- www.sussex.ac.uk/psychology/chatlab
@chatlabuk @wsspsychlab
Nicola Yuill
University of Sussex, Psychology, Faculty Member
- www.sussex.ac.uk/psychology/chatlab @chatlabuk I study children's communication and interaction when working and pl... morewww.sussex.ac.uk/psychology/chatlab @chatlabuk
I study children's communication and interaction when working and playing together, at school and at home, in typical and atypical development, with peers, with parents and with teachers. I use technology as a way of uncovering the social developmental mechanisms underlying collaboration and interaction, and this often results in ideas about how to use technology effectively to support social interaction in children, including those with speech and language difficulties, problems in reading comprehension and those with autism spectrum conditions. I work in the highly collaborative and interdisciplinary setting of the ChatLab.edit
Early and relevant conversations can aid childhood development. Numerous innovative studies have highlighted the importance of early interaction, including the SUMS project and Mental State Talk (MST), which can aid the child's... more
Early and relevant conversations can aid childhood development. Numerous innovative studies have highlighted the importance of early interaction, including the SUMS project and Mental State Talk (MST), which can aid the child's development of social understanding and non-literal aspects of communication, such as joking and sarcasm.
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An Augmented Knights Castle (AKC) play set was adapted so that children with autism can configure programmable elements. This is compared with a non-configurable AKC. When the system is configurable, less solitary play and more... more
An Augmented Knights Castle (AKC) play set was adapted so that children with autism can configure programmable elements. This is compared with a non-configurable AKC. When the system is configurable, less solitary play and more cooperative play occurred. Configurability is a key factor in design for children with autism allowing greater individual control and more socially oriented behaviour. We suggest that tangibles provide a safety net for encouraging social interaction as they allow for a broad range of interaction styles.
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ABSTRACT Previous research has demonstrated the capacity of interactive table-tops to support co-located collaborative learning; however, these analyses have been at a coarse scale---focusing on general trends across conditions. In this... more
ABSTRACT Previous research has demonstrated the capacity of interactive table-tops to support co-located collaborative learning; however, these analyses have been at a coarse scale---focusing on general trends across conditions. In this paper, we offer a complimentary perspective by focusing on specific group dynamics. We detail three cases of dyads using the DigiTile application to work on fraction challenges. While all pairs perform well, their group dynamics are distinctive; as a consequence, the benefits of working together and the benefits of using an interactive tabletop are different for each pair. Thus, we demonstrate that one size does not fit all when characterizing how interactive tabletops support collaborative learning.
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Abstract: Single-user interfaces can be detrimental to the collaborative process, even when pairs of children are given a mouse each. We describe a novel user interface, Separate Control of Shared Space (SCOSS), and present a study that... more
Abstract: Single-user interfaces can be detrimental to the collaborative process, even when pairs of children are given a mouse each. We describe a novel user interface, Separate Control of Shared Space (SCOSS), and present a study that explores its potential as a tool to resource collaborative interactions between children doing an estimation task. We then discuss the iterative development of two methodologies for analysing how the interface worked to support desirable collaborative behaviours. This included the generation of a ...
Multi-user interfaces are said to provide “natural” interaction in supporting collaboration, compared to individual and noncolocated technologies. We identify three mechanisms accounting for the success of such interfaces: high awareness... more
Multi-user interfaces are said to provide “natural” interaction in supporting collaboration, compared to individual and noncolocated technologies. We identify three mechanisms accounting for the success of such interfaces: high awareness of others' actions and intentions, high control over the interface, and high availability of background information. We challenge the idea that interaction over such interfaces is necessarily “natural” and argue
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An Augmented Knights Castle (AKC) is adapted so that children with autism can alter programmable elements (Lampe & Hinske, 2007). This is compared with a non-configurable AKC. The AKC is additionally compared to when the system is... more
An Augmented Knights Castle (AKC) is adapted so that children with autism can alter programmable elements (Lampe & Hinske, 2007). This is compared with a non-configurable AKC. The AKC is additionally compared to when the system is switched-off. When the system is augmented, and when it is configurable, less solitary and more parallel play occurred. Configurability is a key factor in design for children with autism allowing greater individual control coupled with less isolated behaviour.
