Verbal Signals Research Articles

Culturally-Situated Emoji as a Non-verbal Communication Created for Naxi Community, Lijiang, China

The Naxi ethnic group is one of the ancient ethnic groups in China with the richest cultural legacy, comparatively the most distinctive cultures, and comparatively the most endangered cultural characteristics. Although there are many culturally distinctive aspects of the Naxi community, most of them are at risk of Sinicization and are currently on the edge of extinction. According to Palmer (1989), the meta-communicative value of non-verbal cues is higher than verbal cues in receiving information during conversation. As for efficiency, non-verbal signals amount to a more effective way of communicating than verbal signals. Accordingly, emojis as non-verbal signals on the Internet have been dramatically popular globally. This study aims to progressively figure out the situation of usage of non-verbal communication within the Naxi community, the habits of members within the Naxi community use emoji to interact online, the reason why creating a new set of emoji for the Naxi community is of great significance based on semi-structured interviews. In this study, exclusive emoji designs for the Naxi community are initially developed. The pictorial properties of emoji can facilitate the acquisition of more Naxi cultural knowledge by the general public, regardless of whether they are in-group or out-group members. In addition to its extraordinary disseminating capacity, akin to a swift vehicle, the Naxi culture can go viral on a global scale. This is the first study on the emoji designed for Naxi culture that contains culturally specific elements such as the Dongba Funerary Scroll, featured costumes for women, etc.

Normoacusia y discriminación verbal en entornos sonoros reales

IntroductionHuman beings are constantly exposed to complex acoustic environments every day, which even pose challenges for individuals with normal hearing. Speech perception relies not only on fixed elements within the acoustic wave but is also influenced by various factors. These factors include speech intensity, environmental noise, the presence of other speakers, individual specific characteristics, spatial separatios of sound sources, ambient reverberation, and audiovisual cues. The objective of this study is twofold: to determine the auditory capacity of normal hearing individuals to discriminate spoken words in real-life acoustic conditions and perform a phonetic analysis of misunderstood spoken words. Materials and methodsThis is a descriptive observational cross-sectional study involving 20 normal hearing individuals. Verbal audiometry was conducted in an open-field environment, with sounds masked by simulated real-word acoustic environment at various sound intensity levels. To enhance sound emission, 2D visual images related to the sounds were displayed on a television. We analyzed the percentage of correct answers and performed a phonetic analysis of misunderstood spanish bisyllabic words in each environment. Results14 women (70%) and 6 men (30%), with an average age of 26±5,4 years and a mean airway hearing threshold in the right ear of 10,56±3,52dB SPL and in the left ear of 10,12±2,49dB SPL. The percentage of verbal discrimination in the ‘Ocean’ sound environment was 97,2±5,04%, ‘Restaurant’ was 94±4,58%, and ‘Traffic’ was 86,2±9,94% (p=0,000). Regarding the phonetic analysis, the allophones that exhibited statistically significant differences were as follows: [o] (p=0,002) within the group of vocalic phonemes, [n] (p=0,000) of voiced nasal consonants, [ɾ] (p=0,0016) of voiced fricatives, [b] (p=0,000) and [g] (p=0,045) of voiced stops. ConclusionsThe dynamic properties of the acoustic environment can impact the ability of a normal hearing individual to extract information from a voice signal. Our study demonstrates that this ability decreases when the voice signal is masked by one or more simultaneous interfering voices, as observed in a ‘Restaurant’ environment, and when it is masked by a continuous and intense noise environment such as ‘Traffic’. Regarding the phonetic analysis, when the sound environment was composed of continuous-low frequency noise, we found that nasal consonants were particularly challenging to identify. Furthermore, in situations with distracting verbal signals, vowels and vibrating consonants exhibited the worst intelligibility.

