Drawing as a technique to facilitate childrens memory

This study examined a technique to assist children to recall more information about witnessed events. Thirty-eight fourth-grade children from a public grade school in Miami Florida participated in the experiment. The participants watched a Red Cross demonstration and were interviewed one week later about details of the demonstration. All of the children were interviewed using a police style interview. In addition, half of the children were instructed to draw during the interview. The current study supported previous findings that the instruction to draw increased the amount of information recalled. The effect of drawing was greatest for high-visual events. In addition, the instruction to draw prompted an increase in non-verbal information, which had an unusually high accuracy rate.

Westminster Serious Games Platform (wmin-SGP) a tool for real-time authoring of roleplay simulations for learning

The use of serious games in education and their pedagogical benefit is being widely recognized. However, effective integration of serious games in education depends on addressing two big challenges: the successful incorporation of motivation and engagement that can lead to learning; and the highly specialised skills associated with customised development to meet the required pedagogical objectives. This paper presents the Westminster Serious Games Platform (wmin-SGP) an authoring tool that allows educators/domain experts without games design and development technical skills to create bespoke roleplay simulations in three dimensional scenes featuring fully embodied virtual humans capable of verbal and non-verbal interaction with users fit for specific educational objectives. The paper presents the wmin-SGP system architecture and it evaluates its effectiveness in fulfilling its purpose via the implementation of two roleplay simulations, one for Politics and one for Law. In addition, it presents the results of two types of evaluation that address how successfully the wmin-SGP combines usability principles and game core drives based on the Octalysis gamification framework that lead to motivating games experiences. The evaluation results shows that the wmin-SGP: provides an intuitive environment and tools that support users without advanced technical skills to create in real-time bespoke roleplay simulations in advanced graphical interfaces; satisfies most of the usability principles; and provides balanced simulations based on the Octalysis framework core drives. The paper concludes with a discussion of future extension of this real time authoring tool and directions for further development of the Octalysis framework to address learning.

Building autonomous sensitive artificial listeners (Extended abstract)

This paper describes a substantial effort to build a real-time interactive multimodal dialogue system with a focus on emotional and non-verbal interaction capabilities. The work is motivated by the aim to provide technology with competences in perceiving and producing the emotional and non-verbal behaviours required to sustain a conversational dialogue. We present the Sensitive Artificial Listener (SAL) scenario as a setting which seems particularly suited for the study of emotional and non-verbal behaviour, since it requires only very limited verbal understanding on the part of the machine. This scenario allows us to concentrate on non-verbal capabilities without having to address at the same time the challenges of spoken language understanding, task modeling etc. We first summarise three prototype versions of the SAL scenario, in which the behaviour of the Sensitive Artificial Listener characters was determined by a human operator. These prototypes served the purpose of verifying the effectiveness of the SAL scenario and allowed us to collect data required for building system components for analysing and synthesising the respective behaviours. We then describe the fully autonomous integrated real-time system we created, which combines incremental analysis of user behaviour, dialogue management, and synthesis of speaker and listener behaviour of a SAL character displayed as a virtual agent. We discuss principles that should underlie the evaluation of SAL-type systems. Since the system is designed for modularity and reuse, and since it is publicly available, the SAL system has potential as a joint research tool in the affective computing research community.

Estudo sobre as diferenças interativas e comunicativas de crianças em idade pré-escolar com pais e educadores

Dissertação apresentada na Escola Superior de Educação de Lisboa para obtenção do grau de mestre em Ciências da Educação Especialidade Intervenção Precoce

Współczesna debata telewizyjna a konflikt destruktywny

W artykule dowodzi się tezy, że współczesne debaty publiczne, emitowane w telewizji (takie jak emitowany od 2004 roku w TVP2 program Jana Pospieszalskiego „Warto rozmawiać”), są zdarzeniami komunikacyjnymi zasadzonymi na konflikcie destruktywnym, a więc takim, który wg L. Kriesberga, nastawiony jest nie na problem wywołujący frustrację, ale jest manifestacją agresji, a celem sporu staje się nie pokonanie różnic dzielących strony, ale pokonanie oponenta. Wynika to z sytuacji komunikacyjnej debaty telewizyjnej i nastawienia w pierwszej kolejności na zdobycie uwagi, a potem zaspokajanie potrzeb odbiorcy sekundarnego – widza. Podporządkowane są temu takie elementy, jak wybór tematu debaty, jej scenariusz, dobór uczestników, a w dalszej kolejności ich zachowania werbalne i niewerbalne. W rezultacie, w debacie telewizyjnej złamane zostają typowe dla debaty konstruktywnej reguły i strategie, i zastąpione zostają zachowaniami typowymi dla konfliktu destruktywnego, takimi jak: brak otwartości na argumenty drugiej strony, nastawienie na pokonanie antagonisty, niechęć do szukania innych rozwiązań, jak tylko moja wygrana - twoja przegrana, działania nastawione na prowokację i podważanie wiarygodności partnera, przenoszenie ciężaru debaty ze sprawy na osobę, posługiwanie się argumentacją niemerytoryczną, niezgoda na konstruowanie wspólnego stanowiska. Taki wzorzec debaty telewizyjnej, która stała się pośpieszną, bezproduktywną prezentacją rozbieżnych stanowisk, nie prowadzącą do żadnych konkluzji, nastawioną najwyżej na obrażenie rozmówcy i dostarczenie widzowi krótkotrwałych emocji, buduje powszechne przekonania o niemożności dialogu i porozumienia w dyskursie publicznym i dominującym w nim antagonizmie.

