Janet Bavelas’ research team specializes in the study of face-to-face dialogue in both the experimental lab and applied settings. Our basic research focuses on identifying the unique features of face-to-face dialogue, especially (a) reciprocal influence and collaboration and (b) visible actions that are integrated with speech (e.g., hand and facial gestures).
This research has applications in psychotherapy, medical communication, and any other setting where dialogue is important. Our primary research method is microanalysis of dialogue–the reliable, moment-by-moment analysis of video recordings of actual dialogues.
Sara Healing (B.A., hons., M.Sc., Psychology, University of Victoria, Canada). Her honours thesis (published as Healing & Bavelas, 2011) was an experiment on the effects of two different lines of questioning about the same task.. For her M.Sc. thesis, she developed a microanalysis that identified the unique information that an individual patient can contribute to oncology consultations.
Her primary research interests are using microanalysis to study face-to-face dialogue; she has collaborated in 18 such studies, including both basic research in lab experiments and applications of the method in various applied settings, especially medical and psychotherapy dialogues. Her publications include experiments on hand and facial gestures in psycholinguistics journals, bad-news delivery in a medical journal, and a review chapter in a language and social interaction handbook. As part of International Microanalysis Associates, she teaches international professional workshops on microanalysis and communication research.