Knowing when to respond: the role of visual information in conversational turn exchanges

When engaging in conversation, we efficiently go back and forth with our partner, organizing our contributions in reciprocal turn-taking behavior. Using multiple auditory and visual cues, we make online decisions about when it is the appropriate time to take our turn. In two experiments, we demonstrated, for the first time, that auditory and visual information serve complementary roles when making such turn-taking decisions. We presented clips of single utterances spoken by individuals engaged in conversations in audiovisual, auditory-only or visual-only modalities. These utterances occurred either right before a turn exchange (i.e., ‘Turn-Ends’) or right before the next sentence spoken by the same talker (i.e., ‘Turn-Continuations’). In Experiment 1, participants discriminated between Turn-Ends and Turn-Continuations in order to synchronize a button-press response to the moment the talker would stop speaking. We showed that participants were best at discriminating between Turn-Ends and Turn-Continuations in the audiovisual condition. However, in terms of response synchronization, participants were equally precise at timing their responses to a Turn-End in the audiovisual and auditory-only conditions, showing no advantage of visual information. In Experiment 2, we used a gating paradigm, where increasing segments of Turns-Ends and Turn-Continuations were presented, and participants predicted if a turn exchange would occur at the end of the sentence. We found an audiovisual advantage in detecting an upcoming turn early in the perception of a turn exchange. Together, these results suggest that visual information functions as an early signal indicating an upcoming turn exchange while auditory information is used to precisely time a response to the turn end.     

Dissolving the Engineering Moral Dilemmas Within the Islamic Ethico-Legal Praxes

The goal of responsible engineers is the creation of useful and safe technological products and commitment to public health, while respecting the autonomy of the clients and the public. Because engineers often face moral dilemma to resolve such issues, different engineers have chosen different course of actions depending on their respective moral value orientations. Islam provides a value-based mechanism rooted in the Maqasid al-Shari‘ah (the objectives of Islamic law). This mechanism prioritizes some values over others and could help resolve the moral dilemmas faced in engineering. This paper introduces the Islamic interpretive-evaluative maxims to two core issues in engineering ethics: genetically modified foods and whistleblowing. The study aims primarily to provide problem-solving maxims within the Maqasid al-Shari‘ah matrix through which such moral dilemmas in science and engineering could be studied and resolved.     

Importance of Human Needs During Retrospective Peacetime and the Persian Gulf War: Mideastern Employees

This study examined the importance of needs during the retrospective peacetime in 1990 and the Persian Gulf War in 1991 using a sample of 378 employees in the Middle East. Results of factor analyses identified three levels of needs during peacetime and wartime. Factor structures of needs did change from peacetime to wartime and were different. The patterns of needs identified in this study were different from needs theories developed in the U.S. Results were discussed in light of cultural differences, available resources in the environment, and the Persian Gulf War.     

Setting up inpatient behavioral treatment programs: The staff needs assessment

Despite the success that behavior therapy has demonstrated in treating severely mentally ill adults, widespread impact of behavioral treatments on this population has been limited because the staff of many inpatient settings do not routinely utilize these strategies. Surveying staff regarding their perception of programatic and organizational needs is proposed as a valuable first step for selecting behavioral strategies to be introduced in these settings. Goldfried and D'Zurilla (1969) developed a behavioral assessment survey that is especially useful for identifying staff needs vis-à-vis behavioral rehabilitation. Using these strategies, survey questions addressed five problem areas: Administrative, Staff, Patient, Resource, and Programatic. Results using this survey with 40 clinicians on the extended care unit of a state hospital showed that staff members had greatest concern with the Patient Problem Area (i.e., aversive patient behaviors that are not sufficiently addressed by treatment plans). Further analyses showed staff members were interested in addressing Patient concerns using incentive procedures. The needs assessment in this study not only provided useful information that might be generalized to other treatment settings, but also showcased a reliable survey approach that program developers might implement prior to designing training curricula for behaviorally naive staff in inpatient settings.     

The logo ‘visual thickness effect’: When and why it boosts brand personality

Although the literature suggests that logos impart symbolic meanings via visual elements that influence consumers' early evaluation of brands, few such elements have been studied, with others (e.g., logo thickness) awaiting scholarly investigation. According to the literature, visual thickness seems to influence perception of power and consumers' consequent judgments. This research tests and theorises the influence of the logo visual thickness effect on consumer behaviour. Results of five studies employing more than 4000 MTurk participants and 20 fictitious logos suggest that thick logos boost perception of brand personality mediated by a pronounced perception of brand power. In addition, the logo-thickness-induced perception of brand power is negatively moderated by consumers' level of perceived power of the self. Further, the perception of brand power induced by logo thickness is moderated by consumers' level of visuospatial sketchpad, meaning that people with high (vs. low) visuospatial sketchpad can cancel out the extraneous influence of logo thickness while evaluating the underlying brand, once the stimulus magnitude hits the salience threshold. Theoretical and managerial implications are accordingly provided.     

