Evolution in romance verbal systems

The present book focuses on evolution in the Romance verbal systems. In the wake of Bybee’s and Dahl’s studies, it advocates the benefits of adopting a cross-linguistic and diachronic approach to the study of linguistic phenomena. Within the scope of the Romance family, similar cross-linguistic evolution paths are explored, as related languages at different stages of grammaticalisation may shed light on each other’s developments. A diachronic dimension also proves desirable for several reasons. First, a diachronic approach significantly enhances the explanatory power of linguistic theory by showing how a specific form came to convey a certain function. Second, change is better revealed in diachronic movement than in static synchrony. Third, meaning constantly evolves and a one-off probe will be less revealing than a sustained study through time. Finally and most importantly, similarities across languages appear more obviously in diachrony. All the chapters of this volume participate in their own way to that crosslinguistic and diachronic approach and help make it an original, focused contribution that covers all main Romance languages.

Non-verbal signalling in digital discourse:the case of letter repetition

This study focuses on the interactional functions of non-standard spelling, in particular letter repetition, used in text-based computer-mediated communication as a means of non-verbal signalling. The aim of this paper is to assess the current state of non-verbal cue research in computer-mediated discourse and demonstrate the need for a more comprehensive and methodologically rigorous exploration of written non-verbal signalling. The study proposes a contextual and usage-centered view of written paralanguage. Through illustrative, close linguistic analyses the study proves that previous approaches to non-standard spelling based on their relation to the spoken word might not account for the complexities of this CMC cue, and in order to further our understanding of their interactional functions it is more fruitful to describe the role they play during the contextualisation of the verbal messages. The interactional sociolinguistic approach taken in the analysis demonstrates the range of interactional functions letter repetition can achieve, including contribution to the inscription of socio-emotional information into writing, to the evoking of auditory cues or to a display of informality through using a relaxed writing style.

Detecting deception: Identifying differences in liars' and truth tellers' verbal strategies

Deception research has traditionally focused on three methods of identifying liars and truth tellers: observing non-verbal or behavioral cues, analyzing verbal cues, and monitoring changes in physiological arousal during polygraph tests. Research shows that observers are often incapable of discriminating between liars and truth tellers with better than chance accuracy when they use these methods. One possible explanation for observers' poor performance is that they are not properly applying existing lie detection methods. An alternative explanation is that the cues on which these methods — and observers' judgments — are based do not reliably discriminate between liars and truth tellers. It may be possible to identify more reliable cues, and potentially improve observers' ability to discriminate, by developing a better understanding of how liars and truth tellers try to tell a convincing story. ^ This research examined (a) the verbal strategies used by truthful and deceptive individuals during interviews concerning an assigned activity, and (b) observers' ability to discriminate between them based on their verbal strategies. In Experiment I, pre-interview instructions manipulated participants' expectations regarding verifiability; each participant was led to believe that the interviewer could check some types of details, but not others, before deciding whether the participant was being truthful or deceptive. Interviews were then transcribed and scored for quantity and type of information provided. In Experiment II, observers listened to a random sample of the Experiment I interviews and rendered veracity judgments; half of the observers were instructed to judge the interviews according to the verbal strategies used by liars and truth tellers and the other half were uninstructed. ^ Results of Experiment I indicate that liars and truth tellers use different verbal strategies, characterized by a differential amount of detail. Overall, truthful participants provided more information than deceptive participants. This effect was moderated by participants' expectations regarding verifiability such that truthful participants provided more information only with regard to verifiable details. Results of Experiment II indicate that observers instructed about liars' and truth tellers' verbal strategies identify them with greater accuracy than uninstructed observers. ^

Learning Data-Driven Models of Non-Verbal Behaviors for Building Rapport Using an Intelligent Virtual Agent