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Children have difficulties in understanding and applying fractions because of the multiple representations of fractions and abstract nature of the subject and in switching between representations. Children with special needs experience... more
Children have difficulties in understanding and applying fractions because of the multiple
representations of fractions and abstract nature of the subject and in switching between
representations. Children with special needs experience more difficulties which may lead
to increased feelings of frustration. One way to overcome this is to use a motivating game
framework which encourages collaboration among peers. This initial study looks at how
pairs/small groups work together and how technology can be adapted to make most use of
the benefits of collaboration among children with special needs.
representations of fractions and abstract nature of the subject and in switching between
representations. Children with special needs experience more difficulties which may lead
to increased feelings of frustration. One way to overcome this is to use a motivating game
framework which encourages collaboration among peers. This initial study looks at how
pairs/small groups work together and how technology can be adapted to make most use of
the benefits of collaboration among children with special needs.
Research Interests:
Cooperative social interaction is a complex skill that involves maintaining shared attention and continually negotiating a common frame of reference. Privileged in human evolution, cooperation provides support for the development of... more
Cooperative social interaction is a complex skill that involves maintaining shared attention and continually negotiating a common frame of reference. Privileged in human evolution, cooperation provides support for the development of social-cognitive skills. We hypothesize that providing audio support for capturing playmates' attention will increase cooperative play in groups of young children. Attention capture was manipulated via an audio-augmented toy to boost children's attention bids. Study 1 (48 6- to 11-year-olds) showed that the augmented toy yielded significantly more cooperative play in triads compared to the same toy without augmentation. In Study 2 (33 7- to 9-year-olds) the augmented toy supported greater success of attention bids, which were associated with longer cooperative play, associated in turn with better group narratives. The results show how cooperation requires moment-by-moment coordination of attention and how we can manipulate environments to reveal and support mechanisms of social interaction. Our findings have implications for understanding the role of joint attention in the development of cooperative action and shared understanding.
Multi-user interfaces are said to provide “natural” interaction in supporting collaboration, compared to individual and noncolocated technologies. We identify three mechanisms accounting for the success of such interfaces: high awareness... more
Multi-user interfaces are said to provide “natural” interaction in supporting collaboration, compared to individual and noncolocated technologies. We identify three mechanisms accounting for the success of such interfaces: high awareness of others' actions and intentions, high control over the interface, and high availability of background information. We challenge the idea that interaction over such interfaces is necessarily “natural” and argue that everyday interaction involves constraints on awareness, control, and availability. These constraints help people interact more smoothly. We draw from social developmental psychology to characterize the design of multi-user interfaces in terms of how constraints on these mechanisms can be best used to promote collaboration. We use this framework of mechanisms and constraints to explain the successes and failures of existing designs, then apply it to three case studies of design, and finally derive from them a set of questions to consider when designing and analysing multi-user interfaces for collaboration.
