Interactional Contingencies Research Articles

Phonetic Variation and Interactional Contingencies in Simultaneous Responses

An auspicious but unexplored environment for studying phonetic variation in naturalistic interaction is where two or more participants say the same thing at the same time. Working with a core dataset built from the multimodal Augmented Multi-party Interaction corpus, the principles of conversation analysis were followed to analyze the sequential organization of the talk and to explain the phonetic variation observed. Acoustic divergence and equivalence between simultaneous responses are described. Phonetic features discussed include duration and timing, pitch, loudness, and phonation type. The interactional factors that explain the acoustic divergences are established through turn-by-turn analysis and consideration of gaze direction and other visible features. It is argued that any research on phonetic variation in naturalistic talk that disregards the local organization of interaction will always be incomplete.

Collaboratively organized stancetaking in Japanese: Sharing and negotiating stance within the turn constructional unit

Stancetaking is one of the fundamental properties of human interaction (cf. Du Bois and Kärkkäinen, 2012; Englebretson, 2007b; Goodwin, 2007; Goodwin and Goodwin, 1992, 2004; Jaffe, 2009). It is pervasive, intersubjective, and collaborative, emerging in response to local contingencies in interaction. While a number of studies have investigated stance in English, little has been done in Japanese. Using Conversation Analysis (CA) frameworks, this paper explores how participants in Japanese conversation employ, or exploit, linguistic and multimodal resources to create opportunities for stance negotiation within the formulation of a turn in progress through strategically suspending the progressivity of a “turn-constructional unit (TCU)” (Sacks et al., 1974; Schegloff, 1996). Rather than treating stance as a static category relating to the speaker, this study views stancetaking as a dynamic, emergent and interactive characteristic of language in social interaction. In this paper stancetaking is conceptualized through the social interactional processes of alignment and affiliation among participants and viewed as an embodied interactive activity.

Relational frame theory - a theoretical framework for contextual behavioral science

Therapists have to deal with verbal systems and often work with verbal exchange. Therefore, a psychological theory is required, which teaches the therapist how to accomplish this task. The BRT is a theory of human language and cognition that explains how people use their verbal behavior as stimuli in their interrelations and how they act and react, based on the resulting relationships. This behavior is learned very early in the course of language acquisition and functions as a generalized operant. A prerequisite for this is the ability of people to undergo mental simulation. This enables them to construct diverse relational frameworks between individual stimuli. Without relational frameworks, people cannot function. The ability to establish a relational framework is a prerequisite for the formation of rule-governed behavior. Rule-governed behavior economizes complex decision processes, creates interpersonal security and enables dealing with events before they take place. On the other hand, the same properties that enable people to solve problems effectively can also contribute to rigid adherence to rules and experience avoidance. Relational frameworks, once established, outweigh other sources of behavioral regulation. Thus, it can become the basis of psychopathology. Poor contextual control makes it difficult for people to devote flexible, focused and voluntary attention to the present and align their actions with the immediate present. Contextual psychotherapy methods that are based on the BRT start precisely at this point: Targeted establishment of new contingencies in the therapeutic interaction through systematic strengthening of metacognitive mode and through the establishment of new rules that make possible a change in the rule-governed behavior enable undermining of dysfunctional rule-governed behavior and build up desirable behavior. This allows any therapeutic process to be more effective - regardless of the patient's expressed symptoms.

Evolutionary ecology. Cycles of species replacement emerge from locally induced maternal effects on offspring behavior in a passerine bird.

An important question in ecology is how mechanistic processes occurring among individuals drive large-scale patterns of community formation and change. Here we show that in two species of bluebirds, cycles of replacement of one by the other emerge as an indirect consequence of maternal influence on offspring behavior in response to local resource availability. Sampling across broad temporal and spatial scales, we found that western bluebirds, the more competitive species, bias the birth order of offspring by sex in a way that influences offspring aggression and dispersal, setting the stage for rapid increases in population density that ultimately result in the replacement of their sister species. Our results provide insight into how predictable community dynamics can occur despite the contingency of local behavioral interactions.

