Complex Communication Dynamics: Exploring the Structure of an Academic Talk

Camila Alviar, Rick Dale, Alexia Galati
2019 Cognitive Science  
Communication is a multimodal phenomenon. The cognitive mechanisms supporting it are still understudied. We explored a natural dataset of academic lectures to determine how communication modalities are used and coordinated during the presentation of complex information. Using automated and semi-automated techniques, we extracted and analyzed, from the videos of 30 speakers, measures capturing the dynamics of their body movement, their slide change rate, and various aspects of their speech
more » ... h rate, articulation rate, fundamental frequency, and intensity). There were consistent but statistically subtle patterns in the use of speech rate, articulation rate, intensity, and body motion across the presentation. Principal component analysis also revealed patterns of system-like covariation among modalities. These findings, although tentative, do suggest that the cognitive system is integrating body, slides, and speech in a coordinated manner during natural language use. Further research is needed to clarify the specific coordination patterns that occur between the different modalities.
doi:10.1111/cogs.12718 pmid:30900289 fatcat:z4uxqaaq4nek3jlesrterbdj5a