86,661 research outputs found
Controlling the Gaze of Conversational Agents
We report on a pilot experiment that investigated the effects of different eye gaze behaviours of a cartoon-like talking face on the quality of human-agent dialogues. We compared a version of the talking face that roughly implements some patterns of human-like behaviour with\ud
two other versions. In one of the other versions the shifts in gaze were kept minimal and in the other version the shifts would occur randomly. The talking face has a number of restrictions. There is no speech recognition, so questions and replies have to be typed in by the users\ud
of the systems. Despite this restriction we found that participants that conversed with the agent that behaved according to the human-like patterns appreciated the agent better than participants that conversed with the other agents. Conversations with the optimal version also\ud
proceeded more efficiently. Participants needed less time to complete their task
Performance, Politics and Media: How the 2010 British General Election leadership debates generated âtalkâ amongst the electorate.
During the British General Election 2010 a major innovation was introduced in part to improve engagement: a series of three live televised leadership debates took place where the leader of each of the three main parties, Labour, Liberal Democrat and Conservative, answered questions posed by members of the public and subsequently debated issues pertinent to the questions. In this study we consider these potentially ground breaking debates as the kind of event that was likely to generate discussion. We investigate various aspects of the âtalkâ that emerged as a result of watching the debates. As an exploratory study concerned with situated accounts of the participants experiences we take an interpretive perspective. In this paper we outline the meta-narratives (of talk) associated with the viewing of the leadership debates that were identified, concluding our analysis by suggesting that putting a live debate on television and promoting and positioning it as a major innovation is likely to mean that is how the audience will make sense of it â as a media event
Transforming New Zealand Employment Relations: At the Intersection of Institutional Dispute Resolution and Workplace Conflict Management
In New Zealand, the contemporary shift from highly regulated, collectivist employment rights to individual employment relationships included statutory direction to mediation. Good faith negotiation in the workplace and state provision of mediation were to be the primary mechanisms for resolution of âemployment relationship problemsâ (ERP). This paper investigates the intersection between workplace conflict management and institutional provision of mediation. We investigated ERP resolution by drawing on empirical evidence from 38 narrative interviews where participants recounted experiences of employment relationship problem (ERP) resolution. We analysed 243 ERP by comparing settlements to end employment relationships with resolution of ERP where relationships endured. We sought to understand why some ERP remained unresolved and/or escalated. We found that collaborative reflective sense-making had a positive impact on early workplace problem resolution while investigation and confidential settlement negotiations risked injustice. We present, therefore, some suggestions for embedding collaborative conflict management in the workplace
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Mediating intimacy online: authenticity, magazines and chasing the clicks
This paper offers a production-based study of online consumer magazines for â and largely by â millennial women, with a particular focus on sex and relationship content. Adopting a feminist discourse analytic approach and a solidary-critical position, I examine 62 interviews conducted with producers, mainly writers and editors, from 12 publications based in the UK and Spain. The analysis maps how notions of intimacy penetrate different dimensions of the magazine, along with networks of influence for the development of content about sex and relationships, marked by a perceived shift from âexpertsâ to âreal lifeâ. The ways in which producers describe the particularities of womanâs magazine online journalism and dis/articulate a range of critiques are also explored. The paper highlights the increasing importance of ideas about authenticity for these media, making connections to online cultures, a reinvigorated interest in feminism, and contemporary branding strategies. Ultimately, I argue that journalists at womenâs magazines simultaneously (re)produce, suffer and contest sexist media, deserving further feminist scholarly attention, and our solidarity as well as critique
A Virtual Conversational Agent for Teens with Autism: Experimental Results and Design Lessons
We present the design of an online social skills development interface for
teenagers with autism spectrum disorder (ASD). The interface is intended to
enable private conversation practice anywhere, anytime using a web-browser.
Users converse informally with a virtual agent, receiving feedback on nonverbal
cues in real-time, and summary feedback. The prototype was developed in
consultation with an expert UX designer, two psychologists, and a pediatrician.
