Tell me more: The effects of expressed interest on receptiveness during dialog

Two studies investigated the effect of expressed interest on individuals’ openness to opposing viewpoints and perceptions of debate counterparts. Participants in Study 1 engaged in an online conversation with a purported debate counterpart who did or did not express interest in the participants’ viewpoint by asking an elaboration question—that is, a question geared at soliciting additional information. Compared to control participants, participants who received a question rated their debate counterpart more favorably, were more willing to engage in future interaction with their counterpart, and acted in a more receptive manner. Study 2 tested the effects of instructions to prepare elaboration questions on listeners’ responses to a speaker offering counter-attitudinal arguments. Preparing questions caused participants to be more open to the idea of having a conversation with the speaker, to make more positive attributions about typical proponents of the speaker’s viewpoint, and to judge the conclusions of the speech as more valid. Theoretical and practical implications of this research are discussed.     

Social eye gaze modulates processing of speech and co-speech gesture

In human face-to-face communication, language comprehension is a multi-modal, situated activity. However, little is known about how we combine information from different modalities during comprehension, and how perceived communicative intentions, often signaled through visual signals, influence this process. We explored this question by simulating a multi-party communication context in which a speaker alternated her gaze between two recipients. Participants viewed speech-only or speech + gesture object-related messages when being addressed (direct gaze) or unaddressed (gaze averted to other participant). They were then asked to choose which of two object images matched the speaker’s preceding message. Unaddressed recipients responded significantly more slowly than addressees for speech-only utterances. However, perceiving the same speech accompanied by gestures sped unaddressed recipients up to a level identical to that of addressees. That is, when unaddressed recipients’ speech processing suffers, gestures can enhance the comprehension of a speaker’s message. We discuss our findings with respect to two hypotheses attempting to account for how social eye gaze may modulate multi-modal language comprehension.     

The relationship of self-talk frequency to communication apprehension and public speaking anxiety

This research examines how self-talk is related to the nature and prevalence of communication apprehension and public speaking anxiety. In Study 1, we examined the relationship between general communication apprehension (CA) and the frequency and nature of general self-talk. Results showed that higher CA scores were associated with more frequent self-critical self-talk than lower CA scores. In Study 2, we examined how self-talk pertaining to the preparation for an upcoming speech related to public speaking anxiety. Results showed that self-critical and social-assessing self-talk were positively related to people’s anxiety scores, whereas self-reinforcing self-talk was negatively associated with their anxiety. Implications of these results for the management of public speaking anxiety are discussed.     

Self awareness and the body image

What mental representations give us the sense of our body as a unique object in the world? We investigated this issue in the context of the rubber hand illusion (RHI), an illusion of body image in which a prosthetic hand brushed synchronously, but not asynchronously, with one’s own hand is perceived as actually being one’s hand. We conducted a large-scale study of the RHI, and used psychometric analysis to reveal the structure of the subjective experience of embodiment [Longo et al. (2008). What is embodiment? A psychometric approach. Cognition,107, 978-998]. Here, we use this dataset to investigate the relation between incorporation of a rubber hand into the body image and the perceived similarity between the participant’s hand and the rubber hand. Objective similarity (as measured by skin luminance, hand shape, and third-person similarity ratings) did not appear to influence participants’ experience of the RHI. Conversely, incorporation of the rubber hand into the body image did affect the similarity that participants perceived between their own hand and the rubber hand. Participants who had experienced the RHI perceived their hand and the rubber hand as significantly more similar than participants who had not experienced the illusion. That is, embodiment leads to perceived similarity, but perceived similarity does not lead to embodiment. Furthermore, similarity ratings following the illusion were selectively correlated with some components of embodiment, but not with others. These results suggest an important role of a mental body image in the perception of the relation between the self and others.     

Adolescent Egocentrism and the Illusion of Transparency: Are Adolescents as Egocentric as we Might Think?

The illusion of transparency, or people’s tendency to believe their thoughts and feelings as more apparent to others than they actually are, was used to investigate adolescent egocentrism. Contrary to previous research demonstrating heightened adolescent egocentrism, adolescents exhibited similar levels of egocentrism to adults. In experiment 1, 13-14 year-olds and adult participants both truthfully described and lied about a series of pictures. Both adolescent and adult liars indicated that they were more confident that other participants would know when they were lying, than other participants actually indicated. In experiment 2, 13-14 year-olds, 15-16 year-olds and adult participants read to an audience. The illusion of transparency effect manifested itself differently according to gender: Female participants indicating that they looked more nervous than audiences thought, whilst male participants indicating that they were more entertaining than audiences thought. Results were interpreted using simulation theory, and suggested that adolescents might not be as egocentric as previously thought.     

