This paper presents findings of a pilot study which used pedagogical agents to examine disclosure in educational settings. The study used responsive evaluation to explore how use of pedagogical agents might affect students’ truthfulness and disclosure by asking them to respond to a lifestyle choices survey delivered by a webbased pedagogical agent. Findings indicate that emotional connection wi...

In organizational and commercial settings, people often have clear roles and workflows against which functional and non-functional requirements can be extracted. However, in more social settings, such as platforms for enhancing social interaction, successful applications are driven more by user emotional engagement than functionality, the drivers of user engagement are difficult to identify. A ...

Viewing a series of aversive pictures prompts emotional reactivity reflecting sustained defensive engagement. The present study examined the effects of a concurrent visual task on autonomic, somatic, electrocortical, and facial components of this defensive state. Results indicated that emotional activation was largely preserved despite continuous visual distraction, although evidence of attenua...

humanizing language learning materials helps language teachers to design activities that are linked to learn- ers’ lives and experiences. this can result in higher motivation and engagement in the process of foreign language learning. self-determination theory-based instruction enhances learners’ engagement and motiva- tion through supporting the basic psychological needs for autonomy, competen...

We examined whether the initial orienting, subsequent engagement, and overall allocation of attention are determined exogenously (i.e., by the affective valence of the stimulus) or endogenously (i.e., by the participant’s mood) in the manic, depressive and euthymic episodes of bipolar disorder (BD). Participants were asked to compare the affective valence of two pictures (happy/threatening/neut...

For individuals affected by Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD), the inability to make eye contact is a significant barrier to their engagement in social environments. This lack of eye contact limits their ability to read social and emotional cues exhibited through facial expressions resulting in a corresponding decrease in social engagement. The use of interactive virtual environments (VEs) as a th...

Reports of adolescents' coping with recurrent pain, symptoms of anxiety/depression, and somatic complaints were obtained from a sample of 164 adolescents with recurrent abdominal pain and their parents. Confirmatory factor analysis revealed that coping consisted of 3 nonorthogonal factors: Primary Control Engagement Coping (problem solving, emotional expression, and emotional regulation), Secon...

Using the experience sampling method and survey data from the 500 Family Study this study examined how parents feel when they spend time with their children and whether their emotional experiences differ by type of activity and the parent's gender. I found that mothers spent more time in childcare than fathers but this disparity was primarily due to mothers' more frequent engagement in activiti...

We examined whether the initial orienting, subsequent engagement, and overall allocation of attention are determined exogenously (i.e. by the affective valence of the stimulus) or endogenously (i.e. by the participant's mood) in the manic, depressive and euthymic episodes of bipolar disorder (BD). Participants were asked to compare the affective valence of two pictures (happy/threatening/neutra...

BACKGROUND This article provides new insights into the impact of social engagement on CVD risk factors in older adults. We hypothesized that objective (social participation, social ties and marital status) and subjective (emotional support) aspects of social engagement are independently associated with objective measures of cardiovascular risk. METHODS Data from the English Longitudinal Study...