A practical guide to conversation research: how to study what people say to each other

Conversation—a verbal interaction between two or more people—is a complex, pervasive, and consequential human behavior. Conversations have been studied across many academic disciplines. However, advances in recording and analysis techniques over the last decade have allowed researchers to more directly and precisely examine conversations in natural contexts and at a larger scale than ever before, and these advances open new paths to understand humanity and the social world. Existing reviews of text analysis and conversation research have focused on text generated by a single author (e.g., product reviews, news articles, and public speeches) and thus leave open questions about the unique challenges presented by interactive conversation data (i.e., dialogue). In this article, we suggest approaches to overcome common challenges in the workflow of conversation science, including recording and transcribing conversations, structuring data (to merge turn-level and speaker-level data sets), extracting and aggregating linguistic features, estimating effects, and sharing data. This practical guide is meant to shed light on current best practices and empower more researchers to study conversations more directly—to expand the community of conversation scholars and contribute to a greater cumulative scientific understanding of the social world

It doesn’t hurt to ask: Question-asking increases liking.

Conversation is a fundamental human experience, one that is necessary to pursue intrapersonal and interpersonal goals across myriad contexts, relationships, and modes of communication. In the current research, we isolate the role of an understudied conversational behavior: question-asking. Across three studies of live dyadic conversations, we identify a robust and consistent relationship between question-asking and liking: people who ask more questions are better liked by their conversation partners. When people are instructed to ask more questions, they are perceived as higher in responsiveness, an interpersonal construct that captures listening, understanding, validation, and care. We measure responsiveness with an attitudinal measure from previous research as well as a novel behavioral measure: the number of follow-up questions one asks. In both cases, responsiveness explains the effect of question-asking on liking. In addition to analyzing live get-to-know-you conversations online, we also studied face-to-face speed-dating conversations. We find that speed daters who ask more questions during their dates are more likely to elicit agreement for second dates from their partners, a behavioral indicator of liking. We trained a natural language processing algorithm as a “follow-up question detector” that we applied to our speed-dating data (and can be applied to any text data to more deeply understand question-asking dynamics). The follow-up question rate established by the algorithm explained why question-asking led to speed-dating success. We also find that, despite the persistent and beneficial effects of asking questions, people do not anticipate that question-asking increases interpersonal liking

PEITC-mediated inhibition of mRNA translation is associated with both inhibition of mTORC1 and increased eIF2α phosphorylation in established cell lines and primary human leukemia cells.

Increased mRNA translation drives carcinogenesis and is an attractive target for the development of new anti-cancer drugs. In this work, we investigated effects of phenethylisothiocyanate (PEITC), a phytochemical with chemopreventive and anti-cancer activity, on mRNA translation. PEITC rapidly inhibited global mRNA translation in human breast cancer-derived MCF7 cells and mouse embryonic fibroblasts (MEFs). In addition to the known inhibitory effects of PEITC on mTORC1 activity, we demonstrate that PEITC increased eIF2α phosphorylation. PEITC also increased formation of stress granules which are typically associated with eIF2α phosphorylation and accumulation of translationally stalled mRNAs. Analysis of genetically modified MEFs demonstrated that optimal inhibition of global mRNA translation by PEITC was dependent on eIF2α phosphorylation, but not mTORC1 inhibition. We extended this study into primary leukemic B cells derived from patients with chronic lymphocytic leukaemia (CLL). CLL cells were stimulated in vitro with anti-IgM to mimic binding of antigen, a major driver of this leukemia. In CLL cells, PEITC increased eIF2α phosphorylation, inhibited anti-IgM-induced mTORC1 activation and decreased both basal and anti-IgM-induced global mRNA translation. PEITC also inhibited transcription and translation of MYC mRNA and accumulation of the MYC oncoprotein, in anti-IgM-stimulated cells. Moreover, treatment of CLL cells with PEITC and the BTK kinase inhibitor ibrutinib decreased anti-IgM-induced translation and induced cell death to a greater extent than either agent alone. Therefore, PEITC can inhibit both global and mRNA specific translation (including MYC) via effects on multiple regulatory pathways. Inhibition of mRNA translation may contribute to the chemopreventive and anti-cancer effects of PEITC

Multidifferential study of identified charged hadron distributions in ZZ-tagged jets in proton-proton collisions at s=\sqrt{s}=13 TeV

