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Nicholas Duran

Arizona State University, School of Social and Behavioral Science, Faculty Member

University of California, Merced, Cognitive & Information Sciences, Post-Doc

University College London, Cognitive, Perceptual and Brain Sciences, Honorary Senior Research Associate

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Nicholas Duran is an assistant professor in the Social and Behavioral Sciences division of the New College of Interdisciplinary Arts and Sciences at Arizona State University. He is also an affiliated faculty member of the Cognitive Science area of the Department of Psychology. He holds a Ph.D. in Cognitive Psychology from the University of Memphis and received postdoctoral training from the University of California, Merced, where he was a National Science Foundation Postdoctoral Research Fellow.

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Papers by Nicholas Duran

The action dynamics of native and non-native speakers of English in processing active and passive sentences

This study investigates processing of passive and active constructions between native speakers (N... more This study investigates processing of passive and active constructions between native speakers (NS) and non-native speakers (NNS) of English using traditional on-line mechanisms such as response time in conjunction with techniques that capitalize on the parallel activation of distributed mental representations during online syntactic processing. In the current study, hand motions captured by a mouse-tracking system were used to index listeners' cognitive processes while making commitments to different choice alternatives during the processing of English passive and active structures. During data collection, 57 NNS and 43 NS carried out an aural forced-choice picture identification task. Data analysis indicated differences and similarities between NS and NNS participants such that NS participants are faster at responding to passive and active stimuli, travel less distance, and make fewer directional changes when compared to NNS participants. However, all participants showed similar trends for passive processing, suggesting comparable difficulties in processing passive constructions.

The hidden appeal and aversion to political conspiracies as revealed in the response dynamics of partisans

A B S T R A C T In this study, we used a mouse-tracking paradigm to capture subtle processing dyn... more A B S T R A C T In this study, we used a mouse-tracking paradigm to capture subtle processing dynamics that may occur when people spontaneously endorse or disavow political conspiracies. Rather than exclusively focus on explicit, endpoint responses, we examined the underlying temptation to respond opposite of what is overtly reported. Our results revealed such tendencies in participants' arm movements as they provided " true " or " false " answers to political conspiracy statements relative to baseline statements. These effects were strongly modulated by whether participants identified with the Republican or Democratic parties. To interpret our findings, we argue that political conspiracies tap into hidden biases that may be at odds with each other, such that, even for nonbelievers of a particular conspiracy, there is an implicit appeal for ideologically-aligned conspiracies driven by motivated reasoning biases, and for believers, an implicit aversion to the same conspiracies driven by accuracy and self-presentation needs.

Conversing with a devil's advocate: Interpersonal coordination in deception and disagreement

This study investigates the presence of dynamical patterns of interpersonal coordination in exten... more This study investigates the presence of dynamical patterns of interpersonal coordination in extended deceptive conversations across multimodal channels of behavior. Using a novel "devil's advocate" paradigm, we experimentally elicited deception and truth across topics in which conversational partners either agreed or disagreed, and where one partner was surreptitiously asked to argue an opinion opposite of what he or she really believed. We focus on interpersonal coordination as an emergent behavioral signal that captures interdepen-dencies between conversational partners, both as the coupling of head movements over the span of milliseconds, measured via a windowed lagged cross correlation (WLCC) technique , and more global temporal dependencies across speech rate, using cross recurrence quantification analysis (CRQA). Moreover, we considered how interpersonal coordination might be shaped by strategic, adaptive conversational goals associated with deception. We found that deceptive conversations displayed more structured speech rate and higher head movement coordination, the latter with a peak in deceptive disagreement conversations. Together the results allow us to posit an adaptive account, whereby interpersonal coordination is not beholden to any single functional explanation, but can strategically adapt to diverse conversational demands.

When expectancies collide: Action dynamics reveal the interaction between stimulus plausibility and congruency

Psychonomic bulletin & review, Jan 19, 2016

The cognitive architecture routinely relies on expectancy mechanisms to process the plausibility ... more The cognitive architecture routinely relies on expectancy mechanisms to process the plausibility of stimuli and establish their sequential congruency. In two computer mouse-tracking experiments, we use a cross-modal verification task to uncover the interaction between plausibility and congruency by examining their temporal signatures of activation competition as expressed in a computer- mouse movement decision response. In this task, participants verified the content congruency of sentence and scene pairs that varied in plausibility. The order of presentation (sentence-scene, scene-sentence) was varied between participants to uncover any differential processing. Our results show that implausible but congruent stimuli triggered less accurate and slower responses than implausible and incongruent stimuli, and were associated with more complex angular mouse trajectories independent of the order of presentation. This study provides novel evidence of a disassociation between the temporal ...