Using the data from 47 individuals, feedback and dialogue generation were
automated using a hidden Markov model and a schema-driven dialogue manager
capable of handling multi-topic conversations. We conducted a study with nine
high-functioning ASD teenagers. Through a thematic analysis of post-experiment
interviews, identified several key design considerations, notably: 1) Users
should be fully briefed at the outset about the purpose and limitations of the
system, to avoid unrealistic expectations. 2) An interface should incorporate
positive acknowledgment of behavior change. 3) Realistic appearance of a
virtual agent and responsiveness are important in engaging users. 4)
Conversation personalization, for instance in prompting laconic users for more
input and reciprocal questions, would help the teenagers engage for longer
terms and increase the system's utility
Literacy and Identity: A View from the Bridge in two Multicultural London Schools
In this paper I examine the manner in which identity impacts on literacy practices, with reference to two nine-year old girls and two fifteen year-old boys, who speak or have access to two or more languages. The younger children were part of a year- long study of the British National Literacy Strategy (cf. Wallace 2005). The older two were interviewed in the context of a study of childrenâs responses to the cultural content of school texts. My aim is to establish how the childrenâs talk about and around literacy reveals what are salient identities for these young people. I identify four interwoven strands which emerge from the childrenâs talk, characterised as âI come from hereâ identity, âBack Home identity, Language Identity and Religious identity. I argue that these interwoven identities represent for the children a potentially rich resource to engage critically with school texts. This is evident in moments of discourse in which particular identities are invoked to build bridges between the childrenâs diverse personal histories and the texts and practices validated by school. I conclude by drawing some implications for schooling and for the childrenâs futures
Entrepreneurship as nexus of change: the syncretistic production of the future
This paper deals with the issue of how the future is created and the mechanisms through which it is produced and conceived. Key to this process appears to be social interaction and how it is used to bring about change. Examining the entrepreneurial context by qualitative longitudinal research techniques, the study considers the situations of three entrepreneurs. It demonstrates that the web of relationships in which individuals are engaged provide the opportunity to enact the environment in new ways, thus producing organizations for the future. It further provides empirical evidence for a Heideggerian reading of strategy-as-practice, extending this conceptualization to account for the temporal dimension
A qualitative study of children, young people and 'sexting' : English
The purpose of this small scale qualitative research was to respond to and enhance our understandings of the complex nature of sexting and the role of mobile technologies within peer teen networks. It was designed as a pilot study â to investigate a phenomenon whose nature, scale and dimensions were unknown. Thus the research itself also was small in scale and exploratory in nature and also culturally and geographically specific. We conducted focus group interviews with 35 young people years 8 and 10 in two inner city London schools. At the focus groups we asked participants to friend us on Facebook, with a research Facebook profile. We then mapped some of their activities online and returned for 22 individual interviews with selected case study young people. We also interviewed key teachers and staff at the schools. The study found that threats from peers in digital social networks were more problematic for young people that âstranger dangerâ from adults. Digital technologies facilitated new visual cultures of surveillance, in which young women were pressured to send revealing body photos or asked to perform sexual services by text and through social networking sites. In this way, sexting aggravated peer hierarchies and forms of sexual harassment in schools, meaning that sexting was often coercive and was sometimes a form of cyberbullying. Girls were most negatively affected by âsextingâ in cultural contexts of increasing âsexualisationâ shaped by sexual double standards and boys had difficulty in challenging constructions of sexually aggressive masculinity. The research allowed for exploration of when pleasurable sexual flirtation through digital communication moved into sexual coercion and harassment, which was illustrated through narrative examples. Considering the relationship between online and offline risks it found sexual double standards in attitudes to digital sexual communication were linked to incidents of real playground sexual harassment and violence. Finally, it found that children at primary school age were being impacted by the coercive aspects of âsextingâ at an earlier age, than prior research indicated
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