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This study investigated understanding of language ambiguity as a source of individual differences in children's reading comprehension skill, and the role of peer metalinguistic discussion in fostering comprehension improvement.... more
This study investigated understanding of language ambiguity as a source of individual differences in children's reading comprehension skill, and the role of peer metalinguistic discussion in fostering comprehension improvement. Twenty-four 7- to 9-year-old children worked in pairs to discuss and resolve ambiguities in joking riddles. Their reading comprehension increased significantly more than a group of 24 no-treatment controls. Analysis of
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Research on emotion understanding in ADHD shows inconsistent results. This study uses control methods to investigate two questions about recognition and understanding of emotional expressions in 36 five- to eleven-year-old boys with ADHD:... more
Research on emotion understanding in ADHD shows inconsistent results. This study uses control methods to investigate two questions about recognition and understanding of emotional expressions in 36 five- to eleven-year-old boys with ADHD: [1] Do they find this task more difficult than judging non-emotional information from faces, thus suggesting a specific social-cognitive impairment? [2] Are their judgements about faces impaired by general limitations on task performance, such as impulsive responding? In Part 1, 19 boys with ADHD and 19 age-matched typically developing boys matched facial expressions of emotion to situations, and did a control non-emotional face-processing task. Boys with ADHD performed more poorly than age-matches on both tasks, but found the emotion task harder than the non-emotion task. In Part 2, 17 boys with ADHD and 13 five-to six-year-old typically developing boys performed the same tasks, but with an 'inhibitory scaffolding' procedure to prevent impulsive responding. Boys with ADHD performed as well as the younger controls on the non-emotional task, but still showed impairments in the emotion task. Boys with ADHD may show poorer task performance because of general cognitive factors, but also showed selective problems in matching facial emotions to situations.
Research Interests: Psychology, Face recognition (Psychology), Social Perception, Facial expression, Affect, and 16 moreHumans, Child, Female, Face processing, Male, Task Performance, Clinical Sciences, Emotional Expression, Cognitive impairment, Typical Development, Cognition disorders, Control Method, Severity of Illness Index, Neuropsychological Tests, Child preschool, and Attention deficit disorder with hyperactivity
As adults, we appreciate that judgments of us may reflect our associations with other people. This article examines the development of "extended identity" (G.R. Semin & K. Papadopoulou, 1989) in children between... more
As adults, we appreciate that judgments of us may reflect our associations with other people. This article examines the development of "extended identity" (G.R. Semin & K. Papadopoulou, 1989) in children between 5 and 11 years. In Experiment 1, children were presented with hypothetical scenarios in which they imagined a close associate had committed a rule violation in a highly public context. Only the older children judged that they would be evaluated negatively through their association with the wrongdoer and that they themselves would feel embarrassment. Given the late appearance of extended identity, Experiment 2 addressed contexts in which the child was responsible for a younger child, so that accountability for the other was explicitly demanded. In such contexts, an appreciation of extended identity appeared earlier than it did in Experiment 1, in which no responsibility for the other was involved.
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Two studies assessed the role of Separate Control of Shared Space (SCoSS) technology in supporting peer collaborative discussion and comprehension. We hypothesised that providing equitable shared input to two literacy tasks (both good... more
Two studies assessed the role of Separate Control of Shared Space (SCoSS) technology in supporting peer collaborative discussion and comprehension. We hypothesised that providing equitable shared input to two literacy tasks (both good predictors of comprehension skill) would support discussion to promote the joint construction of meaning, and hence individual progress. Study 1: 50 7–9-year-olds took a reading-specific multiple classification (RMC) pre-test, categorising words on two dimensions, before training on the task in pairs using SCoSS, dual-control or individual technology. Discussion produced more accurate post-test classification performance and SCoSS was associated with higher frequency of statements during training that combined both RMC dimensions (surface form and meaning of words). Study 2: 12 8–9-year-olds were pre-tested on story recall and worked in pairs on a SCoSS-supported story construction task, requiring collaborative inference-making, hypothesis generation and selection. Post-test story recall was predicted by the frequency of deductive causal statements during training. We discuss how technology can be used to promote collaboration and discussion that supports joint understanding and individual comprehension development.