Toward Integrative Dynamic Models for Adaptive Perspective Taking

by Nicholas Duran and Alexia Galati

Topics in Cognitive Science, 2016

In a matter of mere milliseconds, conversational partners can transform their expectations about ... more In a matter of mere milliseconds, conversational partners can transform their expectations about the world in a way that accords with another person&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;#39;s perspective. At the same time, in similar situations, the exact opposite also appears to be true. Rather than being at odds, these findings suggest that there are multiple contextual and processing constraints that may guide when and how people consider perspective. These constraints are shaped by a host of factors, including the availability of social and environmental cues, and intrinsic biases and cognitive abilities. To explain how these might be integrated in a new way forward, we turn to an adaptive account of interpersonal interaction. This account draws from basic principles of dynamical systems, principles that we argue are already expressed, both implicitly and explicitly, within a broad landscape of existing research. We then showcase an initial attempt to develop a computational framework to instantiate some of these principles. This framework, consisting of what we argue to be important mechanistic insights rendered by neural network models, is based on a promising and long-standing approach that has yet to take hold in the current domain. We argue that by bridging this gap, new insights into other theoretical accounts, such as the connections between memory and common ground information, might be revealed.

Self-serving dishonest decisions can show facilitated cognitive dynamics

Cognitive Processing, 2015

We use a novel task to test two competing hypotheses concerning the cognitive processes involved ... more We use a novel task to test two competing hypotheses concerning the cognitive processes involved in dishonesty. Many existing accounts of deception imply that in order to act dishonestly one has to use cognitive control to overcome a bias toward the truth, which results in more time and effort. A recent hypothesis suggests that lying in order to serve self-interest may be a rapid, even automatic tendency taking less time than refraining from lying. In the current study, we track the action dynamics of potentially dishonest decisions to investigate the underlying cognitive processes. Participants are asked to privately predict the outcome of a virtual coin flip, report their accuracy and receive bonus credit for accurate predictions. The movements of the computer cursor toward the target answer are recorded and used to characterize the dynamics of decisions. Our results suggest that when a self-serving condition holds, decisions that have a high probability of being dishonest take less time and experience less hesitation.

The Self-Organization of Human Interaction

Psychology of Learning and Motivation, 2013

We describe a "centipede's dilemma" that faces the sciences of human interaction. Research on hum... more We describe a "centipede's dilemma" that faces the sciences of human interaction. Research on human interaction has been involved in extensive theoretical debate, although the vast majority of research tends to focus on a small set of human behaviors, cognitive processes, and interactive contexts. The problem is that naturalistic human interaction must integrate all of these factors simultaneously, and grander theoretical mitigation cannot come only from focused experimental or computational agendas. We look to dynamical systems theory as a framework for thinking about how these multiple behaviors, processes, and contexts can be integrated into a broader account of human interaction. By introducing and utilizing basic concepts of self-organization and synergy, we review empirical work that shows how human interaction is flexible and adaptive and structures itself incrementally during unfolding interactive tasks, such as conversation, or more focused goal-based contexts. We end on acknowledging that dynamical systems accounts are very short on concrete models, and we briefly describe ways that theoretical frameworks could be integrated, rather than endlessly disputed, to achieve some success on the centipede's dilemma of human interaction.

A mass assembly of associative mechanisms: a dynamical systems account of natural social interaction

The Behavioral and brain sciences, 2014

The target article offers a negative, eliminativist thesis, dissolving the specialness of mirrori... more The target article offers a negative, eliminativist thesis, dissolving the specialness of mirroring processes into a solution of associative mechanisms. We support the authors' project enthusiastically. What they are currently missing, we argue, is a positive, generative thesis about associative learning mechanisms and how they might give way to the complex, multimodal coordination that naturally arises in social interaction.

Perspective-taking in dialogue as self-organization under social constraints

We present a dynamical systems account of how simple social information influences perspective-ta... more We present a dynamical systems account of how simple social information influences perspective-taking. Our account is motivated by the notion that perspective-taking may obey common dynamic principles with perceptuomotor coupling. We turn to the prominent HKB dynamical model of motor coordination, drawing from basic principles of selforganization to describe how conversational perspective-taking unfolds in a lowdimensional attractor landscape. We begin by simulating experimental data taken from a simple instruction-following task, in which participants have different expectations about their interaction partner. By treating belief states as different values of a control parameter, we show that data generated by a basic dynamical process fits overall egocentric and other-centric response distributions, the time required for participants to enact a response on a trial-by-trial basis, and the action dynamics exhibited in individual trials. We end by discussing the theoretical significance of dynamics in dialog, arguing that high-level coordination such as perspective-taking may obey similar dynamics as perceptuomotor coordination, pointing to common principles of adaptivity and flexibility during dialog.

