The Efficacy of Digital Comic Strip Conversations to Teach Empathetic Responding to Children with Autism

Recent research supports the idea that children with ASD express less empathetic responding than typically developed children. However, limited studies have focused on the utilization of evidence-based practices to teach these skills. In this study, a multiple baseline design across three participants diagnosed with autism was implemented to assess the efficacy of digital comic strip conversations, which include answering comprehension questions and engaging in role-play, to teach verbal and non-verbal empathetic responding. Digital comic strips conversations were developed specifically for the study to depict three emotional domains: happiness or excitement, sadness or pain, and fear in a variety of social contexts. Both verbal and non-verbal empathetic responding were assessed concurrently within the same sessions. Moreover, two different five level rating scales were utilized to code the behavioral response. Upon the introduction of treatments, an increase of empathetic responding was recorded across all three participants, maintaining highest score according to rating scale for the majority of the data points throughout the intervention phase. However, the generalization phase of both verbal and non-verbal response conveyed inconsistent results across participants. Further research is needed to assess complementary treatment modalities as well as evaluating factors underlying generalization difficulties of skills for individuals with autism that are acquired in clinical practice

Affect Conveying Instant Messaging

Instant messaging applications cannot convey non-verbal communication through text-based messages. That can lead to an unpleasant misunderstanding between dyads when the discussion is held on a computer or smartphone. This study aims to determine if the affect conveying instant messaging applications has any usage within users who are daily users of instant messaging applications. Furthermore, does the application benefit the test users in the real variant group compared with the control group users? The tests were conducted with an instant messaging prototype application developed just for this experiment. To test the affect conveying instant messaging prototype, we gathered a test group, which were randomly divided into two different groups, those that tested the correct version and the control group. Both test groups tested the same application but with different affect conveying module or variant. The real group tested the real variant, and the random or control group tested the variant, which randomly chooses the conveyed affect or emotion. The affect is conveyed with emojis in both of the variants. After the tests were done, testers had to answer nine different interview questions. Finally, for three interview questions, testers give a grade on how satisfied they were with that particular function. The grades were analyzed with descriptive statistical methods, and the verbal interview answers were analyzed by gathering recurring themes across the answers. The study results show that the real variant of the affect conveying instant messaging prototype performed better overall than the random variant. Test users also think that the prototype and its affect conveying functionality was fun. However, they did not see any exact situations where they would use the affect conveying functionality in an instant messaging application. Testers thought that they would use it with friends and family rather than in professional life. Generally, the way emotions were conveyed in the prototype was well-received. Test users did not see any significant issues in it or if the same functionality would be used in applications like games.Pikaviestintäsovellukset eivät oletusarvoisesti välitä sanatonta viestintää tekstimuodossa olevien viestien mukana. Se on omiaan aiheuttamaan epämiellyttäviä väärinymmärryksiä keskusteluosapuolien välillä, kun keskustelu käydään tietokoneiden tai älypuhelimien avulla. Tämän tutkielman tavoitteena on selvittää, onko tunteita automaattisesti välittävällä pikaviestintäsovelluksella käyttöä niiden käyttäjien keskuudessa, jotka käyttävät pikaviestintäsovelluksia päivittäin omassa elämässä. Lisäksi selvitämme, tuoko testisovellus hyötyä sovelluksen oikeaa versiota testanneille verrattuna kontrolliryhmään. Testit ovat suoritettu sille erikseen luodulla pikaviestintäsovelluksella. Testatakseen testiin erikseen tehtyä pikaviestintäsovellus prototyyppiä, kokosimme testiryhmän, joka satunnaisesti jaettiin kahteen eri ryhmään, oikeaa versiota testanneisiin ja kontrolliryhmään. Molemmat testiryhmät testasivat samaa sovellusta, mutta joissa olivat kuitenkin eri affektiivinen moduuli. Todellisen testin suorittaneet testasivat niin sanottua oikeaa versiota, jossa tunteiden välitys toimi kuten sen oli tarkoitus toimia ja kontrolliryhmä testasi sovelluksen versiota, jossa tunteet, joita välitettiin, olivat sovelluksen satunnaisesti valitsemia tunteita, eivätkä oikeasti sovelluksen analysoimia tunteita käyttäjästä. Sovellusprototyypin testin jälkeen testaajat vastasivat yhdeksään haastattelukysymykseen, joista kolme kysymystä olivat sellaisia, joihin testaajan tuli antaa numeerinen arvosana siten kuinka tyytyväisiä he olivat kyseiseen toiminnallisuuteen. Numeeriset arvosanat analysoitiin kuvailevia tilastointimenetelmiä käyttäen ja sanalliset haastatteluvastaukset analysointiin teemoittamalla haastattelut ja löytämällä sieltä toistuvia teemoja. Tutkimustulokset osoittavat, että pikaviestintäsovellus prototyypin niin sanottu oikea versio toimi yleisesti paremmin mitä satunnaistettu tunteiden välitys. Testaajat myös ajattelivat, että prototyyppi ja sen automaattinen tunteidenvälitys oli hauskaa ja mielekästä seurattavaa keskustelun aikana. Testaajat eivät kuitenkaan haastattelun aikana löytäneet mitään tarkkaa reaalielämän käyttöä sovellukselle. Testaajat käyttäisivät sovellusta mieluimmin läheisten ja jo tuntemien ihmisten kanssa kuin esimerkiksi työelämässä. Testaajat yleisesti pitivät pikaviestintäsovelluksen tunteiden välityksestä, ja he eivät nähneet mitään suurta ongelmaa sen toiminnan kanssa tai että samanlainen toiminto olisi vapaaehtoisesti käytössä joissain muissa sovelluksissa, kuten videopeleissä

