scholarly journals Multicomponent and multisensory communicative acts in orang-utans may serve different functions

2021 ◽  
Vol 4 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Marlen Fröhlich ◽  
Natasha Bartolotta ◽  
Caroline Fryns ◽  
Colin Wagner ◽  
Laurene Momon ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Social Interactions ◽  
Nonhuman Primates ◽  
Early Infancy ◽  
Human Face ◽  
Communicative Acts ◽  
Face To Face ◽  
Captive Populations ◽  
Sensory Modalities ◽  
Close Range ◽  
Communicative Act

AbstractFrom early infancy, human face-to-face communication is multimodal, comprising a plethora of interlinked communicative and sensory modalities. Although there is also growing evidence for this in nonhuman primates, previous research rarely disentangled production from perception of signals. Consequently, the functions of integrating articulators (i.e. production organs involved in multicomponent acts) and sensory channels (i.e. modalities involved in multisensory acts) remain poorly understood. Here, we studied close-range social interactions within and beyond mother-infant pairs of Bornean and Sumatran orang-utans living in wild and captive settings, to examine use of and responses to multicomponent and multisensory communication. From the perspective of production, results showed that multicomponent acts were used more than the respective unicomponent acts when the presumed goal did not match the dominant outcome for a specific communicative act, and were more common among non-mother-infant dyads and Sumatran orang-utans. From the perception perspective, we found that multisensory acts were more effective than the respective unisensory acts, and were used more in wild compared to captive populations. We argue that multisensory acts primarily facilitate effectiveness, whereas multicomponent acts become relevant when interaction outcomes are less predictable. These different functions underscore the importance of distinguishing between production and perception in studies of communication.

Use and Function of Multi-Articulator Versus Multi-Sensory Acts in the Close-Range Communication of Orang-Utans

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Marlen Fröhlich ◽  
Natasha Bartolotta ◽  
Caroline Fryns ◽  
Colin Wagner ◽  
Laurene Momon ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Social Interactions ◽  
Nonhuman Primates ◽  
Human Face ◽  
Social Tolerance ◽  
Wild Populations ◽  
Face To Face ◽  
Sensory Modalities ◽  
Close Range ◽  
Communicative Act ◽  
And Function

Abstract From early infancy, human face-to-face communication is “multimodal”, comprising a plethora of interlinked articulators and sensory modalities. Although there is also growing evidence for this in nonhuman primates, the functions of integrating articulators (i.e. multiplex or multi-articulator acts) and channels (i.e. multimodal or multi-sensory acts) remain poorly understood. Here, we studied close-range social interactions within and beyond mother-infant pairs of Bornean and Sumatran orang-utans living in wild and captive settings, to examine to what extent species, setting and recipient-dependent factors affected the use of and responses to multi-sensory as well as multi-articulator communication. Results showed that both multi-sensory and multi-articulatory acts were more effective at eliciting responses (i.e. “apparently satisfactory outcomes”) than their respective uni-component parts, and generally played a larger role in wild populations. However, only multi-articulator acts were used more when the presumed goal did not match the dominant outcome for a specific communicative act, and were more common among non-mother-infant dyads and Sumatrans across settings. We suggest that communication through multiple sensory channels primarily facilitates effectiveness, whereas a flexible combination of articulators is relevant when social tolerance and interaction outcomes are less predictable. These different functions underscore the importance of distinguishing between these forms of multi-component communication.

scholarly journals Individual variations lead to universal and cross-species patterns of social behavior

2020 ◽  
Vol 117 (50) ◽  
pp. 31754-31759
Author(s):  
Sang Hyun Choi ◽  
Vikyath D. Rao ◽  
Tim Gernat ◽  
Adam R. Hamilton ◽  
Gene E. Robinson ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Social Interactions ◽  
Time Distribution ◽  
Genetic Relatedness ◽  
Individual Variability ◽  
Human Face ◽  
Face To Face ◽  
Individual Variations ◽  
Patterns Of Behavior ◽  
Heavy Tailed ◽  
The Individual

The duration of interaction events in a society is a fundamental measure of its collective nature and potentially reflects variability in individual behavior. Here we performed a high-throughput measurement of trophallaxis and face-to-face event durations experienced by a colony of honeybees over their entire lifetimes. The interaction time distribution is heavy-tailed, as previously reported for human face-to-face interactions. We developed a theory of pair interactions that takes into account individual variability and predicts the scaling behavior for both bee and extant human datasets. The individual variability of worker honeybees was nonzero but less than that of humans, possibly reflecting their greater genetic relatedness. Our work shows how individual differences can lead to universal patterns of behavior that transcend species and specific mechanisms for social interactions.

