Triadic Interactions Research Articles

Machines in the Triangle: a Pragmatic Interactive Approach to Information

A recurrent theme of human–machine interaction is how interaction is defined and what kind of information is relevant for successful communication. In accordance with the theoretical strategies of social cognition and technical philosophy, we propose a pragmatic interactive approach, to understand the concept of information in human–machine interaction. We start with the investigation of interpersonal interaction and human–machine interaction by concerning triangulation as guiding principle. To illustrate human–machine interaction, we will mainly focus on the interactive relationship between human cognitive skills and their technological environments. In triadic interaction, the concept of information cannot only be understood as a syntactic transformation as in the dyadic relationship. We argue that information as pragmatic action patterns can be understood as physically embodied units that is not purely formal but generated in interactive processes and stabilized in use. By exploring how the concept of affordance is applied in psychology, anthropology and human-centered design, we provide a notion of pragmatic information, focusing on users in the development and use of machines or software systems. The triadic interaction of end user, development team, and product leads to a successful human–machine interaction. This theoretical framework enables us to understand how the new socio-technological environments expand our scope of action and how we form, interpret, and learn to deal with patterns of action among ourselves and with machines.

Embodiment in directive sequences: The case of triadic interactions in a Polish-English bilingual family

Aims: This study provides a multimodal conversation analytic account of directive sequences used in the presence of a child aged 1;8-2;4 growing up in an English-dominant environment and acquiring Polish as a heritage language. Design: The video recorded data are drawn from naturally occurring interactions, in which the child is present when one caregiver produces a directive turn (request, proposal, or suggestion) and another one carries it out in an embodied fashion. Analysis: The analysis focuses on the sequential unfolding of the triadic interactions, the two adults’ and child’s verbal turns, gaze direction, manual actions, and handling of objects. Findings: Although the child is not always verbally active in the directive sequences, she observes them and sometimes takes part, either through bodily actions or verbal utterances. The multimodal analysis also shows that even if the child’s verbal activity might indicate understanding a prior turn and responding to it, the child may not actually be orienting to the conversation. Observing adults carrying out heritage language directive sequences is only possible when the child is interacting with two speakers of her heritage language, or a speaker of that language and a person who has some passive knowledge of it. Seeing adults’ mutual social actions offers the child a social environment, in which she can get a rich linguistic model and also observe the benefits of using the heritage language in everyday interactional situations. Originality: This is the first study to offer a multimodal conversation analysis of directive sequences in which one adult produces the directive and another adult responds to it in the presence of a child acquiring a heritage language.

Portable Joint Attention Skill Training Platform for Children With Autism

Children with autism are characterized by milestones in joint attention (JA) skill. They fail to understand the directional cue issued by a partner (during social communication), which often results in them reciprocating inappropriately and not completing the JA bid successfully. The directional cues can be gaze-pointing, finger-pointing, etc., toward a target object of interest. Here, in this article, we present a TABlet-based Joint Attention Task (TABJAT) platform that can present JA tasks on a tablet with virtual characters (serving the role of JA administrator), delivering prompting cues (e.g., gaze-pointing, finger-pointing, and head orientation) and virtual objects offering sparkling cue. The platform is adaptive to one's JA skill (while autonomously offering JA tasks with gradually decreasing cueing prompt information, i.e., increasing the task difficulty). This can offer an opportunity for a child to interact with the JA tasks by himself/herself (preserving the triadic interaction regime of JA tasks) and learn the skill while being at home and/or school. Results of a study with 18 children with autism indicate the feasibility of TABJAT to be accepted by the target group, and quantify their JA skill in an individualized manner in terms of their task performance while adaptively offering the JA tasks of varying difficulty.

The structure balance of gene-gene networks beyond pairwise interactions.