Improving the Social Communication Competence of Augmentative and Alternative Communication Users

A repeated measures design was used to investigate the effect of group intervention on the teaching of partner-focused questions to people who use augmentative and alternative communication (AAC), and the perceived communicative competence before and after intervention of the AAC users. Six participants who had severe speech impairments participated in the study. They ranged in age from 18 to 49 years, had a developmental disability with the absence of a social disability, and used a range of AAC systems. The intervention sessions were conducted in a dyad format with two AAC users, and were conducted in one-hour sessions over four consecutive weeks. Four out of the six participants increased the number of partner-focused questions used from pre-intervention to post-intervention. Members of the general public, blind to the goal of this study, judged the majority of the participants to be more communicatively competent after intervention

Artificial Intelligence for Suicide Assessment using Audiovisual Cues: A Review

Death by suicide is the seventh leading death cause worldwide. The recent advancement in Artificial Intelligence (AI), specifically AI applications in image and voice processing, has created a promising opportunity to revolutionize suicide risk assessment. Subsequently, we have witnessed fast-growing literature of research that applies AI to extract audiovisual non-verbal cues for mental illness assessment. However, the majority of the recent works focus on depression, despite the evident difference between depression symptoms and suicidal behavior and non-verbal cues. This paper reviews recent works that study suicide ideation and suicide behavior detection through audiovisual feature analysis, mainly suicidal voice/speech acoustic features analysis and suicidal visual cues. Automatic suicide assessment is a promising research direction that is still in the early stages. Accordingly, there is a lack of large datasets that can be used to train machine learning and deep learning models proven to be effective in other, similar tasks.Comment: Manuscript submitted to Arificial Intelligence Reviews (2022

Machine Understanding of Human Behavior

A widely accepted prediction is that computing will move to the background, weaving itself into the fabric of our everyday living spaces and projecting the human user into the foreground. If this prediction is to come true, then next generation computing, which we will call human computing, should be about anticipatory user interfaces that should be human-centered, built for humans based on human models. They should transcend the traditional keyboard and mouse to include natural, human-like interactive functions including understanding and emulating certain human behaviors such as affective and social signaling. This article discusses a number of components of human behavior, how they might be integrated into computers, and how far we are from realizing the front end of human computing, that is, how far are we from enabling computers to understand human behavior

Exploring Kinaesthetic and Body Self-Awareness in Professional Musicians

This research aimed to explore whether developing movement awareness in the playing of professional musicians could improve performance and assist in reducing tension. The issue was studied adopting a neurophenomenological perspective (Varela, 1996) which combines the traditions of continental phenomenology and neuroscientific studies related to cognitive processes. Musicians are often not aware of the importance of their body movements or gestures in playing (Holgersen, 2010). This research investigated whether movement awareness could be developed and if so what impact it would have on performance. Qualitative data were collected by applying phenomenological First-person mediator methods through semi-structured interviews, observation, and audiovisual materials. A range of professional instrumentalists participated. A quasi-repeated qualitative measurement research design was adopted. The musicians were asked to perform an easy, slow piece of music, which they had previously chosen, from memory three times. The first time the piece was performed with no intervention. In the first intervention they were asked to mentally rehearse the piece before playing it again, and in the second, they were asked to simulate the movements of playing without their instrument, before performing. The activities and performances were video recorded. The data were analysed in terms of verbal and non-verbal responses during the interviews and following performance. The performances were analysed by a panel of five experienced musicians and comparisons made in relation to the way the participants responded to the interventions. The findings showed that all of the musicians were affected by the simulation which aroused a range of feelings. The simulation seemed to generate kinaesthetic and sensory-motor feedback assisting the musicians in shaping their thoughts and developing body self-awareness even when they expressed negative feelings. The panellists noted a reduction in anxiety particularly following the third performance and an increase in concentration, musical communication, accuracy and fluidity of gestures

Employee Recruitment: Question Formation for Employment Interviews based on Facial Cue Analytics

AbstractPrior research works have revealed that a relationship lies between a gainful interviewee and facial cues exhibited during the interview process. This study is focused on the formation of the questions to examine the interviewee which will use nonverbal behavioral cues presented. From nonverbal behavioral factors, ‘Facial expression variation’ was taken into the consideration with the assistance of a facial expression analysis tool. As such, this research proposes a novel approach in question formation for the assessment of interviewees. In the data collection and analysis phases of the study, qualitative and quantitative approaches have been followed. These approaches were used to identify the personality traits required in the IT related recruitments and to identify the traits that employed IT personnel already possess. Mock interviews were conducted to identify the valid questions that show a high sensitivity with facial expression variations while a tool was used to extract facial cues of the candidates. Seven primary emotions were captured with this approach during the interview. The facial emotions of joy, anger, contempt, disgust, fear, sadness, surprise were identified during the interview period which provided the percentage values for the emotional engagement of the candidate. Based on the video analytics, five questions were reported with a high emotional engagement values, three with an average variation level and remaining did not have a significant variance in candidate responses. During the final phase of this research, a cross reference analysis was conducted. For this analysis, data sets of emotional engagement were cross checked against the rankings given by the human raters regarding the extent of the question and response in total helped them to take the hiring decision. The evaluation of the results was done by comparing the result set obtained through video analytics with Human Rater result set obtained. Therefore, this research study and its suggested scientific approaches would assist the recruiters with identifying the set of questions which affect the recruitment decisions of their organizations in future.Keywords: Employment Interviews, Question Formation, Facial Expression Analysis, Nonverbal Behavioral Patterns, Personality Trait