Interaction Unfolds Research Articles

When the hands do not go home: A micro-study of the role of gesture phases in sequence suspension and closure

This study is concerned with the organisation of gestural phases of non-movement, in particular the prolonged hold and provisional home position, as accountably and in situ produced segments of behaviour. Through fine-grained transcriptions and multimodal analysis of videotaped conversation in natural and everyday settings, it is found that movement phases may be exploited by participants in order to indicate that a pursued trajectory or line of action is maintained, suspended or abandoned. Also, through constant monitoring, participants may adjust the location of non-movement as the interaction unfolds in time. It is argued that various possible locations of non-movement are arranged along a continuum ranging from the space of gesticulation to a relaxed rest position and that these locations reflect various degrees of involvement or claim of speakership in the gesturer.

Neural Correlates of Dynamically Evolving Interpersonal Ties Predict Prosocial Behavior

There is a growing interest for the determinants of human choice behavior in social settings. Upon initial contact, investment choices in social settings can be inherently risky, as the degree to which the other person will reciprocate is unknown. Nevertheless, people have been shown to exhibit prosocial behavior even in one-shot laboratory settings where all interaction has been taken away. A logical step has been to link such behavior to trait empathy-related neurobiological networks. However, as a social interaction unfolds, the degree of uncertainty with respect to the expected payoff of choice behavior may change as a function of the interaction. Here we attempt to capture this factor. We show that the interpersonal tie one develops with another person during interaction – rather than trait empathy – motivates investment in a public good that is shared with an anonymous interaction partner. We examined how individual differences in trait empathy and interpersonal ties modulate neural responses to imposed monetary sharing. After, but not before interaction in a public good game, sharing prompted activation of neural systems associated with reward (striatum), empathy (anterior insular cortex and anterior cingulate cortex) as well as altruism, and social significance [posterior superior temporal sulcus (pSTS)]. Although these activations could be linked to both empathy and interpersonal ties, only tie-related pSTS activation predicted prosocial behavior during subsequent interaction, suggesting a neural substrate for keeping track of social relevance.

“Mao Might Cheat”: The Interactional Construction of the Imaginary Situation in a Fifth Dimension After-School Setting

This article explores Vygtosky's (1978) notion of the imaginary situation through analysis of interaction and activity in a Fifth Dimension after-school setting, one of a network of programs designed with an aim to realize developmental concepts proposed by Vygotsky and others in the cultural-historical tradition (see, e.g., Cole & the Distributed Literacy Consortium, 2006). The discussion centers on intergenerational interaction between a child and undergraduate as they engage in activities that represent two varieties of the imaginary situation proposed by Vygotsky: Playing a game and orienting to the “mythical figurehead,” a fantasy figure common to all Fifth Dimension sites. Analysis focuses on the interplay of spoken interaction with literacy-based artifacts that mediate the participants' activity and serve as points of departure for imagination-related talk. As the interaction unfolds, child and undergraduate are seen to engage creatively with both game and site rules as they create a collaborative and increasingly complex representation of the mythical figurehead. The participants' engagement with rules, a crucial element in Vygotsky's notion of the imaginary situation, provides the child with multiple opportunities, together with those prompted by the site artifacts, to affect and negotiate the Fifth Dimension experience.

Rationalities of collaboration for language learning in a wiki

AbstractFor language learning, online environments allowing for user generated content are becoming increasingly important since they offer possibilities for learners to elaborate on assignments and projects. This study investigates what wikis can do as a means to enhance group interaction, when students are encouraged to participate in constructing text and exchanging peer response. The research focus is on exploring what interaction unfolds in the wiki and how it promotes language learning, from a sociocultural perspective. This interaction is framed both by affordances in the wiki but also by what is expected from students as language learners in an English for Specific Purposes class environment. The analysis has a multilevel approach, focusing on patterns of interaction and the nature of feedback. The study shows that collaboration becomes specifically interesting from a language learning perspective. In the findings, on the student wiki pages there are numerous contributions relating to both local language and global content. Revising co-constructed text opens up possibilities for the students to evaluate existing contributions and it also provides opportunities for them to suggest constructive changes. In addition, with the environment being web based, we discuss certain benefits arising from the fact that it allows for user-generated content.

Speech and face-to-face communication – An introduction

This issue focuses on face-to-face speech communication. Research works have demonstrated that this communicative situation is essential to language acquisition and development (e.g. naming). Face-to-face communication is in fact much more than speaking and speech is greatly influenced both in substance and content by this essential form of communication. Face-to-face communication is multimodal: interacting involves multimodality and nonverbal communication to a large extent. Speakers not only hear but also see each other producing sounds as well as facial and more generally body gestures. Gaze together with speech contribute to maintain mutual attention and to regulate turn-taking for example. Moreover, speech communication involves not only linguistic but also psychological, affective and social aspects of interaction. Face-to-face communication is situated: the true challenge of spoken communication is to take into account and integrate information not only from the speakers but also from the entire physical environment in which the interaction takes place. The communicative setting, the “task” in which the interlocutors are involved, their respective roles and the environmental conditions of the conversation indeed greatly influence how the spoken interaction unfolds. The present issue aims at synthesizing the most recent developments in this topic considering its various aspects from complementary perspectives: cognitive and neurocognitive (multisensory and perceptuo-motor interactions), linguistic (dialogic face to face interactions), paralinguistic (emotions and affects, turn-taking, mutual attention), computational (animated conversational agents, multimodal interacting communication systems).