Relations of Machiavellian behavior with sales performance of stockbrokers

The hypothesis of a relationship between Machiavellian behavior and sales performance of Christie and Geis was tested with a sample of 110 stockbrokers. Scores on a measure called the Machiavellian Behavior scale were positively and significantly correlated with two self-reported measures of sales performance of the stock-brokers. Present results together with those of two earlier studies supported the hypothesis that salespeople with a Machiavellian orientation are likely to be more sucessful. Analysis of the data also indicated predictive validity and acceptable internal consistency of the Machiavellian Behavior scale. Limitations of the present study and a need for further research are discussed.     

Differential Acculturation Among Pakistani American Immigrant Parents and Children

The purpose of this study was to explore relations between acculturation patterns of mothers and fathers, and parents and children. The sample consisted of 102 children (52 boys and 50 girls) and 204 parents (102 mothers and 102 fathers) drawn from three cities in the Eastern United States. Children ranged in age from nine through 13 years (M = 11 years). Mothers ranged in age from 29 through 50 years (M = 38 years), and fathers ranged in age from 32 through 56 years (M = 44 years). Measures used were Bicultural Attitude Scales for Parents and Children. Results showed significant correlations between the cultural orientation of mothers and fathers, as well as between parents and children. Results also showed that both parents (fathers and mothers) and children had a significantly greater orientation toward their heritage culture (Pakistan) than toward their host culture (the U.S.). But the level of orientation toward the heritage culture was significantly higher for parents than for children. In addition, boys showed significantly higher orientation toward the host culture than did girls.     

Students’ Responses to Improve Environmental Sustainability Through Recycling: Quantitatively Improving Qualitative Model

This study attempts to contemplate the respondents’ behaviors regarding recycling, with the purpose of identifying the factors that influence their behaviors. The study is based on a survey that was conducted with 230 nationwide university students and guidelines borrowed from the Theory of Planned Behavior and The Theory of Reasoned action. The data collected was evaluated by applying the Structure Equation Modelling technique. The study concluded that peoples’ attitudes are largely subject to the moral values and general norms of their own society. Additionally, an individual’s response towards recycling is greatly determined by the extent of his/her awareness towards the environment, as well as his/her personal knowledge. Another conclusion was that an individual’s past experience towards recycling contributes to his/her attitude (willingness or apprehension about recycling) in the future. Furthermore, although the convenience and cost of recycling were found to be reasonably significant determinants about one’s recycling behavior, it was determined that time commitment is the most decisive factor that influences an individual’s willingness to or not to recycle. The study’s findings have not only established the authority of Theory of Planned Behaviour and Theory of Reasoned Action, but it has also presented propositions and recommendations for future research. The inferences were based on the study’s respondents, hence, so their validity can be applied to various scenarios involving local educational institutions or government structures. The goal of the study is to encourage people to engage in positive recycling behavior.     

It's not all in the face: reduced face visibility does not modulate social segmentation

Humans rely on social information to parse environmental content into social and nonsocial events. Here, we assessed if information conveyed by faces was necessary for this process. We asked participants to view a video clip depicting a social interaction and mark social and nonsocial events while actors’ faces were either visible or blurred. Keypress and eye-movement data were collected. Participants consistently identified social and nonsocial event boundaries independently of face availability, with greater agreement and less variability in keypresses for social relative to nonsocial events. Eye-tracking revealed that participants attended more to actors’ faces when they were visible and more to bodies when faces were blurred. Thus, face information is not necessary for social segmentation, which appears to be a flexible process that depends on a range of information conveyed by both faces and bodies.     

A comparative study of robust tests for spread: Asymmetric trimming strategies

We examined 633 procedures that can be used to compare the variability of scores across independent groups. The procedures, except for one, were modifications of the procedures suggested by Levene (1960) and O'Brien (1981). We modified their procedures by substituting robust measures of the typical score and variability, rather than relying on classical estimators. The robust measures that we utilized were either based on a priori or empirically determined symmetric or asymmetric trimming strategies. The Levene‐type and O'Brien‐type transformed scores were used with either the ANOVA F test, a robust test due to Lee and Fung (1985), or the Welch (1951) test. Based on four measures of robustness, we recommend a Levene‐type transformation based upon empirically determined 20% asymmetric trimmed means, involving a particular adaptive estimator, where the transformed scores are then used with the ANOVA F test.