Dealing With Complexity Differently: From Interaction-Dominant Dynamics to Theoretical Plurality

Ecological Psychology, Jul 1, 2013

ABSTRACT

Exploring the movement dynamics of deception

by Chris N H Street, Nicholas Duran, and Chris Kello

Frontiers in Cognitive Science, Mar 27, 2013

Both the science and the everyday practice of detecting a lie rest on the same assumption: hidden... more Both the science and the everyday practice of detecting a lie rest on the same assumption: hidden cognitive states that the liar would like to remain hidden nevertheless influence observable behavior. This assumption has good evidence. The insights of professional interrogators, anecdotal evidence, and body language textbooks have all built up a sizeable catalog of non-verbal cues that have been claimed to distinguish deceptive and truthful behavior. Typically, these cues are discrete, individual behaviors—a hand touching a mouth, the rise of a brow—that distinguish lies from truths solely in terms of their frequency or duration. Research to date has failed to establish any of these non-verbal cues as a reliable marker of deception. Here we argue that perhaps this is because simple tallies of behavior can miss out on the rich but subtle organization of behavior as it unfolds over time. Research in cognitive science from a dynamical systems perspective has shown that behavior is structured across multiple timescales, with more or less regularity and structure. Using tools that are sensitive to these dynamics, we analyzed body motion data from an experiment that put participants in a realistic situation of choosing, or not, to lie to an experimenter. Our analyses indicate that when being deceptive, continuous fluctuations of movement in the upper face, and somewhat in the arms, are characterized by dynamical properties of less stability, but greater complexity. For the upper face, these distinctions are present despite no apparent differences in the overall amount of movement between deception and truth. We suggest that these unique dynamical signatures of motion are indicative of both the cognitive demands inherent to deception and the need to respond adaptively in a social context.

Prediction during statistical learning, and implications for the implicit/explicit divide

by Ryan Morehead and Nicholas Duran

Advances in Cognitive …, Jan 1, 2012

Accounts of statistical learning, both implicit and explicit, often invoke predictive processes a... more Accounts of statistical learning, both implicit and explicit, often invoke predictive processes as central to learning, yet practically all experiments employ non-predictive measures during training. We argue that the common theoretical assumption of anticipation and prediction needs clearer, more direct evidence for it during learning. We offer a novel experimental context to explore prediction, and report results from a simple sequential learning task designed to promote predictive behaviors in participants as they responded to a short sequence of simple stimulus events. Predictive tendencies in participants were measured using their computer mouse, the trajectories of which served as a means of tapping into predictive behavior while participants were exposed to very short and simple sequences of events. A total of 143 participants were randomly assigned to stimulus sequences along a continuum of regularity. Analysis of computer-mouse trajectories revealed that (a) participants almost always anticipate events in some manner, (b) participants exhibit two stable patterns of behavior, either reacting to vs. predicting future events, (c) the extent to which participants predict relates to performance on a recall test, and (d) explicit reports of perceiving patterns in the brief sequence correlates with extent of prediction. We end with a discussion of implicit and explicit statistical learning and of the role prediction may play in both kinds of learning.

Listeners invest in an assumed other's perspective despite cognitive cost

by Nicholas Duran and Roger Kreuz

Cognition, Jan 1, 2011

We explored perspective-taking behavior in a visuospatial mental rotation task that requires list... more We explored perspective-taking behavior in a visuospatial mental rotation task that requires listeners to adopt an egocentric or ''other-centric'' frame of reference. In the current task, objects could be interpreted relative to the point-of-view of the listener (egocentric) or of a simulated partner (other-centric). Across three studies, we evaluated participants' willingness to consider and act on partner-specific information, showing that a partner's perceived ability to contribute to collaborative mutual understanding modulated participants' perspective-taking behavior, either by increasing other-centric (Study 2) or egocentric (Study 3) responding. Moreover, we show that a large proportion of participants resolved referential ambiguity in terms of their partner's perspective, even when it was more cognitively difficult to do so (as tracked by online movement measures), and when the presence of a social partner had to be assumed ). In addition, participants continued to consider their partner's perspective during trials where visual perspectives were shared. Our results show that participants will thoroughly invest in either an other-centric or egocentric mode of responding, and that perspective-taking strategies are not always dictated by minimizing processing demands, but by more potent (albeit subtle) factors in the social context.