Language Outcomes of the Play and Language for Autistic Youngsters (PLAY) Project Home Consultation model—An Extended Analysis

The current study is a post-hoc analysis of data from the original randomized control trial of the Play and Language for Autistic Youngsters (PLAY) Home Consultation program, a parent-mediated, DIR/Floortime based early intervention program for children with ASD (Solomon, Van Egeren, Mahone, Huber, & Zimmerman, 2014). We examined 22 children from the original RCT who received the PLAY program. Children were split into two groups (high and lower functioning) based on the ADOS module administered prior to intervention. Fifteen-minute parent-child video sessions were coded through the use of CHILDES transcription software. Child and maternal language, communicative behaviors, and communicative functions were assessed in the natural language samples both pre- and post-intervention. Results demonstrated significant improvements in both child and maternal behaviors following intervention. There was a significant increase in child verbal and non-verbal initiations and verbal responses in whole group analysis. Total number of utterances, word production, and grammatical complexity all significantly improved when viewed across the whole group of participants; however, lexical growth did not reach significance. Changes in child communicative function were especially noteworthy, and demonstrated a significant increase in social interaction and a significant decrease in non-interactive behaviors. Further, mothers demonstrated an increase in responsiveness to the child’s conversational bids, increased ability to follow the child’s lead, and a decrease in directiveness. When separated for analyses within groups, trends emerged for child and maternal variables, suggesting greater gains in use of communicative function in both high and low groups over changes in linguistic structure. Additional analysis also revealed a significant inverse relationship between maternal responsiveness and child non-interactive behaviors; as mothers became more responsive, children’s non-engagement was decreased. Such changes further suggest that changes in learned skills following PLAY parent training may result in improvements in child social interaction and language abilities.

Subtitling Chinese cinema: a case study of Zhang Yimou’s films

In recent years, more and more Chinese films have been exported abroad. This thesis intends to explore the subtitling of Chinese cinema into English, with Zhang Yimou’s films as a case study. Zhang Yimou is arguably the most critically and internationally acclaimed Chinese filmmaker, who has experimented with a variety of genres of films. I argue that in the subtitling of his films, there is an obvious adoption of the domestication translation strategy that reduces or even omits Chinese cultural references. I try to discover what cultural categories or perspectives of China are prone to the domestication of translation and have formulated five categories: humour, politeness, dialect, history and songs and the Peking Opera. My methodology is that I compare the source Chinese dialogue lines with the existing English subtitles by providing literal translations of the source lines, and I will also give my alternative translations that tend to retain the source cultural references better. I also speculate that the domestication strategy is frequently employed by subtitlers possibly because the subtitlers assume the source cultural references are difficult for target language subtitle readers to comprehend, even if they are translated into a target language. However, subtitle readers are very likely to understand more than what the dialogue lines and the target language subtitles express, because films are multimodal entities and verbal information is not the only source of information for subtitle readers. The image and the sound are also significant sources of information for subtitle readers who are constantly involved in a dynamic film-watching experience. They are also expected to grasp visual and acoustic information. The complete omission or domestication of source cultural references might also affect their interpretation of the non-verbal cues. I also contemplate that the translation, which frequently domesticates the source culture carried out by a translator who is also a native speaker of the source language, is ‘submissive translation’.

Evidências de validade e propriedades psicométricas do SON-R 6-40

Dissertação (mestrado)—Universidade de Brasília, Instituto de Psicologia, 2016.

O ensino de inércia com desenhos animados, utilizando futurama como ferramenta lúdica

Dissertação (mestrado)—Universidade de Brasília, Instituto de Física, Programa de Pós-Graduação em Física, 2015.

