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Robot backchanneling is implemented using verbal expressions, such as reiterating after remembering the response of the user or chiming in with the user. We performed experiments to investigate how the backchannel behavior of the robot affects the user's perception of the robot's empathy and attentiveness toward their reported pain and sleep concerns. The results indicate that users prefer the robot that provides backchannel and perceive it as more intelligent. Where the robot backchanneled, the number of conversational turns between the user and the robot decreased compared to situations where the robot did not backchannel. The refusal rate of the robot repeating the same question to the user decreased. When a robot is conducting a medical questionnaire and offers backchannels to the user, the overall efficiency of the conversation improves. Users also perceive the robot as understanding and empathetic towards their pain and discomfort, leading to a positive evaluation of the interaction. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Response signals (RS) have emerged as a powerful interaction tool, but they have yet to be fully understood. The current study analyzes 16 h of daily conversations using discourse-pragmatic frameworks to discuss certain aspects of the most prevalent primary and secondary Persian RSs. An RS is identified as a brief interactive response to a prior speaker's statement, typically expressing (dis)confirmation, (un)acceptance, or backchannel (including assessment and continuer feedback). The research also differentiates and compares the functional and distributional differences and similarities between confirmation and backchannel signals. Following that, it takes a semasiological approach and discusses how the emergence, overlap, and markedness of certain functions for an item can be determined by the persistence of its original propositional meaning as well as the item's grammaticalization and cooptation. The paper thus reviews the markedness of the backchannel function for na 'no' compared to this function's development for ɂāre 'yes'. Last but not least, cross-linguistic phonological tendencies, such as the integration of the phoneme /ɂ/ or /h/ in positive RSs and click sounds in negative ones, are supported by Persian RSs and their variants. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Large classroom configurations and lecture-centered pedagogy discourage student engagement. The advances in educational technology have empowered instructors to fill the gap. This study designed a digital question board (DQB) on digital canvas to facilitate student engagement in large lecture classes. A mixed-methods study with a quasi-experiment was conducted to investigate the influence of such intervention. The study was situated in an introductory research methodology course in a large comprehensive university in eastern China (n = 253). The quasi-experiment lasted for six weeks. The data from surveys, interviews, observations, and online posts were collected and analyzed. This study mainly presented qualitative analysis results from the exploratory approach. Eight themes emerged from 12 interviews, 161 survey responses and 457 student posts were discussed. It was found that following the proposed design principles, the presence of a DQB effectively facilitated students' cognitive and emotional engagement. The enhanced self-regulation and co-construction of knowledge all led to the improved cognitive engagement. The reduced social pressure of questioning and increased interactivity contributed most to their emotional engagement. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Understanding children's conversational skills is crucial for understanding their social, cognitive, and linguistic development, with important applications in health and education. To develop theories based on quantitative studies of conversational development, we need (i) data recorded in naturalistic contexts (e.g., child-caregiver dyads talking in their daily environment) where children are more likely to show much of their conversational competencies, as opposed to controlled laboratory contexts which typically involve talking to a stranger (e.g., the experimenter); (ii) data that allows for clear access to children's multimodal behavior in face-to-face conversations; and (iii) data whose acquisition method is cost-effective with the potential of being deployed at a large scale to capture individual and cultural variability. The current work is a first step to achieving this goal. We built a corpus of video chats involving children in middle childhood (6–12 years old) and their caregivers using a weakly structured word-guessing game to prompt spontaneous conversation. The manual annotations of these recordings have shown a similarity in the frequency distribution of multimodal communicative signals from both children and caregivers. As a case study, we capitalize on this rich behavioral data to study how verbal and non-verbal cues contribute to the children's conversational coordination. In particular, we looked at how children learn to engage in coordinated conversations, not only as speakers but also as listeners, by analyzing children's use of backchannel signaling (e.g., verbal “mh” or head nods) during these conversations. Contrary to results from previous in-lab studies, our use of a more spontaneous conversational setting (as well as more adequate controls) revealed that school-age children are strikingly close to adult-level mastery in many measures of backchanneling. Our work demonstrates the usefulness of recent technology in video calling for acquiring quality data that can be used for research on children's conversational development in the wild.