There is a growing societal need to address the increasing prevalence of behavioral health issues, such as obesity, alcohol or drug use, and general lack of treatment adherence for a variety of health problems. The statistics, worldwide and in the USA, are daunting. Excessive alcohol use is the third leading preventable cause of death in the United States (with 79,000 deaths annually), and is responsible for a wide range of health and social problems. On the positive side though, these behavioral health issues (and associated possible diseases) can often be prevented with relatively simple lifestyle changes, such as losing weight with a diet and/or physical exercise, or learning how to reduce alcohol consumption. Medicine has therefore started to move toward finding ways of preventively promoting wellness, rather than solely treating already established illness. Evidence-based patient-centered Brief Motivational Interviewing (BMI) interven- tions have been found particularly effective in helping people find intrinsic motivation to change problem behaviors after short counseling sessions, and to maintain healthy lifestyles over the long-term. Lack of locally available personnel well-trained in BMI, however, often limits access to successful interventions for people in need. To fill this accessibility gap, Computer-Based Interventions (CBIs) have started to emerge. Success of the CBIs, however, critically relies on insuring engagement and retention of CBI users so that they remain motivated to use these systems and come back to use them over the long term as necessary. Because of their text-only interfaces, current CBIs can therefore only express limited empathy and rapport, which are the most important factors of health interventions. Fortunately, in the last decade, computer science research has progressed in the design of simulated human characters with anthropomorphic communicative abilities. Virtual characters interact using humans’ innate communication modalities, such as facial expressions, body language, speech, and natural language understanding. By advancing research in Artificial Intelligence (AI), we can improve the ability of artificial agents to help us solve CBI problems. To facilitate successful communication and social interaction between artificial agents and human partners, it is essential that aspects of human social behavior, especially empathy and rapport, be considered when designing human-computer interfaces. Hence, the goal of the present dissertation is to provide a computational model of rapport to enhance an artificial agent’s social behavior, and to provide an experimental tool for the psychological theories shaping the model. Parts of this thesis were already published in [LYL+12, AYL12, AL13, ALYR13, LAYR13, YALR13, ALY14].

Mand – to Tact Training Transfer Acquisition Rates in Children Diagnosed with Autism Spectrum Disorder with Limited Verbal Skills

Autism Spectrum Disorder () is defined as “the presence of severe and pervasive impairments in reciprocal social interaction and in verbal and nonverbal communication skills” (Diagnostic & Statistical Manual, 2000). It is estimated that 1 in 68 children across the United States are diagnosed with ASD. One of the most common delays that children diagnosed with ASD experience are language delays. Children with ASD that have a language delay will often develop maladaptive behaviors as a result of poor communication skills (Carr & Durand, 1985). The failure to develop mand acquisition in typical fashion results in behaviors ranging from social withdrawal to self-injurious behaviors (Cooper et. al, 2007). A lack of a strong tact repertoire can further impede and complicate the learning of other necessary components of language due to the inability to successfully label items and events in the physical environment of the child. The purpose of this study is to replicate with a reversal in verbal operant training of the procedures described in Wallace et al. (2006) in which two children with ASD underwent tact training to facilitate the formation of mands; essentially this study aims to accomplish mand training first to establish as tact. It is hypothesized that mand training will result in a greater repertoire of tacts due to strength of the relationship between mands and the control over the social environment (Cooper et al., 2007). The two children in the study will be taught to mand items that will be ranked in order of preference via stimulus preference assessment. This study is of great importance due to the indispensable value of effective social communication skills. Data gathered on improving communication skills is of great value to the ASD community as the implications for functional skills result in better communication with family and greater control of individual functioning.

Mand – to Tact Training Transfer Acquisition Rates in Children Diagnosed with Autism Spectrum Disorder with Limited Verbal Skills

