Voice-based assessments of trustworthiness,competence, and warmth in blind and sighted adults

The study of voice perception in congenitally blind individuals allows researchers rare insight into how a lifetime of visual deprivation affects the development of voice perception. Previous studies have suggested that blind adults outperform their sighted counterparts in low-level auditory tasks testing spatial localization and pitch discrimination, as well as in verbal speech processing; however, blind persons generally show no advantage in nonverbal voice recognition or discrimination tasks. The present study is the first to examine whether visual experience influences the development of social stereotypes that are formed on the basis of nonverbal vocal characteristics (i.e., voice pitch). Groups of 27 congenitally or early-blind adults and 23 sighted controls assessed the trustworthiness, competence, and warmth of men and women speaking a series of vowels, whose voice pitches had been experimentally raised or lowered. Blind and sighted listeners judged both men’s and women’s voices with lowered pitch as being more competent and trustworthy than voices with raised pitch. In contrast, raised-pitch voices were judged as being warmer than were lowered-pitch voices, but only for women’s voices. Crucially, blind and sighted persons did not differ in their voice-based assessments of competence or warmth, or in their certainty of these assessments, whereas the association between low pitch and trustworthiness in women’s voices was weaker among blind than sighted participants. This latter result suggests that blind persons may rely less heavily on nonverbal cues to trustworthiness compared to sighted persons. Ultimately, our findings suggest that robust perceptual associations that systematically link voice pitch to the social and personal dimensions of a speaker can develop without visual input.     

Neuro Linguistic Programming for Counselors

This article elucidates the contributions of Neuro Linguistic Programming (NLP) to counseling practice. The Meta-Model, representational systems, anchoring, and reframing are described, and implications and cautions are discussed.     

Can Children Detect Conceptual Information Conveyed Through Other Children's Nonverbal Behavior's

Research suggests that children produce nonverbal behaviors when interacting with adults and peers. This study investigates how well other children can detect 1 specific type of nonverbal behavior: representational gestures. Eighteen children (12 Caucasian girls and 6 Caucasian boys; M = 7 years, 11 months) watched videotaped stimuli of children verbally and gesturally explaining a conceptual problem. Multiple methods were used to assess whether children could detect information conveyed through the stimulus children's speech and gesture. Results show that these multiple methods converge to demonstrate that children attend not only to other children's speech but also to their gestures. Implications of nonverbal detection for peer interactions and cognitive development are discussed.     

Courtship communication and perception

Although ethologists have detailed courtship rituals for many species, courting behavior of humans has not received extensive study from an ethological standpoint. Yet there are clearly facial expressions and gestures that are commonly labeled "flirting behaviors." These nonverbal signals have been documented recently by several investigators in field studies, but the receptivity of nonverbal courtship signals is still in question. The current research project attempted to assess the perceptual skill of naive male and female observers who were presented videotaped samples of females' nonverbal courtship and rejection behaviors and asked to rate their intensity. The results showed that overall, men rated invitational behaviors more positively than women. In contrast, signals of rejection were seen by men as sending a less potent message than that perceived by women. Evolutionary theory may offer a framework for understanding these results.     

Children assess informant reliability using bystanders' non-verbal cues

Recent findings show that preschool children are selective with respect to whom they ask for information and whose claims they endorse. In particular, they monitor an informant's record of past accuracy or inaccuracy and use that record to gauge future trustworthiness. We ask if preschoolers also monitor the non-verbal cues of assent or dissent that bystanders display toward an informant's claims and use that information to gauge an informant's trustworthiness. In familiarization trials, 4-year-olds watched as two adult informants made conflicting claims regarding the name of an unfamiliar object. Two adult bystanders consistently signaled assent - via nods and smiles - to the claims of one informant, and dissent - via head shakes and frowns - from the claims of the other informant. When invited to endorse one of the two claims, 4-year-olds mostly agreed with the informant who had received bystander assent. Thus, in the absence of background knowledge about an object's name, children use third-party non-verbal signals to assess the accuracy of conflicting labels. On subsequent test trials, the informants again made conflicting claims about novel object names, but in the absence of the two bystanders. Despite the lack of any informative bystander signals, children with more advanced understanding of mental states continued to display greater trust in the informant who had received bystander assent in the earlier trials.     