Building a responsive teacher: how temporal contingency of gaze interaction influences word learning with virtual tutors.

Animated pedagogical agents are lifelike virtual characters designed to augment learning. A review of developmental psychology literature led to the hypothesis that the temporal contingency of such agents would promote human learning. We developed a Pedagogical Agent with Gaze Interaction (PAGI), an experimental animated pedagogical agent that engages in gaze interaction with students. In this study, university students learned words of a foreign language, with temporally contingent PAGI (live group) or recorded version of PAGI (recorded group), which played pre-recorded sequences from live sessions. The result revealed that students in the live group scored considerably better than those in the recorded group. The finding indicates that incorporating temporal contingency of gaze interaction from a pedagogical agent has positive effect on learning.

La Constitución y la esfera pública: entre diferenciación sistémica, inclusión y reconocimiento

Tras algunas aclaraciones iniciales, el trabajo arranca con una presentación del concepto de Constitución y del de esfera pública pluralista. A partir de ahí analiza los conceptos de inclusión (como posición de la persona en relación a los sistemas funcionales) y de reconocimiento (como problema de doble contingencia en la interacción cotidiana). Y concluye ocupándose de los límites de la esfera pública y de la posibilidad de que puedan ser superados en el ámbito de la estructura de una sociedad mundial.

‘Pivotage’ in French talk-in-interaction

French talk-in-interaction shows a recurrent patterning of utterances that can schematically be presented as [clause-NP-clause], as inelleiva s’effacer l’imageielleiva s’effacer(‘itiis going to fade away the image,iitiis going to fade away)’, whereisignals co-indexicality. In this pattern, the NP represents a pivot element which together with the preceding clause can be heard as forming a right dislocation ([clause-NP]), and together with the subsequent clause can be heard as forming a left dislocation ([NP-clause]). One interactionally consequential feature of the [clause-NP-clause] pattern is that it organizes specific types of units in specific ways during the temporal unfolding of talk: It allows speakers to proffer two subsequent predications about the same referent, typically within one TCU, whereby the temporally second predication may be either identical (mirror image-like pivot patterns) or different from the first. We demonstrate that speakers use the [clause-NP-clause] pivot pattern to accomplish a set of interactional jobs related to the management of repair, to stance taking, to the progressivity of talk, and to issues of recipiency. We also show that, recurrently, the pattern is configured on-line, following an emergent trajectory which is adapted to local interactional contingencies; this is what we refer to aspivotage(‘pivoting’), i.e. the grammatical shaping of pivot patterns ‘in the making’. Based on these findings, we argue that the [clause-NP-clause] pivot pattern testifies to the adaptive, emergent and thoroughly temporal nature of grammar.

Theoretical Importance of Contingency in Human-Computer Interaction

A critical determinant of message interactivity is the presence of contingency, that is, the messages we receive are contingent upon the messages we send, leading to a threaded loop of interdependent messages. While this “conversational ideal” is easily achieved in face-to-face and computer-mediated communications (CMC), imbuing contingency in human-computer interaction (HCI) is a challenge. We propose two interface features—interaction history and synchronous chat—for increasing perceptions of contingency, and therefore user engagement. We test it with a five-condition, between-participants experiment ( N = 110) on a movie search site. Data suggest that interaction history can indeed heighten perceptions of contingency and dialogue, but is perceived as less interactive than chatting. However, the chat function does not appreciably increase perceived contingency or user engagement, both of which are shown to mediate the effects of message interactivity on attitudes toward the site. Theoretical implications for interactivity research and practical implications for interaction design are discussed.