Reflexively mindblind: Using theory of mind to interpret behavior requires effortful attention

People commonly interpret others’ behavior in terms of the actors’ underlying beliefs, knowledge, or other mental states, thereby using their “theory of mind.” Two experiments suggest that using one’s theory of mind is a relatively effortful process. In both experiments, people reflexively used their own knowledge and beliefs to follow a speaker’s instruction, but only effortfully used their theory of mind to take into account a speaker’s intention to interpret those instructions. In Experiment 1, people with lower working memory capacity were less effective than people with larger working memory capacity in applying their theory of mind to interpret behavior. In Experiment 2, an attention-demanding secondary task reduced people’s ability to apply their theory of mind. People appear to be reflexively mindblind, interpreting behavior in terms of the actor’s mental states only to the extent that they have the cognitive resources to do so.     

Mental Imagery and Post-Event Processing in Anticipation of a Speech Performance Among Socially Anxious Individuals

The present study investigated whether post-event processing (PEP) involving mental imagery about a past speech is particularly detrimental for socially anxious individuals who are currently anticipating giving a speech. One hundred fourteen high and low socially anxious participants were told they would give a 5 min impromptu speech at the end of the experimental session. They were randomly assigned to one of three manipulation conditions: post-event processing about a past speech incorporating imagery (PEP-Imagery), semantic post-event processing about a past speech (PEP-Semantic), or a control condition, (n = 19 per experimental group, per condition [high vs low socially anxious]). After the condition inductions, individuals’ anxiety, their predictions of performance in the anticipated speech, and their interpretations of other ambiguous social events were measured. Consistent with predictions, high socially anxious individuals in the PEP-Imagery condition displayed greater anxiety than individuals in the other conditions immediately following the induction and before the anticipated speech task. They also interpreted ambiguous social scenarios in a more socially anxious manner than socially anxious individuals in the control condition. High socially anxious individuals made more negative predictions about their upcoming speech performance than low anxious participants in all conditions. The impact of imagery during post-event processing in social anxiety and its implications are discussed.     

Investigating joint attention mechanisms through spoken human-robot interaction

Referential gaze during situated language production and comprehension is tightly coupled with the unfolding speech stream ( [Griffin, 2001] , [Meyer et al., 1998] and [Tanenhaus et al., 1995] ). In a shared environment, utterance comprehension may further be facilitated when the listener can exploit the speaker’s focus of (visual) attention to anticipate, ground, and disambiguate spoken references. To investigate the dynamics of such gaze-following and its influence on utterance comprehension in a controlled manner, we use a human–robot interaction setting. Specifically, we hypothesize that referential gaze is interpreted as a cue to the speaker’s referential intentions which facilitates or disrupts reference resolution. Moreover, the use of a dynamic and yet extremely controlled gaze cue enables us to shed light on the simultaneous and incremental integration of the unfolding speech and gaze movement.We report evidence from two eye-tracking experiments in which participants saw videos of a robot looking at and describing objects in a scene. The results reveal a quantified benefit-disruption spectrum of gaze on utterance comprehension and, further, show that gaze is used, even during the initial movement phase, to restrict the spatial domain of potential referents. These findings more broadly suggest that people treat artificial agents similar to human agents and, thus, validate such a setting for further explorations of joint attention mechanisms.     

Decision difficulty and illusion of transparency in Japanese university students

People tend to believe that their inner thoughts are readily apparent to others. This study was conducted to examine effects, related to the difficulty of making decisions of personal preference, on the illusion of transparency, that is, the tendency people have to regard their own preference as more apparent to others when they have made their decision easily as opposed to situations in which they felt their decision to be difficult. In three studies in which the customary "transparency" experimental paradigm was used, university students were asked to rank choices of wedding dresses (Studies 1 and 3) or Korean movie stars (Study 2). Analysis suggested that the less difficulty participants felt in making their judgments (the first and last preference vs mid-ranking preference), the more they expected judgments to be transparent, especially when they had the clear intent to convey their thoughts to others. However, observers discerned first preferences no better than mid-ranking preferences. How inner subjective information contributes to the illusion of transparency is also discussed.     

Pragmatic expectations and linguistic evidence: Listeners anticipate but do not integrate common ground

When listeners search for the referent of a speaker’s expression, they experience interference from privileged knowledge, knowledge outside of their ‘common ground’ with the speaker. Evidence is presented that this interference reflects limitations in lexical processing. In three experiments, listeners’ eye movements were monitored as they searched for the target of a speaker’s referring expression in a display that also contained a phonological competitor (e.g., bucket/buckle). Listeners anticipated that the speaker would refer to something in common ground, but they did not experience less interference from a competitor in privileged ground than from a matched competitor in common ground. In contrast, interference from the competitor was eliminated when it was ruled out by a semantic constraint. These findings support a view of comprehension as relying on multiple systems with distinct access to information and present a challenge for constraint-based views of common ground.     

