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131Can third-party observers detect attraction?6who report feeling attracted to their partner are also more likely to report flirting (Hall et al., 2015, Experiment 1), this is a reliable indicator ofdetecting attraction. Furthermore, their results suggest that participantswere more accurate in detecting attraction when the person depicted wasnot flirting than when they were flirting. The authors suggest that thesefindings could be due to a) the implicit risk of openly displaying interestin another, which would have rendered any flirting difficult to decode, andb) that the probability of flirting in zero-acquaintance settings is relativelylow (e.g., Abbey, 1982; Saal, Johnson, & Weber, 1989); therefore, peoplemight not be familiar with flirting expressions in such settings. We disagreewith both of these interpretations. Flirting, in general, is quite ambiguous, as flirting cues are also easily confused with friendliness (Farris et al.,2008; M. M. Moore, 2010). Furthermore, previous research has documentedseveral flirting signals in first time-encounters, such as self-grooming (McCormick & Jones, 1989), suggesting that these are signals typically exhibitedin such situations. Crucially, in a previous study (Prochazkova et al., 2022),it was found that almost half (44%) of the participants reported that theywould be interested in going on another date with their partner renderingthe reduced-likelihood interpretation unlikely. In short, we consistently showthat attraction is detected above the chance level when it is indeed there.Based on the Perception–Action Model of Empathy (PAM; Preston &de Waal, 2002), we expected that participants with more experience withromantic interactions (i.e., adults) would be more accurate in detecting attraction than participants with less experience with romantic interactions(i.e., children). However, in Experiment 2, we found no substantial differences between adults and children, suggesting that children’s lower accuracyin detecting attraction in Experiment 1 was likely due to cognitive overload.One limitation that should be discussed is the fact that our responseswere coded in a binary way. This approach was necessary to calculate accuracy based on the responses of the study conducted by Prochazkova et al.(2021), where responses were also coded binary. It could be argued that thisapproach reduced the variation that would otherwise be shown if responseswere coded in a continuous way. This is indeed possible, even though itshould be noted that using a scale for attraction and a binary response foranother date has been shown to correlate highly (Roth, Samara, & Kret,2021a; Roth, Samara, Tan, et al., 2021). Nonetheless, future studies usingspeed-dating paradigms could also employ a continuous response regardingattraction and willingness to go on another date, which can then be used instudies employing third-party observers.In conclusion, here we demonstrate that people might not reliably detectwhen others are attracted to their partner and when not. Furthermore, weshowed that the overall accuracy in detecting attraction is not influenced byage, or the phase of the interaction observed. The only factor that reliablyinfluenced accuracy is whether attraction is indeed present.Iliana Samara 17x24.indd 131 08-04-2024 16:36