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In mathematics, students' abilities to make transformations between mathematical representations are fundamental. The recent implementation of digital technologies, such as Dynamic Geometry Environments (DGEs), have changed students' access to mathematical representations by providing a variety of different representations, available just by pressing a button. Students use of a DGE may change their mathematical communication to become more dynamic and active. However, it is not clear how the use of DGEs and the change in communication style relate to more epistemological aspects of students' mathematical work. This study, therefore, investigates the interplay between students' dynamic mathematical communication and their transformations of mathematical representations when using a DGE from a competency perspective. Based on analyses of instances of lower secondary school students' dynamic mathematical communication, findings indicate that students' mathematical communication reflect the new ways of engaging with mathematical representations when using a DGE. Hence, the communication becomes dynamic. Theoretically, the complexity of having "continuous" transformations of mathematical representations may reduce the readiness of the mathematical communication competency. The "continuous" transformation may in fact cause students to unintentionally ascribe dynamic properties to mathematical representation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Crises constitute ideal opportunities for authoritarian leaders to promote certain narratives, shaping reality in their favor and crafting their own preferred storylines about current events. In other words: they serve authoritarian leaders on a silver platter the opportunity to instrumentalize these unforeseen circumstances to gain domestic political legitimacy by promoting strategic narratives. The COVID-19 pandemic was no exception in this regard. Ever since its onset in early 2020, the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) was among the most active actors worldwide seeking to capitalize on the global crisis for legitimation purposes. Whether applying narratives of governance supremacy, portraying the People's Republic of China as a "global savior," or promoting emotionally appealing nationalistic narratives, the regime used the pandemic as a window of opportunity to rebrand its international role and enhance its domestic legitimacy. When observing the CCP's communication style over the course of 24 pandemic months (2020–2022), however, major shifts become apparent regarding the main narratives crafted in communication with national audiences. Based on this, the paper focuses on the role of such narratives for legitimation claims. Using exemplary media articles collected between the outbreak of the pandemic in China in late 2019 until the harsh Shanghai lockdown in spring 2022, it thus traces the narratives employed by Chinese state elites and explores how they are intertwined with nationalism and broader power claims. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study examines consumers' reactions to the communication styles of chatbots during failed service experiences. The current study explores whether the communication style adopted by a chatbot impacts consumer satisfaction and behavior intention and how expectancy violations can moderate these relationships in the service context. A pre-test examined the validity of the stimuli of chatbots that were either task-oriented or social-oriented after consumers encountered service failure. For more information, the experiment was designed to manipulate the AI-based chatbot agent's process and style of communication and measure the role of expectancy violations. The main experiment results showed that interactions with social-oriented communication style chatbots enhance the level of consumers' interaction satisfaction and intention of behavior. Respondents experienced a higher perception of warmth when interacting with social-oriented communication style chatbots than task-oriented. Moreover, expectancy violation moderates the mediation of warmth on the relationship between the chatbot's communication style/type and interaction satisfaction, trust, and intention of patronage. Setting chatbots' communication styles to be social-oriented can help reduce negative emotions among consumers caused by service failure; specifically, the perception of warmth created by the social-oriented communication style can alleviate negative evaluations of service agents and companies, such as dissatisfaction and loss of interest. Therefore, in managerial practice, the firm should choose the social-oriented communication style chatbot agent to recover the customer relationship after a service failure. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The purpose of this study is to explore the guardian mindset as a means for improving police-community relations. Using data collected from 735 new officers in the USA, confirmatory factor analyses were used to evaluate the empirical validity of the guardian vs. warrior typology, and structural equation modeling was used to examine the relationships among the guardian mindset and outcomes believed to improve relations with the public. The results show that officers' attitudes about the community and communication styles, but not attitudes about the role of the police, differentiate a guardian from a warrior orientation. The results also show that a higher-order guardian factor was related to attitudes about the use of force, procedural justice, and de-escalation. The findings provide some support for the positive effects of a guardian mindset on improving police-community relations while at the same time raising important questions for further study. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We examined the Bullshitting Frequency (BSF) scale in relation to the personality dimensions of the HEXACO and Big Five structures, using self-reports from 572 university students. As predicted, BSF was mainly associated with low Honesty-Humility from the HEXACO model and was better accommodated within the HEXACO than within the Big Five structure. BSF was negatively related to all four facets of Honesty-Humility and showed its strongest association with the Sincerity facet. The Persuasive BSF subscale was more strongly related to low Honesty-Humility than was the Evasive BSF subscale. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the era of the knowledge economy, knowledge hiding behaviour and its antecedents and consequences have been of great interest to the academic community. Through a survey of 350 employees of Chinese manufacturing enterprises, this paper explores the mechanism of organizational communication on employees' knowledge hiding behaviour. The results of the regression analysis show that (1) cooperative communication will reduce employees' knowledge hiding behaviour; in contrast, competitive communication will increase employees' knowledge hiding behaviour. (2) There is no significant relationship between online communication and employees' knowledge hiding behaviour. (3) Although online communication weakens the inhibitory effect of cooperative communication on employee knowledge hiding behaviour, it can alleviate employee knowledge hiding behaviour caused by competitive communication. This study reveals the association between communication styles and employees' knowledge hiding behaviour, which not only deepens the understanding of the antecedents of knowledge hiding in the academic community but also provides guidance for corporate internal communication and knowledge management practises. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Previous studies have shown that specific personality dimensions, -e.g., the Big Five-, consistently intercorrelate, such that they form a general factor of personality (GFP). It has been hypothesized that the GFP reflects social effectiveness. Similarly, in the clinical domain, overlap between various psychopathological symptoms has also been reported, leading to a general factor of Psychopathology, or p factor. The aim of this study was to test the overlap between the higher-order factors in personality and psychopathology, and how they relate to daily life functioning and communication style. We tested a sample of 165 outpatients of a psychological therapy institute, using a multi-source approach that included self-reports and other ratings. The outpatients' self-reports of personality, general psychological problems, and interpersonal problems were available. Psychotherapists rated the outpatients' functioning in daily life with the well-known Global Assessment of Functioning (GAF) scale. A spouse or friend also rated the impact of the patient's communication/social behavior. Patients with lower GFP scores and higher scores on general psychopathology, displayed more distress and daily functioning deficits (i.e., lower GAF scores) and, in terms of communication styles, were also rated as being less dominant, less in control socially, and more submissive and aggressive. We proposed that part of the overlap between the general factors (GFP, psychopathology factors) may relate to a lower general life functioning and less social effectiveness. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The increasing use of multimedia applications often makes the information prone to leakage and makes the user's privacy at risk. The information hiding technique is mainly used to secure multimedia communication/information by modifying the secret information in a way that makes it useless for an unintended user. In this way, the secret information is secured from unauthorized access. To create a mosaic image, initially, a style transfer is applied using the Convolutional Neural Network (CNN) architecture. The style transfer alters the style of an image using another image still preserving the original content. The CNN'S optimization problem is to optimize the content loss, style loss, and total variation loss done using an Archimedes Optimization Algorithm (AOA). The AOA algorithm also alters the block in the target image by selecting an appropriate tile in the secret image. The tile fitting information is randomly inserted into the selected pixels using an improved dual image-based LSB matching (DILSBM) scheme. The DILSBM scheme can retrieve both the secret and target images from the mosaic image by offering a high PSNR value. The proposed DILSBM and CNN optimized AOA architecture is primarily intended to provide high capacity, improved visual quality, and solve the source image selection problem. The feasibility of the proposed technique can be observed from the experimental analysis where it is analyzed using different performance metrics such as Embedding Rate, Structural Similarity Method (SSIM), and peak signal-to-noise ratio (PSNR). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Service robots are increasingly deployed in various industries including tourism. In spite of extensive research on the user's experience in interaction with these robots, there are yet unanswered questions about the factors that influence user's compliance. Through three online studies, we investigate the effect of the robot anthropomorphism and language style on customers' willingness to follow its recommendations. The mediating role of the perceived mind and persuasiveness in this relationship is also investigated. Study 1 (n = 89) shows that a service robot with a higher level of anthropomorphic features positively influences the willingness of users to follow its recommendations while language style does not affect compliance. Study 2a (n = 168) further confirms this finding when we presented participants with a tablet vs. a service robot with an anthropomorphic appearance while communication style does not affect compliance. Finally, Study 2b (n = 122) supports the indirect effect of anthropomorphism level on the willingness to follow recommendations through perceived mind followed by persuasiveness. The findings provide valuable insight to enhance human–robot interaction in service settings. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Interactions between human beings and chatbots are gradually becoming part of our everyday social lives. It is still unclear how human–chatbot interactions (HCIs), compared to human–human interactions (HHIs), influence individual morality. Building on the dual-process theory of moral judgment, a secondary data analysis (Study 1), and two scenario-based experiments (Studies 2 and 3) provide sufficient evidence that HCIs (vs. HHIs) support utilitarian judgments (vs. deontological judgments), which reduce participants' donation amount. Study 3 further demonstrates that the negative effects of HCIs can be attenuated by inducing a social-oriented (vs. task-oriented) communication style in chatbots' verbal language designs. These findings highlight the negative impacts of HCIs on relationships among human beings and suggest a practical intervention for nonprofit organization managers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

With the increasing capability of software and hardware, mobile devices especially smartphones are changing the way of peoples' communication and living styles. For the sake of convenience, people often store a lot of personal data like images on the device and use it for completing sensitive tasks like payment and financial transfer. This makes data protection more important on smartphones. To secure the device from unauthorized access, one simple and efficient method is to design a device or screen unlock mechanism, which can authenticate the identity of current user. However, most existing unlock schemes can be compromised if an attacker gets the correct pattern. In this work, we advocate that behavioral biometrics can be useful to improve the security of unlock mechanisms. We thus design DCUS, a double-click-based unlocking scheme on smartphones, which requires users to unlock the device by double clicking on the right location on an image. For user authentication, our scheme needs to check the selected images, image location and double-click patterns. In the evaluation, we perform a user study with 60 participants and make a comparison between our scheme and a similar unlock scheme. With several typical supervised classifiers, it is found that participants can perform well under our scheme. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study investigates whether audit partner gender is associated with the extent of auditor disclosure and the communication style regarding risks of material misstatements that are classified as key audit matters (KAMs). Using a sample of UK firms during the 2013–2017 period, our results suggest that female audit partners are more likely than male audit partners to disclose more KAMs with more details after controlling for both client and audit firm attributes. Furthermore, female audit partners are found to use a less optimistic tone and provide less readable audit reports, compared to their male counterparts, suggesting that behavioural variances between female and male audit partners may have significant implications on their writing style. Therefore, this study offers new insights on the role of audit partner gender in extended audit reporting. Our findings have important implications for audit firms, investors, policymakers and governments in relation to the development, implementation and enforcement of gender diversity. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We examined the relationships between teachers' communication styles and students' perceptions of the classroom goal structure. Within the context of high school health classes focused on teaching about HIV/STD/pregnancy prevention, we surveyed 456 students about their teachers' immediacy behaviors, efforts to make course content relevant, and their perceptions of the classroom goal structure. We found that the more teachers stressed the relevance of course material and used verbal and nonverbal immediacy behaviors, the more students perceived a mastery goal structure in their classrooms. Conversely, when teachers did not emphasize these immediacy behaviors, students were more likely to perceive an avoidance goal structure. Immediacy behaviors were not related to perceptions of an extrinsic goal structure. Our results suggest that teachers can help create a positive, mastery-oriented classroom by communicating with students in a way that demonstrates authentic care and concern for students' learning. Implications for future research into cues students rely on when perceiving classroom goal structurers and implications for instruction are discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Purpose: Patients with recurrent head and neck cancer (HNC) may feel overwhelmed at the prospect of having to consider treatment options particularly if they recently completed treatment for their primary disease or when they have no options that may lead to long-term survival. The purpose of this study was to examine patient priorities and preferences during treatment decision-making for recurrent HNC. Methods: Individuals with newly diagnosed recurrent HNC were recruited at a National Cancer Institute-Designated Cancer Center. Participants were interviewed using a structured interview guide. Descriptive statistics were used to describe participants, and qualitative template analysis was used to analyze interview data. Results: Participants (n = 38) considered information from healthcare providers, likelihood of treatment success, and other patient-specific factors in making their treatment decisions. Conclusions: Although patients with recurrent HNC endorse a myriad of decision-making factors, the recommendation of their healthcare provider and the likelihood of treatment success are of paramount importance. Future research should focus on methods to rapidly identify patient priorities at the time of diagnosed recurrence while respecting patient coping and communication styles. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Listening skills are invaluable in health care settings to reduce medical errors and miscommunications, and to facilitate health care interactions and patient–physician relationships. The aim of this study was to explore the relationships between patients' listening styles and the four components of medical communication competence. Regression analyses were used to examine and identify the associations between listening styles and medical communication competence among 522 self-identified chronically ill patients. Findings revealed associations between the four listening styles, information giving, information seeking, information verifying, and socioemotional communication. Implications suggest listening style preferences may affect patients' medical communication competence in medical consultation visits. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This research was conducted to determine the relationship between marital satisfaction experienced by Turkish women and their conflict communication styles. The research also assessed the impact of the descriptive characteristics of women on these variables. The study amassed descriptive and cross-sectional data from May to September 2012, with the sample set consisting of 25,084 married women registered in the Erzincan provincial center of northeastern Turkey. The sample size was set using sampling with a finite population of at least 378 married women by getting p = 0.05, he sampling error of 0.05 and the formula at the limit of 95% confidence level. In practice, it does not stay at the lower limit. The data was collected using the Survey Form, Marriage Life Scale (MLS) and Conflict Communication Scale (CSS) from 418 women living in the city center. The analysis of the data was made with descriptive statistics, t test, Kruskal Wallis, correlation, and variance tests, and the result was statistically significant (p < 0.05). The mean age of women who participated in this study was found to be 35.88 ± 9.23, and the MLS mean score was found to be 34.29 ± 5.10. The mean score of the subscale of expressing feelings was found to be 67.35 ± 8.94, and the mean score of the subscale of close up/avoidance was found to be 63.28 ± 7.90. It was determined that a significant and positive relationship existed between women's marital satisfaction scores and their expression of feelings (p < 0.05). The mean score of women's marital satisfaction was generally found at a good level. Therefore, this study identified a relation between women's marital satisfaction and their styles of conflict. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Leader empathy has received increased scholarly and practical attention in recent years. However, empirical studies that explore the functionality of leader empathy and that disclose which objective micro-level behaviors actually characterize empathic face-to-face interactions remain sparse. This study explores the role of leaders' empathic communication style in a sample of 48 audiotaped performance appraisal interviews. Our multimethod approach disclosed that ratings of supervisors' empathic communication style were positively related to employees' intentions to change and to employees' perceptions of supervisor likeability. Fine-grained linguistic analyses (N = 358,586 words) further provided insights into the underlying behavioral manifestation of leader empathy: verbal mimicry in the form of language style matching between supervisors and employees was positively related to supervisors' empathic communication style. Additional analyses showed that supervisors who communicated more empathically used less second-person pronouns ("you") and agreed more frequently with their employees. Finally, we found differences in the mean percentage use of personal pronouns between supervisors and employees. Specifically, supervisors used significantly more second-person ("you") and first-person plural ("we") pronouns and fewer first-person singular ("I") pronouns than their employees. We discuss how the findings of this field study enhance our theoretical understanding of leader empathy as a functional leadership skill, and we highlight practical recommendations for conducting more effective appraisal interviews. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Communication between patients and health providers influences patient satisfaction, but it is unknown whether similarity in communication styles results in higher patient satisfaction. Methods: This study was conducted in the Smilow Cancer Hospital Breast Center. During routine follow-up visits, patients completed a Communication Styles Assessment (CSA), health survey (SF-12), Princess Margaret Hospital Satisfaction with Doctor Questionnaire, and brief demographic form. Physicians and Advanced Practice Providers were also asked to complete the CSA. Patients and providers were blinded to each other's responses. A communication styles concordance score was calculated as the Pearson correlation between 80 binary CSA items for each provider/patient pair. Factors affecting patient satisfaction scores were assessed in mixed-effects models. Results: In total, 330 patients were invited to participate; of these 289 enrolled and 245 returned surveys. One hundred seventy-four completed all survey components, and 18 providers completed the CSA. Among the factors considered, physical health score (effect size = 0.0058, 95% CI 0.00051 to 0.0011, p = 0.032) and employment status (0.12, 95% CI − 0.0094 to 0.25, p = 0.069) had the greatest impact on patient satisfaction. However, patients who were not employed and less physically healthy had significantly elevated satisfaction scores when their communication style was more similar to their provider's (1.52, 95% CI 0.66 to 2.38, p = 0.0016). Conclusions: Patients who were physically healthy and employed were generally more satisfied with their care. The similarity in communication styles of patients and providers had a greater impact on patient satisfaction for patients who were less physically healthy and not employed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In recent years social network analysis, influenced by relational sociology, has taken a cultural turn. One result has been a growing interest in the cultural, and not just structural, aspects of social networks. And yet, while relational literature conceptualizes network ties as being interactionally constructed through cultural processes, relationalist inspired quantitative network analysts have rarely made face-to-face interaction a focus of study. More often, these scholars have adopted an interpretive approach and examined the network structure of cultural forms and belief systems. This article argues that network analysis is missing an opportunity to study procedural aspects of culture by taking advantage of our growing ability to collect and analyze streaming data of face-to-face interaction. To productively do so, however, network studies of interaction can apply ideas from sociolinguistics related to the context and style of communication in order to capture cultural aspects of interaction. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We assessed developmental and gender differences in children's beliefs about their peers' communication styles. We hypothesized that children hold more favorable beliefs (i.e., more responsiveness and less interruption) about communicating with same-gender peers than with other-gender peers. We also explored whether these beliefs related to children's friendships and expectations that they will feel included or discomfort with their peers. Participants (n = 311) were 159 U.S. third-graders (Mage = 7.13, SD = .49, 52% girls) and 152 U.S. fifth-graders (Mage = 9.08, SD = .71, 46% girls). Children showed in-group biases: They expected more positive responses when communicating with same-gender versus other-gender peers. These patterns were stronger in girls and younger children. Beliefs about interruption varied by gender: girls expected girls to interrupt less than boys, and boys thought boys and girls interrupt equally often. Finally, the more children believed that they would receive positive communication responsiveness, the more friends, the more inclusion, and the less discomfort they expected with same- and other-gender peers. The more they expected interruptions, the less included and more discomfort they reported. The results suggest that children's communication beliefs may perpetuate same-gender preferences; however, promoting mixed-gender interactions may help children cultivate beliefs and skills needed to function successfully in mixed-gender contexts. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Humans are social beings that form hierarchies to gain and maintain resources. Dominant positions are often obtained through resource control strategies, displayed through language. Language can be examined in a number of ways including number of vocalizations and pragmatic skills. The benefit of pragmatic skills, in relationship to popularity (group dominance), can be explained by virtue signalling and the sociometer theory. The current study examined the relationship of individuals in a novel group setting. Results revealed that popularity within the group was related to the number of vocalizations and increased pragmatic skills. Taken together, it appears that vocalizations and pragmatic skills may help individuals signal their position within the hierarchy, while monitoring the social communications of others. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Interactive products for self-improvement (e.g., online trainings to reduce stress, fitness gadgets) have become increasingly popular among consumers and healthcare providers. In line with the idea of positive computing, these tools aim to support their users on their way to improved well-being and human flourishing. As an interdisciplinary domain, the design of self-improvement technologies requires psychological, technological, and design expertise. One needs to know how to support people in behavior change, and one needs to find ways to do this through technology design. However, as recent reviews show, the interlocking relationship between these disciplines is still improvable. Many existing technologies for self-improvement neglect psychological theory on behavior change, especially motivational factors are not sufficiently considered. To counteract this, we suggest a focus on the dialog and emerging communication between product and user, considering the self-improvement tool as an interactive coach and advisor. Methods: The present qualitative interview study (N = 18) explored the user experience of self-improvement technologies. A special focus was on the perceived dialog between tool and user, which we analyzed in terms of models from communication psychology. Results: Our findings show that users are sensible to the way the product 'speaks to them' and consider this as essential for their experience and successful change. Analysis revealed different communication styles of self-improvement tools (e.g., helpful-cooperative, rational-distanced, critical-aggressive), each linked to specific emotional consequences. Conclusions: These findings form one starting point for a more psychologically founded design of self-improvement technology. On a more general level, our approach aims to contribute to a better integration of psychological and technological knowledge, and in consequence, supporting users on their way to enhanced well-being. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Relatively little is known about how to make digital health tools accessible to different populations from a cultural standpoint. Alignment with cultural values and communication styles may affect these tools' ability to diagnose and treat various conditions. In this Editorial, we highlight the findings of recent work to make digital tools for mental health more culturally accessible, and propose ways to advance this area of study. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