Jet fragmentation functions are measured for the first time in proton-proton collisions for charged pions, kaons, and protons within jets recoiling against a $Z$ boson. The charged-hadron distributions are studied longitudinally and transversely to the jet direction for jets with transverse momentum 20 $< p_{\textrm{T}} < 100$ GeV and in the pseudorapidity range $2.5 < \eta < 4$. The data sample was collected with the LHCb experiment at a center-of-mass energy of 13 TeV, corresponding to an integrated luminosity of 1.64 fb$^{-1}$. Triple differential distributions as a function of the hadron longitudinal momentum fraction, hadron transverse momentum, and jet transverse momentum are also measured for the first time. This helps constrain transverse-momentum-dependent fragmentation functions. Differences in the shapes and magnitudes of the measured distributions for the different hadron species provide insights into the hadronization process for jets predominantly initiated by light quarks.Comment: All figures and tables, along with machine-readable versions and any supplementary material and additional information, are available at https://cern.ch/lhcbproject/Publications/p/LHCb-PAPER-2022-013.html (LHCb public pages

Study of the B−→Λc+Λˉc−K−B^{-} \to \Lambda_{c}^{+} \bar{\Lambda}_{c}^{-} K^{-} decay

The decay $B^{-} \to \Lambda_{c}^{+} \bar{\Lambda}_{c}^{-} K^{-}$ is studied in proton-proton collisions at a center-of-mass energy of $\sqrt{s}=13$ TeV using data corresponding to an integrated luminosity of 5 $\mathrm{fb}^{-1}$ collected by the LHCb experiment. In the $\Lambda_{c}^+ K^{-}$ system, the $\Xi_{c}(2930)^{0}$ state observed at the BaBar and Belle experiments is resolved into two narrower states, $\Xi_{c}(2923)^{0}$ and $\Xi_{c}(2939)^{0}$, whose masses and widths are measured to be $$m(\Xi_{c}(2923)^{0}) = 2924.5 \pm 0.4 \pm 1.1 \,\mathrm{MeV}, \\ m(\Xi_{c}(2939)^{0}) = 2938.5 \pm 0.9 \pm 2.3 \,\mathrm{MeV}, \\ \Gamma(\Xi_{c}(2923)^{0}) = \phantom{000}4.8 \pm 0.9 \pm 1.5 \,\mathrm{MeV},\\ \Gamma(\Xi_{c}(2939)^{0}) = \phantom{00}11.0 \pm 1.9 \pm 7.5 \,\mathrm{MeV},$$ where the first uncertainties are statistical and the second systematic. The results are consistent with a previous LHCb measurement using a prompt $\Lambda_{c}^{+} K^{-}$ sample. Evidence of a new $\Xi_{c}(2880)^{0}$ state is found with a local significance of $3.8\,\sigma$, whose mass and width are measured to be $2881.8 \pm 3.1 \pm 8.5\,\mathrm{MeV}$ and $12.4 \pm 5.3 \pm 5.8 \,\mathrm{MeV}$, respectively. In addition, evidence of a new decay mode $\Xi_{c}(2790)^{0} \to \Lambda_{c}^{+} K^{-}$ is found with a significance of $3.7\,\sigma$. The relative branching fraction of $B^{-} \to \Lambda_{c}^{+} \bar{\Lambda}_{c}^{-} K^{-}$ with respect to the $B^{-} \to D^{+} D^{-} K^{-}$ decay is measured to be $2.36 \pm 0.11 \pm 0.22 \pm 0.25$, where the first uncertainty is statistical, the second systematic and the third originates from the branching fractions of charm hadron decays.Comment: All figures and tables, along with any supplementary material and additional information, are available at https://cern.ch/lhcbproject/Publications/p/LHCb-PAPER-2022-028.html (LHCb public pages

Targeted inhibition of mRNA translation initiation factors as a novel therapeutic strategy for mature B-cell neoplasms

Cancer development is frequently associated with dysregulation of mRNA translation to enhance both increased global protein synthesis and translation of specific mRNAs encoding oncoproteins. Thus, targeted inhibition of mRNA translation is viewed as a promising new approach for cancer therapy. In this article we review current progress in investigating dysregulation of mRNA translation initiation in mature B-cell neoplasms, focusing on chronic lymphocytic leukemia, follicular lymphoma and diffuse large B-cell lymphoma. We discuss mechanisms and regulation of mRNA translation, potential pathways by which genetic alterations and the tumor microenvironment alters mRNA translation in malignant B cells, preclinical evaluation of drugs targeted against specific eukaryotic initiation factors and current progress towards clinical development. Overall, inhibition of mRNA translation initiation factors is an exciting and promising area for development of novel targeted anti-tumor drugs