Japanese tend to deliver backchannel for being supportive and representing people’s interest in their interaction. Many linguists believed Backchannel as discourse markers that showed interlocutors’ negative faces and determined their social hierarchy position. Brown and Levinson’s (henceforth BL) politeness theory has been modified, criticized, and applied to all languages globally. This research aims to know whether the BL politeness theory can explain Backchannel as a consideration behavior. Furthermore, we investigate the position, situation, and the relation between the speaker listener in a conversation. The primary data are a data corpus of 30 minutes’ length of 15 natural conversations. The age of the target is between the ‘20s to ‘40s. We also compare and analyze the situation from a first-timer conversation, a conversation between friends, and a hierarchical relationship. This study will help understand the relation between speaker and listener or whether Backchannel is considered a consideration behavior. Consideration is one act to shows politeness to the interlocutors. The result shows that Japanese people use different Backchannel according to the partner he/she speaks. When the interlocutors meet for the first time or have a higher position, they mostly use the polite form. They also consider the relationship, the interlocutor's gender, and age. This finding shows that the Japanese use Backchannel as a consideration to maintain the interlocutor's face.

Group work is a necessary element of engineering education and group members need information about one another, group process, shared attention and mutual understanding during group discussions. There are several important elements for establishing and maintaining a group discussion such as participant's role, seating arrangement, verbal and non-verbal cues, eye gaze, gestures etc. The present study investigates these elements for identifying the behavior of group members in a blend of traditional face-to-face discussion along with computer supported cooperative work (CSCW) setting. The results of this study have shown that, speaking duration is the key factor for identifying the leadership in a group and participants mostly used eye gazes for turn taking. Although this study is a mix of face-to-face and CSCW discussion setting, participants mostly behave like face-to-face group discussion. However, unlike the previous studies involving face-to-face discussion, the relation between seating arrangement and amount of attention is not apparent from the data during this study. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Journal of the College Of Basic Education is the property of Republic of Iraq Ministry of Higher Education & Scientific Research (MOHESR) and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

In everyday conversation, turns often follow each other immediately or overlap in time. It has been proposed that speakers achieve this tight temporal coordination between their turns by engaging in linguistic dual-tasking, i.e., by beginning to plan their utterance during the preceding turn. This raises the question of how speakers manage to co-ordinate speech planning and listening with each other. Experimental work addressing this issue has mostly concerned the capacity demands and interference arising when speakers retrieve some content words while listening to others. However, many contributions to conversations are not content words, but backchannels, such as “hm”. Backchannels do not provide much conceptual content and are therefore easy to plan and respond to. To estimate how much they might facilitate speech planning in conversation, we determined their frequency in a Dutch and a German corpus of conversational speech. We found that 19% of the contributions in the Dutch corpus, and 16% of contributions in the German corpus were backchannels. In addition, many turns began with fillers or particles, most often translation equivalents of “yes” or “no,” which are likewise easy to plan. We proposed that to generate comprehensive models of using language in conversation psycholinguists should study not only the generation and processing of content words, as is commonly done, but also consider backchannels, fillers, and particles.

