Complex Communication Dynamics: Exploring the Structure of an Academic Talk

Communication is a multimodal phenomenon. The cognitive mechanisms supporting it are still understudied. We explored a natural dataset of academic lectures to determine how communication modalities are used and coordinated during the presentation of complex information. Using automated and semi‐automated techniques, we extracted and analyzed, from the videos of 30 speakers, measures capturing the dynamics of their body movement, their slide change rate, and various aspects of their speech (speech rate, articulation rate, fundamental frequency, and intensity). There were consistent but statistically subtle patterns in the use of speech rate, articulation rate, intensity, and body motion across the presentation. Principal component analysis also revealed patterns of system‐like covariation among modalities. These findings, although tentative, do suggest that the cognitive system is integrating body, slides, and speech in a coordinated manner during natural language use. Further research is needed to clarify the specific coordination patterns that occur between the different modalities.     

A general model for the analysis of multilevel data

A general model is developed for the analysis of multivariate multilevel data structures. Special cases of the model include repeated measures designs, multiple matrix samples, multilevel latent variable models, multiple time series, and variance and covariance component models.We would like to acknowledge the helpful comments of Ruth Silver. We also wish to thank the referees for helping to clarify the paper. This work was partly carried out with research funds provided by the Economic and Social Research Council (U.K.).     

Aristotle and the tradition of rhetorical argumentation

The first part of this paper contends that argumentation is central and essential to Aristotle's Rhetoric, and recounts a number of arguments in support of that view, particularly the recognition that deliberative rhetoric or the rhetoric of counsel is the primary concern of Aristotle's work. The second part of the paper reviews the work that follows in this present volume to show that the other writers' views fit in perfectly with this thesis.     

Fallacies in pragma-dialectical perspective

In the pragma-dialectical approach, fallacies are considered incorrect moves in a discussion for which the goal is successful resolution of a dispute. Ten rules are given for effective conduct at the various stages of such a critical discussion (confrontation, opening, argumentation, concluding). Fallacies are discussed as violations of these rules, taking into account all speech acts which are traditionally recognized as fallacies. Special attention is paid to the role played by implicitness in fallacies in everyday language use. It is stressed that identifying and acknowledging fallacies in ordinary discussions always has a conditional character. Differences between the pragma-dialectical perspective, the Standard Treatment, and the formal logic approach to fallacy analysis are discussed.     

Learning to argue with parents and peers

The infant's first natural response when faced with opposition or when he opposes others' actions is to cry. As this kind of behavior becomes ineffective, the responses of the individuals with which he interacts force him to adopt more conventional — especially verbal — patterns of arguing, leading him to rational argumentation. The purpose of the present paper is to observe progressions in children's earliest verbal arguments and to see how and when they learn to adjust their strategies for different kinds of opponents (peers; parents; other adults). In order to examine the emergence of such persuasive strategies, and their distribution according to the different categories of opponents, systematic audiotape recordings of two Spanish-speaking girls between 2 and 3 years were analyzed. The data suggest that, although there were some differences in how the girls argued with parents versus peers, they were only beginning to adjust their speech to make it appropriate for one or the other type of listener. In general, they resorted to one dominant strategy for all listeners (insist, repeat, cry, scream, ...). Each girl, however, developed a small number of less frequently used strategies that she reserved for a subcategory of opponents. For example, one of them, Nancy, only threatened and insulted peers, while the other, Marisa, only used please and a temporizing strategy with parents. The girls used less adaptive, more agressive strategies (e.g. threats and insults) with their peers. With one exception, all of the girls' moves were self-centered. In fact, the girls had not yet reached the stage of rational argumentation.     

The interaction of stimulus and reinforcer control in complex temporal discrimination.

Six pigeons were trained in a discrete-trials signal-detection procedure to discriminate between a fixed-duration stimulus (5 s or 20 s) and a set of variable durations ranging from 2.5 s to 57.5 s in steps of 5 s. For each fixed-duration stimulus, the ratio of reinforcer frequencies contingent upon reporting the fixed versus the variable stimulus was systematically manipulated. Detection performance was well controlled by both the stimulus value and the reinforcer ratio. Both the discriminability between the fixed duration and the set of variable durations, and the discriminability between the fixed duration and each of the variable durations, were independent of the reinforcer-frequency ratio when discriminability was measured as log d. The sensitivity of response bias to reinforcement-ratio changes was independent of the value of the fixed duration, but was not independent of the discriminability of the variable durations from the fixed durations. Under current models, discriminability measures in complex temporal discrimination may be independent of biasing manipulations, but bias measures are not independent of stimulus values.     

Devouring and Asphyxia: Paradigm Crisis,the Depletion of the Hero and Complex Thought1

This article deals with the profound paradigm crisis that affects modernity and threatens the destiny of humanity. This crisis results from the lack of perspective offered by the paradigm of modernity with its emphasis on unilateral rationality, scientific objectivity, and exploitation of natural resources by a hyper development of an inflated Hero archetype. The emergence of a new paradigm of complexity, C. G. Jung’s complex psychology, and Ameridian perspectivism, may offer new paths to approach these serious problems lived by modern man. A clinical vignette illustrates how complex psychology may also help with individual patients suffering from psychosomatic complaints.     

Empirical research on the identification of singular,multiple and subordinate argumentation

To examine to what degree argumentation skills are mastered by pupils who attend the vocational, general and academic streams in Dutch secondary education various subtests were constructed. The theoretical study of argumentation as exposed by Van Eemeren and Grootendorst was the basis for this test construction. In this article tests for the identification of singular, multiple and subordinate argumentation are described. Also an account is given of a pretest of these three subtests.     

On the processing of arguments

This paper is concerned with the processing of informal arguments, that is, arguments involving probable truth. A model of informal argument processing is presented that is based upon Hample's (1977) expansion of Toulmin's (1958) model of argument structure. The model postulates that a claim activates an attitude, the two components forming a complex that in turn activates reasons. Furthermore, the model holds occurrence of the reason, or possibly the claim and the reason, activates values. Three experiments are described that provide support for the model.This research was supported by the Mellon Foundation and by the Office of Educational Research and Improvement of the Department of Education via an award for the Center for the Study of Learning to the Learning Research and Development Center. The contents of the paper are not necessarily the position of any of these organizations.     

Jungian Constructivism and the Value of Uncertainty

Introducing the basic assumptions of constructivism as a philosophical position, this paper illustrates how Jung's psychology - especially complex, archetype and transcendent function - is consonant with constructivism. Further, the paper explores some clinical implications of constructivism by reviewing the problems of chronic projective-identification in a stalemated analytic case, drawing on the contributions of Winnicott, Ogden and Modell in expanding our understanding of, and facility with, the transcendent function.