The cognitive dynamics of negated sentence verification

Cognitive science, Jan 1, 2011

We explored the influence of negation on cognitive dynamics, measured using mouse-movement trajec... more We explored the influence of negation on cognitive dynamics, measured using mouse-movement trajectories, to test the classic notion that negation acts as an operator on linguistic processing. In three experiments, participants verified the truth or falsity of simple statements, and we tracked the computer-mouse trajectories of their responses. Sentences expressing these facts sometimes contained a negation. Such negated statements could be true (e.g., ''elephants are not small'') or false (e.g., ''elephants are not large''). In the first experiment, as predicted by the classic notion of negation, we found that negation caused more discreteness in the mouse trajectory of a response. The second experiment induced a simple context for these statements, yet negation still increased discreteness in trajectories. A third experiment enhanced the pragmatic context of sentences, and the discreteness was substantially diminished, with one primary measure no longer significantly showing increased discreteness at all. Traditional linguistic theories predict rapid shifts in cognitive dynamics occur due to the nature of negation: It is an operator that reverses the truth or falsity of an interpretation. We argue that these results support both propositional and contextual accounts of negation present in the literature, suggesting that contextual factors are crucial for determining the kind of cognitive dynamics displayed. We conclude by drawing broader lessons about theories of cognition from the case of negation.

The action dynamics of overcoming the truth

Psychonomic bulletin & review, Jan 1, 2010

The linguistic correlates of conversational deception: Comparing natural language processing technologies

Applied …, Jan 1, 2010

The words people use and the way they use them can reveal a great deal about their mental states ... more The words people use and the way they use them can reveal a great deal about their mental states when they attempt to deceive. The challenge for researchers is how to reliably distinguish the linguistic features that characterize these hidden states. In this study, we use a natural language processing tool called Coh-Metrix to evaluate deceptive and truthful conversations that occur within a context of computer-mediated communication. Coh-Metrix is unique in that it tracks linguistic features based on cognitive and social factors that are hypothesized to influence deception. The results from Coh-Metrix are compared to linguistic features reported in previous independent research, which used a natural language processing tool called Linguistic Inquiry and Word Count. The comparison reveals converging and contrasting alignment for several linguistic features and establishes new insights on deceptive language and its use in conversation.

Using Coh-Metrix temporal indices to predict psychological measures of time

Proceedings of the …, Jan 1, 2006

Situation model theories of text comprehension consider temporality to be one of the critical dim... more Situation model theories of text comprehension consider temporality to be one of the critical dimensions for building a coherent mental representation of described events. Using this framework, three continuous scale measures were developed to assess temporal coherence based on tense, aspect, and adverbial relations. Experts in discourse processing evaluated 150 texts, excerpted from science, history, and literature textbooks, to establish a gold standard of temporality. We then demonstrated that Coh-Metrix, a computational tool that measures textual cohesion on over 200 indices of discourse features, could significantly reflect these human interpretations by incorporating five indices of local, temporal cohesion. We conclude our paper with a discussion of our current research into developments of more sophisticated global temporal indices.

Seeing and Believing: Social Influences on Language Processing

Attention and Vision in Language Processing, 2015

ABSTRACT

Spatial Cognition Adapts to Social Context

cognaction.org

We present a dynamical systems model that captures human perspective-taking behavior in a visuosp... more We present a dynamical systems model that captures human perspective-taking behavior in a visuospatial mental rotation task. The task requires participants to interpret an ambiguous request for a visual referent, either by taking their own perspective (egocentric; "the referent is on my right") or the perspective of the requester (other-centric; "the referent is on your right"). Our primary interest lies in how perspective-taking behavior and spatial cognition adapt to socially-driven information. To do so, we manipulate whether the participant shares the same social status as their assumed interaction partner. We report critical influences of social role on response choice and on the processing demands required to enact the response. Furthermore, we discuss these results in the context of our computational model, showing that simple socially-induced constraints can produce rich behavioral patterns.

