New, often free, spatial information applications such as mapping tools, topological imaging, and geographic information systems are becoming increasingly available to the average computer user. These systems, which were once available only to government, scholastic, and corporate institutions with highly skilled operators, are driving a need for new and innovative ways for the average user to navigate and control spatial information intuitively, accurately, and efficiently. Gestures provide a method of control that is well suited to navigating the large datasets often associated with spatial information applications. Several different types of gestures and different applications that navigate spatial data are examined. This leads to the introduction of a system that uses a visual head tracking scheme for controlling of the most common navigation action in the most common type of spatial information application, panning a 2-D map. The proposed head tracking scheme uses head pointing to control the direction of panning. The head tracking control is evaluated against the traditional control methods of the mouse and touchpad, showing a significant performance increase over the touchpad and comparable performance to the mouse, despite limited practice with head tracking.

Some agent-based systems depend on eliciting ratings from the user. However, the user’s willingness to provide ratings is limited due to requisite demands of attention and effort. From a human-centered view, we redefine providing ratings as expressing interest. We develop a new interface component for parameter setting, the In-Context Slider, which reduces physical effort and demand on attention by using fluid mouse gestures and in-context interaction. We hypothesize that such an interface should make interest expression easier for the user. We evaluated the In-Context Slider as an interest expression component compared with a more typical interface. Participants performed faster with the In-Context Slider. They found it easier to use and more natural for expressing interest. We then integrated the In-Context Slider in the agent-based system, combinFormation. We compared the In-Context Slider with combinFormation’s previous interest expression interface. Of the participants that effectively used both interfaces, most expressed more interest with the In-Context Slider. Participants’ experience reports described the In-Context Slider as easier to use while developing collections to answer open-ended information discovery questions. This research is relevant for many applications in which users provide ratings, such as recommender systems, as well as for others in which values need to be adjusted on many objects that are concurrently displayed.

The purpose of this study is to investigate disfluency and gesture in the second language under specific conditions such as familiarity vs. non-familiarity, concrete topic type vs. abstract topic type and speaking with native speaker vs. speaker with non-native speaker. The sample of this study was sixteen students from the Department of Basic English in Middle East Technical University (DBE), three instructors from DBE and one instructor from Modern Language Department in Middle East Technical University. Two of the instructors are native and the rest of them are non-native speakers of English. With an assigned instructor each student spoke on the following topics: making spaghetti, giving directions, spring festival and clashing midterms, and effects of religion on our life. The conversations on each topic were recorded audio-visually. Then the audio-visual data was annotated in terms of linguistic and gestural elements. In order to explore the relation among disfluency, gesture and controlled variables, quantitative data analysis methods were used. Levelt&rsquo / s speech production and Krauss&rsquo / s gesture production model were used as a basic framework. Dual Coding theory and Metalinguistic Awareness Theory was used to explain intricate results of the present study. As a result of the study, it was found that in the concrete topic condition, learners speak more fluently because of time and topic effects. Similarly, in the condition of familiar addressee and native speaker, learners speak more fluently than they do when speaking with a non-familiar or a non- native speaker.

A wealth of research has highlighted the susceptibility of eyewitnesses to verbal influence. However, considerably less attention has been paid to the role of nonverbal influence in police questioning. The purpose of this thesis was to evaluate the extent to which gestures can exert an influence on witnesses and skew their responses when questioned. Study 1 initially investigated this by presenting participants with an on-screen 'police' interviewer who accompanied his questions with gestures conveying either accurate or misleading information about a piece of video footage they had witnessed. Results showed that, for one question in particular, participants' responses concurred with the information conveyed to them in gesture; accurate gestures led more participants to giving correct responses and misleading gestures led more participants to giving fabricated responses. Study 2 built on this by examining whether gestures could also affect the confidence attributed to their responses in order to give insight into whether gestures were knowingly processed for information. It was found that, in some cases, gestures were able to increase confidence in both accurate and misled responses. Study 3 examined participants' awareness of gesture further by studying their attention to gesture during its performance and ability to identify it retrospectively on a recognition task. A new set of questions confirmed that gestures could influence the responses of participants (including those working in the legal profession) and revealed that the influence of gesture appears to be at its strongest when unnoticed by participants. Finally, study 4 considered whether the results of the previous studies could be replicated in a more ecologically valid interview scenario and confirmed that gestures continued to be influential when performed face-to-face. Overall, it was concluded that gestures can impact accurate eyewitness testimony and can be a powerful influential tool in police interviews.