Why did this happen to me? Religious believers’ and non-believers’ teleological reasoning about life events

People often believe that significant life events happen for a reason. In three studies, we examined evidence for the view that teleological beliefs reflect a general cognitive bias to view the world in terms of agency, purpose, and design. Consistent with this hypothesis, we found that individual differences in mentalizing ability predicted both the tendency to believe in fate (Study 1) and to infer purposeful causes of one’s own life events (Study 2). In addition, people’s perception of purpose in life events was correlated with their teleological beliefs about nature, but this relationship was driven primarily by individuals’ explicit religious and paranormal beliefs (Study 3). Across all three studies, we found that while people who believe in God hold stronger teleological beliefs than those who do not, there is nonetheless evidence of teleological beliefs among non-believers, confirming that the perception of purpose in life events does not rely on theistic belief. These findings suggest that the tendency to perceive design and purpose in life events—while moderated by theistic belief—is not solely a consequence of culturally transmitted religious ideas. Rather, this teleological bias has its roots in certain more general social propensities.     

The impact of maternal control on children’s anxious cognitions, behaviours and affect: An experimental study

Controlling parenting is associated with child anxiety however the direction of effects remains unclear. The present study implemented a Latin-square experimental design to assess the impact of parental control on children’s anxious affect, cognitions and behaviour. A non-clinical sample of 24 mothers of children aged 4-5 years were trained to engage in (a) controlling and (b) autonomy-granting behaviours in interaction with their child during the preparation of a speech. When mothers engaged in controlling parenting behaviours, children made more negative predictions about their performance prior to delivering their speech and reported feeling less happy about the task, and this was moderated by child trait anxiety. In addition, children with higher trait anxiety displayed a significant increase in observed child anxiety in the controlling condition. The pattern of results was maintained when differences in mothers’ levels of negativity and habitual levels of control were accounted for. These findings are consistent with theories that suggest that controlling parenting is a risk factor in the development of childhood anxiety.     

Preschoolers’ appreciation of speaker vocal affect as a cue to referential intent

An eye tracking methodology was used to evaluate 3- and 4-year-old children’s sensitivity to speaker affect when resolving referential ambiguity. Children were presented with pictures of three objects on a screen (including two referents of the same kind, e.g., an intact doll and a broken doll, and one distracter item), paired with a prerecorded referentially ambiguous instruction (e.g., “Look at the doll”). The intonation of the instruction varied in terms of the speaker’s vocal affect: positive-sounding, negative-sounding, or neutral. Analyses of eye gaze patterns indicated that 4-year-olds, but not 3-year-olds, were more likely to look to the referent whose state matched the speaker’s vocal affect as the noun was heard (e.g., looked more often to the broken doll referent in the negative affect condition). These findings indicate that 4-year-olds can use speaker affect to help identify referential mappings during on-line comprehension.     

Contraceptive behavior and efficacy: the influence of illusion of fertility control and adult attachment tendencies

College students' illusions regarding their vulnerability to risks related to sexual intercourse affect their contraceptive behavior. The authors explored the influence of the illusion of fertility control and attachment tendencies upon contraceptive behavior among 141 male and 251 female self-selected undergraduate students at a small Midwestern university during fall 1993 and spring 1994 semesters. The illusion of fertility control scale (IFCS) was designed to measure the extent to which aspects of the situation present at last intercourse foster an illusion of fertility control. The IFCS attempts to measure the degree to which people believe that they completely control their own fertility, when they are actually taking some degree of fertility risk. 79% of the students were aged 16-24, with the rest older, 90.56% are White, 6.89% Black, 76.3% never-married, 16.6% currently married, and 18.6% had children. Study findings are based upon the analysis of responses from those sexually experienced, never-married, and aged 16-24 years. Multiple regression analyses determined that illusion of fertility control and attachment style were related to contraception, and that 2 subscales of the IFCS were related to contraception. More precisely, a belief in bodily control was associated with less effective current contraceptive use. Females who felt more independence from their partners in making sexual decisions were characterized by a higher contraceptive failure rate. Furthermore, people with a dismissing attachment style reported a history of less reliable contraception.     