Normal hearing and verbal discrimination in real sounds environments

IntroductionHuman beings are constantly exposed to complex acoustic environments every day, which even pose challenges for individuals with normal hearing. Speech perception relies not only on fixed elements within the acoustic wave but is also influenced by various factors. These factors include speech intensity, environmental noise, the presence of other speakers, individual specific characteristics, spatial separatios of sound sources, ambient reverberation, and audiovisual cues. The objective of this study is twofold: to determine the auditory capacity of normal hearing individuals to discriminate spoken words in real-life acoustic conditions and perform a phonetic analysis of misunderstood spoken words. Materials and methodsThis is a descriptive observational cross-sectional study involving 20 normal hearing individuals. Verbal audiometry was conducted in an open-field environment, with sounds masked by simulated real-word acoustic environment at various sound intensity levels. To enhance sound emission, 2D visual images related to the sounds were displayed on a television. We analyzed the percentage of correct answers and performed a phonetic analysis of misunderstood Spanish bisyllabic words in each environment. Results14 women (70%) and 6 men (30%), with an average age of 26 ± 5,4 years and a mean airway hearing threshold in the right ear of 10,56 ± 3,52 dB SPL and in the left ear of 10,12 ± 2,49 dB SPL. The percentage of verbal discrimination in the “Ocean” sound environment was 97,2 ± 5,04%, “Restaurant” was 94 ± 4,58%, and “Traffic” was 86,2 ± 9,94% (p = 0,000). Regarding the phonetic analysis, the allophones that exhibited statistically significant differences were as follows: [o] (p = 0,002) within the group of vocalic phonemes, [n] (p = 0,000) of voiced nasal consonants, [r] (p = 0,0016) of voiced fricatives, [b] (p = 0,000) and [g] (p = 0,045) of voiced stops. ConclusionThe dynamic properties of the acoustic environment can impact the ability of a normal hearing individual to extract information from a voice signal. Our study demonstrates that this ability decreases when the voice signal is masked by one or more simultaneous interfering voices, as observed in a “Restaurant” environment, and when it is masked by a continuous and intense noise environment such as “Traffic”. Regarding the phonetic analysis, when the sound environment was composed of continuous-low frequency noise, we found that nasal consonants were particularly challenging to identify. Furthermore in situations with distracting verbal signals, vowels and vibrating consonants exhibited the worst intelligibility.

A Multiscale View of Verbal Behavior

AbstractIn order to introduce a new way of understanding human speech, the article connects two independent lines of Skinner’s research: his work on verbal behavior and on connecting behavior analysis to evolution. The article discusses an empirical study as an example motivated by this connection. Similar to biologists’ suggestion that natural selection can operate on multiple nested levels, Baum (The Behavior Analyst, 36(2), 283–293, 2013) argues that operant behavior is best understood in terms of nested units. Because verbal behavior is operant behavior, Baum’s view should apply to verbal behavior. We conducted the first experiment designed to explore empirical implications of applying this framework. Six pairs of native Norwegian speaking participants communicated verbally while solving a puzzle task together. We investigated if verbal signals occurred to aid navigation between nested levels of the task. 25,191 words were transcribed, revealing that “Ok” was most frequently spoken at the start of the whole activity with a decreasing trend when starting the description of lower-level units, whereas “Også” / “Og så” (“and” / “and well”) became more frequent as the level of activity decreased. “Ja” (“yes”) most frequently concluded all activity levels. These findings can benefit future studies aiming at experimentally manipulating the verbal stimuli found to guide movement between activity levels. The conceptual argument and empirical example are spelled out to inspire further refinements of the connection between verbal behavior and evolution.

Concurrent activation potentiation improves lower-limb maximal strength but not dynamic balance control in rugby players.