O ato de agradecimento nas interações comerciais : contributo para o seu estudo

O presente estudo, no âmbito da Pragmática Linguística, resulta de uma investigação, que observa a realização dos atos ilocutórios expressivos de agradecimento nas interações comerciais. O objetivo é tentar compreender os processos linguísticos subjacentes à realização dos referidos atos ilocutórios, nomeadamente através do recenseamento dos diferentes tipos de agradecimento, da descrição dos atos de fala predominantes e das funções semântico-pragmáticas do agradecimento. Um dos aspetos mais importantes será o recensear dos tipos de agradecimento mais usados nas interações comerciais. Para tal, parte-se da observação detalhada de um corpus recolhido no âmbito específico de interações comerciais que ocorreram entre 10 de fevereiro de 2014 a 30 de setembro de 2014. Os resultados obtidos convergem no sentido de que o agradecimento é um ato expressivo reativo que pode ser verbal ou não verbal, com a finalidade de estabelecer a relação custo-benefício entre locutor e ouvinte, tendo em conta e respeitando os vários contextos socioculturais. De facto, o ato de agradecer, tal como os restantes atos ilocutórios expressivos, depende da forma como é expressado, dos gestos que o acompanham e das emoções que lhe são inerentes.

Procedimento dos enfermeiros face ao comportamento agressivo dos utentes no Serviço de Urgência de Psiquiatria

De acordo com as evidências científicas e empíricas, os enfermeiros são frequentemente vítimas de agressão, sendo mais vulneráveis os que trabalham em serviços de urgência psiquiátrica. Perante esta realidade e através de entrevistas semiestruturadas, procurou-se identificar os procedimentos e as dificuldades sentidas pelos enfermeiros, perante o comportamento agressivo dos utentes no serviço de urgência psiquiátrica. Os dados revelaram que nalgumas situações, os enfermeiros conseguem predizer o comportamento agressivo dos utentes, fundamentalmente a partir de expressões não verbais. As estratégias comunicacionais verbais e não verbais, seguido dos vários métodos de contenção, são os procedimentos mais utilizados pelos enfermeiros para lidar com o comportamento agressivo do utente. A insuficiente formação da equipa multidisciplinar e a gestão do espaço físico, foram as principais dificuldades nomeadas pelos enfermeiros; NURSES PROCEDURES TOWARDS PATIENT AGGRESSIVE BEHAVIOR AT PSYCHIATRIC EMERGENCY SERVICES ABSTRACT: The scientific and empirical evidence shows that nurses are often victims of aggression. Those working in psychiatric emergency services are more vulnerable. Due to this reality and by the use of semi-structured interviews we proposed to identify the procedures and difficulties that nurse’s experience due to patients’ aggressive behavior at psychiatric emergency services. According to data, in some cases nurses can predict aggressive behavior. Most of the time, it is possible by observation of patient non-verbal expression. To handle patient’s aggressive behavior nurses used most commonly the verbal and nonverbal communications strategies. When this isn´t enough they used a coercive intervention, such as the restraint methods. For nurses, the main difficulties are the lack of training of the multidisciplinary team and the management of the physical space.

Impacto de variáveis sócio-culturais no desempenho cognitivo: estudo em crianças dos 4 aos 7 anos

Dissertação de mest. em Psicologia da Educação - Especialização em Ensino Básico, Faculdade de Ciências Humanas e Sociais e Escola Superior de Educação, Univ. do Algarve, 2003

A Grammar of Tajio. A Language Spoken in Central Sulawesi

This work is a description of Tajio, a Western Malayo-Polynesian language spoken in Central Sulawesi, Indonesia. It covers the essential aspects of Tajio grammar without being exhaustive. Tajio has a medium sized phoneme inventory consisting of twenty consonants and five vowels. The language does not have lexical (word) stress; rather, it has a phrasal accent. This phrasal accent regularly occurs on the penultimate syllable of an intonational phrase, rendering this syllable auditorily prominent through a pitch rise. Possible syllable structures in Tajio are (C)V(C). CVN structures are allowed as closed syllables, but CVN syllables in word-medial position are not frequent. As in other languages in the area, the only sequence of consonants allowed in native Tajio words are sequences of nasals followed by a homorganic obstruent. The homorganic nasal-obstruent sequences found in Tajio can occur word-initially and word-medially but never in word-final position. As in many Austronesian languages, word class classification in Tajio is not straightforward. The classification of words in Tajio must be carried out on two levels: the morphosyntactic level and the lexical level. The open word classes in Tajio consist of nouns and verbs. Verbs are further divided into intransitive verbs (dynamic intransitive verbs and statives) and dynamic transitive verbs. Based on their morphological potential, lexical roots in Tajio fall into three classes: single-class roots, dual-class roots and multi-class roots. There are two basic transitive constructions in Tajio: Actor Voice and Undergoer Voice, where the actor or undergoer argument respectively serves as subjects. It shares many characteristics with symmetrical voice languages, yet it is not fully symmetric, as arguments in AV and UV are not equally marked. Neither subjects nor objects are marked in AV constructions. In UV constructions, however, subjects are unmarked while objects are marked either by prefixation or clitization. Evidence from relativization, control and raising constructions supports the analysis that AV and UV are in fact transitive, with subject arguments and object arguments behaving alike in both voices. Only the subject can be relativized, controlled, raised or function as the implicit subject of subjectless adverbial clauses. In contrast, the objects of AV and UV constructions do not exhibit these features. Tajio is a predominantly head-marking language with basic A-V-O constituent order. V and O form a constituent, and the subject can either precede or follow this complex. Thus, basic word order is S-V-O or V-O-S. Subject, as well as non-subject arguments, may be omitted when contextually specified. Verbs are marked for voice and mood, the latter of which is is obligatory. The two values distinguished are realis and non-realis. Depending on the type of predicate involved in clause formation, three clause types can be distinguished: verbal clauses, existential clauses and non-verbal clauses. Tajio has a small number of multi-verbal structures that appear to qualify as serial verb constructions. SVCs in Tajio always include a motion verb or a directional.