Managing Patient-centered Communication across the Type 2 Diabetes Illness Trajectory: A Grounded Practical Theory of Interactional Sensitivity

This article uses the theoretical and methodological framework of Grounded Practical Theory (GPT) to provide a lens for analyzing and interpreting discourse as a situated form of social action in routine Type 2 diabetes visits. Drawing on a total data-set of 400 audio-recorded routine visits, we randomly selected 55 visits for qualitative analysis. In this article, we use Conversation Analysis to document communication techniques, which we in turn use as evidence to ground our claims within the GPT framework. We use two single cases of interaction to analyze communication techniques physicians use when recommending a change from oral medication to insulin. We argue treatment intensification is a key moment in health communication to reflect about patient centeredness because physicians can find themselves in an interactional dilemma: while insulin may effectively help control unstable disease, an insulin recommendation may simultaneously counter patient values and treatment preferences. Our analysis suggests that physicians use what we call interactional sensitivity to balance medical need and patient preferences when making medical decisions by tailoring their communication according to the local situation and the patient's larger illness trajectory. We propose that interactional sensitivity is a type of communication work and a quality of patient-centered communication characterized by the theoretical relationship between tailoring communication to the contingencies of the local interaction and the global illness trajectory. Overall, this article contributes to health communication scholarship by proposing a normative model for reflecting on how physicians negotiate challenging interactions with patients during routine chronic illness visits.

Patterns of host and flea communities along an elevational gradient in Colorado

Patterns in community composition across a landscape are the result of mechanistic responses and species interactions. Interactions between hosts and parasites have additional complexity because of the contingency of host presence and interactions among parasites. To assess the role of environmental changes within host and parasite communities, we surveyed small mammals and their fleas over a dynamic elevational gradient in the Front Range in Colorado, USA. Communities were characterized using several richness and diversity metrics and these were compared using a suite of frequentist and randomization approaches. We found that flea species richness was related to the number of host species based upon rarefaction, but no patterns in richness with elevation were evident. Values of diversity measures increased with elevation, representing that small-mammal and flea communities were more even upslope, yet turnover in composition was not related to examined variables. The results suggest there are strong local effects that drive these small-mammal and flea communities, although the breadth of flea species is tied to host availability.

Historical contingency in species interactions: towards niche-based predictions.

The way species affect one another in ecological communities often depends on the order of species arrival. The magnitude of such historical contingency, known as priority effects, varies across species and environments, but this variation has proven difficult to predict, presenting a major challenge in understanding species interactions and consequences for community structure and function. Here, we argue that improved predictions can be achieved by decomposing species' niches into three components: overlap, impact and requirement. Based on classic theories of community assembly, three hypotheses that emphasise related, but distinct influences of the niche components are proposed: priority effects are stronger among species with higher resource use overlap; species that impact the environment to a greater extent exert stronger priority effects; and species whose growth rate is more sensitive to changes in the environment experience stronger priority effects. Using nectar-inhabiting microorganisms as a model system, we present evidence that these hypotheses complement the conventional hypothesis that focuses on the role of environmental harshness, and show that niches can be twice as predictive when separated into components. Taken together, our hypotheses provide a basis for developing a general framework within which the magnitude of historical contingency in species interactions can be predicted.

Skype Me! Socially Contingent Interactions Help Toddlers Learn Language

Language learning takes place in the context of social interactions, yet the mechanisms that render social interactions useful for learning language remain unclear. This study focuses on whether social contingency might support word learning. Toddlers aged 24-30 months (N = 36) were exposed to novel verbs in one of three conditions: live interaction training, socially contingent video training over video chat, and noncontingent video training (yoked video). Results suggest that children only learned novel verbs in socially contingent interactions (live interactions and video chat). This study highlights the importance of social contingency in interactions for language learning and informs the literature on learning through screen media as the first study to examine word learning through video chat technology.