Piagetian measures of cognitive development for children up to age two

This paper proposes a measure of cognitive development which is based primarily on Piaget's concepts. The choice of the particular items was determined by their assumed relation to general representational ability, including linguistic and nonverbal communication abilities. The present approach is distinguished from those of some linguists who suggest that a child's early linguistic development is not compatible with his cognitive skills and, thus, that a child's grammatical competence implies the existence of some innate set of principles for the generation of language. In contrast, the present approach hypothesizes that a child's cognitive skills during the first 2 years, particularly nonverbal representational abilities, not only precede but enhance his subsequent acquisition of language. The assumption that the items of the proposed scale together test a common ability was supported by a multidimensional homogeneity analysis of the scale, which indicated that it defines an essentially unitary ability dimension and also has strong ordinal characteristics.This study was supported by U.S. Public Health Service Grant MH 13509. This is an updated version of a paper that was presented at the International Days of Sociolinguistics, 1969, Rome, Italy.     

TRAINING PARENTS TO USE THE NATURAL LANGUAGE PARADIGM TO INCREASE THEIR AUTISTIC CHILDREN'S SPEECH

Parents of four nonverbal and four echolalic autistic children were trained to increase their children's speech by using the Natural Language Paradigm (NLP), a loosely structured procedure conducted in a play environment with a variety of toys. Parents were initially trained to use the NLP in a clinic setting, with subsequent parent-child speech sessions occurring at home. The results indicated that following training, parents increased the frequency with which they required their children to speak (i.e., modeled words and phrases, prompted answers to questions). Correspondingly, all children increased the frequency of their verbalizations in three nontraining settings. Thus, the NLP appears to be an efficacious program for parents to learn and use in the home to increase their children's speech.     

A further empirical evaluation of neurolinguistic primary representational systems (PRS)

Neurolinguistic programmers claim that individuals have preferred (primary) representational systems. These may be auditory, visual or kinesthetic and determine how a person views/deals with the world. Systems can be identified by observation of eye movements. In workshops programmers demonstrated strong associations between eye movements following questioning and types of questions and eye movement categories (assumed to identify systems) and other assessments of systems. Studies have evaluated these ‘workshop’ associations and found little support for their general occurrence. In these studies, it is possible that eye movements following questioning were influenced by artifacts which influence predicted association between these and other variables. An attempt was made to exclude these artifacts in this study. Except for subjects who had attended neurolinguistic workshops, results supported those obtained elsewhere. Possibly, associations in workshops occur as a result of expectational-contextual variables.     

Hemispheric asymmetries: Individual-difference measures for aptitude-treatment interactions?

To provide coverging support that the proper integration of analog and propositional representational systems is associated with spatial ability, visual, auditory and bimodal brain event-related potentials were recorded from 50 right-handed Caucasian males. Sensory interaction indices were derived for these Ss who had taken the Surface Development Test of spatial ability. Product-moment correlations were computed between sensory interaction indices for eight cerebral sites and spatial ability test scores. Sensory interaction for left- and right-hemispheric regions was significantly related to spatial ability. As sensory suppression lessened, spatial ability increased. The results substantiated the theory that the visual-imaginal-analog and the auditory-verbal-propositional representational systems are implicated in spatial ability. The extent to which the cortex can inhibit or attenuate the interaction or integration between these dual-symbol systems is associated with complicated spatial task performance.     

Spatial ability and sensory interaction: Analog and propositional representation

To provide coverging support that the proper integration of analog and propositional representational systems is associated with spatial ability, visual, auditory and bimodal brain event-related potentials were recorded from 50 right-handed Caucasian males. Sensory interaction indices were derived for these Ss who had taken the Surface Development Test of spatial ability. Product-moment correlations were computed between sensory interaction indices for eight cerebral sites and spatial ability test scores. Sensory interaction for left- and right-hemispheric regions was significantly related to spatial ability. As sensory suppression lessened, spatial ability increased. The results substantiated the theory that the visual-imaginal-analog and the auditory-verbal-propositional representational systems are implicated in spatial ability. The extent to which the cortex can inhibit or attenuate the interaction or integration between these dual-symbol systems is associated with complicated spatial task performance.     