Predictive Arm Placement in the Statistical Learning of Position Sequences

Abstract Researchers have shown that statistical learning is a pervasive and deeply entrenched hu... more Abstract Researchers have shown that statistical learning is a pervasive and deeply entrenched human ability. As the input environment becomes more predictable, our processing of that environment should show increasing structure. In this study, we capture these unfolding processes using the dynamics of arm movements and reveal explicit patterns of predictive arm placement during learning. We tracked the arm using the Nintendo Wii remote while participants engaged in a visuospatial statistical learning task.

The action dynamics of native and non-native speakers of English in processing active and passive sentences

This study investigates processing of passive and active constructions between native speakers (N... more This study investigates processing of passive and active constructions between native speakers (NS) and non-native speakers (NNS) of English using traditional on-line mechanisms such as response time in conjunction with techniques that capitalize on the parallel activation of distributed mental representations during online syntactic processing. In the current study, hand motions captured by a mouse-tracking system were used to index listeners' cognitive processes while making commitments to different choice alternatives during the processing of English passive and active structures. During data collection, 57 NNS and 43 NS carried out an aural forced-choice picture identification task. Data analysis indicated differences and similarities between NS and NNS participants such that NS participants are faster at responding to passive and active stimuli, travel less distance, and make fewer directional changes when compared to NNS participants. However, all participants showed similar trends for passive processing, suggesting comparable difficulties in processing passive constructions.

The hidden appeal and aversion to political conspiracies as revealed in the response dynamics of partisans

A B S T R A C T In this study, we used a mouse-tracking paradigm to capture subtle processing dyn... more A B S T R A C T In this study, we used a mouse-tracking paradigm to capture subtle processing dynamics that may occur when people spontaneously endorse or disavow political conspiracies. Rather than exclusively focus on explicit, endpoint responses, we examined the underlying temptation to respond opposite of what is overtly reported. Our results revealed such tendencies in participants' arm movements as they provided " true " or " false " answers to political conspiracy statements relative to baseline statements. These effects were strongly modulated by whether participants identified with the Republican or Democratic parties. To interpret our findings, we argue that political conspiracies tap into hidden biases that may be at odds with each other, such that, even for nonbelievers of a particular conspiracy, there is an implicit appeal for ideologically-aligned conspiracies driven by motivated reasoning biases, and for believers, an implicit aversion to the same conspiracies driven by accuracy and self-presentation needs.

Conversing with a devil's advocate: Interpersonal coordination in deception and disagreement

This study investigates the presence of dynamical patterns of interpersonal coordination in exten... more This study investigates the presence of dynamical patterns of interpersonal coordination in extended deceptive conversations across multimodal channels of behavior. Using a novel "devil's advocate" paradigm, we experimentally elicited deception and truth across topics in which conversational partners either agreed or disagreed, and where one partner was surreptitiously asked to argue an opinion opposite of what he or she really believed. We focus on interpersonal coordination as an emergent behavioral signal that captures interdepen-dencies between conversational partners, both as the coupling of head movements over the span of milliseconds, measured via a windowed lagged cross correlation (WLCC) technique , and more global temporal dependencies across speech rate, using cross recurrence quantification analysis (CRQA). Moreover, we considered how interpersonal coordination might be shaped by strategic, adaptive conversational goals associated with deception. We found that deceptive conversations displayed more structured speech rate and higher head movement coordination, the latter with a peak in deceptive disagreement conversations. Together the results allow us to posit an adaptive account, whereby interpersonal coordination is not beholden to any single functional explanation, but can strategically adapt to diverse conversational demands.

When expectancies collide: Action dynamics reveal the interaction between stimulus plausibility and congruency

Psychonomic bulletin & review, Jan 19, 2016

The cognitive architecture routinely relies on expectancy mechanisms to process the plausibility ... more The cognitive architecture routinely relies on expectancy mechanisms to process the plausibility of stimuli and establish their sequential congruency. In two computer mouse-tracking experiments, we use a cross-modal verification task to uncover the interaction between plausibility and congruency by examining their temporal signatures of activation competition as expressed in a computer- mouse movement decision response. In this task, participants verified the content congruency of sentence and scene pairs that varied in plausibility. The order of presentation (sentence-scene, scene-sentence) was varied between participants to uncover any differential processing. Our results show that implausible but congruent stimuli triggered less accurate and slower responses than implausible and incongruent stimuli, and were associated with more complex angular mouse trajectories independent of the order of presentation. This study provides novel evidence of a disassociation between the temporal ...