In everyday conversation, turns often follow each other immediately or overlap in time. It has been proposed that speakers achieve this tight temporal coordination between their turns by engaging in linguistic dual-tasking, i.e., by beginning to plan their utterance during the preceding turn. This raises the question of how speakers manage to co-ordinate speech planning and listening with each other. Experimental work addressing this issue has mostly concerned the capacity demands and interference arising when speakers retrieve some content words while listening to others. However, many contributions to conversations are not content words, but backchannels, such as "hm". Backchannels do not provide much conceptual content and are therefore easy to plan and respond to. To estimate how much they might facilitate speech planning in conversation, we determined their frequency in a Dutch and a German corpus of conversational speech. We found that 19% of the contributions in the Dutch corpus, and 16% of contributions in the German corpus were backchannels. In addition, many turns began with fillers or particles, most often translation equivalents of "yes" or "no," which are likewise easy to plan. We proposed that to generate comprehensive models of using language in conversation psycholinguists should study not only the generation and processing of content words, as is commonly done, but also consider backchannels, fillers, and particles. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Turn-taking is the prominent feature of dyadic conversation. It is termed as an interchanging of utterance sequences between two or more speakers. Many a time, this turn-taking does not take place smoothly as it involves simultaneous speech namely interruption and overlap. Interruption is an indispensable aspect of conversational behavior. Therefore, it cannot be relegated as a rude and disaffiliative act harming the flow of conversation. Like interruption, overlap too is the essential ingredient of interaction as it helps enhancing conversation at hand. In short, our interaction itself necessitates interruption and overlap. The present paper aims at defining interaction and overlap in the line of their function, types, and differences. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Interruption, as a conversational strategy, can be employed to achieve different functions in conversation. This study deals with conversation analysis as a main method of the study. It aims at analyzing conversational interruptions and their interactive effects between the interviewer (IR) and the interviewee (IE) in different political statuses, and to identify different types of interactional response tokens practiced by the IR and IE within the political context. The problem of the study is that interruption may have different forms. In this case, investigating interruption types is necessary to know how interruption usually occurs and the purposes behind it. This study used a quantitative and a qualitative method to describe the phenomena under study. The data of study are selected from videos of Two episodes of BBC Hard Talk (a British programme) and Bil Harf Al- Wahid (an Iraqi programme) with prominent political figures. Utterances are the unit of analysis in this study. The model adopted in this study is an eclectic one consisting of: Ferguson classification of interruption types (1977), Murataʼs theory of interruption functions (1994) and Gardinerʼs classification of backchannels (2001). To validate the aims of the study, some hypotheses are suggested: 1. Interruption phenomenon is associated with the interviewer who has the main role in controlling the whole interview. 2. Both English and Arabic TV programmes exhibit different types and functions of interruptions because of the controversy inside the interview. 3. There is a difference between English and Arabic political programmes with regard to the backchannels and their classifications. The main conclusions the study arrived at are: (1) In both programmes ″BBC Hard Talk″ and ″Biel Harf Al-Wahid ″, most instances of interruption are associated with the interviewer (IR) who has the main role in controlling the whole discussion, and this achieves the first hypothesis. (2) In the Iraqi programme ″Bil Harf Al-Wahid″ all types of interruption occur in most of the episodes. On the contrary, in ″BBC Hard Talk″ program in which not all types of interruption occur. (3) In ″BBC Hard Talk″ programme, head nods are more frequent non vocal backchannels used by the interviewer. They are employed more than the vocal backchannel while, in ″Bil Harf Al-Wahid″ programme, the interviewer uses variant types of vocal backchannel. The expression mm is the most frequent one followed by zen. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Human–human interaction consists of various nonverbal behaviors that are often emotion-related. To establish rapport, it is essential that the listener respond to reactive emotion in a way that makes sense given the speaker's emotional state. However, human–robot interactions generally fail in this regard because most spoken dialogue systems play only a question-answer role. Aiming for natural conversation, we examine an emotion processing module that consists of a user emotion recognition function and a reactive emotion expression function for a spoken dialogue system to improve human–robot interaction. For the emotion recognition function, we propose a method that combines valence from prosody and sentiment from text by decision-level fusion, which considerably improves the performance. Moreover, this method reduces fatal recognition errors, thereby improving the user experience. For the reactive emotion expression function, the system's emotion is divided into emotion category and emotion level, which are predicted using the parameters estimated by the recognition function on the basis of distributions inferred from human–human dialogue data. As a result, the emotion processing module can recognize the user's emotion from his/her speech, and expresses a reactive emotion that matches. Evaluation with ten participants demonstrated that the system enhanced by this module is effective to conduct natural conversation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study explores the use of backchannels, real-time online conversations taking place simultaneously with spoken discussions (the front channel), as one approach to meaning-making through discussion. Using transcripts of front and backchannel discussions, we examine how undergraduate preservice teachers utilize backchannels to talk about class-assigned texts. Although previous research has suggested that backchannels can create distractions, our study found that participants within the backchannel groups were able to create meaning through their interactions. We used five types of talk (analytic, personal, intertextual, transparent, and performative) to aid in our analysis. While we found evidence of all types of talk in the transcripts, analytical talk dominated the conversations, suggesting that backchannels can indeed encourage close readings of texts. In addition, we found that the nature of the online environment created a sixth category of talk. This type of talk, which we called negotiation, allowed participants in the backchannel to define and react to the digital space they interacted within. Findings point to increased engagement in class discussion and the potential of backchannels as a way to effectively integrate technology into instruction.