Reading Beyond the Code

2018 ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Relevance Theory ◽  
Literary Studies ◽  
The Novel ◽  
Human Communication ◽  
Communicative Acts ◽  
Face To Face ◽  
Code Model ◽  
Wide Range ◽  
Central Claim

This book explores the value for literary studies of relevance theory, an inferential approach to communication in which the expression and recognition of intentions plays a major role. Drawing on a wide range of examples from lyric poetry and the novel, nine of the ten chapters are written by literary specialists and use relevance theory both as an overall framework and as a resource for detailed analysis. The final chapter, written by the co-founder of relevance theory, reviews the issues addressed by the volume and explores their implications for cognitive theories of how communicative acts are interpreted in context. Originally designed to explain how people understand each other in everyday face-to-face exchanges, relevance theory—described in an early review by a literary scholar as ‘the makings of a radically new theory of communication, the first since Aristotle’s’—sheds light on the whole spectrum of human modes of communication, including literature in the broadest sense. Reading Beyond the Code is unique in using relevance theory as a prime resource for literary study, and is also the first to apply the model to a range of phenomena widely seen as supporting an ‘embodied’ conception of cognition and language where sensorimotor processes play a key role. This broadened perspective serves to enhance the value for literary studies of the central claim of relevance theory: that the ‘code model’ is fundamentally inadequate to account for human communication, and in particular for the modes of communication that are proper to literature.

scholarly journals The COVID-19 pandemic masks the way people perceive faces

2020 ◽  
Vol 10 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Erez Freud ◽  
Andreja Stajduhar ◽  
R. Shayna Rosenbaum ◽  
Galia Avidan ◽  
Tzvi Ganel
Keyword(s):  
Social Interactions ◽  
Face Perception ◽  
Face Processing ◽  
Qualitative Change ◽  
Daily Activities ◽  
Human Face ◽  
Human Face Recognition ◽  
Processing Abilities ◽  
Partially Occluded ◽  
The Way

AbstractThe unprecedented efforts to minimize the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic introduce a new arena for human face recognition in which faces are partially occluded with masks. Here, we tested the extent to which face masks change the way faces are perceived. To this end, we evaluated face processing abilities for masked and unmasked faces in a large online sample of adult observers (n = 496) using an adapted version of the Cambridge Face Memory Test, a validated measure of face perception abilities in humans. As expected, a substantial decrease in performance was found for masked faces. Importantly, the inclusion of masks also led to a qualitative change in the way masked faces are perceived. In particular, holistic processing, the hallmark of face perception, was disrupted for faces with masks, as suggested by a reduced inversion effect. Similar changes were found whether masks were included during the study or the test phases of the experiment. Together, we provide novel evidence for quantitative and qualitative alterations in the processing of masked faces that could have significant effects on daily activities and social interactions.

scholarly journals The switching mechanisms of social network densification

2021 ◽  
Vol 11 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Teruyoshi Kobayashi ◽  
Mathieu Génois
Keyword(s):  
Social Networks ◽  
Social Network ◽  
Social Context ◽  
Social Interactions ◽  
Regime Switching ◽  
Face To Face ◽  
The Social ◽  
Switching Property ◽  
Distinctive Type ◽  
Insight Into

AbstractDensification and sparsification of social networks are attributed to two fundamental mechanisms: a change in the population in the system, and/or a change in the chances that people in the system are connected. In theory, each of these mechanisms generates a distinctive type of densification scaling, but in reality both types are generally mixed. Here, we develop a Bayesian statistical method to identify the extent to which each of these mechanisms is at play at a given point in time, taking the mixed densification scaling as input. We apply the method to networks of face-to-face interactions of individuals and reveal that the main mechanism that causes densification and sparsification occasionally switches, the frequency of which depending on the social context. The proposed method uncovers an inherent regime-switching property of network dynamics, which will provide a new insight into the mechanics behind evolving social interactions.

scholarly journals Despite Appearances: Comparing Emotion Recognition in Abstract and Humanoid Avatars Using Nonverbal Behavior in Social Virtual Reality

2021 ◽  
Vol 2 ◽  
Author(s):  
Yilu Sun ◽  
Andrea Stevenson Won
Keyword(s):  
Virtual Reality ◽  
Social Interactions ◽  
Social Presence ◽  
Nonverbal Behavior ◽  
Emotional States ◽  
Face To Face ◽  
Social Closeness ◽  
Similar Information ◽  
Individual Measure ◽  
And Behavior