Perceiving nonverbal behavior: Neural correlates of processing movement fluency and contingency in dyadic interactions

Despite the fact that nonverbal dyadic social interactions are abundant in the environment, the neural mechanisms underlying their processing are not yet fully understood. Research in the field of social neuroscience has suggested that two neural networks appear to be involved in social understanding: (1) the action observation network (AON) and (2) the social neural network (SNN). The aim of this study was to determine the differential contributions of the AON and the SNN to the processing of nonverbal behavior as observed in dyadic social interactions. To this end, we used short computer animation sequences displaying dyadic social interactions between two virtual characters and systematically manipulated two key features of movement activity, which are known to influence the perception of meaning in nonverbal stimuli: (1) movement fluency and (2) contingency of movement patterns. A group of 21 male participants rated the "naturalness" of the observed scenes on a four-point scale while undergoing fMRI. Behavioral results showed that both fluency and contingency significantly influenced the "naturalness" experience of the presented animations. Neurally, the AON was preferentially engaged when processing contingent movement patterns, but did not discriminate between different degrees of movement fluency. In contrast, regions of the SNN were engaged more strongly when observing dyads with disturbed movement fluency. In conclusion, while the AON is involved in the general processing of contingent social actions, irrespective of their kinematic properties, the SNN is preferentially recruited when atypical kinematic properties prompt inferences about the agents' intentions.

The patching-together of pivot patterns in talk-in-interaction: On ⿿double dislocations⿿ in French

This paper investigates syntactic pivot patterns in French talk-in-interaction. In our data, pivot patterns recurrently amalgamate what has classically been called ⿿left dislocation⿿ and ⿿right dislocation⿿, as in the following: ça je vais les prendre les feuilles ⿿thesei I will take themi the papersi⿿. Here, the pivotal element (je vais les prendre ⿿I will take them⿿) consists of a clause; the pre- and the post-pivot are each composed of an NP (ça and les feuilles, respectively) that is co-indexed by means of a pronoun (les ⿿them⿿) within the pivot-clause. The paper investigates the interactional work that speakers accomplish through the [NP-clause-NP] pivot pattern. Results show that this pattern is routinized to different degrees for different interactional purposes: while speakers employ sedimented formats for proffering assessments, they configure the pivot pattern ad hoc for managing reference formulation. In the latter case, the pattern is patched together on-line, incrementally, following an emergent trajectory by means of which speakers respond to interactional contingencies on a moment-to-moment basis. We conclude that pivot patterns can be understood as processual products, adapted in the very course of their production to the contingencies of talk-in-interaction. As such, they are part of an emerging grammar for all practical proposes.

Managing Self/Other Relations in Complaint Sequences: The Use of Self-Deprecating and Affiliative Racial Categorizations

The production and reception of complaints in talk-in-interaction is shaped by a range of interactional contingencies, including matters of alignment and affiliation between the complainant and complaint recipient(s), and (in cases where the complainee is a person or people) considerations associated with the implications of moral failing on the part of complainees. In this article, I describe two complementary practices through which speakers orient to and manage the implications of their racial category membership when acting in the course of complaint sequences. The first of these practices involves speakers' use of self-deprecating self-categorizations, and the second involves affiliative ways of categorizing or referring to “racial others” (i.e., members of racial categories other than the speaker's own category). These practices serve as ways in which participants can manage the matters of self/other relations made relevant in the course of complaint sequences.

Follow the follower? Performance consequences of leader-follower imitation under uncertainty

When is imitation of follower actions an effective competitive strategy for a leader? Building on prior work in competitive dynamics and rivalry-based imitation, we propose that imitation is an effective means of staying ahead in winner-takes-all competition in uncertain environments with low information asymmetry. This is because imitation reduces likely differences in performance between rivals, therefore reducing the likelihood of the follower overcoming the initial advantage of the leader. Furthermore, we argue that the effect of imitation is moderated by the degree of environmental uncertainty and by the relative competitive positioning of the leader with respect to the follower. Our theoretical arguments are supported by an analysis of data on head-to-head boat races from the America’s Cup World Series. By illuminating the importance of environmental contingencies in competitive interaction we extend our understanding of competitive dynamics and of the performance consequences of imitation.