Despite its high and direct impact on nearly all biological processes, the underlying structure of gene-gene interaction networks is investigated so far according to pair connections. To address this, we explore the gene interaction networks of the yeast Saccharomyces cerevisiae beyond pairwise interaction using the structural balance theory (SBT). Specifically, we ask whether essential and nonessential gene interaction networks are structurally balanced. We study triadic interactions in the weighted signed undirected gene networks and observe that balanced and unbalanced triads are over and underrepresented in both networks, thus beautifully in line with the strong notion of balance. Moreover, we note that the energy distribution of triads is significantly different in both essential and nonessential networks compared to the shuffled networks. Yet, this difference is greater in the essential network regarding the frequency as well as the energy of triads. Additionally, results demonstrate that triads in the essential gene network are more interconnected through sharing common links, while in the nonessential network they tend to be isolated. Last but not least, we investigate the contribution of all-length signed walks and its impact on the degree of balance. Our findings reveal that interestingly when considering longer cycles, not only, both essential and nonessential gene networks are more balanced compared to their corresponding shuffled networks, but also, the nonessential gene network is more balanced compared to the essential network.

Fathers' Sensitivity in Infancy and Externalizing Problems in Middle Childhood: The Role of Coparenting.

The present study examined the role of father sensitivity and couple coparenting quality in the first 2 years of life in relation to the development of externalizing behavior problems in middle childhood, focusing on the unique role of fathers. In this study, 125 mothers, fathers, and their first-born children were followed from 8 months to age 7 years. Paternal sensitivity was rated when infants were 8 and 24 months old. Fathers were videotaped at home playing, feeding, and changing their 8-month-old infants’ clothes. They also were videotaped in a lab playing with their 24-month-olds and solving a variety of challenging tasks. At 24 months, competitive coparenting was assessed via videotaped triadic family interactions at home in which families participated in a variety of tasks (i.e., clothes change, eating a snack together and solving tasks). Teachers rated externalizing behavior problems when the children were age 7. Continuity in paternal sensitivity was documented from 8 to 24 months, and paternal sensitivity at 8 months predicted externalizing behavior in middle childhood through father sensitivity at 24 months. Moreover, paternal sensitivity at 8 months predicted competitive coparenting which, in turn, forecast externalizing behavior problems in middle childhood, even after controlling for maternal sensitivity at 8 and 24 months. These findings highlight the unique role of paternal caregiving quality during the first year of life on couple coparenting and children’s subsequent development of externalizing problems and have implications for creating effective interventions to prevent children from developing externalizing disorders.

Subjective experiences of the first response to mental health crises in the community: a qualitative systematic review

ObjectiveTo review and synthesise qualitative studies that have explored subjective experiences of people with lived experience of mental health-related illness/crisis (MHC), their families and first responders.DesignA systematic review of qualitative...

Let the Kid Speak: Dynamics of Triadic Medical Interactions Involving Pediatric Patients

ABSTRACT Communication in healthcare represents the complex interplay between multiple individual and contextual factors unfolding over the course of the medical encounter. Despite significant improvements in patient-centered care delivery, studies of health communication typically focus exclusively on clinical interactions between adult patients and their clinicians. Much less is known about non-dyadic interactions, such as pediatric triads involving a child patient and accompanying parent. Understanding the dynamics of triadic pediatric healthcare communication is the first step toward evaluating and ultimately optimizing these healthcare interactions. Thus, we undertook a mixed-method analysis of 28 audio-recorded triadic medical interactions between healthcare providers, pediatric asthma and allergy patients, and their parents to explore the prevalence of various features of these interactions. Our findings point to mechanisms through which healthcare providers and parents may facilitate or hinder children’s involvement in their own asthma and allergy care, including interruptions, unclarified technical medical language, the flow of information exchange, and the formation of dyadic conversational partnerships (coalitions) between providers and parents. Our analyses further reveal that children’s participation during their medical visits was minimal (13% of the interaction). Providers in our sample elicited input directly from pediatric patients more often than from parents, though the difference was small. Taken together, these findings provide a foundation on which to develop training and communication interventions to ensure that children have a voice in their medical care.

Immersive Virtual Reality Exergames for Persons Living With Dementia: User-Centered Design Study as a Multistakeholder Team During the COVID-19 Pandemic.