The ability to perceive emotional states is a critical part of social interactions, shaping how people understand and respond to each other. In face-to-face communication, people perceive others’ emotions through observing their appearance and behavior. In virtual reality, how appearance and behavior are rendered must be designed. In this study, we asked whether people conversing in immersive virtual reality (VR) would perceive emotion more accurately depending on whether they and their partner were represented by realistic or abstract avatars. In both cases, participants got similar information about the tracked movement of their partners’ heads and hands, though how this information was expressed varied. We collected participants’ self-reported emotional state ratings of themselves and their ratings of their conversational partners’ emotional states after a conversation in VR. Participants’ ratings of their partners’ emotional states correlated to their partners’ self-reported ratings regardless of which of the avatar conditions they experienced. We then explored how these states were reflected in their nonverbal behavior, using a dyadic measure of nonverbal behavior (proximity between conversational partners) and an individual measure (expansiveness of gesture). We discuss how this relates to measures of social presence and social closeness.

scholarly journals Changes in daily-life social processes and psychopathology symptoms in Flemish youth from before to during the COVID-19 pandemic

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Robin Achterhof ◽  
Inez Myin-Germeys ◽  
Eva Bamps ◽  
Noëmi Hagemann ◽  
Karlijn Susanna Francisca Maria Hermans ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Social Interactions ◽  
Social Deprivation ◽  
Daily Life ◽  
Adolescent Psychopathology ◽  
Brief Symptom Inventory ◽  
Family Interactions ◽  
Daily Lives ◽  
Face To Face ◽  
Psychopathology Symptoms ◽  
The Impact

Early findings on the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on adolescents, suggest that – despite being at the lowest physical health risk – both their mental health and day-to-day social lives are strongly affected. In this longitudinal study, we assessed changes in adolescent psychopathology symptoms, the quality and quantity of daily-life social interactions, and the relationship between social interactions and psychopathology symptoms before and during the pandemic.A sample of n=173 Flemish adolescents (mean age=16.0 at latest measurement; 89% girls) from the SIGMA cohort was tested between January 2018 - June 2019; and between April 27th - May 10th 2020. Subclinical psychopathology was assessed using the Brief Symptom Inventory-53; daily social interactions were assessed in six-day experience sampling periods with ten daily questionnaires.Multilevel linear and logistic regression analyses indicated lower general psychopathology and anxiety symptoms, beyond age effects; fewer face-to-face social interactions, more online social interactions; and higher-quality face-to-face interactions during the pandemic than before. Negative associations between psychopathology and the quality of face-to-face peer and family interactions were stronger during the pandemic than pre-pandemic.The observed decrease and stability in psychopathology symptoms is surprising and potentially reflects resilience. Although digital communication may buffer much of the quarantine-induced distress, the current results imply that high-quality face-to-face interactions with family and peers may have been more powerful in keeping adolescents resilient. As restrictions are lifted and adolescents’ daily lives and social worlds change, it is crucial to learn more about the longer-term effects of the experienced social deprivation.

Remote Management of a Province-Wide Youth Employment Program Using Internet Technologies

1999 ◽  
pp. 159-173
Author(s):  
Bruce Dienes ◽  
Michael Gurstein
Keyword(s):  
Nova Scotia ◽  
Low Cost ◽  
Administrative Staff ◽  
Human Face ◽  
Face To Face ◽  
Field Placements ◽  
Mailing Lists ◽  
Remote Management ◽  
Communications Technologies ◽  
Community Access

A province-wide network of Community Access Internet sites was supported during the summers of 1996 and 1997 by Wire Nova Scotia (WiNS), a government funded program to provide staffing, training and technical support for these centres. The program was managed remotely from an office in Sydney, Nova Scotia (Canada) using a variety of Internet-based technologies, including email, a web site, conference boards, real-time chat, and mailing lists. Remote management enabled the efficient and low-cost operation of a program involving 67 sites with field placements, plus six regional coordinators and the technical and administrative staff at the hub in Sydney. Effectiveness of remote management was enhanced when employees participated in an initial face-to-face regional training workshop. This training not only familiarized the employees with the communications technologies, but, perhaps more importantly, put a human face and personality to the messages that later came electronically over the Intranet.

Names and the transidioma

2019 ◽  
Vol 9 (1) ◽  
pp. 149-171
Author(s):  
Marco Jacquemet
Keyword(s):  
Social Interactions ◽  
Proper Names ◽  
Semiotic Analysis ◽  
Mediated Communication ◽  
Communicative Practices ◽  
Face To Face ◽  
Late Modern ◽  
Primary Strategy

Abstract The experience of linguistic globalization, and the communicative disorder it entails, requires a serious retooling of most basic units of semiotic analysis. The complexity and indeterminacy of late-modern communication affects most sociolinguistic assumptions behind social interactions. In particular, we can no longer assume a model of dialogue based on shared indexical knowledge. By introducing the concept of transidioma – i.e. the ensemble of communicative practices of people embedded in translingual environments and engaged in interactions that blend face-to-face and digitally-mediated communication – this paper documents the renewed reliance on denotational references, especially proper names, as a primary strategy to handle dialogue during asylum hearings.

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