Autism Spectrum Disorder () is defined as “the presence of severe and pervasive impairments in reciprocal social interaction and in verbal and nonverbal communication skills” (Diagnostic & Statistical Manual, 2000). It is estimated that 1 in 68 children across the United States are diagnosed with ASD. One of the most common delays that children diagnosed with ASD experience are language delays. Children with ASD that have a language delay will often develop maladaptive behaviors as a result of poor communication skills (Carr & Durand, 1985). The failure to develop mand acquisition in typical fashion results in behaviors ranging from social withdrawal to self-injurious behaviors (Cooper et. al, 2007). A lack of a strong tact repertoire can further impede and complicate the learning of other necessary components of language due to the inability to successfully label items and events in the physical environment of the child. The purpose of this study is to replicate with a reversal in verbal operant training of the procedures described in Wallace et al. (2006) in which two children with ASD underwent tact training to facilitate the formation of mands; essentially this study aims to accomplish mand training first to establish as tact. It is hypothesized that mand training will result in a greater repertoire of tacts due to strength of the relationship between mands and the control over the social environment (Cooper et al., 2007). The two children in the study will be taught to mand items that will be ranked in order of preference via stimulus preference assessment. This study is of great importance due to the indispensable value of effective social communication skills. Data gathered on improving communication skills is of great value to the ASD community as the implications for functional skills result in better communication with family and greater control of individual functioning.

Investigating the Association Between Computer-Mediated Communication (CMC) and the Health of Canadian Young People: A Mixed Methods Study

Canadian young people are increasingly more connected through technological devices. This computer-mediated communication (CMC) can result in heightened connection and social support but can also lead to inadequate personal and physical connections. As technology evolves, its influence on health and well-being is important to investigate, especially among youth. This study aims to investigate the potential influences of computer-mediated communication (CMC) on the health of Canadian youth, using both quantitative and qualitative research approaches. This mixed-methods study utilized data from the 2013-2014 Health Behaviour in School-aged Children survey for Canada (n=30,117) and focus group data involving Ontario youth (7 groups involving 40 youth). In the quantitative component, a random-effects multilevel Poisson regression was employed to identify the effects of CMC on loneliness, stratified to explore interaction with family communication quality. A qualitative, inductive content analysis was applied to the focus group transcripts using a grounded theory inspired methodology. Through open line-by-line coding followed by axial coding, main categories and themes were identified. The quality of family communication modified the association between CMC use and loneliness. Among youth experiencing the highest quartile of family communication, daily use of verbal and social media CMC was significantly associated with reports of loneliness. The qualitative analysis revealed two overarching concepts that: (1) the health impacts of CMC are multidimensional and (2) there exists a duality of both positive and negative influences of CMC on health. Four themes were identified within this framework: (1) physical activity, (2) mental and emotional disturbance, (3) mindfulness, and (4) relationships. Overall, there is a high proportion of loneliness among Canadian youth, but this is not uniform for all. The associations between CMC and health are influenced by external and contextual factors, including family communication quality. Further, the technologically rich world in which young people live has a diverse impact on their health. For youth, their relationships with others and the context of CMC use shape overall influences on their health.

Análisis pragmático contrastivo inglés/español de la intensificación verbal en textos literarios

El objetivo de este trabajo consiste en comparar las funciones pragmáticas de una estructura intensificadora en español peninsular formada con la partícula venga (venga a + infinitivo) con estructuras intensificadoras en inglés. Para ello, analizamos los factores sintácticos, semánticos y pragmáticos que el traductor tiene en cuenta a la hora de usar esta estructura en la traducción al español. El corpus lo componen fragmentos de obras literarias extraídas en Google Books. Los resultados demuestran que con esta construcción se consigue transferir al español no sólo efectos semánticos (iteración), sino también pragmáticos, como la evaluación del hablante (desacuerdo, sorpresa, etc.).

Poor communication skills means high risk for aviation safety

Este artigo analisa diferentes tipos de comunicação no ambiente de negócios da aviação civil. Para tanto, utilizou-se uma abordagem qualitativa, delineada por análise documental dos relatórios das agencias governamentais. A comunicação é um sistema complexo que consiste em comunicação verbal, não verbal, escrita, falada e eletrônica. Na aviação, ela é um fator crucial ao enfrentamento de situações de alto risco. Os resultados obtidos indicam que lacunas de comunicação entre os indivíduos que atuam nas operações aeronáuticas e aeroviárias contribuem para a maior parte dos acidentes e incidentes ocorridos. As conclusões pontuam que as habilidades de comunicação são tão importantes quanto às habilidades técnicas e enfatizam a emergência do treinamento em habilidades de comunicação aos profissionais da aviação, possibilitando-os detectar ameaças e comunicar claramente a necessidade de apoio para o enfrentamento de riscos. É imperativo adotar as ações requeridas pela filosofia do Sistema de Gestão de Segurança, visando gerar comportamento seguro.

