Talking in Time: the development of a self-administered Conversation Analysis based training programme for cochlear implant users

Objectives: Training software to facilitate participation in conversations where overlapping talk is common was to be developed with the involvement of Cochlear implant (CI) users. Methods: Examples of common types of overlap were extracted from a recorded corpus of 3.5 hours of British English conversation. In eight meetings, an expert panel of five CI users tried out ideas for a computer-based training programme addressing difficulties in turn-taking. Results: Based on feedback from the panel, a training programme was devised. The first module consists of introductory videos. The three remaining modules, implemented in interactive software, focus on non-overlapped turn-taking, competitive overlaps and accidental overlaps. Discussion: The development process is considered in light of feedback from panel members and from an end of project dissemination event. Benefits, limitations and challenges of the present approach to user involvement and to the design of self-administered communication training programmes are discussed. Conclusion: The project was characterized by two innovative features: the involvement of service users not only at its outset and conclusion but throughout its course; and the exclusive use of naturally occurring conversational speech in the training programme. While both present practical challenges, the project has demonstrated the potential for ecologically valid speech rehabilitation training

Visuality without form: video-mediated communication and research practice across disciplinary contexts

Visuality is a concept that crosses boundaries of practice and meaning, making it an ideal subject for interdisciplinary research. In this article, we discuss visuality using a fragment from a video meeting of television producers at Swedish Television’s group for programming in Swedish Sign Language. This example argues for the importance of recognizing the diversity of analytical and practice-derived visualities and their effect on the ways in which we interpret cultures. These different visualities have consequences for the methods and means with which we present scholarly research. The role of methods, methodology, and analysis of visual practices in an organizational and bilingual setting are key. We explore the challenges of incorporating deaf visualities, hearing visualities, and different paradigms of interdisciplinary research as necessary when visibility, invisibility, and their materialities are of concern. We conclude that in certain contexts, breaking with disciplinary traditions makes visible that which is otherwise invisible

Can We Work Together?

People have a versatility to adapt to various situations in order to communicate with each other regardless of a person's disability. We research separate computer interfaces to support remote synchronous collaboration in two situations. First, a deaf person collaborating with a hearing person uses a shared workspace with video conferencing, such as the Facetop system. Second, a blind person collaborating with a sighted person uses our loosely coupled custom shared workspace called Deep View. The design features of the respective interfaces accommodate the disability of a deaf person or a blind person and enable communication with a person without a disability. The interfaces expand the ways in which people with disabilities participate in a collaborative task to a level of detail not possible without our interfaces. The design features of our user interfaces provide alternative channels for the collaborators with disabilities to communicate ideas or coordinate actions that collaborators without disabilities would otherwise do verbally or visually. We evaluate the interfaces through three user studies where collaborators complete full fledged tasks that require managing all aspects of communication to complete the task. Throughout the research we collaborated with members of the Deaf community and members of the blind community. We incorporated the feedback from members of these communities into the implementation of our interfaces. The members participated in our user studies to evaluate the interfaces

Achieving understanding via interpreter participation in Sign Language / English Map Task dialogues: an analysis of repair sequences involving ambiguity and underspecificity in signed and spoken modes

Research into the role of the interpreter in dialogue interpreting has so far established that the interpreter participates in the interaction just as much as the two primary participants,particularly in the area of turn-taking. Less has been written about the nature of participation by the interpreter when interpreting. This thesis has contributed to knowledge through research into the extent and the manner of participation by the interpreter when there are problems due to seeing/hearing, producing or understanding: “repair” (Schegloff , Sacks and Jefferson 1977). Using an established tool (a Map Task) in order to distract participants from their language use, the actions of the interpreter were examined through a Conversation Analysis lens, to observe what it is that interpreters do in these situations of uncertainty. The findings were that the participation by interpreters, often described by practitioners as “clarifying”, was due, for the most part, to what I have defined as “ambiguity” and “underspecificity”. The interpreter must change stance from “other” to “self”. I have considered this action, positing a model Stop – Account – Act, and also the responses from the participants when the interpreter changes from “other” to “self” and back, using those responses to show whether the clients understand the interpreter’s change of stance. It is already known that understanding is collaboratively achieved in interpreted interactions just as it is in monolingual conversations. My contribution to interpreting studies is to strengthen this understanding by empirical research. Interlocutors do not present an absolute meaning in one language which is then reframed in another language; meanings are differentiated between collaboratively through further talk. I show that an interpreter is tightly constrained in their participation, and that their overriding job of interpreting dictates the reasons for their participation. The interpreter seeks not “what does that mean?” but rather “what do you mean?”