面孔可信度加工的时间进程和影响因素

面孔可信度在表达和理解社会信号中起着关键作用。人们通过微妙的面部线索快速地判断他人的可信度, 从而帮助人们进行日常生活选择。研究者们对面孔可信度加工的时间进程有关的行为和ERP研究都进行了深入地探讨, 并探索了其毕生发展特点, 以及面孔情绪和面孔性别等因素对面孔可信度评估的影响。未来研究可以提高面孔可信度研究材料的生态效度, 进一步拓展青春期和成年晚期对面孔可信度评估的研究, 以及考虑背景信息对面孔可信度评估的影响。     

Implicit learning of social predictions

Humans exchange a range of nonverbal social signals in every interaction. It is an open question whether people use these signals, consciously or unconsciously, to guide social behavior. This experiment directly tested whether participants could learn to predict another person’s behavior using nonverbal cues in a single interaction, and whether explicit knowledge of the cue-outcome relationship was necessary for successful prediction. Participants played a computerized game of rock-paper-scissors against an avatar they believed was another participant. Sometimes the avatar generated a predictive facial cue before the play. On these trials, participants’ win-frequency increased over time, even if they did not acquire explicit knowledge of the predictive cue. The degree to which participants could predict the avatar (wins on cued trials) related to their self-reported liking of the avatar. These findings demonstrate the importance of implicit associative learning mechanisms in guiding social behavior on a moment-to-moment basis during interaction.     

Cross-Cultural Counseling and Neurolinguistic Mirroring With Native American Adolescents

This study examined the effects of neurolinguistic mirroring versus nonmirroring of selected nonverbal behaviors on empathy, trustworthiness, and positive interaction in a cross-cultural setting among 60 Choctaw adolecents and Caucasian female counselors. Results indicated significant mirroring effects on the empathy scale of the Barrett-Lennard Relationship Inventory.     

The Development of Infant Memory

Over the first year and a half of life, the duration of memory becomes progressively longer, the specificity of the cues required for recognition progressively decreases after short test delays, and the latency of priming progressively decreases to the adult level. The memory dissociations of very young infants on recognition and priming tasks, which presumably tap different memory systems, are also identical to those of adults. These parallels suggest that both memory systems are present very early in development instead of emerging hierarchically over the 1st year, as previously thought. Finally, even young infants can remember an event over the entire "infantile amnesia" period if they are periodically exposed to appropriate nonverbal reminders. In short, the same fundamental mechanisms appear to underlie memory processing in infants and adults.     

Can We Make Sense of the Notion of Trustworthy Technology?

In this paper we raise the question whether technological artifacts can properly speaking be trusted or said to be trustworthy. First, we set out some prevalent accounts of trust and trustworthiness and explain how they compare with the engineer’s notion of reliability. We distinguish between pure rational-choice accounts of trust, which do not differ in principle from mere judgments of reliability, and what we call “motivation-attributing” accounts of trust, which attribute specific motivations to trustworthy entities. Then we consider some examples of technological entities that are, at first glance, best suited to serve as the objects of trust: intelligent systems that interact with users, and complex socio-technical systems. We conclude that the motivation-attributing concept of trustworthiness cannot be straightforwardly applied to these entities. Any applicable notion of trustworthy technology would have to depart significantly from the full-blown notion of trustworthiness associated with interpersonal trust.     