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ABSTRACT Building technology enhanced learning contexts that work involves increasing our understanding of how we can model learners affective and cognitive profiles, the contexts within which they learn and the interactions between... more
ABSTRACT Building technology enhanced learning contexts that work involves increasing our understanding of how we can model learners affective and cognitive profiles, the contexts within which they learn and the interactions between learner and context. In this paper we provide evidence that can inform the design of both models of learners and of their context. We explore the impact of children's goal orientation upon their collaborative interactions whilst completing computer-based tasks. This work suggests that mastery goals engender a willingness to engage in the process of argumentation and discussion that is an important feature of effective collaborative learning. By contrast, performance goals lead learners to try and demonstrate their ability using their collaborative partner to affirm their own competence. This work informs the design of motivational learner models in collaborative contexts. In addition, we found that it is possible to encourage a particular goal orientation in a learner through manipulations to the task presentation, and in so doing to engender more productive styles of collaborative interaction. This finding informs the design of the collaborative context.
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ABSTRACT Children of 6 to 9 years and adults judged a story protagonist's degree of blame for a traffic accident. All stories depicted a collision between a protagonist, who had the right of way, and another road user. Stories... more
ABSTRACT Children of 6 to 9 years and adults judged a story protagonist's degree of blame for a traffic accident. All stories depicted a collision between a protagonist, who had the right of way, and another road user. Stories differed, however, in protagonist's second-order belief about the other road-user's knowledge. For instance, in one story, the protagonist mistakenly thought that the other had noticed her coming and that she could therefore rely on him abiding by the priority rule (principle of mutual trust) and grant her the right of way. This story contrasted with one where the protagonist knew that the other had not seen her and so was not justified in claiming priority. Most 7 and 8-year-old children understood the difference in second-order belief and about half of them were also able to make the correct responsibility attribution that the mistaken protagonist, thinking the other character knew, was less to blame for the accident than the one who knew about the other's ignorance. By 9 years, almost all children understood second-order beliefs and three-quarters were also able to make the correct responsibility attribution. The application of second-order beliefs to the principle of mutual trust is discussed in relation to communication failures and cooperative interaction.
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ABSTRACT Children have difficulties in understanding and applying fractions because of the multiple representations of fractions and abstract nature of the subject and in switching between representations. Children with special needs... more
ABSTRACT Children have difficulties in understanding and applying fractions because of the multiple representations of fractions and abstract nature of the subject and in switching between representations. Children with special needs experience more difficulties which may lead to increased feelings of frustration. One way to overcome this is to use a motivating game framework which encourages collaboration among peers. This initial study looks at how pairs/small groups work together and how technology can be adapted to make most use of the benefits of collaboration among children with special needs.
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The 14th International Conference on Artificial Intelligence in Education (AIED2009) is being held July 6--10 2009 in Brighton, UK. AIED2009 is part of an ongoing series of biennial international conferences for top quality research in... more
The 14th International Conference on Artificial Intelligence in Education (AIED2009) is being held July 6--10 2009 in Brighton, UK. AIED2009 is part of an ongoing series of biennial international conferences for top quality research in intelligent systems and cognitive science for ...
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Abstract. This paper introduces a novel and general framework which operationalises the sharing of collaborative tasks between multiple users. In contrast to the majority of existing software used in a collaborative context, software... more
Abstract. This paper introduces a novel and general framework which operationalises the sharing of collaborative tasks between multiple users. In contrast to the majority of existing software used in a collaborative context, software developed under this framework provides each user with their own identical yet independent copy of the task which, by default, only they themselves can manipulate. This represents a departure from traditional turn-taking and dual control collaborative interaction styles and is intended to reduce the domination of ...
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Abstract This paper describes a novel and general framework for the sharing of collaborative tasks between multiple users. In contrast to the majority of existing software used in a collaborative context, software developed under this... more
Abstract This paper describes a novel and general framework for the sharing of collaborative tasks between multiple users. In contrast to the majority of existing software used in a collaborative context, software developed under this framework provides each user with their own identical yet independent copy of the task which, by default, only they themselves can manipulate. This represents a departure from traditional turn-taking and dual control collaborative interaction styles and is intended to reduce the domination of one user over ...