Concurrent activation potentiation (CAP) increases athletic performance by activating muscles not involved in the performed activity. Among the CAP strategies, jaw clenching is the most practical to implement in sports contexts. Muscle strength and balance control are essential among rugby players to cope tackles. Besides combat sports, mouthguard has become mandatory also in rugby. Therefore, this study aimed to understand whether mouthguard jaw-clenching could improve rugby players' dynamic balance and quadriceps isometric strength. Thirteen rugby players were tested under maximal-bite (MB) and no-bite (NB) conditions. During standing balance tests, an electro-actuated platform with a force plate screwed on it allowed for the perturbation of the support base of the rugby players. A verbal signal warned the subject that the perturbation was coming, mentally recalling an in-field expected collision. In the first 2.5s window after the perturbation, the center of pressure (CoP) displacement and mean velocity were measured. The first peak, the maximal oscillations, and the standard deviation of the anterior-posterior CoP trajectory were calculated within the same time window. In the isometric leg-extension test, a custom-built chair instrumented with a uni-axial load cell allowed to collect the maximal strength and rate of force development (RFD). Mouthguard jaw-clenching did not affect CoP-related parameters but increased maximal strength (p < 0.05) and RFD (0-50ms: p < 0.01; 50-100ms: p < 0.001; 100-150ms: p < 0.05) in the isometric leg-extension test. Mouthguard jaw-clenching alone could be useful to increase lower-limb maximal isometric strength and RFD but did not improve dynamic balance performance in a sport-oriented postural balance test.

Speakers Raise Their Hands and Head During Self-Repairs in Dyadic Conversations

People often encounter difficulties in building shared understanding during everyday conversation. The most common symptom of these difficulties are self-repairs, when a speaker restarts, edits or amends their utterances mid-turn. Previous work has focused on the verbal signals of self-repair, i.e. speech disfluences (filled pauses, truncated words and phrases, word substitutions or reformulations), and computational tools now exist that can automatically detect these verbal phenomena. However, face-to-face conversation also exploits rich non-verbal resources and previous research suggests that self-repairs are associated with distinct hand movement patterns. This paper extends those results by exploring head and hand movements of both speakers and listeners using two motion parameters: height (vertical position) and 3D velocity. The results show that speech sequences containing self-repairs are distinguishable from fluent ones: speakers raise their hands and head more (and move more rapidly) during self-repairs. We obtain these results by analysing data from a corpus of 13 unscripted dialogues, and we discuss how these findings could support the creation of improved cognitive artificial systems for natural human-machine and human-robot interaction.

Do words make any difference? Studying the role of verbal signals in the communication of emotions

Do words make any difference? Studying the role of verbal signals in the communication of emotions

Self-Regulatory Metacognitive Skill Use in Elementary Students During Computer and Paper Reading Assignments: A Qualitative Study

Self-regulated learning (SRL) and metacognitive processes are important in education because they contribute to effective learning and improved academic performance. Metacognitive SRL may be facilitated by the implementation of computer technology. This qualitative study examined the presence and use of metacognitive SLR processes among elementary school students as they completed computer- and paper-based reading assignments. Students in two after-school programs were recruited from a public school district in a southeastern region of the United States (U.S.). The participants consisted of 52 elementary students in Grades 2-5. Students participated in two, counterbalanced, conditions that involved computer- and paper-based reading assignments. Observations and semi-structured interviews were conducted. The results indicated that students were more likely to apply metacognitive SRL skills when reading on paper than reading on a computer. Overall, students showed signs of planning more in the paper than in the computer condition but student behaviors and responses differed between grades. Monitoring practices appeared in both the computer- and the paper-based reading assignment, with monitoring connected with background knowledge in Grades 2 and 3 but reading content in Grades 4 and 5. Control processes such as retrying and representing graphically were more common in the computer- than in the paper-based reading across all grades. Students used their score in a reading assignment as an evaluation tool to assess performance in the computer- and paper-based reading condition. These findings suggest that the utilization of prior information, integration of multimedia and verbal signals, and comfort level with the reading medium all influenced students' SRL decision-making.

Socket-residuum coupling integrity affects perception of external stimuli: Effects of altering the transtibial interface using vacuum-assisted suspension.