As growing numbers of social work programs offer online delivery of course content, the positive aspects described in the literature, such as student access and flexibility, as well as concerns about quality, instructor/student relationships, and academic honesty of students, need to be examined as they relate to clinical social work education (Pelech et al. ; Reamer ). Three examples of fully online courses offered to clinical social work students by an experienced clinician and online instructor are examined in the context of the benefits and challenges put forth in the literature. A foundation interviewing course, diagnostic assessment course, and course on social work with older adults with a service-learning component are described in terms of quality, comparison to face-to-face courses, advantages, and disadvantages. These examples illustrate that online courses which are strategically and rigorously developed are comparable to face-to-face courses in many ways, including activities, assignments, assessments, outcomes, student quality, and methods of addressing academic dishonesty. Yet, differences exist in quality and quantity of interaction and skill development. Methods of ensuring quality are explored, including intense instructor presence, real time meetings online, and well-formulated discussion questions that require students to interact with the material and each other in ways that are potentially more demanding and engaging than courses taught face-to-face. Further challenges of technology, class size and requirement of additional faculty time are discussed, as well as clinical content that is currently more appropriately taught with a face-to-face component. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Objective: To study the clinico-etiological profile of children with intellectual disability using an algorithmic approach. Design: Cross-sectional study. Setting: Tertiary care centre in Northern India. Participants: Consecutive children aged 3 months to 12 years, presenting with intellectual disability, confirmed by Developmental Assessment Scale for Indian Infants, Binet Kulshreshtha Test and Vineland Social Maturity Scale. Method: All children were assessed on an internally validated structured proforma. A targeted approach included thyroid function tests, Brainstem evoked response audiometry, electroencephalogram, neuroimaging and metabolic screen done as a pre-decided schema. Genetic tests included karyotyping, molecular studies for Fragile X, Multiplex Ligation Dependent Probe Amplification and Array Comparative Genomic Hybridisation. Results: Data of 101 children (median age 22 months) was analyzed. The etiological yield was 82.1% with genetic causes being the most common (61.4%) followed by perinatal acquired (20.4%), CNS malformations (12%), external prenatal (3.6%), and postnatal acquired (2.4%). Mild delay was seen in 11.7%, moderate in 21.7%, severe in 30.6% and profound in 35.6%. Conclusion: It is possible to ascertain the diagnosis in most of the cases of intellectual disability using a judicious and sequential battery of tests. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article discusses research on information transmission and communication theory, with a focus on a model communication between an informed sender and an uniformed receiver. Topics include costly communication of discrete information, qualitative research on communication styles and preferences, and the role of out-of-equilibrium beliefs in miscommunication. The condition "no incentive to separate" (NITS) in mediational communication is examined.

Studies of doctor-patient communication generally advocate a partnership communication style. However, in Southeast Asian settings, we often see a more one-way style with little input from the patient. We investigated factors underlying the use of a one-way consultation style by doctors in a Southeast Asian setting. We conducted a qualitative study based on principles of grounded theory. Twenty residents and specialists and 20 patients of a low or high educational level were interviewed in internal medicine outpatient clinics of an Indonesian teaching hospital and two affiliated hospitals. During 26 weeks we engaged in an iterative interview and coding process to identify emergent factors. Patients were generally dissatisfied with doctors' communication style. The doctors indicated that they did not deliberately use a one-way style. Communication style appeared to be associated with characteristics of Southeast Asian culture, the health care setting and medical education. Doctor-patient communication appeared to be affected by cultural characteristics which fell into two broad categories representing key features of Southeast Asian culture, 'social distance' and 'closeness of relationships', and to characteristics categorized as 'specific clinical context'. Consideration of these characteristics could be helpful in promoting the use of a partnership communication style. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Classroom communication often involves interactions between students and teachers from dissimilar cultures, which influence classroom learning because of their dissimilar communication styles influenced by their cultures. It is therefore important to study the influence of culture on classroom communication that influences the classroom verbal and nonverbal interactions. The purpose of this study was to develop and validate a new instrument to assess eight scales of students' classroom communication learning environment: Body Language, Communication Rate, Communication Loudness, Eye Contact, English Usage, Verbal Support, Intra-gender Communication and Inter-gender Communication. The instrument was administered to 1,723 upper-secondary biology students in Brunei government schools. The alpha reliability (0.58-0.91) and discrimination validity (0.08-0.13) coefficients for these scales were within acceptable ranges. Statistically significant η coefficients suggested that the instrument was able to differentiate between participating biology classes. Students perceived a low level verbal support and sometimes higher teacher communication rate in their classes. Dialects other than English, which is the medium of instruction, have been used in biology classes to some extent. There is a strong tendency for intra-gender than inter-gender communications in classes, which could limit the effectiveness of teaching and learning in constructivist classes [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