Most educational software available to children is designed for a single user and this, coupled with a shortage of computers in schools, means that pairs or groups of children often share an inappropriate interface which can be... more
Most educational software available to children is designed for a single user and this, coupled with a shortage of computers in schools, means that pairs or groups of children often share an inappropriate interface which can be detrimental to collaboration. We describe a novel ...
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... (Nashville, Tennessee, USA., 2007), Cognitive Science Society, Austin, Texas, USA., 203-208. 4. Farr, W., Yuill, N., and Raffle, H., Social Benefits of a TangibleUser Interface for Children with Autistic Spectrum Conditions. ...
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Tangible user interfaces (TUIs) embed computer technology in graspable objects. This study assessed the potential of Topobo, a construction toy with programmable movement, to support social interaction in children with Autistic Spectrum... more
Tangible user interfaces (TUIs) embed computer technology in graspable objects. This study assessed the potential of Topobo, a construction toy with programmable movement, to support social interaction in children with Autistic Spectrum Conditions (ASC). Groups of either typically developing (TD) children or those with ASC had group play sessions with Topobo and with LEGO. We recorded the extent and sequence of different categories of play during these sessions. For both participant groups, there were more social forms of play with Topobo than with LEGO. More solitary play occurred for LEGO and more parallel play occurred with Topobo. Topobo was also associated with more time in onlooker and cooperative play in TD. Finally, we observed differences in play sequences between TD and ASC children, and discuss how different play materials might produce specific patterns of play in these two groups.
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The Augmented Knight's Castle (AKC) comprises traditional play figures and scenery embedded with radio frequency identification (RFID) technology to enhance user experience by triggering various forms of audio output. In this paper we... more
The Augmented Knight's Castle (AKC) comprises traditional play figures and scenery embedded with radio frequency identification (RFID) technology to enhance user experience by triggering various forms of audio output. In this paper we present the results of a user study with over 100 children to evaluate the AKC in terms of playful learning, compared with an identical, non-augmented version. Findings suggest that children who played with the AKC remembered facts about the Middle Ages that were presented to them in the form of verbal commentaries, both immediately after the play session as well as in a post-test two months later.
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Research Interests: Psychology, Cognitive Science, Developmental Psychology, Anthropology, Epistemology, and 28 moreCognitive development, Cognition, Child Development, Culture, Beliefs, Comparative Study, Social behavior, Subjectivity, Humans, Child, Models, Judgment, Discrimination Learning, Concept Formation, Female, Individual Psychology, Male, Attitude, Developmental, Experiments, Peer group, Age Factors, Social Behavior, Subjective Experience, Opinions, Age Groups, Nino, and Reality Testing
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Abstract. In order to build learning systems that care we need to increase our understanding of the affective and motivational dimensions of learning. This will allow us to develop a model of our learners which extends beyond their... more
Abstract. In order to build learning systems that care we need to increase our understanding of the affective and motivational dimensions of learning. This will allow us to develop a model of our learners which extends beyond their behaviours to the feelings and motivations ...
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... above-chance per-formance), there was no indication of such a bias. Experiment 2 Experiment 1 supported Model 1 over Model 2 and showed that even 3-year-olds could make appropriate judgments of emotional reaction according to... more
... above-chance per-formance), there was no indication of such a bias. Experiment 2 Experiment 1 supported Model 1 over Model 2 and showed that even 3-year-olds could make appropriate judgments of emotional reaction according to contrasts in intentionality and knowledge ...
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... First Schools for their assistance in Experiment 1, and Carlton Hill, Coombe Road, and Fairlight First Schools for their cooperation in Experiment 2. We are also very grateful to Jane Oakhill for her ... 156 NICOLA YUILL AND TRISH... more
... First Schools for their assistance in Experiment 1, and Carlton Hill, Coombe Road, and Fairlight First Schools for their cooperation in Experiment 2. We are also very grateful to Jane Oakhill for her ... 156 NICOLA YUILL AND TRISH JOSCELYNE ... New York: Holt Rinehart & Winston. ...