Belief, knowledge, and uncertainty: A cognitive perspective on subjective probability

This paper presents a cognitive analysis of subjective probability judgments and proposes that these are assessments of belief-processing activities. The analysis is motivated by an investigation of the concepts of belief, knowledge, and uncertainty. Judgment and reasoning are differentiated, Toulmin's (1958) theory of argument being used to explicate the latter. The paper discusses a belief-processing model in which reasoning is used to translate data into conclusions, while judgmental processes qualify those conclusions with degrees of belief. The model sheds light on traditional interpretations of probability and suggests that different characteristics of belief—likelihood and support—are addressed by different representational systems. In concluding, the paper identifies new lines of research implied by its analysis.     

Parental Influence on Attitudes toward Institutional Authority

Two views were examined on the development of attitudes toward institutional authority: one proposing that such attitudes are normally transmitted from parent to offspring, the other that such attitudes develop as a consequence of childhood experiences with the trustworthiness of parental authorities. University students in England (N = 50) completed questionnaires to provide assessments of their attitudes toward authority and those of their parents, and also judgments of the trustworthiness of their parents, as recalled from childhood. Consistent with previous studies, there was evidence of a “generation gap,” with parents being perceived as significantly more proauthority than students. Nevertheless, multiple regression analyses indicated that students' attitudes toward authority were positively and significantly related to the perceived attitudes of their parents, suggesting transmission from parents to offspring. There was no evidence to support the view that the students' attitudes were affected by their judgments of parental trustworthiness.     

Verbal and nonverbal predictors of executive function in early childhood

The study of executive function (EF) has become increasingly popular in multiple areas of research. A wealth of evidence has supported the value of EF in shaping notable outcomes across typical and atypical development; however, little evidence has supported the cognitive contributors to early EF development. The current study used data from a large longitudinal sample of healthy children to investigate the differential influence of verbal and nonverbal cognition on later EF. Participants were assessed at 2 years of age using the Mullen Scales of Early Learning, and Mullen scores were used to calculate nonverbal and verbal developmental quotients. Executive function was measured at 6 years using assessments from the Stanford-Binet, Cambridge Neuropsychological Test Automated Battery, and the Behavior Rating Inventory of Executive Function. Results suggested that early nonverbal cognition was a better predictor of 6-year EF as measured by task-based laboratory assessments, whereas verbal cognition was a better predictor of parent-reported EF. Findings are discussed in regard to EF development and characteristics of EF measurement.     

Does Cooperation in the Laboratory Reflect the Operation of a Broad Trait?

The Dictator Game, a face valid measure of altruism, and the Trust Game, a face valid measure of trust and trustworthiness, are among the most widely used behavioural measures in human cooperation research. Researchers have observed considerable covariation among these and other economic games, leading them to assert that there exists a general human propensity to cooperate that varies in strength across individuals and manifests itself across a variety of social settings. To formalize this hypothesis, we created an S‐1 bifactor model using 276 participants' Dictator Game and Trust Game decisions. The general factor had significant, moderate associations with self‐reported and peer‐reported altruism, trust, and trustworthiness. Thus, the positive covariation among economic games is not reducible to the games' shared situational features. Two hundred participants returned for a second session. The general factor based on Dictator Game and Trust Game decisions from this session did not significantly predict self‐reported and peer‐reported cooperation, suggesting that experience with economic games causes them to measure different traits from those that are reflected in self‐assessments and peer‐assessments of cooperativeness. © 2018 European Association of Personality Psychology     

Neuropsychological functioning and social functioning of survivors of pediatric brain tumors: evidence of nonverbal learning disability.

The purpose of the study was to examine if survivors of pediatric brain tumors exhibit a pattern of performance consistent with nonverbal learning disability (NVLD) and to explore the relationship between neuropsychological and social functioning in these children. A comprehensive neuropsychological battery and objective measures of psychosocial function designed to assess NVLD were administered to 15 survivors of brain tumors, ages 8-12 years. Despite the small sample size, a trend for better verbal skills compared to nonverbal skills was found using composite scores. Parents reported significant social deficits and a tendency for greater internalizing behavior problems as expected in NVLD. Additionally, there was a trend for a positive association between nonverbal scores and social function. Further research is needed to determine if the NVLD pattern observed is attributable to white matter damage of the right hemisphere. Routine neuropsychological and psychosocial assessment and intervention are indicated.