Relative movement between the socket and residual limb can impair function in prosthesis users. It is plausible that, in addition to its mechanical effect, the integrity of the socket-residuum interface influences the ability of an individual to sense tactile cues through the prosthesis. Vacuum-assisted suspension (VAS) has been shown to reduce relative movement at this interface, providing a means to test this premise. The purpose of this pilot study was to assess the effects of altering socket-residuum interface integrity through the VAS pressure level on the thresholds of perception of an externally applied vibration stimulus. Seven unilateral transtibial prosthesis users participated. Socket-residual limb integrity was altered using the VAS subatmospheric (vacuum) pressure level. Vibration perception tests were conducted at low, mid, and high vacuum levels, targeting 0, 8, and 19 in Hg respectively, and performed in partially loaded and fully loaded conditions. Vibration intensity was increased using a dial until participants delivered a verbal signal indicating it was perceptible, and the nominal intensity was recorded. Intensity thresholds decreased (ie, sensitivity increased) from low to high vacuum settings when fully loaded ( P = 0.008). Differences when partially loaded were nonsignificant and variable across participants. This study provides preliminary evidence that altering the integrity between the socket and residual limb by modifying the vacuum level affects sensation related to the external environment experienced through the prosthesis, although translation of these findings to real-world stimuli remains to be tested.

Títul Automatic Extraction and Discrimination of Vocal Theme Based on Quadratic Wave Equation

Abstract Tune is the essential music component. Melody extraction is a crucial technique in music retrieval. The pitching order of polyphonic music is the main feature of vocal music. This paper presents an improved method of extracting vocal themes based on the quadratic wave equation. This paper presents a new algorithm based on the frequency spectrum characteristics of verbal signals. This method can effectively reduce the amount of computation and shorten the time of the primary melody extraction. This paper proposes a new fundamental frequency recognition model based on BP neural network, which has a good ability for secondary wave transformation. This method can improve the recognition accuracy of the primary melody model while reducing the error of melody location. This can improve the overall vocal music of the leading melody extraction precision. The analysis results of MIR-1K data show that the overall recognition accuracy of the improved theme is 2.13% higher than that of the original method. Compared with the traditional way, the average time of theme extraction is shortened by 0.06 seconds.

Detecting ulterior motives from verbal cues in group deliberations.

Forensic interviewing entails practitioners interviewing suspects to secure valid information and elicit confessions. Such interviews are often conducted in police stations but may also occur in field settings such as border crossings, security checkpoints, bus terminals, and sports venues. Because these real-world interviews often lack experimental control and ground truth, this investigation explored whether results of non-forensic interviews generalize to forensic ones. Organizational espionage was simulated to determine (1) what verbal signals distinguish truth from deception, (2) whether deception in groups aligns with deception in dyads, and (3) whether non-forensic venues can be generalized to forensic ones. Engaging in a mock hiring deliberation, participants (4-5 strangers) reviewed and discussed resumes of potential candidates. Surreptitiously, two group members assigned the role of "organizational spies" attempted to persuade the group to hire an inferior candidate. Each group member presented notes from an interview of "their" candidate, followed by a discussion of all candidates. Spies were to use any means possible, including deception, to persuade others to select their candidate. A financial incentive was offered for having one's candidate chosen. The interview reports and discussions were transcribed and analyzed with SPLICE, an automated text analysis program. Deceivers were perceived as less trustworthy than truth-tellers, especially when the naïve players won but overall, deceivers were difficult for non-spies to detect even though they were seen as less trustworthy than the naïve participants. Deceivers' language was more complex and exhibited an "echoing" strategy of repeating others' opinions. This collusion evolved naturally, without pre-planning. No other verbal differences were evident, which suggests that the difference between spies and non-spies was subtle and difficult for truth-tellers to spot. Whether deception can be successfully detected hinges on a variety of factors including the deceiver's skill to disguise and the detector's ability to sense and process information. Furthermore, the group dynamics and communication context subtly moderate how deception manifests and influence the accuracy of detecting ulterior motives. Our future investigations could encompass non-verbal communication channels and verbal patterns rooted in content, thereby providing a more comprehensive understanding of deception detection.

