Triggering Specialised Knowledge in the Software Development Process

Many factors determine the success of software development projects. The exchange and harnessing of specialized knowledge amongst and between the project team members is one of these. To explore this situation, an ethnographic case study of the product-testing phase of a new human resources management system was undertaken. Extempore verbal exchanges occur through the interplay of project team members in weekly meetings, as the software was tested, analyzed, and altered in accordance with the customer's needs. Utilizing tacit knowledge from the project members as well as the group, new tacit knowledge surfaces and spirals, which allows it to build over time. Five extempore triggers surfaced during the research generated through explicit stimuli, allowing project members to share and create new knowledge. The theoretical development places these learning triggers in an interpretive framework, which could add value to other software development and project management contexts.

Expert Group Knowledge Triggers

Specialised knowledge is a key component of success in an organisational context that resides in the expertise of the organisation's personnel. To explore this situation, an ethnographic case study was chosen in which data was collected from a software development project. Extempore verbal exchanges occur through the interplay of project team members in weekly meetings, as the software was tested, analyzed, and altered in accordance with the customer's needs. Utilizing tacit knowledge from the project members as well as the group, new tacit knowledge surfaces and spirals, which allows it to build over time. Five extempore triggers surfaced during the research generated through explicit stimuli, allowing project members to share and create new knowledge. Through the use of ideas developed by Husserl and Heidegger, this study has cast some light on verbal exchanges that, through their interjection, allow significant learning to take place. The theoretical development places these learning triggers in an interpretive framework, which can add value to other software development projects.

Developing Behavioral Markers of Social Function in Aging: A Methodology Using Pitch Mimicry

The Covid pandemic brought to the forefront the crucial role of social interactions for society at large and in gerontological practice. Social interactions play a paramount role in preserving cognitive reserve in older adults. They rely on neurobehavioral processes that are complex (engage large parts of the brain and demand integrity of multiple perceptuomotor, attentional, cognitive and memory functions). Pitch mimicry is a well-known and spontaneously arising social phenomenon that requires the integrity of numerous processes of the brain, and we hypothesize that it constitutes a potentially sensitive behavioral marker of neurodegeneration in Alzheimer’s Disease and Related Dementias (ADRD). We developed and validated a series of algorithms to parse verbal exchanges between people and quantify the level of mimicry that each exhibit with their partners. Those algorithms are based on silence thresholding, carefully parametrized CEPSTRAL algorithms for automatic pitch estimation and Synchrosqueezing Transform for validation. We introduce a theoretical model to compare our estimates of pitch mimicry with model’s expectations based on the null hypothesis that its neurobehavioral pathways retain their integrity. Our method will allow researchers to study the evolution of pitch mimicry in aging individuals and its sensitivity to diverse social contexts, including those preserving lasting social engagement. Our method will also allow us to test the hypothesis that Pitch Mimicry is a sensitive behavioral marker of dementia, a condition characterized by a breakdown in social relatedness.

On the Importance of Listening and Intercultural Communication for Actions Against Racism

In a period where racial inequities in the United States have garnered more attention and discussion as a result of social media (e.g., increased use of the #BlackLivesMatter hashtag; Anderson et al., 2020) and newer generations (Tatum, 2017b), it is important to ensure that communication between cultural groups is effective and produces systemic change. This paper will review the failures of a “post-racial” society, with emphasis on ineffective communication between Black, Indigenous People of Color and non-Black, Indigenous People of Color. The role of the listener during intercultural verbal exchanges will be examined, while highlighting the barriers and harmful results of ineffective communication. A behavioral conceptualization of effective listener behavior will be presented, which if implemented, may maintain and sustain social equity, inclusion, and justice. A call to action will be made to further investigate intercultural communication using behavior-analytic research methodologies and how such research might inform on how to functionally and precisely mediate reinforcement in the fight against racism.

Intra-Brain Connectivity vs. Inter-Brain Connectivity in Gestures Reproduction: What Relationship?

Recently, the neurosciences have become interested in the investigation of neural responses associated with the use of gestures. This study focuses on the relationship between the intra-brain and inter-brain connectivity mechanisms underlying the execution of different categories of gestures (positive and negative affective, social, and informative) characterizing non-verbal interactions between thirteen couples of subjects, each composed of an encoder and a decoder. The study results underline a similar modulation of intra- and inter-brain connectivity for alpha, delta, and theta frequency bands in specific areas (frontal or posterior regions) depending on the type of gesture. Moreover, taking into account the gestures’ valence (positive or negative), a similar modulation of intra- and inter-brain connectivity in the left and right sides was observed. This study showed congruence in the intra-brain and inter-brain connectivity trend during the execution of different gestures, underlining how non-verbal exchanges might be characterized by intra-brain phase alignment and implicit mechanisms of mirroring and synchronization between the two individuals involved in the social exchange.