Empathy in the field: towards a taxonomy of empathic communication in information gathering interviews with suspected sex offenders

Research suggests that those suspected of sexual offending might be more willing to reveal information about their crimes if interviewers display empathic behaviour. However, the literature concerning investigative empathy is in its infancy, and so as yet is not well understood. This study explores empathy in a sample of real-life interviews conducted by police officers in England with suspected sex offenders. Using qualitative methodology, the presence and type of empathic verbal behaviours displayed was examined. Resulting categories were quantitatively analysed to investigate their occurrence overall, and across interviewer gender. We identified four distinct types of empathy, some of which were used significantly more often than others. Female interviewers displayed more empathic behaviour per se by a considerable margin.

Learning data-driven models of non-verbal behaviors for building rapport using an intelligent virtual agent

There is a growing societal need to address the increasing prevalence of behavioral health issues, such as obesity, alcohol or drug use, and general lack of treatment adherence for a variety of health problems. The statistics, worldwide and in the USA, are daunting. Excessive alcohol use is the third leading preventable cause of death in the United States (with 79,000 deaths annually), and is responsible for a wide range of health and social problems. On the positive side though, these behavioral health issues (and associated possible diseases) can often be prevented with relatively simple lifestyle changes, such as losing weight with a diet and/or physical exercise, or learning how to reduce alcohol consumption. Medicine has therefore started to move toward finding ways of preventively promoting wellness, rather than solely treating already established illness.^ Evidence-based patient-centered Brief Motivational Interviewing (BMI) interventions have been found particularly effective in helping people find intrinsic motivation to change problem behaviors after short counseling sessions, and to maintain healthy lifestyles over the long-term. Lack of locally available personnel well-trained in BMI, however, often limits access to successful interventions for people in need. To fill this accessibility gap, Computer-Based Interventions (CBIs) have started to emerge. Success of the CBIs, however, critically relies on insuring engagement and retention of CBI users so that they remain motivated to use these systems and come back to use them over the long term as necessary.^ Because of their text-only interfaces, current CBIs can therefore only express limited empathy and rapport, which are the most important factors of health interventions. Fortunately, in the last decade, computer science research has progressed in the design of simulated human characters with anthropomorphic communicative abilities. Virtual characters interact using humans’ innate communication modalities, such as facial expressions, body language, speech, and natural language understanding. By advancing research in Artificial Intelligence (AI), we can improve the ability of artificial agents to help us solve CBI problems.^ To facilitate successful communication and social interaction between artificial agents and human partners, it is essential that aspects of human social behavior, especially empathy and rapport, be considered when designing human-computer interfaces. Hence, the goal of the present dissertation is to provide a computational model of rapport to enhance an artificial agent’s social behavior, and to provide an experimental tool for the psychological theories shaping the model. Parts of this thesis were already published in [LYL+12, AYL12, AL13, ALYR13, LAYR13, YALR13, ALY14].^

Communication across cultures? An intercultural approach to customer service in the hotel industry: a study with globally branded hotels in the United Kingdom