growing body of evidence suggests that a wide range of animals can recognize and respond appropriately to calls produced by other species. Social learning has been implicated as a possible mechanism by which heterospecific call recognition might develop. To examine whether familiarity and/or shared vulnerability with the calling species might influence the ability of sympatric species to distinguish heterospecific alarm calls, we tested whether four ungulate species (impala: Aepyceros melampus; tsessebe: Damaliscus lunatus; zebra: Equus burchelli; wildebeest: Connochaetes taurinus) could distinguish baboon ( Papio hamadryas ursinus) alarm calls from other loud baboon calls produced during intra-specific aggressive interactions ('contest' calls). Overall, subjects' responses were stronger following playback of alarm calls than contest calls. Of the species tested, impala showed the strongest responses and the greatest difference in composite response scores, suggesting they were best able to differentiate call types. Compared with the other ungulate species, impala are the most frequent associates of baboons. Moreover, like baboons, they are susceptible to both lion and leopard attacks, whereas leopards rarely take the larger ungulates. Although it seems possible that high rates of association and/or shared vulnerability may influence impala's greater ability to distinguish among baboon call types, our results point to a stronger influence of familiarity. Ours is the first study to compare such abilities among several community members with variable natural histories, and we discuss future experiments that would more systematically examine development of these skills in young ungulates. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The purpose of this study was to investigate the relations between leaders’ communication styles and charismatic leadership, human-oriented leadership (leader’s consideration), task-oriented leadership (leader’s initiating structure), and leadership outcomes. A survey was conducted among 279 employees of a governmental organization. The following six main communication styles were operationalized: verbal aggressiveness, expressiveness, preciseness, assuredness, supportiveness, and argumentativeness. Regression analyses were employed to test three main hypotheses. In line with expectations, the study showed that charismatic and human-oriented leadership are mainly communicative, while task-oriented leadership is significantly less communicative. The communication styles were strongly and differentially related to knowledge sharing behaviors, perceived leader performance, satisfaction with the leader, and subordinate’s team commitment. Multiple regression analyses showed that the leadership styles mediated the relations between the communication styles and leadership outcomes. However, leader’s preciseness explained variance in perceived leader performance and satisfaction with the leader above and beyond the leadership style variables. This study offers potentially invaluable input for leadership training programs by showing the importance of leader’s supportiveness, assuredness, and preciseness when communicating with subordinates. Although one of the core elements of leadership is interpersonal communication, this study is one of the first to use a comprehensive communication styles instrument in the study of leadership. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract  During face-to-face interactions, listeners use backchannel feedback such as head nods as a signal to the speaker that the communication is working and that they should continue speaking. Predicting these backchannel opportunities is an important milestone for building engaging and natural virtual humans. In this paper we show how sequential probabilistic models (e.g., Hidden Markov Model or Conditional Random Fields) can automatically learn from a database of human-to-human interactions to predict listener backchannels using the speaker multimodal output features (e.g., prosody, spoken words and eye gaze). The main challenges addressed in this paper are automatic selection of the relevant features and optimal feature representation for probabilistic models. For prediction of visual backchannel cues (i.e., head nods), our prediction model shows a statistically significant improvement over a previously published approach based on hand-crafted rules. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The aim of this study was to examine interactional styles of general practitioners (GPs) in consultations with Dutch patients as compared to ethnic minority patients, from the perspective of level of mutual understanding between patient and GP. Data of 103 transcripts of video-registered medical interviews were analyzed to assess GPs’ communication styles in terms of involvement, detachment, shared decision-making and patient-centeredness. Surveys were used to collect data on patients’ characteristics and mutual understanding. Results show that overall, GPs communicate less adequately with ethnic minority patients than with Dutch patients; they involve them less in decision-making and check their understanding of what has been discussed less often. Intercultural consultations are thus markedly distinguishable from intracultural consultations by a lack of adequate communicative behavior by GPs. As every patient has a moral and legal right to make informed decisions, it is concluded that GPs should check more often whether their ethnic minority patients have understood what has been said during the medical consultation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We outline ideas and research in training parents to help their children to appreciate historical patterns of social contingencies as well as contingencies in the present. Parents’ use of “lessons and dialogue” is presented as a means of guiding the children’s efforts to describe their past experiences in narrative format, along with teaching the children about contingency management in the present. Lessons define this latter type of parent teaching, and dialogue defines the former type. Our focus is on dialogue because it is not well known in the parent training literature. A case study is included to illustrate the potential benefits and problems encountered in training parents to use dialogue. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article provides an examination of issues related to spontaneity of communication in children with autism. Deficits relating to spontaneity or initiation are frequently reported in individuals with autism, particularly in relation to communication and social behavior. Nevertheless, spontaneity is not necessarily clearly conceptualized or measured. Several approaches to conceptualization of communicative spontaneity are examined with a particular focus on the continuum model and how it might be practically applied. A range of possible explanations for deficits in spontaneity of communication in children with autism is subsequently explored, including external factors (highly structured teaching programs, failure to systematically instruct for spontaneity) and intrinsic characteristics (intellectual disability, stimulus overselectivity, weak central coherence). Possible implications for future research are presented. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Some tendencies in modern education—the stress on ‘performativity’, for instance, and ‘celebration of difference’—threaten the value traditionally placed on truthful teaching. In this paper, truthfulness is mainly understood, following Bernard Williams, as a disposition to ‘Accuracy’ and ‘Sincerity’—hence as a virtue. It is to be distinguished from truth (a property of beliefs), and current debates about the nature of truth are not relevant to the issue of the value of truthfulness. This issue devolves into the question of whether truthfulness is a distinctive virtue of teachers, which they have a special obligation to exercise in the face of competing aims. This paper defends the idea of distinctive professional duties and considers two conceptions of teaching which ascribe a central place to truthfulness. The first conceives of teaching as a personal relationship within which trust, and hence, it is claimed, truthfulness, are paramount. This claim is challenged, and the paper concludes by sympathetically considering a second conception of teaching, articulated by Oakeshott and Heidegger. In this conception, teaching is a ‘releasement’ from ‘the daily flux’ of pupils’ lives through a truthful initiation into the alternatives to this ‘daily flux’ found within ‘the civilized inheritance of mankind’. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper first reviews the literature on computer mediated communication (CMC) to examine whether claims about gender-linked differences in specific attitudes, styles and content in CMC have been validated. Empirical studies were limited, with considerable variation in audiences, tasks, and contexts that was related to varied outcomes. The paper next describes an empirical study on the e-mail communication of elementary school children from ten Dutch classrooms. No gender-linked preference for a person or task-oriented attitude was found. Girls significantly more often employed an elaborate style. Differences between boys and girls on content of communication were subtle rather than robust. The conclusion discusses the functional embedding of CMC and the need to examine jointly antecedents, language acts and consequences. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Subgroup analysis of children (5–12 years) with autism enrolled in an 8-week, double-blind, placebo-controlled trial of risperidone for pervasive developmental disorders. The primary efficacy measure was the Aberrant Behavior Checklist-Irritability (ABC-I) subscale. Data were available for 55 children given risperidone ( n = 27) or placebo ( n = 28); mean baseline ABC-I ( ± SD) was 20.6 (8.1) and 21.6 (10.2). Risperidone [mean dose ( ± SD): 1.37 mg/day (0.7)] resulted in significantly greater reduction from baseline to endpoint in ABC-I versus placebo [mean change ( ± SD): −13.4 (1.5) vs. −7.2 (1.4), P < 0.05; ES = −0.7]. The most common adverse effect with risperidone was somnolence (74% vs. 7% with placebo). Risperidone treatment was well tolerated and significantly improved behavioral problems associated with autism. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The behaviours of infants were observed using home videos, in an attempt to identify social difficulties characteristic of infants with autistic disorder. Three groups of infants were analysed: 15 infants who had later been diagnosed with autism, 15 infants who had a developmental or language delay, and 15 typically developing infants. Social behaviours were coded using both quantitative and qualitative measures. The principal discriminating items between the groups were found to be ‘peer interest’, ‘gaze aversion’, ‘anticipatory postures’, and ‘proto-declarative showing’. The results suggest that these children later diagnosed with autism are clinically distinct from their peers before the age of two years, and that there are clearly observable behaviours which are important predictors of autistic disorder in pre-verbal children. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

BACKGROUND: Few studies have explored how physicians approach medical encounters in Japan. OBJECTIVE: This study examined how Japanese physicians conduct routine medical encounters in the context of outpatient care to patients with nonmalignant disorders. DESIGN: Qualitative study using semi-structured interviews and direct observation. SETTING: The outpatient department of a general hospital located in an urban area of Japan. PARTICIPANTS: Physicians and nurses providing care and patients receiving care for nonmalignant disorders. RESULTS: A 2-dimensional model was developed, with patient communication (how physician interacted with patients) along 1 axis, and nurse communication (how physicians collaborated with nursing stall) along the other axis. Four physician communication styles (individually adaptive, individually defined, collaboratively adaptive, and collaboratively defined) were identified as typical ways in which the Japanese physicians in the sample interacted with patients and nurses during routine medical encounters. CONCLUSIONS: Results suggest the need for a multiprovider-patient model of medical communication among physician, nurse, and patient. Further research is needed to establish the applicability of this model to the communication styles of physicians in other countries. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study analyzed a case of compulsive buying based on the grounded theory method. The client was a 24 year-old female Korean student who showed compulsive buying and excessive credit card use. The family therapy was performed between March 2001 and May 2004 in Korea. This study used the software “Atlas.ti,” producing 121 open codings and seven axis categories which included the following: (1) communication issues with friends or family members, (2) sibling relationships, (3) mother’s parenting, (4) interparental relationships, (5) mother’s communication style, (6) stress, and (7) compulsive buying and credit card use. This study presented the graphical network among these categories in order to show the effectiveness of family therapy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