Este trabalho aborda as transformações ocorridas no ambiente científico com o advento da web social, em especial na modalidade de Comunicação Científica realizada através de eventos – conferências e congressos, que passam a ter seus conteúdos replicados e compartilhados em tempo real em mídias sociais. Essas conversações online paralelas ao evento caracteriza um novo canal informal da Comunicação Científica, o backchannel. O fenômeno é apresentado através do estudo de caso da atividade online por meio do Twitter em torno da 4ª Conferência Luso-Brasileira sobre Acesso Aberto (CONFOA), realizada em São Paulo em outubro de 2013. A análise dos resultados do monitoramento da hashtag #CONFOA2013 mostra que o Twitter atua como um backchannel eficiente, contribuindo na disseminação e replicação de conteúdos de eventos científicos, ampliando sua visibilidade e seu alcance.

Interactional competence has been variously defined as turn-taking ability, paralinguistic features of communication such as eye contact, gesture, and gesticulation, and listener responses. In existing assessment systems such as the oral proficiency interview (OPI), interactional competence is only rarely explicitly factored into the holistic task-based rating system. The present article explores the potential relevance of a facet of interactional competence, listener response, in contrastive interviewers conducted structurally distinct languages, Japanese and English. The analytic focus through micro-analysis of the interview interaction aims to consider evidence of how the candidate's listener responses audible through backchannels might be consistently identified as distinct from existing rating criteria such as fluency, accuracy, and coherence, and whether listener responses as interactional competence might be distinct from, or subsumable under, these facets of speaker proficiency. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Twitter usage (“tweeting”) at academic conferences is quickly gaining prevalence. This fast-growing practice is an example of the complexity of academic discourse communities and how digital interactions aid scholars in building meaningful working relationships. Graduate students, in their position as “peripheral participants” in their academic disciplines (Lave & Wenger, 1991), have a unique perspective on the process of building their academic identities and relationships that will last a career. This qualitative interview study examines the perspectives of five Ph.D. students at universities across the United States who used Twitter at the academic conference Computers and Writing in May 2015. Building on previous studies on digital communication among academics (Hyland, 2012; Leon & Pigg, 2011; Li & Greenhow, 2015), this study reveals the behind-the-scenes perspectives of graduate students who used Twitter at this academic conference. Findings include a look into the intentionality these graduate students bring to their conference tweeting, explanations of their efforts to connect with others and build name- and face-recognition in the academic discourse community, and other useful insights into graduate students’ conference tweeting. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Teacher preparation programs have historically experienced logistical and epistemological struggles in implementing earlier clinical experiences, despite the value placed on reflective practice in early clinical experiences. To address this issue, the author, a university faculty member, partnered with a Professional Development School (PDS) to design a new PDS practice before the clinical experience. The new practice grounds itself in the Cognitive Apprenticeship Model (CAM) and backchannel technology in order to emphasize the implementation of this teaching theory into practice. The practice uses a field-based social studies methods course to co-observe in-service teachers. Students observe with their classmates and their methods instructor, who serves as a teaching coach to the pre-service teachers. The coach uses backchannel chat technology (group text discussions) to orient, in real-time, the pre-service teachers' attention to the in-service teachers' pedagogical choices. This encourages pre-service teachers to embark in metacognition, reflective practice, and a real-time conversation surrounding clinical practices. After the observation period, the in-service teachers attend the methods course with the pre-service teachers and engage in the class discussion to further explicate their practice. This innovative use of technology, observation, and cooperation between the Institute of Higher Education (IHE) and the PDS facilitates scaffolded experiences of clinical practice through authentic learning in the PDS. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Ways to solve the passivation layer undercut in via hole were described in detail. By tuning the pretreatment before the passivation layer deposition, the passivation layer undercut in via hole was solved efficiently without any other side effects. Different from changing dry etching process parameters, we increasing the adhesion of the interface between metal layer and passivation layer to overcome undercut issue. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Backchannel technology can be used to allow students in large lecture courses to communicate with each other and the instructor during the delivery of lecture content and class discussions. It can also be utilized by instructors to capture, summarize, and integrate student questions, ideas, and needs into course content both immediately and throughout the course. The authors integrated backchannel software in one of two sections of a course, leaving the other section as a control; combined, the two sections contained a total number of 871 students. Data was gathered comparing both groups using online surveys and semester grades; results showed that the section using backchannel software had higher class satisfaction and perception of engagement, used their mobile devices more for accessing class content, felt more comfortable participating in class discussions, and had a higher grade average than the section that did not. The authors also explore their own experiences of finding, integrating, and maintaining backchannel technology. La technologie d’arrière-plan peut permettre aux étudiants de grands cours magistraux de communiquer les uns avec les autres et avec l’instructeur durant le cours et les discussions en classe. Les instructeurs peuvent aussi l’utiliser pour saisir, résumer et intégrer les questions, idées et besoins des étudiants dans le contenu du cours, et ce, immédiatement et pendant toute la durée du cours. Les auteurs ont intégré un logiciel d’arrière-plan dans l’une des deux sections d’un cours, faisant de l’autre section son groupe témoin. Ensemble, les deux sections comprenaient 871 étudiants. Des données ont été recueillies pour comparer les deux groupes à l’aide de sondages en ligne et des notes du trimestre. Les résultats ont démontré que la section utilisant le logiciel d’arrière-plan avait une plus grande satisfaction et une meilleure perception de l’engagement, que ses étudiants se servaient de leurs appareils mobiles pour accéder à davantage de contenus, se sentaient plus à l’aise de prendre part aux discussions en classe et avaient une moyenne plus élevée que ceux du groupe qui n’avait pas accès au logiciel. Les auteurs explorent également leurs propres expériences pour trouver, intégrer et entretenir la technologie d’arrière-plan.

Copyright of Media4u Magazine is the property of Ing. Jan Chromy, Ph.D. and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Twitter, the micro-blogging social media tool, has established a critical role in facilitating social engagement. Its low technical and economic barriers to uptake provide a readily accessible forum for public engagement with events such as televised political debates, and in this context provides a ‘backchannel’ to mainstream media, allowing users to comment on and engage in debates. Most recently during the 2014 Scottish Referendum, Twitter was used extensively by both ‘Better Together’ (pro-Unionist) and ‘Yes’ (pro-independence) campaigners. The aim of this research was to develop an understanding of the linked content present in tweets sent during three televised debates on the issue of Scottish Independence. Analysis of the linked content shows a broad subject proximity to the topics under discussion during the debates, but highlights the lack of specificity in relation to the peaks and troughs of Twitter traffic during the debates. The paper also highlights the use made of links to a variety of resources such as the mainstream media as well as more informal sources including user-generated image and video content to support political viewpoints, and argues that, while the use of such content is beneficial in terms of unifying perspectives, supporter activism and the gratification of the social need for connectivity, it does not act to convert political opinion. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Exploratory studies have started to demonstrate the potential value of digital backchannels for enhancing interaction in university lectures. The present study was conducted in a third year engineering course and involved the use of specialised backchannel software with the following features: students could anonymously post questions, vote on questions, give the lecturer feedback regarding the pace of the lecture or simply alert the lecturer that they were ‘lost’. The study used a mixed-method data analysis design that, in addition to data automatically logged through the backchannel, included the use of observations, surveys, lecturer interviews and student focus groups. It was found that students used all features of the backchannel, with especial use of the ‘like’ feature, not currently available in most commercial backchannel packages. The backchannel increased the number of questions asked in class, and also resulted in a broader range of students participating in such interactions. There was limited evidence of the backchannel proving a distraction; on the contrary some students said that it helped them to focus more in class. From the lecturers' perspective the backchannel did require some modification of their lecturing style but they felt that the additional feedback that they achieved was valuable. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]