A growing conceptual and empirical literature is advancing the idea that language extends our cognitive skills. One of the most influential positions holds that language – qua material symbols – facilitates individual thought processes by virtue of its material properties (Clark, 2006a). Extending upon this model, we argue that language enhances our cognitive capabilities in a much more radical way: the skilful engagement of public material symbols facilitates evolutionarily unprecedented modes of collective perception, action and reasoning (interpersonal synergies) creating dialogically (...) extended minds. We relate our approach to other ideas about collective minds ( Gallagher, 2011, Theiner et al., 2010 and Tollefsen, 2006) and review a number of empirical studies to identify the mechanisms enabling the constitution of interpersonal cognitive systems. (shrink)

This paper examines interaction involving a child with an Autistic Spectrum Disorder, a humanoid robot and a co-present adult. In this paper data from one child (collected as part of the ROBOSKIN project) is analysed in order to evaluate the potential contributions of a conversation analytic perspective to the examination of data relating to socio-emotional reciprocity. The paper argues for the value of treating all interaction as potentially relevant, looking without carefully pre-defined target behaviours and examining behaviour within its specific (...) sequence of interaction. Adopting this approach, the paper suggests, enables noticings and observations that might not be available from perspectives that rely on the coding of pre-specified behaviours in isolation. Treating all interaction as potentially relevant brought into view interactions that might otherwise be dismissed or ignored – because they occurred before, or after, the trial itself. Being informed by the value of unmotivated looking – rather than pre-specified coding schemes – enabled highly relevant behaviour that was not anticipated within the trials to be analysed. Finally, seeing sequence as important meant that behaviours were appreciated in their intricate detail, enabling a more precise understanding than might be available if they were considered separately from that sequential environment. Keywords: autism; assessment; autistic spectrum disorder; experiment; conversation analysis; interaction; humanoid robot; sequences; sequence of interaction; socio-emotional reciprocity. (shrink)

This article investigates differences in pragmatic abilities between children who have cochlear implants and their hearing peers. Recordings of 10-minute conversations between 10 children with cochlear implants and a hearing peer were transcribed. Conversation analysis provides insights into interactional troubles not evident in broader measures of number of turns, requests for clarification, topic initiation and so on used in earlier studies. How the children go about repair proves of particular interest; other-initiated repair that prompts the speaker to repeat the prior (...) utterance is, not surprisingly, more commonly produced by the children who have cochlear implants. The key contribution of this article, however, is to detail examples where children with cochlear implants choose not to initiate repair of an error made by their hearing friend. The discussion not only highlights the interactional cost of initiating repair, but also demonstrates that not doing repair can cause a breakdown in conversation. (shrink)

This article examines the discourse competence of high-functioning children with autistic spectrum disorders to participate in narrative introduction sequences with family members. The analysis illuminates the children’s own efforts to launch narratives, as well as their ability to build upon the contributions of others. Ethnographic, discourse analytic methodology is integrated with the theory of discourse organization and the weak central coherence account of autism. Introductions of both personal experience narratives as well as fictional narratives are examined. The children were especially (...) competent in the use of stable introductory practices when launching fictional narratives, pre-organized by the media of expression. Their challenge was not in the introduction, but in the narrative co-telling, which often was not globally organized over an extended course of propositions. The heterogeneity of the ASD children’s discourse competence and its implications for discourse analysis are discussed. (shrink)

This study draws upon naturalistic ethnographic data to expand current understandings regarding the socio-communicative capabilities and challenges of children with autism spectrum disorders in mid-childhood. Affording a view of the children’s spontaneous interactions within naturally occurring family and community settings, the study explores a range of discursive resources utilized by the children to accomplish socially reciprocal positive politeness practices in tandem with others. Emphasizing contextualized deployment of politeness forms in interaction, the practice-based conception developed here construes positive politeness as a (...) discursive process encompassing both socio-cultural and interpersonal knowledge/skills; and contributes to a perspective in which social and communicative realms are conceptualized as integrated domains of functioning. (shrink)

This article discusses ‘brainstorm’ interaction in a multimodal perspective. It shows how an innovation workshop facilitator is ‘doing facilitation’ by not only organizing group activities and managing turn-taking, but also drawing each group member out to participate actively and contribute to the group process. Institutional goals are transformed to individual conversational participation. Participants are helped to express their thoughts and engage in a social process of clarifying, developing and refining ideas. In the process the facilitator is socializing the participants into (...) a particular participation framework, letting them collaborate in shaping a local community of practice. The facilitator is separating phases of activities to afford decoupling actions, creating specific local sequential environments for participants to produce particular kinds of talk, thus engaging a group of participants in a social process of collaborative idea development. The article will show how multimodal orientation to a range of semiotic resources is used to manage topical talk, elicit talk from a particular person, manage speaker transition, secure progression and shifts, perform shift in participant identity and elicit talk performing particular social actions, explanations and accounts. A process is shaped in which collaboratively produced underspecified ideas are turned into ‘noticings’ in order to create slots for them to be explained and accounted for so that individual cognitive processes are made available for treatment in a social process of idea development, and selection of ideas is prioritized over discussion/rejection. (shrink)

Daniel Dennett, in Darwin's Dangerous Idea, argues that natural selection is a universal acid that eats through other theories, because it can explain just about everything, even the structure of the mind. Emanuel Schegloff in ‘Between Micro and Macro: Context and Other Connections’ opposes the importation of ‘macro’ factors into the ‘micro’, suggesting that one might reverse the strategy instead. Like Darwin, he is coy about whether he just wants his own turf, but the idea opens up the possibility of (...) interactional reductionism. I will argue against interactional reductionism on methodological grounds: Don't bite off more than you can chew! Instead I'll support the good old Durkheimian strategy of looking for intermediate variables between systems of different orders. I try and make the case with data from Rossel Island, Papua New Guinea. (shrink)

Frontotemporal dementia is a neurodegenerative disease that affects the prefrontal cortex, and impairs various aspects relevant to social cognition. Such impairments can emerge as a visible phenomenon in social interaction and therefore can have very real consequences for those who interact with the afflicted. In this article, I examine how attitudes toward FTD patients are indexed through speech features employed by their interlocutors. I focus on three different speech features typically employed by adults and directed towards subordinates or children: directives, (...) let’s/we framed sequences, and initiation-response-evaluation sequences. These forms are used as strategies to affect and guide FTD patient behaviors, and index how FTD patients are socially constructed as ‘child-like’ and in need of assistance and guidance though not necessarily warranted. Thus, FTD patients may be subject to a diminished status as a result of their social impairments. (shrink)

Four couple therapy first consultations involving clients with diagnosed narcissistic problems were examined. A sociologically enriched and broadened concept of narcissistic disorder was worked out based on Goffman’s micro-sociology of the self. Conversation analytic methods were used to study in detail episodes in which clients resist to answer a therapist’s question, block or dominate the development of the conversation’s topic, or conspicuously display their interactional independence. These activities are interpreted as a pattern of controlling practices that were prompted by threats (...) that the first couple therapy consultation imposes upon the clients’ self-image. The results were discussed in the light of contemporary psychiatric discussions of narcissism; the authors suggest that beyond its conceptualization as a personality disorder, narcissism should be understood as a pattern of interactional practices. (shrink)