Toward Integrative Dynamic Models for Adaptive Perspective Taking

by Nicholas Duran and Alexia Galati

Topics in Cognitive Science, 2016

In a matter of mere milliseconds, conversational partners can transform their expectations about ... more In a matter of mere milliseconds, conversational partners can transform their expectations about the world in a way that accords with another person&amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;amp;#39;s perspective. At the same time, in similar situations, the exact opposite also appears to be true. Rather than being at odds, these findings suggest that there are multiple contextual and processing constraints that may guide when and how people consider perspective. These constraints are shaped by a host of factors, including the availability of social and environmental cues, and intrinsic biases and cognitive abilities. To explain how these might be integrated in a new way forward, we turn to an adaptive account of interpersonal interaction. This account draws from basic principles of dynamical systems, principles that we argue are already expressed, both implicitly and explicitly, within a broad landscape of existing research. We then showcase an initial attempt to develop a computational framework to instantiate some of these principles. This framework, consisting of what we argue to be important mechanistic insights rendered by neural network models, is based on a promising and long-standing approach that has yet to take hold in the current domain. We argue that by bridging this gap, new insights into other theoretical accounts, such as the connections between memory and common ground information, might be revealed.

Self-serving dishonest decisions can show facilitated cognitive dynamics

Cognitive Processing, 2015

We use a novel task to test two competing hypotheses concerning the cognitive processes involved ... more We use a novel task to test two competing hypotheses concerning the cognitive processes involved in dishonesty. Many existing accounts of deception imply that in order to act dishonestly one has to use cognitive control to overcome a bias toward the truth, which results in more time and effort. A recent hypothesis suggests that lying in order to serve self-interest may be a rapid, even automatic tendency taking less time than refraining from lying. In the current study, we track the action dynamics of potentially dishonest decisions to investigate the underlying cognitive processes. Participants are asked to privately predict the outcome of a virtual coin flip, report their accuracy and receive bonus credit for accurate predictions. The movements of the computer cursor toward the target answer are recorded and used to characterize the dynamics of decisions. Our results suggest that when a self-serving condition holds, decisions that have a high probability of being dishonest take less time and experience less hesitation.

The Self-Organization of Human Interaction

Psychology of Learning and Motivation, 2013

We describe a "centipede's dilemma" that faces the sciences of human interaction. Research on hum... more We describe a "centipede's dilemma" that faces the sciences of human interaction. Research on human interaction has been involved in extensive theoretical debate, although the vast majority of research tends to focus on a small set of human behaviors, cognitive processes, and interactive contexts. The problem is that naturalistic human interaction must integrate all of these factors simultaneously, and grander theoretical mitigation cannot come only from focused experimental or computational agendas. We look to dynamical systems theory as a framework for thinking about how these multiple behaviors, processes, and contexts can be integrated into a broader account of human interaction. By introducing and utilizing basic concepts of self-organization and synergy, we review empirical work that shows how human interaction is flexible and adaptive and structures itself incrementally during unfolding interactive tasks, such as conversation, or more focused goal-based contexts. We end on acknowledging that dynamical systems accounts are very short on concrete models, and we briefly describe ways that theoretical frameworks could be integrated, rather than endlessly disputed, to achieve some success on the centipede's dilemma of human interaction.

A mass assembly of associative mechanisms: a dynamical systems account of natural social interaction

The Behavioral and brain sciences, 2014

The target article offers a negative, eliminativist thesis, dissolving the specialness of mirrori... more The target article offers a negative, eliminativist thesis, dissolving the specialness of mirroring processes into a solution of associative mechanisms. We support the authors' project enthusiastically. What they are currently missing, we argue, is a positive, generative thesis about associative learning mechanisms and how they might give way to the complex, multimodal coordination that naturally arises in social interaction.

Perspective-taking in dialogue as self-organization under social constraints

We present a dynamical systems account of how simple social information influences perspective-ta... more We present a dynamical systems account of how simple social information influences perspective-taking. Our account is motivated by the notion that perspective-taking may obey common dynamic principles with perceptuomotor coupling. We turn to the prominent HKB dynamical model of motor coordination, drawing from basic principles of selforganization to describe how conversational perspective-taking unfolds in a lowdimensional attractor landscape. We begin by simulating experimental data taken from a simple instruction-following task, in which participants have different expectations about their interaction partner. By treating belief states as different values of a control parameter, we show that data generated by a basic dynamical process fits overall egocentric and other-centric response distributions, the time required for participants to enact a response on a trial-by-trial basis, and the action dynamics exhibited in individual trials. We end by discussing the theoretical significance of dynamics in dialog, arguing that high-level coordination such as perspective-taking may obey similar dynamics as perceptuomotor coordination, pointing to common principles of adaptivity and flexibility during dialog.