Audio-Visual Information Processing across different age groups

People possess different sensory modalities to detect, interpret, and efficiently act upon various events in a complex and dynamic environment (Fetsch, DeAngelis, & Angelaki, 2013). Much empirical work has been done to understand the interplay of modalities (e.g. audio-visual interactions, see Calvert, Spence, & Stein, 2004). On the one hand, integration of multimodal input as a functional principle of the brain enables the versatile and coherent perception of the environment (Lewkowicz & Ghazanfar, 2009). On the other hand, sensory integration does not necessarily mean that input from modalities is always weighted equally (Ernst, 2008). Rather, when two or more modalities are stimulated concurrently, one often finds one modality dominating over another. Study 1 and 2 of the dissertation addressed the developmental trajectory of sensory dominance. In both studies, 6-year-olds, 9-year-olds, and adults were tested in order to examine sensory (audio-visual) dominance across different age groups. In Study 3, sensory dominance was put into an applied context by examining verbal and visual overshadowing effects among 4- to 6-year olds performing a face recognition task. The results of Study 1 and Study 2 support default auditory dominance in young children as proposed by Napolitano and Sloutsky (2004) that persists up to 6 years of age. For 9-year-olds, results on privileged modality processing were inconsistent. Whereas visual dominance was revealed in Study 1, privileged auditory processing was revealed in Study 2. Among adults, a visual dominance was observed in Study 1, which has also been demonstrated in preceding studies (see Spence, Parise, & Chen, 2012). No sensory dominance was revealed in Study 2 for adults. Potential explanations are discussed. Study 3 referred to verbal and visual overshadowing effects in 4- to 6-year-olds. The aim was to examine whether verbalization (i.e., verbally describing a previously seen face), or visualization (i.e., drawing the seen face) might affect later face recognition. No effect of visualization on recognition accuracy was revealed. As opposed to a verbal overshadowing effect, a verbal facilitation effect occurred. Moreover, verbal intelligence was a significant predictor for recognition accuracy in the verbalization group but not in the control group. This suggests that strengthening verbal intelligence in children can pay off in non-verbal domains as well, which might have educational implications.

Investigating interpreter-mediated interaction in the Chinese bilingual courtroom: Analysis based on a multimodal corpus

This research project is based on the Multimodal Corpus of Chinese Court Interpreting (MUCCCI [mutʃɪ]), a small-scale multimodal corpus on the basis of eight authentic court hearings with Chinese-English interpreting in Mainland China. The corpus has approximately 92,500 word tokens in total. Besides the transcription of linguistic and para-linguistic features, utilizing the facial expression classification rules suggested by Black and Yacoob (1995), MUCCCI also includes approximately 1,200 annotations of facial expressions linked to the six basic types of human emotions, namely, anger, disgust, happiness, surprise, sadness, and fear (Black & Yacoob, 1995). This thesis is an example of conducting qualitative analysis on interpreter-mediated courtroom interactions through a multimodal corpus. In particular, miscommunication events (MEs) and the reasons behind them were investigated in detail. During the analysis, although queries were conducted based on non-verbal annotations when searching for MEs, both verbal and non-verbal features were considered indispensable parts contributing to the entire context. This thesis also includes a detailed description of the compilation process of MUCCCI utilizing ELAN, from data collection to transcription, POS tagging and non-verbal annotation. The research aims at assessing the possibility and feasibility of conducting qualitative analysis through a multimodal corpus of court interpreting. The concept of integrating both verbal and non-verbal features to contribute to the entire context is emphasized. The qualitative analysis focusing on MEs can provide an inspiration for improving court interpreters’ performances. All the constraints and difficulties presented can be regarded as a reference for similar research in the future.