Proceedings of the 3rd international conference on disability, virtual reality and associated technologies (ICDVRAT 2000)

The proceedings of the conferenc

Moving Ourselves, Moving Others

The close relationship between motion (bodily movement) and emotion (feelings) is not an etymological coincidence. While moving ourselves, we move others; in observing others move – we are moved ourselves. The fundamentally interpersonal nature of mind and language has recently received due attention, but the key role of (e)motion in this context has remained something of a blind spot. The present book rectifies this gap by gathering contributions from leading philosophers, psychologists and linguists working in the area. Framed by an introducing prologue and a summarizing epilogue the volume elaborates a dynamical, active view of emotion, along with an affect-laden view of motion – and explores their significance for consciousness, intersubjectivity, and language. As such, it contributes to the emerging interdisciplinary field of mind science, transcending hitherto dominant computationalist and cognitivist approaches

Interactive applications and rhetorical devices for guiding parent-clinician communication through data visualizations

Effective communication between clinicians and parents of young children can decrease parents' anxiety and discomfort, help them handle bad news and uncertainty, and improve their adherence to proposed interventions. Parent-clinician communication further has the potential to facilitate collaboration and increase parents' empowerment. However when communication involves a discussion of the child's developmental delay or challenging behaviors, parents experience an emotional strain as they discuss hopes and fears, developmental concerns, and feelings of distress. As a consequence, communication challenges may emerge such as denial and the parent's resistance against the information that the clinician presents. In addition to the emotional strain, parents also experience a cognitive burden due to medical jargon or presentation of data that is inaccessible to them. In fact, in most health care settings, parents reported their expectation of more accessible information than is currently provided. In order to address these challenges, I present data visualization as a method of facilitating parent-clinician communication. This dissertation covers the cognitive perception and the practical application of data visualization in parent-clinician communication through: (1) rhetorical devices that are used to guide people's understanding of data visualizations, and (2) interactive applications I have built that explore the role of data visualizations in clinical communication. Through exploring cognitive and practical aspects of visualizations in communication, this dissertation makes three contributions. First, I showcase three interactive webtools that involve visualizations, and demonstrate that visualizations can facilitate family-clinician communication through overcoming 1) the emotional barriers by presenting children's behaviors to parents in an objective manner and 2) the cognitive barriers by acting as an anchor for conversation and presenting important developmental concepts or patterns that are hard to convey through words or text. Next, I identify features that make behavioral visualizations useful for various communication based tasks, such as displaying microbehaviors and providing a balanced representation of child-adult interaction, instead of solely focusing on the child behavior. Finally, I present visual and textual cues as rhetorical devices for shaping the message in the visualization and guiding the viewers through visualizations. These devices help reduce confusion and prevent miscommunication in visual-based communication as thus contribute to a more effective parent-clinician communication

Practical, appropriate, empirically-validated guidelines for designing educational games

There has recently been a great deal of interest in the potential of computer games to function as innovative educational tools. However, there is very little evidence of games fulfilling that potential. Indeed, the process of merging the disparate goals of education and games design appears problematic, and there are currently no practical guidelines for how to do so in a coherent manner. In this paper, we describe the successful, empirically validated teaching methods developed by behavioural psychologists and point out how they are uniquely suited to take advantage of the benefits that games offer to education. We conclude by proposing some practical steps for designing educational games, based on the techniques of Applied Behaviour Analysis. It is intended that this paper can both focus educational games designers on the features of games that are genuinely useful for education, and also introduce a successful form of teaching that this audience may not yet be familiar with