Dealing With Complexity Differently: From Interaction-Dominant Dynamics to Theoretical Plurality

Ecological Psychology, Jul 1, 2013

ABSTRACT

Exploring the movement dynamics of deception

by Chris N H Street, Nicholas Duran, and Chris Kello

Frontiers in Cognitive Science, Mar 27, 2013

Both the science and the everyday practice of detecting a lie rest on the same assumption: hidden... more Both the science and the everyday practice of detecting a lie rest on the same assumption: hidden cognitive states that the liar would like to remain hidden nevertheless influence observable behavior. This assumption has good evidence. The insights of professional interrogators, anecdotal evidence, and body language textbooks have all built up a sizeable catalog of non-verbal cues that have been claimed to distinguish deceptive and truthful behavior. Typically, these cues are discrete, individual behaviors—a hand touching a mouth, the rise of a brow—that distinguish lies from truths solely in terms of their frequency or duration. Research to date has failed to establish any of these non-verbal cues as a reliable marker of deception. Here we argue that perhaps this is because simple tallies of behavior can miss out on the rich but subtle organization of behavior as it unfolds over time. Research in cognitive science from a dynamical systems perspective has shown that behavior is structured across multiple timescales, with more or less regularity and structure. Using tools that are sensitive to these dynamics, we analyzed body motion data from an experiment that put participants in a realistic situation of choosing, or not, to lie to an experimenter. Our analyses indicate that when being deceptive, continuous fluctuations of movement in the upper face, and somewhat in the arms, are characterized by dynamical properties of less stability, but greater complexity. For the upper face, these distinctions are present despite no apparent differences in the overall amount of movement between deception and truth. We suggest that these unique dynamical signatures of motion are indicative of both the cognitive demands inherent to deception and the need to respond adaptively in a social context.

Prediction during statistical learning, and implications for the implicit/explicit divide

by Ryan Morehead and Nicholas Duran

Advances in Cognitive …, Jan 1, 2012

Accounts of statistical learning, both implicit and explicit, often invoke predictive processes a... more Accounts of statistical learning, both implicit and explicit, often invoke predictive processes as central to learning, yet practically all experiments employ non-predictive measures during training. We argue that the common theoretical assumption of anticipation and prediction needs clearer, more direct evidence for it during learning. We offer a novel experimental context to explore prediction, and report results from a simple sequential learning task designed to promote predictive behaviors in participants as they responded to a short sequence of simple stimulus events. Predictive tendencies in participants were measured using their computer mouse, the trajectories of which served as a means of tapping into predictive behavior while participants were exposed to very short and simple sequences of events. A total of 143 participants were randomly assigned to stimulus sequences along a continuum of regularity. Analysis of computer-mouse trajectories revealed that (a) participants almost always anticipate events in some manner, (b) participants exhibit two stable patterns of behavior, either reacting to vs. predicting future events, (c) the extent to which participants predict relates to performance on a recall test, and (d) explicit reports of perceiving patterns in the brief sequence correlates with extent of prediction. We end with a discussion of implicit and explicit statistical learning and of the role prediction may play in both kinds of learning.

Listeners invest in an assumed other's perspective despite cognitive cost

by Nicholas Duran and Roger Kreuz

Cognition, Jan 1, 2011

We explored perspective-taking behavior in a visuospatial mental rotation task that requires list... more We explored perspective-taking behavior in a visuospatial mental rotation task that requires listeners to adopt an egocentric or ''other-centric'' frame of reference. In the current task, objects could be interpreted relative to the point-of-view of the listener (egocentric) or of a simulated partner (other-centric). Across three studies, we evaluated participants' willingness to consider and act on partner-specific information, showing that a partner's perceived ability to contribute to collaborative mutual understanding modulated participants' perspective-taking behavior, either by increasing other-centric (Study 2) or egocentric (Study 3) responding. Moreover, we show that a large proportion of participants resolved referential ambiguity in terms of their partner's perspective, even when it was more cognitively difficult to do so (as tracked by online movement measures), and when the presence of a social partner had to be assumed ). In addition, participants continued to consider their partner's perspective during trials where visual perspectives were shared. Our results show that participants will thoroughly invest in either an other-centric or egocentric mode of responding, and that perspective-taking strategies are not always dictated by minimizing processing demands, but by more potent (albeit subtle) factors in the social context.