BackgroundAdvancements in supporting personalized health care and well-being using virtual reality (VR) have created opportunities to use immersive games to support a healthy lifestyle for persons living with dementia and mild cognitive impairment (MCI). Collaboratively designing exercise video games (exergames) as a multistakeholder team is fundamental to creating games that are attractive, effective, and accessible.ObjectiveThis research extensively explores the use of human-centered design methods that involve persons living with dementia in long-term care facilitates, exercise professionals, content developers, game designers, and researchers in the creation of VR exergames targeting physical activity promotion for persons living with dementia/MCI.MethodsConceptualization, collaborative design, and playtesting activities were carried out to design VR exergames to engage persons living with dementia in exercises to promote upper limb flexibility, strength, and aerobic endurance. We involved a total of 7 persons living with dementia/MCI, 5 exercise professionals, 5 community-dwelling older adults, a VR company for content creation, and a multidisciplinary research team with game designers, engineers, and kinesiology experts.ResultsAn immersive VR exergame called Seas the Day was jointly designed and developed and it is freely available to be played in state-of-the-art VR headsets (Oculus Quest 1, 2). A model for the triadic interaction (health care institution, industry partner, academia) is also presented to illustrate how different stakeholders contribute to the design of VR exergames that consider/complement complex needs, preferences, and motivators of an underrepresented group of end users.ConclusionsThis study provides evidence that a collaborative multistakeholder design results in more tailored and context-aware VR games for persons living with dementia. The insights and lessons learned from this research can be used by others to co-design games, including remote engagement techniques that were used during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Third-party vocal intervention in the proboscis monkey (Nasalis larvatus)

Vocal intervention is a triadic social interaction, where a third party responds vocally to a conflict between group members, minimizing the costs of aggression in response to the intervention. Because there is little information on vocal third-party intervention in nonhuman mammals, we investigated whether adult male proboscis monkeys use the bray vocalization as a vocal third-party intervention signal to intervene in intragroup conflicts. First, we audio-recorded 1,811 vocalizations from 17 free-ranging proboscis monkey groups in the Lower Kinabatangan Wildlife Sanctuary, analyzing 378 vocal responses of the adult male to agonistic vocal exchanges (shrieks) of group members. Second, we video- and audio-recorded five habituated groups in the Labuk Bay Proboscis Monkey Sanctuary investigating the context of these vocalizations and the conflict dyads evoking vocal support. We found that adult males of one-male/multifemale groups mainly uttered bray vocalizations, whereas females, immatures, and infants uttered shrieks in intragroup conflicts or in response to other animal species. The adult male uttered significantly more often brays after agonistic shrieks than expected based on the overall occurrence of brays. Brays ended 65% of agonistic conflicts, which were accompanied by vocalizations of the conflict partners and occurred more often after conflicts between females than between offspring. This suggests that the bray functions as a vocal third-party intervention signal for intragroup conflict resolution. We suggest that living in the high canopies of the tropical rainforest might restrict direct access to conflict partners and prevent physical intervention, favoring the evolution of the bray as a third-party vocal intervention signal.

Barriers and Best Practices in Disclosing a Dementia Diagnosis: A Clinician Interview Study.

The vast majority of individuals with dementia want to receive a diagnosis. Research suggests, however, that only a fraction of individuals with dementia receive a diagnosis and patients and families often feel the information is poorly explained. We thus aimed to assess clinician-reported barriers to dementia disclosure and recommendations for giving a dementia diagnosis. To accomplish this, we performed telephone interviews with 15 clinicians from different specialties using a semi-structured interview guide. Transcripts were analyzed thematically. Clinician-reported barriers fit 3 categories: patient and caregiver-related barriers, clinician-related barriers, and barriers related to the triadic interaction. Patient and caregiver-related barriers included lack of social support, misunderstanding the diagnosis, and denial. Clinician barriers included difficulty giving bad news, difficulty communicating uncertainty, and lack of time. Triadic interaction barriers included challenges meeting multiple goals or needs and family requests for non-disclosure. Recommendations for best practice included for clinicians to foster relationships, educate patients and family, and take a family-centered approach. Clinicians described recommendations for fostering relationships such as using empathic communication and developing and maintaining connection. Educating patients and families included tailoring communication, explaining how the diagnosis was reached, and following up. Family approaches included meeting with family members prior to delivering the diagnosis and involving the caregiver in the discussion. Findings may inform updated recommendations for best practices when communicating a dementia diagnosis.