Feeling Closer Despite the Distance

In the framework of “togetherness” as a psychophysiological experience of social presence, the current chapter highlights the importance of work environments to socializing. The absence of such physical collective spaces impacts group-dynamics and team performance in online meetings, which also tend to prioritize task-solving discussions and limit non-verbal exchanges. Interpersonal coordination (or “social glue”), characterized by a spontaneous mutual attunement, both in speech and gestures, is classically observed during collective events where social-bonding and affiliation are promoted. This chapter will review the cognitive, behavioral, and physiological consequences of togetherness and integrate those in the context of recent technological advancements in computer-mediated interaction which have culminated in the advent of virtual and augmented reality. Given the potential of such methods to increase embodied interactions, they have been coined as “empathy machines” and could be seen as a technological solution to restore the experience of togetherness in the workplace.

The construction of social space through sound. An analysis of a passage from Victor Hugo’s Notre-Dame de Paris

Notre-Dame de Paris is a novel marked by the people’s clamor, the bells’ music and the sounds of battle. In an effort to understand how sounds play a crucial part in the creative process of Hugo’s work, we will analyze chapters of Notre-Dame de Paris relating to “la grand’salle”. During the play and the election of the Pope of Fools (taking place in “la grand’salle”), people originating from all social spheres are gathered in the same space, which is favorable for verbal exchanges that underline the struggles between them – established by the particulars of their speech. In this space, different sounds (rumors, shouts, noises) destroy and reinforce social distances at the same time, creating an evershifting space of boundaries, both physical and social.

Supernatural Beings and Their Appropriation of Knowledge and Power in The Seafarer by Conor McPherson and Woman and Scarecrow by Marina Carr

This article is a comparative analysis of Woman and Scarecrow by Marina Carr and The Seafarer by Conor McPherson from a hauntological perspective. It aims at discussing the influence of supernatural beings on mortal protagonists as well as addressing the configurations of power and knowledge formed between the characters. Woman and Scarecrow follows the final moments of a dying woman accompanied by the mysterious figure of Scarecrow, who is hidden from other characters. The verbal exchanges between Scarecrow and Woman will be interpreted as a manifestation of the apparent power possessed by the former, the ambiguous supernatural figure, over the latter, a human being, in terms of appropriating the knowledge about the woman’s past. In McPherson’s The Seafarer, a mysterious relationship develops between Sharky and Mr. Lockhart, who knows about Sharky’s past, too. This paper will demonstrate both similarities and differences in the way in which Carr and McPherson make use of supernatural beings that manipulate human characters in the most crucial moments of their lives and will situate the two plays within the recent rise of interest in spectrality in Irish drama.

Speech acts in corpus pragmatics

In corpus pragmatics, most of the research into speech acts still tends to be limited to working with the original, highly abstract, speech-act taxonomies devised by ordinary language philosophers like Austin and Searle. The aim of this article is to illustrate how the use of such restricted taxonomies may lead to oversimplified or potentially misleading impressions regarding the communicative functions expressed in spoken interaction, and to demonstrate how a more elaborate taxonomy, the DART taxonomy (Weisser, 2018), may help us gain better insights into the pragmatic strategies that occur in dialogues. To this end, I will draw on a small sample of dialogues, both from a task-oriented domain and unconstrained interaction, and contrast selected speech-act categorisations on the basis of Searle’s and the DART taxonomy, demonstrating the advantages that arise from using a more fine-grained taxonomy to describe complex verbal exchanges.

Post-truth Politics, Performatives and the Force

This paper on post-truth politics argues that to the extent that one wants to understand political discourses generally (post-truth political discourses in particular), it is crucial to see them as circulating talk that performs rather than reports. This implies a shift in focus. Many react strongly to ‘post-truth’ assertions by appealing to evidence, objectivity, facts and truth. In this paper, it is suggested that, when analysing political discourses, there is no point asking, ‘Is it true?’ One should rather ask, ‘What happens as a result?’ Understanding political discourses as performative demands that the resulting doing, transforming and changing may transcend established parameters and known patterns. That also means problematising the types of argument allowed, or discourse considered appropriate, in a given situation. What, then, is the force within the performative discourse driving transformation? What role does intention play? And who—if anybody—can be designated as the master of the discourse? One way of answering these questions is to broaden the perspective of what happens in verbal exchanges. The hearer-speaker relation is fundamental, one in which meaning is shaped and the performative force is formed. A political discourse in general, and a post-truth political discourse in particular, cannot do and perform—cannot function—in a vacuum. This evokes serious questions about accountability and responsibility and also about human action and freedom.