Very interesting, but there's no link or reference to a paper here, just
> But his research has also explored how people act in smaller groups.
My assumption is that Rhys Blakely was at Cheltenham Science Festival enjoying a lecture, and decided to fluff up a minute of it into an article. He seems to have quoted from one of Dunbar's popular science books; maybe he should have checked the footnotes or the bibliography?
We're on the internet now, we don't have to "Authorities say..." anymore. This sounds interesting to me, but I don't want to look through every paper Dunbar has written to find it.
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edit: curiosity is annoying. I found this:
Robin IM Dunbar, Neill DC Duncan, Daniel Nettle "Size and structure of freely forming conversational groups" (1995)
Abstract: Data from various settings suggest that there is an upper limit of about four on the number of individuals who can interact in spontaneous conversation. This limit appears to be a consequence of the mechanisms of speech production and detection. There appear to be no differences between men and women in this respect, other than those introduced by women’s lighter voices.
Guillaume Dezecache, R.I.M. Dunbar "Sharing the joke: the size of natural laughter groups" (2012)
> Our results confirm, with a considerably larger sample, the upper limit of N≈ 4 on conversation group size reported by Dunbar et al. (1995). In addition, they suggest that there is a similar limit on the number of individuals that can be involved in a laughter event.
> But his research has also explored how people act in smaller groups.
My assumption is that Rhys Blakely was at Cheltenham Science Festival enjoying a lecture, and decided to fluff up a minute of it into an article. He seems to have quoted from one of Dunbar's popular science books; maybe he should have checked the footnotes or the bibliography?
We're on the internet now, we don't have to "Authorities say..." anymore. This sounds interesting to me, but I don't want to look through every paper Dunbar has written to find it.
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edit: curiosity is annoying. I found this:
Robin IM Dunbar, Neill DC Duncan, Daniel Nettle "Size and structure of freely forming conversational groups" (1995)
Abstract: Data from various settings suggest that there is an upper limit of about four on the number of individuals who can interact in spontaneous conversation. This limit appears to be a consequence of the mechanisms of speech production and detection. There appear to be no differences between men and women in this respect, other than those introduced by women’s lighter voices.
https://scholar.google.com/citations?view_op=view_citation&h...
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edit 2: and this:
Guillaume Dezecache, R.I.M. Dunbar "Sharing the joke: the size of natural laughter groups" (2012)
> Our results confirm, with a considerably larger sample, the upper limit of N≈ 4 on conversation group size reported by Dunbar et al. (1995). In addition, they suggest that there is a similar limit on the number of individuals that can be involved in a laughter event.
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.evolhumbehav.2012.07.002