Neurocognitive and behavioral constituents of nonverbal speaker-listener attunement during science communication

科学传播过程中非语言说者-听者协调的神经认知和行为成分

• 批准号: 2302608
• 负责人: Ralf Schmaelzle
• 金额: $ 63.14万
• 依托单位: Michigan State University
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 项目类别: Standard Grant
• 财政年份: 2023
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2023-09-15 至 2026-08-31
• 项目状态: 未结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=2302608&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: Neurocognitive; behavioral; constituents; nonverbal; speaker

How does nonverbal communication affect public speaking in the context of science communication? Public speaking is a skill that varies between speakers and which drastically impacts how much audiences learn during a talk. What is not often appreciated is that nonverbal communication plays a key role in how well a speaker is received. Nonverbal communication refers to all the ways people communicate without words, including body language, gestures, eye contact, and tone of voice. Skilled speakers use nonverbal communication to capture and hold the audience's attention, create positive impressions, and build rapport. But audiences also communicate with speakers nonverbally. For example, a speaker who starts a speech nervously may notice that the audience avoids eye contact. This can trigger stress in the speaker, which can lead to derailed thoughts. This project will use virtual reality (VR) to study how this speaker-audience attunement influences the reception of public talks about science topics. VR will allow us to create simulations of public speaking situations, and to measure the responses of both speakers and audiences. This research will advance our understanding of nonverbal factors as enablers for learning, and it could lead to new ways for improving public speaking. This is important because public speaking is one of the top 21st-century job skills and also because VR technology is becoming increasingly popular for communication. This project will use VR to experimentally manipulate and test how speaker-audience attunement influences the reception of public talks in the context of science communication. The investigators propose a new approach that integrates bio-behavioral measurement with VR-assisted manipulation to disentangle how speakers and audiences influence each other via nonverbal social signals. Specifically, this project will quantify the nonverbal components of the speaker’s behavior that affect neurophysiological audience responses, subjective perceptions, and objective outcomes. The project will also study how the behavior of audiences, which are manipulated via VR technology, affects the speakers’ neurophysiological processes, coping behavior, and overall measures of successful communication. In addition to testing the hypotheses about speaker-audience attunement on physiological subjective, and behavioral outcomes, this research will yield a database of speeches that are annotated with all measures and allows studying how speakers respond to audiences and which factors predict engagement and learning. Together with outreach and education efforts, this research will open the door to new developments at the intersection of communication, bio-behavioral, and technological learning systems.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.

在科学传播的背景下，非语言交流是如何影响公众演讲的？公开演讲是一种因演讲者而异的技能，它会极大地影响听众在演讲中学到的东西。人们往往不理解的是，非语言交流在演讲者被接受的程度上起着关键作用。非语言交流是指人们不用语言进行交流的所有方式，包括肢体语言、手势、眼神交流和语调。熟练的演讲者使用非语言交流来吸引和保持听众的注意力，创造积极的印象，并建立融洽的关系。但听众也会通过非语言方式与演讲者交流。例如，一个紧张地开始演讲的演讲者可能会注意到观众避免目光接触。这可能会引发说话者的压力，从而导致偏离轨道的想法。该项目将使用虚拟现实（VR）来研究这种演讲者-观众协调如何影响公众对科学主题的接受。VR将使我们能够模拟公开演讲的场景，并测量演讲者和观众的反应。这项研究将促进我们对非语言因素作为学习促进因素的理解，并可能为提高公众演讲提供新的方法。这一点很重要，因为公开演讲是21世纪最重要的工作技能之一，也因为VR技术在沟通方面越来越受欢迎。该项目将使用VR来实验性地操纵和测试演讲者-观众协调如何影响科学传播背景下公众演讲的接受。研究人员提出了一种新的方法，将生物行为测量与VR辅助操作相结合，以解开演讲者和观众如何通过非语言社交信号相互影响。具体来说，这个项目将量化演讲者的行为，影响神经生理观众的反应，主观感受和客观结果的非语言成分。该项目还将研究通过VR技术操纵的观众行为如何影响演讲者的神经生理过程，应对行为以及成功沟通的整体措施。除了测试关于演讲者与观众在生理主观和行为结果上的协调的假设外，这项研究还将产生一个演讲数据库，该数据库用所有措施进行注释，并允许研究演讲者如何对观众做出反应以及哪些因素预测参与和学习。与推广和教育工作一起，这项研究将为交流，生物行为和技术学习系统的交叉点打开新的发展之门。该奖项反映了NSF的法定使命，并被认为值得通过使用基金会的知识价值和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估来支持。