Mother-Infant Interaction Kinect Analysis (MIIKA): An automatic kinematic-based methodology for the investigation of interpersonal distance during early exchanges

Interpersonal distance is a core aspect of mother-child interaction. While conventional measures based on human coders do not fully capture the dynamics of this feature, computational methods provide automatic measures which can detect even small changes and more accurate estimates both spatially and temporally. Using RGB-D sensors (Microsoft Kinect V2), the present study describes a setup to automatically examine interpersonal distance during mother-child interactions, termed Mother-Infant Interaction Kinect Analysis (MIIKA). First, the laboratory setting and the data extraction method are described. By using an ad-hoc algorithm for kinematic data extraction, MIIKA returns three metrics: barycenter position (distance and velocity of approach and separation), movements (number of small, medium and large approaches and separations) and contributions (proportional contributions of mother and child to approaches and separations). Secondly, preliminary MIIKA metrics are described for a non-clinical mother-child dyad as an exemplification of the protocol. As interpersonal distance can be affected by contingent situations, we detected mother-infant full skeleton during three interactional contexts characterized by different kinds of dyadic exchanges: a free play session, a task-oriented activity and an emotionally arousing condition. Results highlighted similarities and differences between the three interactional contexts. MIIKA appears to be a promising setup to automatically examine interpersonal distance in early mother-child interactions.     

Understanding Miscommunication: Speech Act Recognition in Digital Contexts

Successful language use requires accurate intention recognition. However, sometimes this can be undermined because communication occurs within an interpersonal context. In this research, I used a relatively large set of speech acts (n = 32) and explored how variability in their inherent face-threat influences the extent to which they are successfully recognized by a recipient, as well as the confidence of senders and receivers in their communicative success. Participants in two experiments either created text messages (senders) designed to perform a specific speech act (e.g., agree) or interpreted those text messages (receivers) in terms of the specific speech act being performed. The speech acts were scaled in terms of their degree of face threat. In both experiments, speech acts that were more threatening were less likely to be correctly recognized than those that were less threatening. Additionally, the messages of the more threatening speech acts were longer and lower in clout than the less threatening speech acts. Senders displayed greater confidence in communicative success than receivers, but judgments of communicative success (for both senders and receivers) were unrelated to actual communicative success. The implications of these results for our understanding of actual communicative episodes are discussed.     

Opinion Climates in Social Media: Blending Mass and Interpersonal Communication

Social media's capacity for users to generate, comment on, and forward content (including mass media messages) to other users has created new forms of mass interpersonal communication. These systems render observable processes underlying the formation of opinion climates. Five attributes of contemporary electronic opinion environments can alter the way users gauge, form, and express opinions on topics of public interest: the juxtaposition of mass media and user‐generated content, ideological homogeneity and heterogeneity of online networks, technical ease with which to express opinions, the reach of messages, and networked audiences. These attributes facilitate analysis of theoretical and empirical works from different scholarly traditions, suggesting lines of inquiry that can enrich the analysis of (public) opinion formation via current communication technologies.     

Repair Avoidance: When Faithful Informational Exchanges Don't Matter That Much

Common-sense intuition suggests that, when people are engaged in informational exchanges, they communicate so as to be reasonably sure that they perform the exchanges faithfully. Over the years, we have found evidence suggesting that this intuition, which is woven into several influential theories of human communication, may be misleading. We first summarize this evidence and discuss its potential limitations. Then, we present a new study that addresses the potential limitations. A confederate instructed participants to “pick up the skask” from a tray containing six objects and move it to a specific location. Since skask is a non-word invented by us, participants had to ask for clarification to perform the instruction faithfully. In contradiction with the intuition that people pursue faithfulness when engaged in informational exchanges, 29 of the 48 participants we tested performed the instruction without asking for clarification. We identified a possible cause for this behavior, which occurred more frequently when avoiding the clarification was unlikely to result in an overt consequence (an error in the execution of the instruction that could be noticed by the confederate or the experimenter). Other factors such as individual differences and the specific interpersonal dynamics of the experimental settings, if they played a role at all, did it to an extent that is unlikely to be comparable to that of the role played by overt consequences. Considered together, our various assessments of the extent to which people engage in faithful informational exchanges converge on a simple conclusion: Communicating faithfully is a substantially demanding task, and people often fail at it. We discuss the implications of this conclusion and speculate on its relevance for understanding the evolutionary past of human communication.     

Getting closer: Synchronous interpersonal multisensory stimulation increases closeness and attraction toward an opposite-sex other in female participants

Experiencing tactile facial stimulation while seeing synchronous stimulations delivered to another’s face induces enfacement, i.e. the subjective experience of ownership over the other's face. The synchronous Interpersonal Multisensory Stimulation (IMS) procedure leading to enfacement induces changes beyond the bodily sense of self, such as increased feeling of closeness between self and other. However, evidence for such an influence of IMS on higher-level self-other representations remains limited. Moreover, research has been restricted to settings involving a same-sex other. The current study tested, in female participants, whether IMS could promote social closeness and attraction toward an opposite-sex other. Across two experiments, enfacement with an opposite-sex face was successfully obtained. Synchronous (vs. asynchronous) IMS yielded greater closeness with the other and induced greater Liking and Attraction scores. These novel findings add further evidence to the existence of a link between body representation and social cognition. Implications for interpersonal attraction are discussed.     

Online Information and Communication Systems to Enhance Health Outcomes Through Communication Convergence

The growing use of digital health communication channels has produced dramatic changes, providing broad access to information for making health decisions and addressing users' emotional needs. Digital health communication channels combine mass and interpersonal communication in different ways. Type 1 convergence occurs sequentially: Individuals obtain health information online that they discuss interpersonally with health providers. Type 2 convergence involves discussions occurring via online health information systems. The effectiveness of these systems depends upon seven communication design and implementation strategies. Emerging interactive health information systems provide customized responses tailored to individuals' specific needs and situations. All these forms of media convergence can improve health education, health promotion, and health behavior change.     

Vectors into the Future of Mass and Interpersonal Communication Research: Big Data,Social Media,and Computational Social Science

Simultaneous developments in big data, social media, and computational social science have set the stage for how we think about and understand interpersonal and mass communication. This article explores some of the ways that these developments generate 4 hypothetical “vectors”—directions—into the next generation of communication research. These vectors include developments in network analysis, modeling interpersonal and social influence, recommendation systems, and the blurring of distinctions between interpersonal and mass audiences through narrowcasting and broadcasting. The methods and research in these arenas are occurring in areas outside the typical boundaries of the communication discipline but engage classic, substantive questions in mass and interpersonal communication.     

The Merger of Mass and Interpersonal Communication via New Media: Integrating Metaconstructs

The convergence of mass and interpersonal communication requires integration of underlying processes, or theoretical metaconstructs, that originated in formerly separate research domains. Several previous efforts to integrate mass and interpersonal communication fell short in this regard, and correspondent empirical work provides limited explanations. The article nominates 9 metaconstructs: distribution capacity, message persistence, audience, channels and cues, relationships, temporality, interactivity and mutual influence, message characteristics, and social goals. It suggests how these metaconstructs, in manifestations afforded by new media, can affect communication in important ways, with examples of studies that benefited from their inclusion. Consideration and integration of these metaconstructs, in individual studies or in streams of research, can expand the explanatory power and precision of research involving new media.