The cognitive dynamics of negated sentence verification

Cognitive science, Jan 1, 2011

We explored the influence of negation on cognitive dynamics, measured using mouse-movement trajec... more We explored the influence of negation on cognitive dynamics, measured using mouse-movement trajectories, to test the classic notion that negation acts as an operator on linguistic processing. In three experiments, participants verified the truth or falsity of simple statements, and we tracked the computer-mouse trajectories of their responses. Sentences expressing these facts sometimes contained a negation. Such negated statements could be true (e.g., ''elephants are not small'') or false (e.g., ''elephants are not large''). In the first experiment, as predicted by the classic notion of negation, we found that negation caused more discreteness in the mouse trajectory of a response. The second experiment induced a simple context for these statements, yet negation still increased discreteness in trajectories. A third experiment enhanced the pragmatic context of sentences, and the discreteness was substantially diminished, with one primary measure no longer significantly showing increased discreteness at all. Traditional linguistic theories predict rapid shifts in cognitive dynamics occur due to the nature of negation: It is an operator that reverses the truth or falsity of an interpretation. We argue that these results support both propositional and contextual accounts of negation present in the literature, suggesting that contextual factors are crucial for determining the kind of cognitive dynamics displayed. We conclude by drawing broader lessons about theories of cognition from the case of negation.

The action dynamics of overcoming the truth

Psychonomic bulletin & review, Jan 1, 2010

The linguistic correlates of conversational deception: Comparing natural language processing technologies

Applied …, Jan 1, 2010

The words people use and the way they use them can reveal a great deal about their mental states ... more The words people use and the way they use them can reveal a great deal about their mental states when they attempt to deceive. The challenge for researchers is how to reliably distinguish the linguistic features that characterize these hidden states. In this study, we use a natural language processing tool called Coh-Metrix to evaluate deceptive and truthful conversations that occur within a context of computer-mediated communication. Coh-Metrix is unique in that it tracks linguistic features based on cognitive and social factors that are hypothesized to influence deception. The results from Coh-Metrix are compared to linguistic features reported in previous independent research, which used a natural language processing tool called Linguistic Inquiry and Word Count. The comparison reveals converging and contrasting alignment for several linguistic features and establishes new insights on deceptive language and its use in conversation.

Using Coh-Metrix temporal indices to predict psychological measures of time

Proceedings of the …, Jan 1, 2006

Situation model theories of text comprehension consider temporality to be one of the critical dim... more Situation model theories of text comprehension consider temporality to be one of the critical dimensions for building a coherent mental representation of described events. Using this framework, three continuous scale measures were developed to assess temporal coherence based on tense, aspect, and adverbial relations. Experts in discourse processing evaluated 150 texts, excerpted from science, history, and literature textbooks, to establish a gold standard of temporality. We then demonstrated that Coh-Metrix, a computational tool that measures textual cohesion on over 200 indices of discourse features, could significantly reflect these human interpretations by incorporating five indices of local, temporal cohesion. We conclude our paper with a discussion of our current research into developments of more sophisticated global temporal indices.

Seeing and Believing: Social Influences on Language Processing

Attention and Vision in Language Processing, 2015

ABSTRACT

Spatial Cognition Adapts to Social Context

cognaction.org

We present a dynamical systems model that captures human perspective-taking behavior in a visuosp... more We present a dynamical systems model that captures human perspective-taking behavior in a visuospatial mental rotation task. The task requires participants to interpret an ambiguous request for a visual referent, either by taking their own perspective (egocentric; "the referent is on my right") or the perspective of the requester (other-centric; "the referent is on your right"). Our primary interest lies in how perspective-taking behavior and spatial cognition adapt to socially-driven information. To do so, we manipulate whether the participant shares the same social status as their assumed interaction partner. We report critical influences of social role on response choice and on the processing demands required to enact the response. Furthermore, we discuss these results in the context of our computational model, showing that simple socially-induced constraints can produce rich behavioral patterns.

Predictive Arm Placement in the Statistical Learning of Position Sequences

Abstract Researchers have shown that statistical learning is a pervasive and deeply entrenched hu... more Abstract Researchers have shown that statistical learning is a pervasive and deeply entrenched human ability. As the input environment becomes more predictable, our processing of that environment should show increasing structure. In this study, we capture these unfolding processes using the dynamics of arm movements and reveal explicit patterns of predictive arm placement during learning. We tracked the arm using the Nintendo Wii remote while participants engaged in a visuospatial statistical learning task.