Context Of Social Communication Research Articles

Social Communication Impairs Working-Memory Performance

Performance on working-memory tests is frequently used in experimental psychology and neuroscience, as well as in neuropsychological testing and clinical screening. It can be strongly affected by the social context and the communication style of the experimenter. We tested this hypothesis in two experiments, examining standardized neuropsychological working-memory tests in different social communication contexts. Our results show that the more ostensive communication context (eye contact, exaggerated intonation contours) impairs working-memory performance. These results draw attention to the fact that the communication style of the examiner could have a robust effect on working-memory performance and could even modify clinical diagnosis.

How children with autism extend new words.

How do children with autism spectrum disorders (ASD) extend a noun to the category of objects it labels? Given their tendency to perceive locally, their extensions might be too narrow. Given their social-communicative deficits and a context in which the knowledge of a social-communicative partner promotes narrow extensions, their extensions might be too broad. We tested these predictions by comparing 25 high-functioning school-aged children with ASD to 29 age-matched peers with typical development (TD) in a task that required extraction of commonalities of object referents and use of social-communicative context to support the category inference. The children with ASD readily extended a given noun to multiple exemplars, thereby demonstrating tacit knowledge that words label categories and the ability to override local perceptual biases they might have. However, unlike their peers with TD, those who had concomitant weaknesses in semantic and syntactic language ability formed broad categories when their social partner's behavior suggested narrow categories. Some, but not all, people with ASD fail to use social context to support inferences about word extension. The direction of any causal relationship between failure to use social contextual cues and language deficits awaits determination.

Situating Learning for Digital Inclusion in the Social Context of Communities

An approach to digital and social inclusion has been developed which situates learning for digital inclusion in the social context of communities. The approach follows views of learning that emphasise the role of the context in learning and the importance of learning in authentic situations. While digital inclusion programs tend to focus more on teaching people how to use computers and the internet, the approach presented takes a different perspective, in which learning for digital inclusion is situated in the social context of the learners and is based on authentic activities. The approach is being applied in Brazilian rural communities.

The Influence of the Different Thinking Pattern between Chinese and English on English Writing

Nowadays, people in the world communicate with each other more frequently. Whatever the oral or written form, the culture, especially the thinking pattern, has an obvious effect on the communication. The discourse just reflects this affection. Its form represents the social context of communication. On one hand, people with different cultural background use different discourse. On the other hand, different discourses construe different experience and communication. When we learn a new language, our native language always influences us. Our thinking patterns are conventional. Thus it proposes a new problem to our language teaching – how to write a perfect English composition? According to the study, the differences of the discourse organization between Chinese and American students are obvious. The compositions of American students are smooth and consistent while the ones of Chinese students are a little loose and dull. It is important to improve the ability of cross–cultural communication and the awareness. The students should know clearly that the negative–transfer of our mother tongue. Meanwhile, the discourse analytic approach is a good method applied in the English teaching. It can improve the students’ ability to analyze the discourse, arrange the sentences and understand the discourse from the entirety.

Japanese and American Children's Reasoning about Accepting Credit for Prosocial Behavior

Children's reasoning about the appropriateness of accepting credit for one's own prosocial behavior was examined. Participants aged 7 to 11 years old in Japan and the United States (total N = 206) were presented with a series of stories in which a protagonist performs a good deed and is asked about it by another character. Across stories, the protagonist either truthfully acknowledges the deed or falsely denies it, in a statement that is made either in public or in private, and is addressed to either a teacher or to a peer. As predicted, Japanese children judged protagonists less favorably when they acknowledged the good deed in public rather than in private. Further, Japanese children tended to view modest lies more favorably overall than did children in the U.S. These results point to the importance of modesty in Japan and to the ways in which Japanese children take into account the social context of communication when deciding whether it is appropriate for individuals to convey information about themselves.

The impact of object and gesture imitation training on language use in children with autism spectrum disorder.

Reciprocal imitation training (RIT) is a naturalistic behavioral intervention that teaches imitation to children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) within a social-communicative context. RIT has been shown to be effective at teaching spontaneous, generalized object and gesture imitation. In addition, improvements in imitation are associated with increases in verbal imitation and spontaneous language. This study used a modified multiple-baseline design across 4 children to examine whether adding gesture imitation training improves the overall rate of appropriate language use in children with ASD who have already been participating in object imitation training. Three of the 4 children showed greater improvements in their use of appropriate language after gesture imitation was begun. Further, the children were more likely to use verbal imitation during gesture imitation training than during object imitation training. These findings suggest that adding gesture imitation training to object imitation training can lead to greater gains in rate of language use than object imitation alone. Implications for both language development and early intervention are discussed.