Effect of Nonverbal Communication in English Classes

This paper has been prepared on the basis of the study to find out the different kinds of nonverbal communications in English classes of secondary level students. It was prepared with the aim of investigating the effect of nonverbal clues of the teachers in teaching English. Forty students of grade ten from four different schools of Butwal Sub-metropolitan city were asked some questions related to the nonverbal communication and nonverbal behaviours of the teachers and their impact on the students specially focusing on the English teachers and their classes. From the data gathered it was found out that the non verbal communication is very common and important in English classes and in many cases it supports the students in getting meanings of different expressions of the teachers and helps them to get motivated in learning English. One thing of caution is that the non verbal behaviours are much culture bound and the teachers need to be aware of the cultural background of the students. The findings and conclusions of this study will help the teachers improve their teaching by being conscious to their non verbal signals while teaching and reacting to the students' behaviours in the class and in the school.

Reduced impact of nonverbal cues during integration of verbal and nonverbal emotional information in adults with high-functioning autism.

When receiving mismatching nonverbal and verbal signals, most people tend to base their judgment regarding the current emotional state of others primarily on nonverbal information. However, individuals with high-functioning autism (HFA) have been described as having difficulties interpreting nonverbal signals. Recognizing emotional states correctly is highly important for successful social interaction. Alterations in perception of nonverbal emotional cues presumably contribute to misunderstanding and impairments in social interactions. To evaluate autism-specific differences in the relative impact of nonverbal and verbal cues, 18 adults with HFA (14 male and four female subjects, mean age 36.7 years (SD 11.4) and 18 age, gender and IQ-matched typically developed controls [14 m/4 f, mean age 36.4 years (SD 12.2)] rated the emotional state of speakers in video sequences with partly mismatching emotional signals. Standardized linear regression coefficients were calculated as a measure of the reliance on the nonverbal and verbal components of the videos for each participant. Regression coefficients were then compared between groups to test the hypothesis that autistic adults base their social evaluations less strongly on nonverbal information. Further exploratory analyses were performed for differences in valence ratings and response times. Compared to the typically developed control group, nonverbal cue reliance was reduced in adults with high-functioning autism [t(23.14) = -2.44, p = 0.01 (one-sided)]. Furthermore, the exploratory analyses showed a tendency to avoid extreme answers in the HFA group, observable via less positive as well as less negative valence ratings in response to emotional expressions of increasingly strong valence. In addition, response time was generally longer in HFA compared to the control group [F (1, 33) = 10.65, p = 0.004]. These findings suggest reduced impact of nonverbal cues and longer processing times in the analysis of multimodal emotional information, which may be associated with a subjectively lower relevance of this information and/or more processing difficulties for people with HFA. The less extreme answering tendency may indicate a lower sensitivity for nonverbal valence expression in HFA or result from a tendency to avoid incorrect answers when confronted with greater uncertainty in interpreting emotional states.

Developing High School Students’ Listening Skills in The Context of Multimodal English Communication by Means of a Moodle-Based Training Program

The purpose of the study is to describe the training program as a technological way to implement the methodology of skills’ formation and development of listening skills in the conditions of English-language multimodal communication at the level of secondary general education based on authentic audio-video materials and LMS Moodle distance learning technology. The relevance of the issue is underlined by the necessity of ensuring successful pupils’ interactions in the context of intercultural multimodal communication where verbal and non-verbal languages are used interdependently to produce meaning. From the point of view of methods of teaching it means a high school student must possess skills allowing to perceive (both aurally and visually) and understand social actions in English which are marked by the communicative indirectness resulted from the interdependency of verbal and non-verbal signals in producing multimodal meaning.Materials and methods. Theoretical justification of the development of the Moodle-based training program is established by the analysis of scientific works on the issue. The group of methods also included modeling, method of exercises, method of programmed learning, micro-learning method, HTML5 technology is used to develop interactive content in the form of a plugin H5P for distance learning technology LMS Moodle, the basic program for editing audio-video materials “Video Editor” (Windows 10).Results. The authors specified the term “audio-visual receptive activity” and described the results of the selection process of the educational content for teaching listening in the context of multimodal communication in English. The matrix of the training program is presented, a set of exercises is described, the use of which is designed to ensure the success of the formation of skills and the development of skills to ensure the effectiveness of perception and understanding in the context of multimodal communication, an example of the development of an interactive audio-visual exercise using basic and additional LMS Moodle plugins is given.Conclusion. The described training program acts as a technological core of a method of teaching listening in the context of multimodal communication in English and is aimed at ensuring a partial automatization of the developmental process of the specific receptive and interpretative skills that Russian high school students require to participate both actively and effectively in intercultural multimodal communication in English.