Perceptual learning evidence for contextually-specific representations

Listeners rapidly adjust to talkers’ pronunciations, accommodating those pronunciations into the relevant phonemic category to improve subsequent perception. Previous work has suggested that such learning is restricted to pronunciations that are representative of how the speaker talks (Kraljic, Samuel, & Brennan, 2008). If an ambiguous pronunciation, for example, can be attributed to an external source (such as a pen in the speaker’s mouth), or if it is preceded by normal pronunciations of the same sound, learning is blocked.In three experiments, we explore this blocking effect in more detail. Our aim is to better understand the nature of the representations underlying the perceptual learning process. Experiment 1 replicates the blocking effect. Experiments 2 and 3 demonstrate that it can be eliminated when certain visual information occurs simultaneously with the auditory signal. The pattern of learning and non-learning is best accounted for by the view that speech perception is mediated by episodic representations that include potentially relevant visual information.     

Prototypes of race and gender: The invisibility of Black women

Research on racial and gender stereotyping typically focuses on the role of one of these social categories at a time rather than race/gender combinations. We suggest that the relative non-prototypicality of Black women’s race and gender results in their “invisibility” relative to White women and to Black and White men ( [Fryberg and Townsend, 2008] and [Purdie-Vaughns and Eibach, 2008]). Two studies address whether Black women go “unnoticed” and their voices “unheard,” by examining memory for Black women’s faces and speech contributions. We found that photos of Black women were least likely to be recognized (Study 1), and statements said by a Black woman in a group discussion were least likely to be correctly attributed (Study 2) compared to Black men and White women and White men. The importance and implications of invisibility as a unique form of discrimination are discussed.     

Individual differences in children’s private speech: The role of imaginary companions

Relations between children’s imaginary companion status and their engagement in private speech during free play were investigated in a socially diverse sample of 5-year-olds (N = 148). Controlling for socioeconomic status, receptive verbal ability, total number of utterances, and duration of observation, there was a main effect of imaginary companion status on type of private speech. Children who had imaginary companions were more likely to engage in covert private speech compared with their peers who did not have imaginary companions. These results suggest that the private speech of children with imaginary companions is more internalized than that of their peers who do not have imaginary companions and that social engagement with imaginary beings may fulfill a similar role to social engagement with real-life partners in the developmental progression of private speech.     

The illusion of courage in self‐predictions: Mispredicting one's own behavior in embarrassing situations

People exhibit an “illusion of courage” when predicting their own behavior in embarrassing situations. In three experiments, participants overestimated their own willingness to engage in embarrassing public performances in exchange for money when those performances were psychologically distant: Hypothetical or in the relatively distant future. This illusion of courage occurs partly because of cold/hot empathy gaps. That is, people in a relatively “cold” unemotional state underestimate the influence on their own preferences and behaviors of being in a relative “hot” emotional state such as social anxiety evoked by an embarrassing situation. Consistent with this cold/hot empathy gap explanation, putting people “in touch” with negative emotional states by arousing fear (Experiments 1 and 2) and anger (Experiment 2) decreased people's willingness to engage in psychologically distant embarrassing public performances. Conversely, putting people “out of touch” with social anxiety through aerobic exercise, which reduces state anxiety and increases confidence, increased people's willingness to engage in psychologically distance embarrassing public performances (Experiment 3). Implications for self‐predictions, self‐evaluation, and affective forecasting are discussed. Copyright © 2010 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

The relations between children's communicative perspective-taking and executive functioning

Two experiments investigated children’s communicative perspective-taking ability. In Experiment 1, 4- to 5-year-old children were tested on two referential communication tasks, as well as on measures of inhibitory control, working memory, and cognitive flexibility. Results document children’s emergent use of the perspective of their speaking partner to guide their communicative behaviors in both a production and comprehension task. In Experiment 2, 3- to 4-year-old children used a speaker’s perspective to guide their interpretation of instructions. In both experiments, egocentric interpretations of speaker requests were negatively correlated with children’s inhibitory control skills. Results of these studies demonstrate that young children can differentiate between information that is accessible to the speaker versus privileged knowledge, and use this information to guide their communicative behaviors. Furthermore, the results suggest that children’s inhibitory control skills allow them to inhibit their own perspective, enabling them to make use of their communicative partner’s perspective.     

Pragmatic effects on reference resolution in a collaborative task: evidence from eye movements

In order to investigate whether addressees can make immediate use of speaker-based constraints during reference resolution, participant addressees’ eye movements were monitored as they helped a confederate cook follow a recipe. Objects were located in the helper’s area, which the cook could not reach, and the cook’s area, which both could reach. Critical referring expressions matched one object (helper’s area) or two objects (helper’s and cook’s areas), and were produced when the cook’s hands were empty or full, which defined the cook’s reaching ability constraints. Helper’s first and total fixations showed that they restricted their domain of interpretation to their own objects when the cook’s hands were empty, and widened it to include the cook’s objects only when the cook’s hands were full. These results demonstrate that addressees can quickly take into account task-relevant constraints to restrict their referential domain to referents that are plausible given the speaker’s goals and constraints.