Dataset Information

Detecting communicative intent in a computerised test of joint attention.

ABSTRACT: The successful navigation of social interactions depends on a range of cognitive faculties-including the ability to achieve joint attention with others to share information and experiences. We investigated the influence that intention monitoring processes have on gaze-following response times during joint attention. We employed a virtual reality task in which 16 healthy adults engaged in a collaborative game with a virtual partner to locate a target in a visual array. In the Search task, the virtual partner was programmed to engage in non-communicative gaze shifts in search of the target, establish eye contact, and then display a communicative gaze shift to guide the participant to the target. In the NoSearch task, the virtual partner simply established eye contact and then made a single communicative gaze shift towards the target (i.e., there were no non-communicative gaze shifts in search of the target). Thus, only the Search task required participants to monitor their partner's communicative intent before responding to joint attention bids. We found that gaze following was significantly slower in the Search task than the NoSearch task. However, the same effect on response times was not observed when participants completed non-social control versions of the Search and NoSearch tasks, in which the avatar's gaze was replaced by arrow cues. These data demonstrate that the intention monitoring processes involved in differentiating communicative and non-communicative gaze shifts during the Search task had a measurable influence on subsequent joint attention behaviour. The empirical and methodological implications of these findings for the fields of autism and social neuroscience will be discussed.

SUBMITTER: Caruana N

PROVIDER: S-EPMC5244879 | biostudies-literature | 2017

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature

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Detecting communicative intent in a computerised test of joint attention.

Caruana Nathan N McArthur Genevieve G Woolgar Alexandra A Brock Jon J

PeerJ 20170117

The successful navigation of social interactions depends on a range of cognitive faculties-including the ability to achieve joint attention with others to share information and experiences. We investigated the influence that intention monitoring processes have on gaze-following response times during joint attention. We employed a virtual reality task in which 16 healthy adults engaged in a collaborative game with a virtual partner to locate a target in a visual array. In the <i>Search</i> task, ...[more]

PMID: 28123912

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Project description:Behavioral evidence and theory suggest gesture and language processing may be part of a shared cognitive system for communication. While much research demonstrates both gesture and language recruit regions along perisylvian cortex, relatively less work has tested functional segregation within these regions on an individual level. Additionally, while most work has focused on a shared semantic network, less has examined shared regions for processing communicative intent. To address these questions, functional and structural MRI data were collected from 24 adult participants while viewing videos of an experimenter producing communicative, Participant-Directed Gestures (PDG) (e.g., "Hello, come here"), noncommunicative Self-adaptor Gestures (SG) (e.g., smoothing hair), and three written text conditions: (1) Participant-Directed Sentences (PDS), matched in content to PDG, (2) Third-person Sentences (3PS), describing a character's actions from a third-person perspective, and (3) meaningless sentences, Jabberwocky (JW). Surface-based conjunction and individual functional region of interest analyses identified shared neural activation between gesture (PDGvsSG) and language processing using two different language contrasts. Conjunction analyses of gesture (PDGvsSG) and Third-person Sentences versus Jabberwocky revealed overlap within left anterior and posterior superior temporal sulcus (STS). Conjunction analyses of gesture and Participant-Directed Sentences to Third-person Sentences revealed regions sensitive to communicative intent, including the left middle and posterior STS and left inferior frontal gyrus. Further, parametric modulation using participants' ratings of stimuli revealed sensitivity of left posterior STS to individual perceptions of communicative intent in gesture. These data highlight an important role of the STS in processing participant-directed communicative intent through gesture and language. Hum Brain Mapp 37:3444-3461, 2016. © 2016 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.

Project description:BACKGROUND:Diagnosis of attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) relies on subjective methods which can lead to diagnostic uncertainty and delay. This trial evaluated the impact of providing a computerised test of attention and activity (QbTest) report on the speed and accuracy of diagnostic decision-making in children with suspected ADHD. METHODS:Randomised, parallel, single-blind controlled trial in mental health and community paediatric clinics in England. Participants were 6-17 years-old and referred for ADHD diagnostic assessment; all underwent assessment-as-usual, plus QbTest. Participants and their clinician were randomised to either receive the QbTest report immediately (QbOpen group) or the report was withheld (QbBlind group). The primary outcome was number of consultations until a diagnostic decision confirming/excluding ADHD within 6-months from baseline. Health economic cost-effectiveness and cost utility analysis was conducted. Assessing QbTest Utility in ADHD: A Randomised Controlled Trial was registered at ClinicalTrials.gov (https://clinicaltrials.gov/ct2/show/NCT02209116). RESULTS:One hundred and thirty-two participants were randomised to QbOpen group (123 analysed) and 135 to QbBlind group (127 analysed). Clinicians with access to the QbTest report (QbOpen) were more likely to reach a diagnostic decision about ADHD (hazard ratio 1.44, 95% CI 1.04-2.01). At 6-months, 76% of those with a QbTest report had received a diagnostic decision, compared with 50% without. QbTest reduced appointment length by 15% (time ratio 0.85, 95% CI 0.77-0.93), increased clinicians' confidence in their diagnostic decisions (odds ratio 1.77, 95% CI 1.09-2.89) and doubled the likelihood of excluding ADHD. There was no difference in diagnostic accuracy. Health economic analysis showed a position of strict dominance; however, cost savings were small suggesting that the impact of providing the QbTest report within this trial can best be viewed as 'cost neutral'. CONCLUSIONS:QbTest may increase the efficiency of ADHD assessment pathway allowing greater patient throughput with clinicians reaching diagnostic decisions faster without compromising diagnostic accuracy.

Project description:Joint attention, or sharing attention with another individual about an object or event, is a critical behaviour that emerges in pre-linguistic infants and predicts later language abilities. Given its importance, it is perhaps surprising that there is no consensus on how to measure joint attention in prelinguistic infants. A rigorous definition proposed by Siposova & Carpenter (2019) requires the infant and partner to gaze alternate between an object and each other (coordination of attention) and exchange communicative signals (explicit acknowledgement of jointly sharing attention). However, Hobson and Hobson (2007) proposed that the quality of gaze between individuals is, in itself, a sufficient communicative signal that demonstrates sharing of attention. They proposed that observers can reliably distinguish "sharing", "checking", and "orienting" looks, but the empirical basis for this claim is limited as their study focussed on two raters examining looks from 11-year-old children. Here, we analysed categorisations made by 32 naïve raters of 60 infant looks to their mothers, to examine whether they could be reliably distinguished according to Hobson and Hobson's definitions. Raters had overall low agreement and only in 3 out of 26 cases did a significant majority of the raters agree with the judgement of the mother who had received the look. For the looks that raters did agree on at above chance levels, look duration and the overall communication rate of the mother were identified as cues that raters may have relied upon. In our experiment, naïve third party observers could not reliably determine the type of look infants gave to their mothers, which indicates that subjective judgements of types of look should not be used to identify mutual awareness of sharing attention in infants. Instead, we advocate the use of objective behaviour measurement to infer that interactants know they are 'jointly' attending to an object or event, and believe this will be a crucial step in understanding the ontogenetic and evolutionary origins of joint attention.

Dataset Information

Detecting communicative intent in a computerised test of joint attention.

Publications

Detecting communicative intent in a computerised test of joint attention.

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