What Might Machines Mean?

This essay addresses the question whether artificial speakers can perform speech acts in the technical sense of that term common in the philosophy of language. We here argue that under certain conditions artificial speakers can perform speech acts so understood. After (§1) explaining some of the issues at stake in these questions, we (§2) elucidate a relatively uncontroversial way in which machines can communicate, namely through what we call verbal signaling. But verbal signaling is not sufficient for the performance of a speech act. To explain the difference, we (§3) elucidate the notion of a speech act developed by Austin (How to Do Things with Words, 1962) in the mid-twentieth century and then discuss Strawson’s ("Intention and Convention in Speech Acts", 1964) influential proposal for how that notion may be related to Grice’s ("Meaning", 1957) conception of speaker meaning. We then refine Strawson’s synthesis in light of Armstrong’s ("Meaning and Communication", 1971) reconceptualization of speaker meaning in terms of objectives rather than intentions. We next (§4) extend this conception of speech acts to the cases of recorded, proxy, and conditional speech acts. On this basis, we propose (§5) that a characteristic role for artificial speakers is as proxies in the performance of speech acts on behalf of their human creators. We (§6) also consider two objections to our position, and compare our approach with others: while other authors appeal to notions such as “quasi-assertion,” we offer a sharp characterization of what artificial speakers can do that does not impute intentions or similarly controversial powers to them. We conclude (§7) by raising doubts that our strategy can be applied to speech acts generally.

The Effect of Non-lexical Verbal Signals on the Perceived Authenticity, Empathy and Understanding of a Listener

Active listening plays an important role in the relationship between clients and therapists. Here, we investigated whether variations of the confirmatory nonlexical verbal communication signal “mmh” influenced perceived authenticity, empathy and understanding of a listener. Eighty-one participants were in a conversation with an interviewer and reported about a difficult work experience. They were randomly assigned to one of three groups: The control group did not receive any verbal feedback from the interviewer; In one experimental group (1x-mmh), the interviewer uttered several monosyllabic confirmatory nonlexical verbal signals (“mmh”) during the presentation; In a second experimental group (3x-mmh) the interviewer voiced several three syllable “mmh-mmh-mmh” while listening. All participants were then asked to rate the perceived authenticity, empathy and understanding of the interviewer. Participants in the 3x-mmh condition rated the interviewer to be significantly less authentic than those in the other two groups. No differences in reported empathy and understanding were found. The use of consecutive confirmatory nonlexical verbal signals (“mmh”) - at least as currently implemented - may influence the perceived authenticity of a listener.

Your action does matter to me: Examining the role of the co-actor's action-effects in resolving the self-other discrimination problem.

Sharing a task with another person can introduce the need to discriminate representations that refer to our own action from that of the other person's. The current understanding is that information about the stimulus event drives the self-other discrimination process, as it promotes (via the reactivation of feature codes) the representation that encodes the corresponding action. However, this mechanistic explanation relies on experimental situations in which stimulus event information (e.g., spatial location) is always and directly available. Thus, it remains unclear whether and how we could successfully discriminate between self- and other related action representations in the absence of such information. The present study addressed this unanswered question using a novel joint Simon task-based paradigm. We report the results of three experiments in which we manipulated the availability of stimulus event information into the contralateral space. Our findings demonstrate that participants are able to compensate for the absence of stimulus event information by relying on temporal features of their co-actor's action-effects (Experiment 1). Even more surprising was that participants continued to monitor the temporal features of their co-actor's actions even when given a verbal signal by their co-actor (Experiments 2a), or full access to the common workspace (Experiment 2b). Our results are strong evidence that the representation of actions is not purely stimulus driven. They suggest that the temporal dimension of the other person's actions is able to drive the self-other discrimination process, in the same way as other perceptual dimensions and feature codes that are shared with the stimulus event.

