Robot lecture for enhancing presentation in lecture

In lectures with presentation slides such as an e-learning lecture on video, it is important for lecturers to control their non-verbal behavior involving gaze, gesture, and paralanguage. However, it is not so easy even for well-experienced lecturers to properly use non-verbal behavior in their lecture to promote learners’ understanding. This paper proposes robot lecture, in which a robot substitutes for human lecturers, and reconstructs their non-verbal behavior to enhance their lecture. Towards such reconstruction, we have designed a model of non-verbal behavior in lecture. This paper also demonstrates a robot lecture system that appropriately reproduces non-verbal behavior of human lecturers with reconstructed one. In addition, this paper reports a case study involving 36 participants with the system, whose purpose was to ascertain whether robot lecture with reconstruction could be more effective for controlling learners' attention and more beneficial for understanding the lecture contents than video lecture by human and robot lecture with simple reproduction. The results of the case study with the system suggest the effect of promoting learners’ understanding of lecture contents, the necessity of reconstructing non-verbal behavior, and the validity of the non-verbal behavior model.

The Ecology of Communicative Contact in English-Speaking Discourse

The article explores the ecological essence of English-speaking discourse as optimal ratio of phatic and informational content in contacts of addressants and addresees in different spheres of communication. Unison and dissonant contacts are distinguished as ecological and non-ecological communicative contacts. The set of standards and rules of verbal and non-verbal behavior in English society organizes and regulates communicative process. The type of situation and the addressee are leading factors on three stages of contact: establishing, maintaining and breaking. The findings are supported with the examples taken from the English discourse.

Conversation Analysis and the Negotiation of Gender Identity in Pakistani Multilingual Context

The current study attempts to address the negotiation of gender identity in the Pakistani multilingualcontext to explore the gender identity of male and female speakers through conversation features ofopening, topic shifting, interruptions, and silence. The recorded and transcribed data of six peers in anacademic setting in the University of Sargodha, Punjab, Pakistan, is analyzed in the light of the list ofcommonly occurring features of masculine and feminine talk suggested by Holmes (2006). The studyreveals that men and women exhibit varied verbal behavior and negotiate their identities throughdiscourse. The stance taken in this paper is that of respecting the differences among genders withoutlabeling their talk as inferior or superior. The paper lays an early brick to the present repository ofresearch in gender and language because the conversation analysis in the Pakistani multilingual contextis still an area that needs further exploration.

What Does Your Voice Reveal About You?

The first goal of the present study was to explore how 21 voice measures related to self-reported personality and communication styles. The second goal was to test the assertion of Trait Activation Theory (TAT) that traits are activated in relevant situations and that verbal behavior is the result of an interplay between individual differences and situations. The voice of 138 participants was measured in the lab via steady voice and continuous speech tasks, whereas personality and communication styles were self-reported using the HEXACO and Communication Styles Inventory. To test TAT, four scenarios were developed to activate the communication styles of Informality and Expressiveness. It was hypothesized that the activated communication styles will interact with relevant situations and will be expressed through changes in voice (i.e., pitch variation). Regarding the first goal, an explorative approach revealed that voice characteristics are informative mainly for the personality traits of Openness to Experience, Emotionality, and Conscientiousness and the communication styles of Emotionality and Questioningness. Regarding the second goal, the interactions between situations and communication styles provided mixed support for TAT. Implications and limitations of the study are discussed.

The Patient, the Physician, or the Relationship: Who or What Is “Difficult”, Exactly? an Approach for Managing Conflicts between Patients and Physicians

It is the patient who consults, often at the last minute, the one you sigh over when you see his or her name on your list, the one who makes you feel powerless, and whom you would like to refer to a colleague. Every practicing physician has experienced being involved in a dialog of the deaf, with a patient refusing physicians’ recommendations, in a therapeutic dead end. Faced with such patients, the physician tries to convey scientific evidence to untangle the situation. When it does not work, he looks for other arguments, raises his voice, and avoids looking the patient in the eyes. When he is out of resources, trying to sound professional, he uses a sentence such as “I understand and respect your beliefs, but I am telling you what I learned in medical school!”. At the same time, his non-verbal behavior betrays more than a hint of irritation. Far from being caricatures, such situations generally result in the physician diagnosing or labeling the patient as “difficult.” This label is affixed on more than one patient in ten, and for all sorts of reasons. How, then, do you re-establish a relationship of trust? Or, even better, how do you avoid such labeling?

EDUCATION OF CIVIL IDENTITY IN CHILDREN THROUGH NON-VERBAL COMMUNICATION WITH TEACHERS AND PARENTS

В статье рассматриваются особенности воспитания и формирования гражданской идентичности через невербальное общение ребенка с родителями и педагогами образовательных организаций, анализируется понятие «гражданской идентичности» в отечественной науке, приводятся результаты исследований, демонстрирующих влияние невербального поведения значимых взрослых на формирование личности ребенка, в частности гражданской идентичности. The article examines the peculiarities of upbringing and formation of civil identity through non-verbal communication of a child with parents and teachers of educational organizations, analyzes the concept of «civil identity» in Russian science, presents the results of studies demonstrating the influence of non-verbal behavior of significant adults on the formation of a child’s personality, in particular civil identity.

Discourse markers in relation tonon-verbal behavior

The research proposed in this paper focuses on pragmatic interlinks between discourse markers and non-verbal behavior. Although non-verbal behavior is recognized to add non-redundant information and social interaction is not merely recognized as the transmission of words and sentences, the evidence regarding grammatical/linguistic interlinks between verbal and non-verbal concepts are vague and limited to restricted domains. This is even more evident when non-verbal behavior acts in the foreground but contributes to the structure and organization of the discourse. This research focuses on investigating the multimodal nature of discourse markers by observing their linguistic and paralinguistic properties in informal discourse. We perform a quantitative analysis with case studies for representative cases. The results show that discourse markers and background non-verbal behavior tend to follow a similar functionality in interaction. Therefore, by examining them together, one gains more insight into their true intent despite the high multifunctionality of both non-verbal behavior and DMs.

The Internal World

Just as some Buddhists deny that the external world is ultimately real, so other Buddhists deny the ultimate reality of consciousness. This chapter examines the debate among different Buddhist schools over the status of cognition. This grows out of a debate over the problem of meta-cognition: if there is no self, then what is it that cognizes cognition? Momentariness and the irreflexivity principle pose obstacles to a satisfactory account. This leads the Yogācāra-Sautrāntika philosophers Dignāga and Dharmakīrti to develop the theory that every cognition is self-cognizing, but that irreflexivity is not violated since noetic and noematic poles of a cognition are non-distinct. Their reflexivity account is challenged by a higher-order thought account developed in the Madhyamaka school. According to this account, cognition is posited as a useful way of explaining bodily and verbal behavior, and so is not to be thought of as ultimately real. There is also some discussion of the difficulty for the reflexivist of explaining the existence of other minds.

Mitigating Racial Inequity by Addressing Racism in the Criminal Justice System: A Behavior Analytic Approach

Racial inequity in the United States’ criminal justice system is a long-standing problem that has recently garnered international attention. This paper frames the problem of racial inequity in a behavior analytic context and offers potential solutions based on existent research and behavior analytic principles. We draw a parallel between the analysis of racist behavior enabled by the definitions provided by Kendi in How to Be an Antiracist and the analysis of verbal behavior made possible by the terminology posited by Skinner in Verbal Behavior in order to highlight the pertinence of applying a behavior analytic approach to the problem of racial inequity upheld by racist behavior. Immediately actionable steps to address racism in the criminal justice system and beyond are offered on a cultural, organizational and individual level.