When subjects switch between tasks, performance is slower after a task switch than after a task repetition, even when preparation time is long. We report two experiments that support the idea that a large part of these residual task shift costs can be due to stimulus-cued retrieval of previous task episodes. We demonstrate that there are two different factors at work: (1) facilitation of response to the current distractor stimulus, appropriate to the previously relevant, competing task (competitor priming), and (2) impaired processing of previously suppressed responses (negative priming). Negative priming was contingent on the size of the stimulus set, suggesting that distractor suppression comes into effect only if the distractors are highly activated. Importantly, both types of interference interacted with task readiness: Whereas in the nondominant task (picture naming), switch and nonswitch trials were equally affected, the dominant task (word reading) showed priming effects on switch trials only. Thus, the retrieval of previous processing episodes has a selective impact on situations in which task competition is high. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A correction to this paper has been published: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11218-021-09628-9 [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A variety of nonverbal behaviors was coded from videotapes of 88 dyadic conversations. The 44 male and 44 female subjects were paired so that each participated in one conversation with a stranger of the same sex and one conversation with a stranger of the opposite sex. It was found that sex of subject, but not sex of partner, had a significant effect on many of the nonverbal behaviors displayed during the conversations. Subjects' scores on the behavioral measures were correlated with their scores on several personality measures and on a post-conversation questionnaire. Sex differences in these correlations were used to generate hypotheses linking specific behavioral differences between the sexes to more general differences between the masculine and feminine interpersonal styles. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

An experiment was conducted to determine the relationship between sex-role attitudes, affiliation, and dominance and nonverbal communication styles in men and women in same and opposite-sex dyads. Women were found to elicit more warmth and men more anxiety from their partners. Evidence was found for a possible monitoring mechanism through which women adjust their nonverbal communications to fit the male in the interaction. Liberalism in sex-role attitudes was found to correlate with nonverbal warmth in men. The nonverbal presentations of men and women in the microprocesses of dyadic interaction were found to relate significantly to the macro structure of societal sex roles. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Two potential limitations of research on the attributional model of depression lie in relatively untested assumptions concerning the lack of sex differences in the attributional style-depression relationship and the linearity of the relationship across levels of depression. We tested these assumptions, finding no sex differences and an essentially linear relationship. Implications of these results for research on the attributional model of depression are discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Empirical research has revealed a variety of differences in the communication behavior of males and females. This study addresses whether males and females think differently about communication. Imagined interactions are cognitive representations of interactive behavior in which the actor experiences the self to be engaged in communication with another. Results of a study reveal that females have more frequent and pleasant imagined interactions, they imagine more self-words, and they are more likely to imagine and recall the scene of imagined interactions than males. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Agency, communion, and gender were compared as predictors of communication style in the conversations of 76 unacquainted pairs of male-female college students. Each dyad was given a popular issue to discuss for 5 mm. Agency and communion were measured using Spence and Helmreich's (Masculinity and Femininity: Their Psychological Dimensions, Correlates, and Antecedents, Austin, Texas: University of Texas Press, 1978) Personal Attributes Questionnaire. Self-perceived agency was significantly associated with verbal assertiveness: High-agency persons used fewer indirect statements and fewer passive self-references than low-agency persons. Nonsignificant trends indicated that self-perceived communication tended to be associated with interpersonal involvement: High-communion persons used fewer impersonal references and were liked more than low-communion persons. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Opening lines were conceptualized as a method for expanding one's marketplace for dating and marriage partners. In Study 1, university students and employees rated opening lines used by men for meeting women. Respondents (n = 600) in one survey rated opening lines for general situations. Respondents (n = 431) in a second survey rated opening lines for specific situations, including bars, restaurants, supermarkets, laundromats, and beaches. In Study 2, university students and employees (n = 831) rated opening lines used by women for meeting men in general situations. Factor analyses identified three categories of opening lines: cute-flippant, innocuous, and direct. Overall, respondents agreed that cute-flippant opening lines were the least desirable and that innocuous and direct opening lines were the most desirable. Within this general consensus, there was a consistent tendency for women to dislike cute-flippant opening lines more than men and to prefer innocuous opening lines more than men. These differences were related to sex role socialization. Discussion focused on reasons people persist in using cute-flippant opening lines and on an attributional analysis of responses to opening lines. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study tests competing socialization- and identity-based hypotheses concerning the impact of variations in speech style (powerful/powerless,) on perceptions of male and female managerial job applicants. In addition, we investigate the effect of the gender of the observer on sensitivity to variation in speech style. Supportive of the socialization hypothesis, speech style has a significant effect on expectations of ‘success’ and ‘acceptance’ in a managerial position, as well as on attributions of situationally relevant traits regardless of the gender of the applicant. However, the identity perspective is supported by the finding that gender of the applicant affects perceptions of ‘liking’ and attributions of gender-linked traits. We argue that the relevance of evaluative dimensions and traits for a particular context affects the impact of gender on the interpretation of actions. As predicted, female observers were more sensitive to variations in speech style. In fact, the effects of speech style on evaluations of applicants disappeared when only male responses were considered. The implications of these findings for equal opportunity in hiring and promotion are discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Early male and female differences in the functional use of language were investigated by coding the verbal interactions of 32 preschool children during a 10-minute play session with same-sex peer. The speech of each child was classified into functional-motivational categories using the FIS-P scoring instrument. The findings were consistent with the literature on adult conversational styles, showing that males talk more and are more assertive in their social interactions than are females. The results of this study demonstrate the existence of early gender differences in the functional use of language and emphasize the importance of a developmental approach to the study of communication styles. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]