The content of acoustic signals and biological effects of noise in conditions of high level of work intensity.

SummaryBackgroundThe biological effects of noise depend on its physical parameters, combination with other hazards, the content of acoustic signals. This article aimed to analyze the difference in biological effects caused by the selection of nonverbal and verbal signals in conditions of a high level of work intensity.MethodsWork conditions, physical characteristics of noise, levels of work intensity were studied among 75 telephone operators and 96 geophone operators. Levels of permanent hearing thresholds, evaluated by pure-tone audiometry, and results of self-estimation of operators’ health were compared. The contribution of the content of acoustic signals in the shifting of hearing thresholds was evaluated by the one-way analysis of variance.ResultsSelection of acoustic signals in the noise background (< 65 dB), in conditions of high work intensity, causes a significant increase of permanent hearing thresholds in both studied groups comparing to the non-noise exposed population. A combination of the high level of work intensity and distinguishing of nonverbal acoustic messages leads to significant deterioration of health resulting in decreasing of hearing sensitivity and a number of complaints on the state of health (p < 0.05). The content of acoustic signals significantly contributes to the biological effects of the nose.ConclusionObtained results testify necessity to revise safe criteria of noise levels for workers, engaged in selection, recognition and distinguishing of acoustic messages in the noise background combined with a high level of work intensity. In case when the energy of the acoustic field cannot be reduced, occupational safety measures should focus on decreasing of work intensity.

The role and importance of feedback techniques in the formation self-esteem and confidence of young football players

The quality of the communicative process can rightfully be attributed to the factor of realizing the potential capabilities of the subjects of the educational process in the framework of sports activities, namely the coach and the athlete. The coach, using the appropriate means of communication, must transfer his knowledge to the athlete and thus realize his professional and personal capabilities. The athlete, in turn, perceiving instructions and information from the coach, strives for the fullest possible realization of his existing abilities. At the same time, during interpersonal interaction in the process of mastering the corresponding motor skills, the coach, in parallel and inevitably, also influences the formation of the psychological qualities of a young football player. The purpose of the work was to analyze the mechanisms and nature of the influence of the use of feedback techniques in the context of the coach's influence on the level of self-esteem and self-confidence of an athlete. Research results. The paper presents the results of theoretical analysis and generalization of practical experience regarding the possibilities of using feedback techniques. In the course of the research, verbal and non-verbal signals from the side of the coach were considered as a factor influencing the process of forming an adequate level of self-esteem and confidence in an athlete. Demonstrated the mechanism and nature of the influence of the use of feedback techniques by the trainer, depending on their positive or negative orientation. In addition, the result of the work was the substantiation of the fact that the systemic, purposeful and consistent use of feedback techniques as a means of communication in the learning process creates favorable conditions for the formation of the necessary level of confidence and the level of self-esteem of an athlete.

The Effect of Nonlexical Verbal Signals on the Perceived Authenticity, Empathy and Understanding of a Listener

Active listening plays an important role in the relationship between clients and therapists. Here, we investigated whether variations of the confirmatory nonlexical verbal communication signal “mmh” influenced perceived authenticity, empathy, and understanding of a listener. Eighty-one participants were in a conversation with an interviewer and reported about a difficult work experience. They were randomly assigned to one of three groups: the control group did not receive any verbal feedback from the interviewer; in one experimental group (1x-mmh), the interviewer uttered several monosyllabic confirmatory nonlexical verbal signals (“mmh”) during the presentation; in a second experimental group (3x-mmh) the interviewer voiced several tri-syllabic “mmh-mmh-mmh” while listening. All participants were then asked to rate the perceived authenticity, empathy, and understanding of the interviewer. Participants in the 3x-mmh condition rated the interviewer to be significantly less authentic than those in the other two groups. No differences in reported empathy and understanding were found. The use of consecutive confirmatory nonlexical verbal signals (“mmh”), at least as currently implemented, may influence the perceived authenticity of a listener.