A Plausible Explanation of Increased Suicidal Behaviors Among Transgender Youth Based on the Interpersonal Theory of Suicide (IPTS): Case Series and Literature Review.

Growing data on suicidal behavior among members of the lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer, questioning, and other sexual/gender minority (LGBTQ+) communities, particularly in the transgender subgroup, demonstrate that there is a stark elevation in suicidality compared with rates in their cisgender counterparts. Among the available theories of suicide, the interpersonal theory of suicide (IPTS) is a plausible explanation for the increased suicidal behaviors among transgender youths. The objective of this study was to examine the pathologic basis of treatment-resistant suicidality in transgender youth despite favorable environments using the theoretical framework of the IPTS, supported by a literature review and case series. We conducted a literature review using PubMed and PsycInfo with key words suicidal ideation, suicidality, transgender, transgender youth, gender dysphoria, and interpersonal theory of suicide. Seventy-eight articles were retrieved, which were then narrowed down to 30 articles after non-English articles and irrelevant topics were excluded. The clinical presentations of 5 transgender youths, 11 to 17 years of age, were found to be correlated with relevant reports in the research literature, implying a plausible rationale for elevated rates of suicide. All patients and families supplied verbal consent for these case reports to be published. Reasons for suicidal behavior among the patients included thwarted belongingness and perceived burdensomeness leading to perpetual suicidal behavior. The presence in these cases of the following contributing factors in the IPTS-thwarted belongingness, perceived burdensomeness, and acquired capability for suicide-suggests that such a basis exists. Perceived burdensomeness appears to have a greater correlation with developing suicidal behavior than thwarted belongingness alone, but the presence of both demonstrates the highest risk of suicidality in transgender youth. Transgender children and adolescents are at extremely high risk of suicidal behavior, but little research has been devoted to the etiology and plausible explanations for this elevated risk, despite growing awareness of and support for the problem. This review suggests further research is required on the triadic factor interactions of the IPTS model that could help us to better understand and intervene with this high-risk population.

Requirement to change of functional brain network across the lifespan.

Many studies have focused on neural changes and neuroplasticity, while the signaling demand for neural modification needs to be explored. In this study, we traced this issue in the organization of brain functional links where the conflictual arrangement of signed links makes a request to change. We introduced the number of frustrations (unsatisfied closed triadic interactions) as a measure for assessing "requirement to change" of functional brain network. We revealed that the requirement to change of the resting-state network has a u-shape functionality over the lifespan with a minimum in early adulthood, and it’s correlated with the presence of negative links. Also, we discovered that brain negative subnetwork has a special topology with a log-normal degree distribution in all stages, however, its global measures are altered by adulthood. Our results highlight the study of collective behavior of functional negative links as the source of the brain’s between-regions conflicts and we propose exploring the attribute of the requirement to change besides other neural change factors.

Infant attachment configurations with mothers and fathers: Implications for triadic interaction quality and children's parental preferences

Positive and cohesive mother-father-child triadic interactions have substantial benefits for socio-emotional growth in early childhood. Nonetheless, the joint contributions of infant-mother and infant-father attachment relationships to triadic interaction quality are not well understood. The present study examined associations between attachment configurations with mother and father in infancy (i.e., double secure, double insecure, or discordant) and observed triadic interaction quality in early childhood, as well as the possible mediating role of children's preferences for one parent over the other during the triadic interaction. Infant-mother and infant-father attachment quality were assessed in laboratory procedures at one year of age in a predominantly White and middle-class sample (N = 67) of American families. Triadic family interaction quality and children's parental preferences were assessed from semi-structured observations at age 3. Results indicated that double secure families exhibited significantly better triadic interaction quality than both double insecure and discordant families, with no differences between the latter two groups. Children in discordant families were disproportionately likely to show a preference for one parent over the other. In turn, stronger parental preferences were related to less cohesive, less affectively positive, and more disengaged triadic interactions, and mediated links from attachment discordance to both lower cohesiveness and greater disengagement. Findings speak to the importance of incorporating observational assessments of dyadic and triadic family interactions involving both mothers and fathers to elucidate family system influences on early development.