Why We Need Interdependence Theory

AbstractThe exceptional sociability of human life colors nearly every phenomenon in the social and behavioral sciences. However, most psychological theories continue to adopt a within‐person perspective, analyzing human behavior by reference to individual‐level biological processes, personal dispositions, or cognitive experiences. Interdependence theory is an important antidote to this actor‐focused bias. Interdependence theory identifies the most important characteristics of interpersonal situations via a comprehensive analysis of situation structure and describes the implications of structure for understanding intrapersonal and interpersonal processes. Situation structure matters because it is the interpersonal reality within which motives are activated, toward which cognition is oriented and around which interaction unfolds. This paper describes key principles of interdependence structure and processes, and illustrates the utility of an interdependence theoretic analysis via a review of four phenomena – regulatory fit, persistence in the face of dissatisfaction, tit‐for‐tat versus generosity, and the origins and consequences of trust.

Group Therapy, Abstinence, Harm Reduction

Abstract The harm reduction paradigm has been proposed as a beneficial therapeutic alternative for substance dependent individuals who cannot or do not readily achieve abstinence. A brief discussions is presented on how this alternative has fostered another unproductive polarized controversy in the addiction field. The author presents a group vignette in which an open and honest interaction unfolds among the members about the advantages and possible problems of both the harm reduction and abstinence models. A case is made of the need for alternatives to abstinence, such as harm reduction, when patients cannot or do not adopt it, especially early in recovery.

Ambiguity in the Mathematics Classroom

Mathematics is commonly seen as a discipline with no place for linguistic ambiguity. In this paper, the treatment of ambiguity in two data extracts is critically examined. Analysis draws on two contrasting models of the nature of mathematics and mathematical language. The formal model sees meaning as fixed and relating to language relatively unproblematically. The discursive model sees meaning as situated in and by interaction, and so as shifting and changing as interaction unfolds. Analysis of the extract from the National Numeracy Strategy suggests that it is based on the formal model. This analysis is contrasted with analysis of classroom interaction which reveals how, from a discursive perspective, ambiguity can be seen as a resource for doing mathematics and for learning the language of mathematics.

Life disruption and generic complexity: a social linguistic analysis of narratives of cancer illness

This paper draws on social linguistics to inquire into the meaning and function of complexity in illness narratives. According to social linguists, five different story-type genres occur in spoken English. These are illustrated and differentiated using examples drawn from 10 interviews with people who have undergone colectomy for colorectal cancer. In order to test a hypothesis that complexity in illness narratives is related to life disruption, the 10 accounts were ranked in terms of their generic complexity. Measures of life disruption were based on rankings furnished independently by two readers from different disciplines who were blind to the hypothesis being tested. These two rankings showed a high level of agreement ( r s=0.85, p<0.01). When the two life disruption rankings and the generic complexity ranking were compared, a high degree of concordance between the three rankings was observed ( W = 0.91, p<0.01). No evidence was found of associations between generic complexity and gender, interviewer, surgical outcome in terms of stoma ( p>0.05), age ( p>0.7) nor time since diagnosis ( p>0.1). We conclude that in this study, generic complexity was strongly and significantly related to life disruption. To explain the function of complexity in interaction, we characterise the illness narrative as a genre in its own right, and argue that illness narratives need to be considered both in terms of the work they do both on the listener and for the narrator. In the former case, complexity opens up a discursive space for the dynamic positioning of the interlocutor. In the latter case, we propose that complexity reflects the degree to which the process of re-ordering life by assigning meaning is occurring as the interaction unfolds. In both cases, complex narratives can thus be understood as “hard working” narratives.

Embarrassability and self-construal: A theoretical integration

Abstract This study investigates embarrassability and its association to three individual difference variables: 1. (1) social anxiety, 2. (2) a person's interdependent self-construal (i.e. interconnectedness), and 3. (3) independent self-construal (i.e. bounded, separateness). Previous theories of embarrassment are integrated in relating these individual differences to the process of embarrassment and individual level embarrassability. It is suggested that embarrassment can be traced to three factors: 1. (1) the strength of one's idealized role-identity (as bounded and separate) going into the interaction, 2. (2) the sensitivity to others' evaluations as the interaction unfolds, and 3. (3) the degree to which one's identity is entwined with and dependent on others. Three-hundred and seventy-one students, representing diverse ethnic and cultural backgrounds, composed the sample. Even after accounting for the effects of social anxiety, the strength of a person's independent self-construal is negatively associated with embarrassability. Beyond those effects, the strength of the interdependent self-construal is positively related to embarrassability. These findings support the hypothesized model and contribute to the criticism that the previous western conceptualization of embarrassability is ethnocentric and restricts the construct. Implications and directions for future research are provided.

Contextualization cues in the classroom: Discourse regulation and social control functions

ABSTRACTUnder certain circumstances, contextualization cues become powerful means of achieving social order. The social organization of a daily group meeting in an American primary grade classroom is closely examined. Participants recurrently generate certain contexts within the meeting in varying sequence from day to day. Transitions from one to another regularly occur smoothly and unremarkably as interaction unfolds. On some occasions, however, this does not happen. Order breaks down, and the teacher and students implicitly negotiate what the context will be. On the surface, these contrasting patterns seem to arise unpredictably as students choose either to “behave” or “misbehave.” That is how the teacher accounts for them. Nevertheless, a closer analysis shows that they are explainable with reference to some subtle contextualization cues that the teacher, without being consciously aware of it, routinely provides but occasionally omits at context boundaries. Students routinely act on the presence and absence of these cues, which thus become a tacit, jointly constructed means of discourse regulation and social control. Their inadvertant “omission” becomes a recurrent source of interactional trouble. (Context, contextualization cues, classroom discourse, ethnography of speaking)