Abstract Infants with an older sibling diagnosed with an autism spectrum disorder (ASD) have a twentyfold increase in risk of developing ASD. Deficits in gesture use are among the first signs of impairment in infants later diagnosed with ASD. Typically, infants develop gestures incidentally in the context of social interactions with their parents. However, infants at risk for ASD may not acquire gestures within these natural interactions. The first purpose of this research was to determine whether infants at high risk for ASD show patterns of communicative and play gestures that are delayed and/or different relative to low-risk infants. The second purpose was to compare mothers of infants at risk for ASD with mothers of infants at low risk for ASD in their use of gestures, gesture strategies, and prompts. Seventeen 15-month-old infant-mother dyads were recruited from a longitudinal study of the emergence of autism symptoms in infants with an older sibling with ASD (high risk for ASD, n = 8; low risk for ASD, n = 9). Infant gestures were examined in three contexts: during clinical assessment, during naturalistic play with their mothers, and by parent report. Maternal gestures and gesture-related behaviours were recorded during the play interaction. Infant and maternal gesture behaviours were later coded from video. High-risk infants showed different patterns of gesture use relative to low-risk infants. In clinic and home contexts, high-risk infants: (a) used gestures that were not directed to a communicative partner more often than low-risk infants, and (b) showed specific deficits in the use of deictic and joint attention gestures. In addition, high-risk infants: (a) demonstrated fewer symbolic play acts at home, and (b) had a smaller inventory of communicative and play gestures by parent report. Mothers of high-risk infants used more play gestures, but were otherwise no different in their gesture behaviours from mothers of low-risk infants. This research demonstrated that, at 15 months of age infants at risk for ASD showed delays and differences in gesture use despite receiving typical gestural input from their mothers. The patterns of these deficits may be important in early identification and could inform intervention practices.

Abstract Infants with an older sibling diagnosed with an autism spectrum disorder (ASD) have a twentyfold increase in risk of developing ASD. Deficits in gesture use are among the first signs of impairment in infants later diagnosed with ASD. Typically, infants develop gestures incidentally in the context of social interactions with their parents. However, infants at risk for ASD may not acquire gestures within these natural interactions. The first purpose of this research was to determine whether infants at high risk for ASD show patterns of communicative and play gestures that are delayed and/or different relative to low-risk infants. The second purpose was to compare mothers of infants at risk for ASD with mothers of infants at low risk for ASD in their use of gestures, gesture strategies, and prompts. Seventeen 15-month-old infant-mother dyads were recruited from a longitudinal study of the emergence of autism symptoms in infants with an older sibling with ASD (high risk for ASD, n = 8; low risk for ASD, n = 9). Infant gestures were examined in three contexts: during clinical assessment, during naturalistic play with their mothers, and by parent report. Maternal gestures and gesture-related behaviours were recorded during the play interaction. Infant and maternal gesture behaviours were later coded from video. High-risk infants showed different patterns of gesture use relative to low-risk infants. In clinic and home contexts, high-risk infants: (a) used gestures that were not directed to a communicative partner more often than low-risk infants, and (b) showed specific deficits in the use of deictic and joint attention gestures. In addition, high-risk infants: (a) demonstrated fewer symbolic play acts at home, and (b) had a smaller inventory of communicative and play gestures by parent report. Mothers of high-risk infants used more play gestures, but were otherwise no different in their gesture behaviours from mothers of low-risk infants. This research demonstrated that, at 15 months of age infants at risk for ASD showed delays and differences in gesture use despite receiving typical gestural input from their mothers. The patterns of these deficits may be important in early identification and could inform intervention practices.

The aim of the study is to investigate how pedagogues working with gesticulation and facial expressions to communicate with children aged 3-5 years. The methods used are observations as well as interviews of educators. My empricial evidence was collected on two different preschools in Värmland County. The pedagogues are dealing with body language in a conscious way by collections as they sing and they reinforce feelings of characters support. In my conclusion I have come come to the conclusion that there is no difference on how male and female educators use gesticulation and facial expressions without its personality traits and body language often are unconsciously in conversations with children.

Technology evolves quickly, with innovative ideas growing everywhere. Still, no technology is anywhere near challenging the mouse and keyboard for navigation of your standard computer. This study focuses on comparing the traditional technologies of mouse and keyboard with the new technology of gestures - in this case Leap Motion - in purpose of finding how the usage differs and what the potential users want from the competing technology. The experiment was executed in a controlled environment, with as few external factors as possible. We found that although the test subjects found Leap Motion fun, the test subjects do not want to surf the web with gestures. Comparing the efficiency of use, mouse and keyboard took much less time, although this was expected due to experience with the traditional technology. The test subjects proposed Leap Motion to be used for playing games, 3D-modelling and for people with disabilities. Our conclusion, however, was that this technology could be successfully used in everything from hospitals to the industry, or in public places where it is important not to spread infections. We also discuss the pros and cons of Leap Motion in comparison with other gestural technologies.