Parent child directed speech in dyadic and triadic interaction: Associations with co-parenting dynamics and child language outcomes

This observational study compares the child directed speech (CDS) of mothers and fathers to toddlers in the context of dyadic and triadic interaction. Further the influence of observed co-parenting dynamics on parental triadic speech and associations with child language are explored. Seventy-three toddlers (M = 24.1 months, SD=1.37; 37 girls) and their parents were recorded in dyadic and triadic free play in a laboratory setting. All speech from the interactions was transcribed and analyzed for quantitative and qualitative features. Child language ability was measured using the Bayley Scales. Videos of triadic interactions were coded for co-parenting quality. Only fathers’ dyadic CDS was associated with child language in dyadic interaction. No aspect of mothers’ dyadic CDS or of mothers’ or fathers’ CDS in triadic interaction was associated with child language in interaction. Fathers’, but not mothers’, vocabulary in triadic interaction was associated with supportive co-parenting. Fathers may be more influenced by co-parenting dynamics than mothers. Triadic interaction may facilitate different aspects of child language development.

Triadic Interaction and Collective Bargaining of Autoworkers in South China

ABSTRACT A study of autoworkers in Guangzhou, China found that Chinese workers successfully negotiated wages through collective bargaining. The emergence of collective bargaining comes from the triadic interaction among three conflicting agents: workers, local state and employers. The intention of the local state to shift labor-intensive industries towards more value-added industries and the tendency of the local police to avoid the use of violence have contributed to more political opportunities for the workers. To improve their own position and control labor unrest, regional unions form a vertical coalition with workers while autoworkers invoke their workplace bargaining power by engaging in strikes. At the same time, workers develop low risk strike strategies to reduce potential state suppression and employ anti-Japanese rhetoric to reduce pressure from management.

Qualitative Study on the Toxic Triangle Integration of Leadership Ostracism.

Leadership ostracism widely exists in all types of organizations, yet specific study regarding this trend is limited. With this study, we explore the influencing mechanisms of leadership ostracism through case interview based on literature analysis and grounded theory. Results show that leadership ostracism is the integration of a triadic interaction process between subordinate performance, leadership characteristics, and organizational environment. Based on Padilla's destructive leadership toxic triangle model, we constructed a toxic triangle model of leadership ostracism. Through comparison, we found that these two triad models overlap in the areas of narcissism and power consciousness of supervisors, the self-concept of subordinates, and the management system of situational factors, indicating that leadership ostracism is itself a type of destructive leadership. In addition, the uniqueness, and differences in leadership ostracism are reflected in the model, including stereotypes, and results orientation of supervisors, political skills, job performance, and cognitive style of subordinates, the power distance, Chaxu climate, and organizational politics of the situational elements. Theoretical and practical implications are discussed in the research field that provides prospects for future orientation.

Paternal biopsychosocial resilience in triadic interactions among African American/Black families exposed to trauma and socioeconomic adversity.

