A study by Taffel which investigated the relationship between anxiety and operant verbal conditioning was replicated. 81 neurotic and psychotic hospitalized males were assigned to 1 of 3 reinforcement groups (light, verbal, and control) and were further divided into high, medium, and low anxiety categories on the basis of MAT scores. The sentence-completion paradigm was used to induce condition...

This study examined the longitudinal associations between parent verbal responsiveness and language 3 years later in 34 toddlers with a diagnosis of an autism spectrum disorder. Parent-child play samples were coded for child engagement and communication acts and for parent verbal responsiveness. Measures of responsive verbal behaviors were used to predict language gain scores 3 years later. Par...

Communication studies have pointed out various alignment and grounding phenomena (Pickering et al. 2004), (Garrod et al. 2004), (Argyle et al. 1976), (Kendon 1967), (Clark 1996). Although these phenomena are generally confirmed, there are varieties among individuals in coordinating their behaviors. This paper attempts to characterize the factors that affect the styles of non-verbal behaviors in...

BACKGROUND The communication literature currently focuses primarily on improving physicians' verbal and non-verbal behaviors during the medical interview. The Four Habits Model is a teaching and research framework for physician communication that is based on evidence linking specific communication behaviors with processes and outcomes of care. The Model conceptualizes basic communication tasks ...

We introduce a nonverbal “visceral” measure of hunger (i.e., squeezing a handheld dynamometer) and provide the first evidence of verbal overshadowing effects in this visceral domain. We presented 106 participants with popcorn and recorded their hunger levels in one of three conditions: (1) first report hunger using a traditional self-report rating scale (i.e., verbal measure) and then indicate ...

In the exploratory study reported here, we tested the efficacy of an intervention designed to train teenagers with Möbius syndrome (MS) to increase the use of alternative communication strategies (e.g., gestures) to compensate for their lack of facial expressivity. Specifically, we expected the intervention to increase the level of rapport experienced in social interactions by our participants....

Cancode is a computerized interaction analysis system developed for cancer consultations. This paper assesses its reliability and validity, and compares the use of audio versus video tape; by assessing 30 consultations between an actor and 10 oncologists. Weighted Kappa inter- and intra-rater scores ranged from 0.5 to 1.0 and 0.58-1.0, respectively, and use of video tape did not alter verbal co...

Although research has shown that statistical information can support children's inferences about specific psychological causes of others' behavior, previous work leaves open the question of how children interpret statistical information in more ambiguous situations. The current studies investigated the effect of specific verbal framing information on children's ability to infer mental states fr...

Many studies have shown that people imitate and repeat each other’s behaviors. This holds for both verbal and nonverbal behavior. The production of co-speech hand gestures is a special case of nonverbal behavior, because it is believed to be tightly linked to verbal language production and because gestures can carry meaning in a way that is similar to verbal language. It has been shown that peo...

The analogue functional analysis described by Iwata, Dorsey, Slifer, Bauman, and Richman (1982/1994) identifies broad classes of variables (e.g., positive reinforcement) that maintain destructive behavior (Fisher, Ninness, Piazza, & Owen-DeSchryver, 1996). However, it is likely that some types of stimuli may be more effective reinforcers than others. In the current investigation, we identified ...