A comunicação humana é essencial para que ocorra um processo de interação social. É através dela que os sujeitos podem manifestar suas vontades, desejos, necessidades, estabelecer trocas que resultam em processos de ensino-aprendizagem e participar ativamente da sociedade, comunidade na qual se encontra inserido realizando trocas recíprocas que propiciam a aquisição do conhecimento historicamente construído. Esta pesquisa teve como foco principal investigar de que de que forma o uso de um sistema de CA que parte de uma perspectiva metodológica sócio-histórica pode promover o desenvolvimento de gestos que propiciam intencionalidade comunicativa em crianças de 03 a 05 anos com autismo. A presente pesquisa cunhou-se como um estudo de caso múltiplo de três sujeitos com autismo, não oralizados, com idades entre 03 e 05 anos de idade. Os resultados a serem apresentados mostram que o sistema SCALA contribuiu como forma constante de mediação integrada ao todo do sujeito. Dessa forma foram surgindo novos gestos, fomos significando cada olhar, apontar, sorrir, morder, etc. Considerando nossos sujeitos como agentes intencionais, deixando-os serem atores nas interações, não somente interagentes passivos, ancorados pelo uso de materiais concretos, que levaram a ligação entre o representacional e o simbólico e, sobretudo nos conduziram a diversos e diferentes momentos de atenção e cenas de atenção conjunta, onde nossos sujeitos participavam de interações triádicas e se incluíam nelas. / Human communication is essential to the occurrence of a social interaction process. It is through it that subjects can express their wishes, desires, needs and establish exchanges that result in teaching-learning processes. And, also, actively participate in society, the community in which they are inserted, conducting reciprocal exchanges that foster the acquisition of historically constructed knowledge. This research main focus was to investigate how the use of a CA system that starts from a sociohistorical methodological perspective can promote the development of gestures that provide communicative intentionality in children 03-05 years old with autism. This research was coined as a multiple case study of three subjects with autism, who do not use oral language, aged between 03 and 05 years of age. The results to be presented show that the SCALA system contributed steadily as integrated mediation into the subject as a whole. Thus new gestures started to arise, we gave meaning to each look, point, laugh, biting, etc. Considering our subjects as intentional agents, leaving them to be actors in interactions, not only passive interacting agents, anchored by the use of concrete materials, which led the connection between the representational and the symbolic and above all led us to several different moments of attention and joint attention scenes where our subjects participated in triadic interactions and included themselves in these interactions.

A comunicação humana é essencial para que ocorra um processo de interação social. É através dela que os sujeitos podem manifestar suas vontades, desejos, necessidades, estabelecer trocas que resultam em processos de ensino-aprendizagem e participar ativamente da sociedade, comunidade na qual se encontra inserido realizando trocas recíprocas que propiciam a aquisição do conhecimento historicamente construído. Esta pesquisa teve como foco principal investigar de que de que forma o uso de um sistema de CA que parte de uma perspectiva metodológica sócio-histórica pode promover o desenvolvimento de gestos que propiciam intencionalidade comunicativa em crianças de 03 a 05 anos com autismo. A presente pesquisa cunhou-se como um estudo de caso múltiplo de três sujeitos com autismo, não oralizados, com idades entre 03 e 05 anos de idade. Os resultados a serem apresentados mostram que o sistema SCALA contribuiu como forma constante de mediação integrada ao todo do sujeito. Dessa forma foram surgindo novos gestos, fomos significando cada olhar, apontar, sorrir, morder, etc. Considerando nossos sujeitos como agentes intencionais, deixando-os serem atores nas interações, não somente interagentes passivos, ancorados pelo uso de materiais concretos, que levaram a ligação entre o representacional e o simbólico e, sobretudo nos conduziram a diversos e diferentes momentos de atenção e cenas de atenção conjunta, onde nossos sujeitos participavam de interações triádicas e se incluíam nelas. / Human communication is essential to the occurrence of a social interaction process. It is through it that subjects can express their wishes, desires, needs and establish exchanges that result in teaching-learning processes. And, also, actively participate in society, the community in which they are inserted, conducting reciprocal exchanges that foster the acquisition of historically constructed knowledge. This research main focus was to investigate how the use of a CA system that starts from a sociohistorical methodological perspective can promote the development of gestures that provide communicative intentionality in children 03-05 years old with autism. This research was coined as a multiple case study of three subjects with autism, who do not use oral language, aged between 03 and 05 years of age. The results to be presented show that the SCALA system contributed steadily as integrated mediation into the subject as a whole. Thus new gestures started to arise, we gave meaning to each look, point, laugh, biting, etc. Considering our subjects as intentional agents, leaving them to be actors in interactions, not only passive interacting agents, anchored by the use of concrete materials, which led the connection between the representational and the symbolic and above all led us to several different moments of attention and joint attention scenes where our subjects participated in triadic interactions and included themselves in these interactions.