Fathers have a distinct and unique effect on child development, but little is known about fathering beyond White or majority White families. The current study includes African American/Black biological fathers (N=88) and their two-year-old children. Fathers reported low incomes and high rates of depression and posttraumatic stress disorder(PTSD).Parenting behaviors wereobservedin high-stress and low-stresstriadiccontexts.In the high-stress condition,we assessedpaternal responses to children's bids after the family was reunited following a separation paradigm. In the low-stress condition, we assessedparenting behaviors during a teaching task. Fathers' social baseline respiratory sinus arrhythmia (RSA)wasobtainedas an indexof parasympathetic arousal. RSA moderated the association between PTSD and fathers' responsiveness (F=6.90, p=.00, R2 =.30), with no association between PTSD and responsiveness demonstrated among fathers with the highest levels of RSA relative to the sample (effect=.04, p=.00; CI [0.02, 0.06]). RSA did not moderate the association between paternal depression and parenting behaviors (p>.05).Furthermore, responsiveness was only significantly associated with low-stress paternal teaching behaviors for fathers with lower RSA (F=4.34, p=.01, R2 =.21; effect=-.19, p=.00; CI [0.06, 0.32]).Findings demonstrate significant relationships among RSA, PTSD, and parenting for African American/Black men in contexts of economic adversity.

Three-dimensionality of the triadic resonance instability of a plane inertial wave

In rotating flows dominated by inertial waves, triadic resonant interactions, and among them the triadic resonance instability, are the elementary bricks of the energy transfers between spatial scales. We demonstrate theoretically and experimentally that the triadic resonance instability of a plane inertial wave is a three-dimensional process, very efficient at redistributing the energy in the plane normal to rotation. A remarkable consequence of this result is that a turbulent sea of weakly nonlinear inertial waves will have a strong tendency to reach statistical axisymmetry.

Understanding Tourist Citizenship Behavioral Intentions: The Role of Social Interactions and Brand Perceptions

ABSTRACT This study integrates tourists’ social interaction quality and experience with a casino brand to examine changes of tourist citizenship behavioral intentions between pre- and post-casino trips. A two-stage sampling method was deployed with data driven in the casino industry: a random sampling approach to select casino properties followed by a quota sampling approach to respondent selection. It advances the casino tourism literature by delineating that brand experience and attachment partially mediate the relationships leading from a triadic social interaction process to changes in casino tourists’ citizenship behavioral intentions. Moreover, branded casinos relish a greater change in such intentions, as casino tourists may feel the urge to reciprocate the tourist resources geared toward them and associate themselves with these brands.

Misunderstandings in ART Triadic Interactions: A Qualitative Comparison of First and Follow-Up Visits.

BackgroundMisunderstandings in medical interactions can compromise the quality of communication and affect self-management, especially in complex interactions like those in the assisted reproductive technology (ART) field. This study aimed to detect and describe misunderstandings in ART triadic visits. We compared first and follow-up visits for frequency, type, speakers, and topics leading to misunderstandings.MethodsWe purposively sampled 20 triadic interactions from a corpus of 85 visits. We used a previously developed coding scheme to detect different types of misunderstandings (i.e., with strong, acceptable, and weak evidence). We analyzed also the different topics leading to strong misunderstandings (direct expressions of lack of understanding, pragmatic alternative understandings, semantic alternative understandings) to provide insights about the contents of the consultation that may need particular attention and care.FindingsWe detected an overall number of 1078 misunderstandings in the 20 selected visits. First visits contained almost two-third of the misunderstandings (n = 680, 63%). First visits were particularly rich in misunderstandings with acceptable evidence (e.g., clarifications and checks for understanding), compared to follow-up visits. In first visits, doctors’ turns more frequently than couples’ turns contained misunderstandings, while in follow-up visits it was the other way around. Looking at the couple, the majority of the misunderstandings were expressed by the woman (n = 241, 22%) rather than by the man (n = 194, 18%). However, when weighting for their number of turns, 9% of the men’s turns included an expression of misunderstanding, compared to the 7% of the women’s turns. Finally, more than half of the misunderstandings with strong evidence were about history-taking and treatment-related topics, and while the history-taking ones were particularly frequent in first visits the treatment-related ones were more present in follow-up visits.DiscussionFindings indicate that first visits may deserve particular attention to avoid misunderstandings, as they are the moment where a shared understanding can be harder to reach. In particular, misunderstandings happening in first visits seem mostly related to physicians having to reconstruct the clinical history of patients, while those in the follow-up visits seem to reflect residual and unsolved doubts from the couple, especially concerning treatments.