Topic generation in aphasia language therapy sessions: Issues of identity

Background: Aphasia language therapy sessions have a general “order of phases” and usually open with a period of casual conversation. It has been noted that the overall structure of participation in therapy, characterised by therapist control, is anticipated in this opening phase. The detailed mechanisms through which control is achieved and sustained have not been fully examined. The processes through which these mechanisms operate and their relationship with participant roles and identities appear to be especially relevant for study if the overall goal of aphasia therapy is to address life participation and the social context of communication (e.g., Shadden & Agan, 2004). Aims: The concern of this paper is to examine in detail some of the mechanisms through which professional control is achieved and sustained, with a particular focus on ways in which speech and language therapists and people with aphasia work at generating and maintaining the topics that are observed to develop in the opening phase of aphasia language therapy sessions. In addition, there is a specific interest in how, in certain instances, the activity of topic generation and maintenance may be shown to relate to the participants' identities as “professional” and “patient”. Methods & Procedures: The paper focuses on analysis of data from the opening phase of five sessions, one each from three therapist/person with aphasia dyads, and two from separate sessions of a fourth dyad. Data from these sessions are taken from a larger study of aphasia language therapy in day‐to‐day practice. The turn‐by‐turn process of topic generation is examined in detail using techniques from Conversation Analysis in conjunction with a consideration of “membership categorisation” and “category‐bounded activities”. Outcomes & Results: Close examination of the process of topic generation and maintenance in five sessions from four different dyads revealed how therapists selected certain topics for topicalisation and rejected others. Selected topics were related to activities closely tied to the person with aphasia's identity as a person with communication impairment. In so doing the therapists established a particular type of therapeutic identity for themselves. Conclusions: Managing the person with aphasia's identity by addressing communication activities that are bound to the aphasic impairment and rejecting other types may, perversely, hamper a speech and language therapist's understanding of that person with aphasia's communicative competence, including broader issues that may be germane to intervention. Understanding and recognising where control resides and through which mechanisms it operates is of potential benefit to therapists and people with aphasia alike—for example, enabling more focused and realistic goal setting or more accurate insights into the impact of aphasia, and aphasia language therapy on everyday social participation. The challenge for therapists and for people with aphasia is to be able to shift roles appropriately and act as equals in the enterprise of therapy.

When Do We Communicate Stereotypes? Influence of the Social Context on the Linguistic Expectancy Bias

The linguistic expectancy bias (LEB) refers to the tendency to describe expectancy consistent information at a higher level of linguistic abstraction than expectancy inconsistent information. Two experiments examined the influence of the social communicative context on the production of this linguistic bias by manipulating the group membership of the actor in, and the recipient of, stereotypical information. Results supported the prediction that an LEB effect based on stereotypes is especially pronounced in an intergroup social communicative context in which either the actor in or the recipient of the stereotypical information is an outgroup member.

Plurietnias: situações enunciativas sócio-culturais e

This study approaches the notion of enunciation and cross-cultural hybridism in researches related to complex relations of verbal communication (speaking and writing) when linguistic psycho-socio-cultural transference by the user in communicative interactions of plural-ethnic communities occurs. Multilingual discourses as speaking enunciations do not appear by magic, but they are produced and used by the speakers in specific situations of communicative interaction of one or more linguistic codes in a social context of communities of languages that are in touch. By interacting with someone, the speaker makes an effort to use sociocultural and pragmatic enunciation when narrating, stating or warning the interlocutor about a particular act or thing. Based on that, code switching and oral dialectal features will be shown, transferred to the writing productions institutionalized in users of immigrant communities and their descendants in the farther east of the state of Parana.

Causes and consequences of song amplitude adjustment in a territorial bird: a case study in nightingales.

Vocal amplitude, one of the crucial factors for the exchange of acoustic signals, has been neglected in studies of animal communication, but recent studies on song variation in Common Nightingales Luscinia megarhynchos have revealed new insights into its importance in the singing behavior of territorial birds. In nightingales song amplitude is not maximized per se, but is individually regulated according to the level of masking background noise. Also, birds adjust their vocal intensity according to social variables, as in male-male interactions. Moreover, during such interactions, males exploited the directionality of their songs to broadcast them in the direction of the intended receivers ensuring the most effective signal transmission. Studies of the development of this typical long-range signaling suggest that sound level is highly interrelated with overall developmental progression and learning, and thus should be viewed as an integral part of song ontogeny. I conclude that song amplitude is a dynamic feature of the avian signal system, which is individually regulated according to the ecological demands of signal transmission and the social context of communication.

Community as Interpretive Community: Rethinking the Journalist-Source Relationship

In this essay we consider the relationship between journalists and news sources within the social context of communities and their newspapers. We portray these groups as interpretive communities, where shared meanings develop through on-going social interaction. We draw on literature related to news making, news sources, and community pluralism, concluding that the relationship between journalists and news sources is shaped by the preferred meanings of a community's interpretive groups, including journalists and their news organizations. We apply examples from interviews with journalists and news sources to illustrate and contextualize the discussion.

Dil worth B.Parkinson: Constructing the Social Context of Communication. Terms of Address in Egyptian Arabic. Contributions to the Sociology of Language, 41. Joshua A. Fishman, ed. Berlin 1985. Mouton de Gryter. X + 239 S.

Dil worth B.Parkinson: Constructing the Social Context of Communication. Terms of Address in Egyptian Arabic. Contributions to the Sociology of Language, 41. Joshua A. Fishman, ed. Berlin 1985. Mouton de Gryter. X + 239 S.

An Audience Effect on Smile Production in 10-Month-Old Infants

This report presents evidence that smile production in 10-month-old infants is affected by the presence or absence of an audience for the facial display. The audience effect does not appear to be mediated by emotion. The evidence indicates that the production of facial expressions is at least partly independent of emotion and partly dependent on a social-communicative context from a very early age.

Constructing the Social Context of Communication: Terms of Address in Egyptian Arabic. Dilworth P. Parkinson

<i>Constructing the Social Context of Communication: Terms of Address in Egyptian Arabic</i>. Dilworth P. Parkinson

Constructing the social context of communication. Terms of address in Egyptian Arabic. By Dilworth B. Parkinson. (Contributions to the Sociology of Language, 41.) pp. x, 239. Berlin etc., Mouton de Gruyter, 1985. DM 78.

Constructing the social context of communication. Terms of address in Egyptian Arabic. By Dilworth B. Parkinson. (Contributions to the Sociology of Language, 41.) pp. x, 239. Berlin etc., Mouton de Gruyter, 1985. DM 78.