Perceptual grouping of individuals in social triads

Human life is built around the need for group membership and social connections. Recent research shows that small interactive groups of two and three individuals (i.e., dyads and triads) are found faster in visual search tasks when group members are facing toward versus away from one another. This 'facing advantage' may reflect the involvement of perceptual grouping processes, with facing groups perceived as a unified whole. Here, we tested this grouping hypothesis by measuring search performance for individuals who were positioned within facing or non-facing groups of three. If facing triads were perceptually grouped, individuation of group members in those triads should be hindered. Participants searched for a target individual, a person raising a fist or a person raising a pointing finger, who was positioned in one of four or eight facing or non-facing triads. The data indicated that while the search for target individuals pointing a finger was overall facilitated, it was specifically hindered when this person was positioned within a facing compared to a non-facing group. These results suggest that the perception of social groups may be attuned to the overall configuration of the group, but also to more sophisticated social communicative signals of individual group members.