Nonverbal communication game quantifying stereotype- and interaction-driven adjustments

Design · All designs
Evidence · 3 claims (3 for) · 1 study (1 causal), q3 · 1 of 1 report an effect size · 3 claims rest on one study

Description

A two-player digital game board with a 3 × 3 grid on which participants guide a partner (a role-blind confederate) to a hidden acorn by moving a bird avatar. Only the participant knows the location and only the partner can collect the object, driving dyads to "achieve mutual understanding by aligning on a limited but idiosyncratic number of strategies." Dyads solved trials well above chance (89.8 ± 11.7% against a chance level of 7.7%), indicating participants generated communicative behaviors that, despite their novelty, could be mutually understood. The game measures stereotype-driven adjustment (time spent in the object square) and interaction-driven convergence across eight blocks with alternating presumed partners.

Design Implications

Context

Requirements

• A role-blind confederate performing both presumed-partner roles so that adjustments reflect stereotype beliefs rather than partner behavior

Constraints

• Minimizes linguistic conventions, so findings may not generalize to verbal communication with its prosodic and lexical cues

Target Learners

• adolescent participants in dyadic social interaction studies

Learning Goals

• measuring real-time communicative adjustment to partner beliefs and interaction dynamics

Claims

• Stereotype Driven Communicative Adjustment Child Partner [+M]
• Greater early-life daycare exposure predicts reduced stereotype-driven adjustment and faster communicative convergence at age 17, beyond familial environment and later social experiences [+W]
• Stereotype-driven communicative adjustments are transiently prominent at the onset of interactions and decline as contrary evidence accumulates [+W]

Related Designs

Examples

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Key Sources

• Koch, S. B. J., Tyborowska, A., Niermann, H. C. M., Cillessen, A. H. N., Roelofs, K., Bašnáková, J., Toni, I., & Stolk, A. (2024). Integrating stereotypes and factual evidence in interpersonal communication. npj Science of Learning 9, 52. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41539-024-00262-6

Page metadata

Field	Value
type	design
id	nonverbal-communication-game-acorn-task
title	Nonverbal communication game quantifying stereotype- and interaction-driven adjustments
description	A two-player digital game board with a 3 × 3 grid on which participants guide a partner (a role-blind confederate) to a hidden acorn by moving a bird avatar.
status	review
generated	by process:settle-candidates on 2026-10-26
trust	unverified — no one has confirmed this page's content
sources	1 — koch-2024

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