Distinctive features of nonverbal behavior and mimicry in application interviews through data analysis and machine learning

This paper reveals the characteristics and effects of nonverbal behavior and human mimicry in the context of application interviews. It discloses a novel analyzation method for psychological research by utilizing machine learning. In comparison to traditional manual data analysis, machine learning p...

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Main Authors: Sanne Roegiers, Elias Corneillie, Filip Lievens, Frederik Anseel, Peter Veelaert, Wilfried Philips
Format: Article
Language:English
Published: Elsevier 2022-09-01
Series:Machine Learning with Applications
Subjects:
Online Access:http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2666827022000366
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author Sanne Roegiers
Elias Corneillie
Filip Lievens
Frederik Anseel
Peter Veelaert
Wilfried Philips
author_facet Sanne Roegiers
Elias Corneillie
Filip Lievens
Frederik Anseel
Peter Veelaert
Wilfried Philips
author_sort Sanne Roegiers
collection DOAJ
description This paper reveals the characteristics and effects of nonverbal behavior and human mimicry in the context of application interviews. It discloses a novel analyzation method for psychological research by utilizing machine learning. In comparison to traditional manual data analysis, machine learning proves to be able to analyze the data more deeply and to discover connections in the data invisible to the human eye. The paper describes an experiment to measure and analyze the reactions of evaluators to job applicants who adopt specific behaviors: mimicry, suppress, immediacy and natural behavior. First, evaluation of the applicant qualifications by the interviewer reveals how behavioral self-management can improve the interviewer’s opinion of the candidate. Secondly, the underlying mechanics of mimicry behavior are exposed through analysis of seven nonverbal actions. Manual data analysis determines the frequency features of the actions and answers how often the actions are performed and how often they are mimicked during application interviews. Two of the seven actions are here deemed negligible due too low frequency features. Finally, machine learning is employed to analyze the data in great detail and distinguish the four behavior categories from each other. A Random Forest classifier is able to achieve 55.2% accuracy for predicting the behavior condition of the interviews while human observers reach an accuracy of 32.9%. The feature set for the classifier is reduced to 130 features with the most important features relating to the correlations between the leaning forward actions of the interview participants.
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spelling doaj.art-95d13c5db6664c2f9a0afc697712d6492022-12-22T04:05:00ZengElsevierMachine Learning with Applications2666-82702022-09-019100318Distinctive features of nonverbal behavior and mimicry in application interviews through data analysis and machine learningSanne Roegiers0Elias Corneillie1Filip Lievens2Frederik Anseel3Peter Veelaert4Wilfried Philips5Department of Telecommunications and Information Processing, Image Processing and Interpretation, Ghent University, St-Pietersnieuwstraat 41, B-9000 Ghent, Belgium; Corresponding author.Department of Human Resource Management and Organisational Psychology, Ghent University, Henri Dunantlaan 2, B-9000 Ghent, BelgiumDepartment of Human Resource Management and Organisational Psychology, Ghent University, Henri Dunantlaan 2, B-9000 Ghent, BelgiumDepartment of Human Resource Management and Organisational Psychology, Ghent University, Henri Dunantlaan 2, B-9000 Ghent, BelgiumDepartment of Telecommunications and Information Processing, Image Processing and Interpretation, Ghent University, St-Pietersnieuwstraat 41, B-9000 Ghent, Belgium; imec, Kapeldreef 75, B-3001 Leuven, BelgiumDepartment of Telecommunications and Information Processing, Image Processing and Interpretation, Ghent University, St-Pietersnieuwstraat 41, B-9000 Ghent, Belgium; imec, Kapeldreef 75, B-3001 Leuven, BelgiumThis paper reveals the characteristics and effects of nonverbal behavior and human mimicry in the context of application interviews. It discloses a novel analyzation method for psychological research by utilizing machine learning. In comparison to traditional manual data analysis, machine learning proves to be able to analyze the data more deeply and to discover connections in the data invisible to the human eye. The paper describes an experiment to measure and analyze the reactions of evaluators to job applicants who adopt specific behaviors: mimicry, suppress, immediacy and natural behavior. First, evaluation of the applicant qualifications by the interviewer reveals how behavioral self-management can improve the interviewer’s opinion of the candidate. Secondly, the underlying mechanics of mimicry behavior are exposed through analysis of seven nonverbal actions. Manual data analysis determines the frequency features of the actions and answers how often the actions are performed and how often they are mimicked during application interviews. Two of the seven actions are here deemed negligible due too low frequency features. Finally, machine learning is employed to analyze the data in great detail and distinguish the four behavior categories from each other. A Random Forest classifier is able to achieve 55.2% accuracy for predicting the behavior condition of the interviews while human observers reach an accuracy of 32.9%. The feature set for the classifier is reduced to 130 features with the most important features relating to the correlations between the leaning forward actions of the interview participants.http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2666827022000366MimicryNonverbal behaviorData analysisMachine-learningClassification experimentFeature selection
spellingShingle Sanne Roegiers
Elias Corneillie
Filip Lievens
Frederik Anseel
Peter Veelaert
Wilfried Philips
Distinctive features of nonverbal behavior and mimicry in application interviews through data analysis and machine learning
Machine Learning with Applications
Mimicry
Nonverbal behavior
Data analysis
Machine-learning
Classification experiment
Feature selection
title Distinctive features of nonverbal behavior and mimicry in application interviews through data analysis and machine learning
title_full Distinctive features of nonverbal behavior and mimicry in application interviews through data analysis and machine learning
title_fullStr Distinctive features of nonverbal behavior and mimicry in application interviews through data analysis and machine learning
title_full_unstemmed Distinctive features of nonverbal behavior and mimicry in application interviews through data analysis and machine learning
title_short Distinctive features of nonverbal behavior and mimicry in application interviews through data analysis and machine learning
title_sort distinctive features of nonverbal behavior and mimicry in application interviews through data analysis and machine learning
topic Mimicry
Nonverbal behavior
Data analysis
Machine-learning
Classification experiment
Feature selection
url http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2666827022000366
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