Visual Attention in Real-World Conversation: Gaze Patterns Are Modulated by Communication and Group Size

Gaze behavior both initiates and maintains conversations, playing a crucial role in real-world collaboration. Hitherto, most findings on social attention stem from research using pictures of faces in the laboratory, however, attention operates differently in the real world. Thus, we know little of how gaze behavior operates in naturalistic interactions. To bridge this gap, we applied mobile eye-tracking to investigate the gaze patterns present in naturalistic conversations. Specifically, we examined gaze behavior of participants in a group of two or five, either sitting together in silence, or engaging in a conversation, in which they took turns either listening or speaking to each other. Results show that participants looked more frequently towards others when the group was communicating compared to when remaining silent, and that they looked at others more frequently when listening compared to when speaking. Furthermore, being part of a dyad led to more social attention being afforded during conversation compared to the group situation, regardless of whether subjects were listening or speaking. Meanwhile, when sitting in silence subjects showed less social gazing in a dyad than in a group of five. Our results provide qualitative and quantitative insights into the patterns of visual attention during dynamic naturalistic conversations.     

Adolescents’ Conflict Resolution Styles Toward Mothers: The Role of Parenting and Personality

In the present research, we examined associations between contextual and individual factors and adolescents’ conflict resolution with mothers. In Study 1, we explored links between maternal responsiveness and psychological control and adolescent conflict resolution styles (positive problem solving, conflict engagement, withdrawal, and compliance) with two informants. In Study 2, we examined the unique contribution of adolescents’ personality above and beyond perceived parenting in the prediction of conflict resolution styles. Results of both studies indicated that responsiveness was related positively to problem solving and negatively to withdrawal. Psychological control was positively associated with destructive resolution styles. Study 2 indicated that extraversion predicted more problem solving and conflict engagement, and less withdrawal. Agreeableness predicted more problem solving and less conflict engagement. Finally, certain personality traits moderated associations between parenting and conflict resolution, indicating that some adolescents are more sensitive to these parenting dimensions than others.     

Looking to relate: teacher gaze and culture in student-rated teacher interpersonal behaviour

Mobile eye-tracking was used to investigate the link between teacher gaze and student-rated teacher interpersonal behaviour. Teacher gaze was recorded for 10 min during a teacher-centred part...     

Delayed sensory feedback in the learning of a novel motor task

Summary Generally the therapeutical effect of EMG feedback is viewed in terms of the immediate contiguity between response and information. According to this view any feedback delay would deteriorate the result. In this article the validity of this notion has been investigated. Three groups of normal subjects were required to perform a difficult movement under three feedback conditions: immediate EMG feedback, delayed EMG feedback, and a control (no EMG feedback) condition. The results indicated a significant difference between the EMG feedback groups and the control condition. However, no such difference was found between the immediate and delayed feedback conditions. The results suggested that the immediacy of the feedback is not the main factor in EMG feedback, but the specificity of the information.This study was supported by Grant no. 15-35-03 from the Netherlands Organization for the Advancement of Pure Research     

Stage analysis of the reaction process using brain-evoked potentials and reaction time

Summary Motor processes partly determine reaction time (RT) in both choice reaction time and in binary classification tasks. These latter tasks are popular in cognitive psychology because the experimenter believes that he has kept the motor component simple and constant and therefore can attribute changes in RT to perceptual or cognitive processes. In this paper we used the P3 component of the event-related potential (ERP) as a time marker indicating the duration of perceptual and cognitive processes. The latency of this component is believed to reflect stimulus evaluation time independent of response selection and organization time.Two types of tasks were used: a choice-reaction time task and a binary classification task. Signal similarity and S-R compatibility additively affected RT, but only signal similarity affected P3 latency. The number of items in the positive set and response type affected both P3 latency and RT. Relative response frequency changed the bias in the cognitive evaluation of the stimulus, reflected in the latency of the P3 component, and affected RT only if the subjects preset their motor system (indexed by the late CNV). A model was presented which proposes that motor processes may partially overlap with the perceptual and cognitive evaluation of the stimulus. Both ERPs and RT are necessary tools in the study of the relative timing of these processes.     

Task-specific EMG-characteristics during mental training

Despite a sixty-year tradition of research into ideomotor reaction it is not yet clear, whether myoelectric activity measured during mental training contains only inner-organismic or in addition task-specific information.Our investigation involved one group trained actively in a sensorimotor task (paced contour-tracking), another group which was intermediately instructed to train on a mental level, and a third (control) group which had no instruction for training in the intermediate performances. Measurements were taken of the muscular activity (EMG) of the main working muscle (m. biceps) synchronously to the motion of the target in all three groups.The data were submitted to several time series analysis procedures: auto-correlative measures and power spectra. Correlations were found between the filtered time series of the track and the EMG-activity in the mental training performances. The frequency distribution in the power spectra of the track was found in the power spectra of the active as well as in the mental training groups but not in those of the controls. The results indicate that the myoactivity during mental training clearly shows a task-specific frequency distribution.     

Use of partial stimulus information in response processing

We examined the reaction time benefit that is obtained when salient features of the stimulus set and response set correspond. Components of the event-related brain potentials were used to measure the timing of stimulus-related and response-related processes in order to determine the locus of this effect. Of particular importance was the development of a new index of selective response preparation, the corrected motor asymmetry (CMA). We found no evidence for the use of preliminary, partial stimulus information in response preparation. These results suggest that the benefit is located primarily in response selection processes and probably reflects a more efficient algorithm for stimulus-response translation. Also, we found trial-to-trial variability in the duration of response selection to be the major determinant of variability in reaction time, whereas the durations of subsequent response-related processes were relatively invariant. Implications of these results for discrete and continuous models of choice reaction performance are discussed.     