The reluctant researcher: shyness in the field

Despite the attention qualitative researchers have given to the interaction context and social process of data collection, there has been scant recognition of the dramaturgical dilemmas this poses for the fieldworker. Respondents have been caricatured in an essentialist typology, ranging from the ideal to the reluctant, while the researcher has been assumed to take a relatively privileged position as director of the drama. Here we report on a study of shyness in art galleries and museums, using extracts from our fieldnotes to illustrate how researchers may themselves be prone to feelings of self-consciousness, incompetence and impostordom. Different methodologies and fieldwork scenarios can be located along a ‘cringe spectrum’, to the extent that they involve high levels of performance, improvisation and interactional contingency. We discuss the strategies used by shy and non-shy members of our team to manage such dramaturgical stress, and argue for more reflexive dialogue about this issue.

On the Origins of Disorganized Attachment and Internal Working Models: Paper II. An Empirical Microanalysis of 4-Month Mother–Infant Interaction

A microanalysis of 4-month mother–infant face-to-face communication predicted 12-month infant disorganized (vs. secure) attachment outcomes in an urban community sample. We documented a dyadic systems view of the roles of both partners; the roles of both self- and interactive contingency; and the importance of attention, orientation, and touch, as well as facial and vocal affect, in the co-construction of attachment disorganization. The analysis of different communication modalities identified striking intrapersonal and interpersonal intermodal discordance or conflict, in the context of intensely distressed infants, as the central feature of future disorganized dyads at 4 months. Lowered maternal contingent coordination, and failures of maternal affective correspondence, constituted maternal emotional withdrawal from distressed infants. This maternal withdrawal compromises infant interactive agency and emotional coherence. We characterize of the nature of emerging internal working models of future disorganized infants as follows: Future disorganized infants represent states of not being sensed and known by their mothers, particularly in moments of distress; they represent confusion about both their own and their mothers' basic emotional organization, and about their mothers' response to their distress. This internal working model sets a trajectory in development which may disturb the fundamental integration of the person. The remarkable specificity of our findings has the potential to lead to more finely focused clinical interventions.

The involvement of parents in healthcare decisions where adult children are at risk of lacking decision‐making capacity: a qualitative study of treatment decisions in epilepsy

Patients with intellectual disabilities (ID) receive health care by proxy. It is family members and/or paid support staff who must recognise health problems, communicate with clinicians, and report the benefits, if any, of a particular treatment. At the same time international and national statutes protect and promote the right of people with disabilities to access the highest attainable standards of health on the basis of free and informed consent. To consider the role of parent-proxies in the management of epilepsy in adult children with ID who are at risk of lacking capacity to make decisions about their health care we interviewed 21 mothers. These mothers are not pursuing changes in treatment that might improve their son or daughter's epilepsy, nor are they willing to countenance changes in treatment. Clinicians concerned to build and sustain therapeutic alliances with these mothers, our evidence suggests, may well avoid going against their wishes. Our research highlights the interactional contingencies of a hitherto neglected three-way clinical relationship comprising parent-proxy, an adult at risk of lacking decision-making capacity, and a treating clinician. This is a relationship, our findings suggest, where little importance is attached to either patient consent, or involvement in treatment decisions.

Taking a stance and getting on with it: the form and function of the Finnish finite clausal extraposition construction

AbstractThis paper concerns a particular grammatical construction, extraposition, and its use for assessments at points of transition between activities and topics by speakers of Finnish in ordinary conversation. A basic assumption taken here is that “recurrent clausal constructions of a language are social action formats for that language” (Thompson 2006), and that grammatical constructions such as clause types are learned and therefore routinized responses to certain types of interactional contingencies, and, at the same time, emergent from the current local context (Hopper 1987; Helasvuo 2001).The paper combines the two central perspectives developed in this issue, sequential design and dialogicality, with the study of grammar-in-interaction. It shows that the grammatical form of the Finnish extraposition construction emerges from its use by speakers for the creation of intersubjectivity through reproduction of prior talk and for the projection of stance taking to follow.