Tuesday, June 30, 2026
Science

Why conversation is more like a dance than an exchange of words

Think about the last time you told a story to a friend. You probably adjusted it halfway through. You saw their eyebrows lift. You noticed them lean in, or glance away. You clarified a detail. You sped up the ending. That constant fine-tuning is not a bonus feature of communication: it is communicat...

Why conversation is more like a dance than an exchange of words
Image: Phys.org
Think about the last time you told a story to a friend. You probably adjusted it halfway through. You saw their eyebrows lift. You noticed them lean in, or glance away. You clarified a detail. You sped up the ending. That constant fine-tuning is not a bonus feature of communication: it is communication. And you can read all about this real-time coordination process in a new review by Judith Holler and Anna K. Kuhlen (Max Planck Institute for Psycholinguistics), published in Nature Reviews Psychology.

Originally published at Phys.org

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