Clinical pastoral education and social structures

Since the contemporary church no longer reflects the simple and clear attitudes to social structure evident in the creeds and confessions, is it possible for clinical pastoral education (CPE) and the insights and understandings it represents to contribute to the quest for new structures? In the areas of motivation, power, confrontation, and conflict management, the possibility for contribution seems real. At the same time, CPE must take social structures more seriously and broaden its understanding of the minister's role.     

Positive und negative Rückmeldung bei Alternativdiskriminationen

Zusammenfassung Die Untersuchungen befassen sich mit dem Einfluß der verbalen Rückmeldungen richtig und falsch auf das Erlernen von Alternativdiskriminationen in Blank-trial-Experimenten. Dabei wird insbesondere die Wechselwirkung der Rückmeldungskombinationen (richtig/fehlende Rückmeldung vs. falsch/fehlende Rückmeldung) mit der Rückmeldungsproportion untersucht. Die Rückmeldungsproportion ist definiert als das Verhältnis der Anzahl der S-R-Verbindungen einer Lernliste, auf die eine verbale Rückmeldung erfolgt, und der Anzahl der S-R-Verbindungen, bei denen die verbale Rückmeldung fehlt. Die Rückmeldungsproportion wird zwischen 119 und 191 systematisch variiert. Unsere Experimente ergeben u. a., daß bei kleiner Rückmeldungsproportion die Kombination richtig/fehlende Rückmeldung und bei großer Rückmeldungsproportion die Kombination falsch/fehlende Rückmeldung die Lernleistung erhöhen. Dieser Befund wurde nach theoretischen Annahmen über die Lernstrategie der Vpn erwartet. Eine alternative theoretische Interpretation der Befunde wird nach einem Zusatzexperiment verworfen. Insgesamt bestätigen die Untersuchungen, daß (a) die relative Wirksamkeit von Rückmeldungskombinationen stark von den jeweiligen experimentellen Randbedingungen abhängt, daß (b) von einer automatischen Wirksamkeit verbaler Rückmeldung keine Rede sein kann und daß (c) theoretische Annahmen über die kognitive Verarbeitung verbaler Rückmeldungen und über entsprechende Lernstrategien für die Interpretation der untersuchten Lernvorgänge erfolgversprechend sind.

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Positive and negative feedback in discrimination between alternativesFeedback proportion and learning strategy

Summary This study is concerned with the influence of the verbal feedback modes of right and wrong on the acquisition of alternative discriminations in blank-trial experiments, with special reference to the interaction between the feedback combinations (right/non-feedback as against wrong/non-feedback) and feedback proportion is investigated. Feedback proportion is defined as the ratio of the S-R connections of a learning list succeeded by verbal feedback to the S-R connections succeeded by non-feedback. Feedback proportion was systematically varied between the ratios of 119 and 191.Results showed that at a low feedback proportion learning score is increased with the combination right/non-feedback while in contrast at a high feedback proportion learning score is increased with the combination wrong/non-feedback. These results are in accordance with theoretical expectations on learning strategies of Ss. An alternative interpretation was not confirmed by the results of an additional experiment.In general, our investigations showed that (a) the relative effectiveness of feedback combinations is strongly dependent on the particular experimental conditions; (b) an automatic effect of verbal feedback cannot be assumed; (c) a cognitive interpretation of verbal feedback effects in terms of learning strategies seems very promising.

     

Mental load,heart rate and heart rate variability

Summary Several investigators have shown that diminished sinus arrhythmia can be seen as an indication of increased mental load. The present experiment deals with the influence of different levels of mental load, operationalized as the number of binary choices per minute, on the regularity of the heart rate. Also we investigated the influence of four different rest conditions on the regularity of the heart rate.The results show that sinus arrhythmia scores differentiate significantly between several levels of mental load, but heart frequency appeared to be an even better indicator.No significant differences were found between the four rest conditions. Stability over three subsequent measurement sessions was satisfactory, and reliability within the measurement periods was very high.

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Zusammenfassung Mehrere Forscher haben gezeigt, daß abnehmende Sinusarrhythmie betrachtet werden kann als ein Indikator zunehmender mentaler Belastung.In der vorliegenden Untersuchung handelt es sich um den Einfluß verschiedener Niveaus der mentalen Belastung, operationalisiert als die Zahl der binären Wahlen pro Minute, auf die Regelmäßigkeit der Herzfrequenz.Außerdem untersuchten wir den Einfluß vier verschiedener Ruhezustände auf die Regelmäßigkeit der Herzfrequenz.Die Ergebnisse zeigen, daß auf Grund Sinusarrhythmiedaten differenziert werden kann zwischen verschiedenen Niveaus mentaler Belastung, aber die Herzfrequenz erweist sich sogar als ein besserer Indikator.Man stellte keine signifikanten Unterschiede zwischen den vier verschiedenen Ruhezuständen fest.Die Stabilität während drei verschiedener Meßperioden war befriedigend, und die Zuverlässigkeit der Messungen (reliability) innerhalb der Meßperioden war sehr groß.