In a professional and business-social context such as that of global hotel brands in the United Kingdom, intercultural communication, contacts and relationships are found at the heart of daily operations and of customer service. A large part of the clientele base of hotels in the United Kingdom is formed by individuals who belong to different cultural groups that travel in the country either for leisure or business. At the same time, the global workforce which is recruited in the hotel industry in the United Kingdom is a reality here to stay. Global travelling and labor work mobility are phenomena which have been generated by changes which occur on a socio-economic, cultural and political level due to the phenomenon of globalization. The hotel industry is therefore well acquainted with the essence of different cultures either to be accommodated within hotel premises, as in the case of external customers, or of diversity management where different cultures are recruited in the hotel industry, as in the case of internal customers. This thesis derives from research conducted on eight different global hotel brands in the United Kingdom in particular, with reference to three, four and five star categories. The research aimed to answer the question of how hotels are organized in order to address issues of intercultural communication during customer service and if intercultural barriers arise during the intercultural interaction of hotel staff and global customers. So as to understand how global hotel brands operate the research carried out focused in three main areas relating to each hotel: organizational culture, customer service–customer care and intercultural issues. The study utilized qualitative interviews with hotel management staff and non-management staff from different cultural backgrounds, public space observations between customers and staff during check-in and checkout in the reception area and during dining at the café-bar and restaurant. Thematic analysis was also applied to the official web page of each hotel and to job advertisements to enhance the findings from the interviews and the observations. For the process of analysis of the data interpretive (hermeneutic) phenomenology of Martin Heidegger has been applied. Generally, it was found that hotel staff quite often feel perplexed by how to deal with and how to overcome, for instance, language barriers and religious issues and how to interpret non verbal behaviors or matters on food culture relating to the intercultural aspect of customer service. In addition, it was interesting to find that attention to excellent customer service on the part of hotel staff is a top organizational value and customer care is a priority. Despite that, the participating hotel brands appear to have not yet, realized how intercultural barriers can affect the daily operation of the hotel, the job performance and the psychology of hotel staff. Employees indicated that they were keen to receive diversity training, provided by their organizations, so as to learn about different cultural needs and expand their intercultural skills. The notion of diversity training in global hotel brands is based on the sense that one of the multiple aims of diversity management as a practice and policy in the workplace of hotels is the better understanding of intercultural differences. Therefore global hotel brands can consider diversity training as a practice which will benefit their hotel staff and clientele base at the same time. This can have a distinctive organizational advantage for organizational affairs in the hotel industry, with potential to influence the effectiveness and performance of hotels.

Communication: Transient Anion States Of Phenol…(h₂o)n (n = 1, 2) Complexes: Search For Microsolvation Signatures.

We report on the shape resonance spectra of phenol-water clusters, as obtained from elastic electron scattering calculations. Our results, along with virtual orbital analysis, indicate that the well-known indirect mechanism for hydrogen elimination in the gas phase is significantly impacted on by microsolvation, due to the competition between vibronic couplings on the solute and solvent molecules. This fact suggests how relevant the solvation effects could be for the electron-driven damage of biomolecules and the biomass delignification [E. M. de Oliveira et al., Phys. Rev. A 86, 020701(R) (2012)]. We also discuss microsolvation signatures in the differential cross sections that could help to identify the solvated complexes and access the composition of gaseous admixtures of these species.

[temporomandibular Disorders In Fibromyalgia Syndrome: A Short-communication.]

Fibromyalgia syndrome (FMS) is a chronic painful syndrome and the coexistence of a painful condition caused by Temporomandibular Disorders (TMD) and FMS has been frequently raised for several studies, however, more likely hypothesis is that a set of FMS characteristics may lead to the onset of TMD symptoms and they are not merely coexisting conditions. Therefore, our aim is presenting a review of literature about the relation between fibromyalgia and the signs and symptoms of temporomandibular disorders. For this purpose, a bibliographic search was performed of the period of 1990-2013, in the Medline, Pubmed, Lilacs and Scielo databases, using the keywords fibromyalgia, temporomandibular disorders and facial pain. Here we present a set of findings in the literature showing that fibromyalgia can lead to TMD symptoms. These studies demonstrated greater involvement of the stomatognathic system in FMS and myogenic disorders of masticatory system are the most commonly found in those patients. FMS appears to have a series of characteristics that constitute predisposing and triggering factors for TMD.

Dança em cadeira de rodas : os sentidos da dança como linguagem não-verbal

Universidade Estadual de Campinas. Faculdade de Educação Física