,” explained Thalia Wheatley, lead author of the study. Scientists have concluded that the response time during a conversation is a simple and effective way to determine if there is chemistry between two people.
.