Reducing face touching through haptic feedback: A treatment evaluation against fomite-mediated self-infection.

Fomite-mediated self-infection via face touching is an understudied transmission pathway for infectious diseases. We evaluated the effect of computer-mediated vibrotactile cues (presented through experimental bracelets located on one or both hands of the participant) on the frequency of face touching among eight healthy adults in the community. We conducted a treatment evaluation totaling over 25,000 min of video observation. The treatment was evaluated through a multiple-treatment design and hierarchical linear modeling. The one-bracelet intervention did not produce significantly lower levels of face touching across both hands, whereas the two-bracelet intervention did result in significantly lower face touching. The effect increased over repeated presentations of the two-bracelet intervention, with the second implementation producing, on average, 31 fewer face-touching percentual points relative to baseline levels. Dependent on the dynamics of fomite-mediated self-infection via face touching, treatment effects could be of public health significance. The implications for research and practice are discussed.

Predicting One's Turn With Both Body and Mind: Anticipatory Speech Postures During Dyadic Conversation.

In natural conversation, turns are handed off quickly, with the mean downtime commonly ranging from 7 to 423 ms. To achieve this, speakers plan their upcoming speech as their partner's turn unfolds, holding the audible utterance in abeyance until socially appropriate. The role played by prediction is debated, with some researchers claiming that speakers predict upcoming speech opportunities, and others claiming that speakers wait for detection of turn-final cues. The dynamics of articulatory triggering may speak to this debate. It is often assumed that the prepared utterance is held in a response buffer and then initiated all at once. This assumption is consistent with standard phonetic models in which articulatory actions must follow tightly prescribed patterns of coordination. This assumption has recently been challenged by single-word production experiments in which participants partly positioned their articulators to anticipate upcoming utterances, long before starting the acoustic response. The present study considered whether similar anticipatory postures arise when speakers in conversation await their next opportunity to speak. We analyzed a pre-existing audiovisual database of dyads engaging in unstructured conversation. Video motion tracking was used to determine speakers' lip areas over time. When utterance-initial syllables began with labial consonants or included rounded vowels, speakers produced distinctly smaller lip areas (compared to other utterances), prior to audible speech. This effect was moderated by the number of words in the upcoming utterance; postures arose up to 3,000 ms before acoustic onset for short utterances of 1-3 words. We discuss the implications for models of conversation and phonetic control.

Anticipatory mechanisms influence articulation in the form preparation task.

In the form preparation task, participants verbally produce words in small sets, which either overlap on an early phonological fragment or contrast on that fragment. A canonical account of word-form encoding assumes a sequential phonological encoding phase necessarily preceding subsequent retrieval of a discrete phonetic motor plan. This account assumes that acoustic onset and speech onset are equivalent, and that speech onset never precedes complete processing of the stimulus. In two form preparation experiments, we examined the influence of anticipatory processes on preacoustic lip articulation. We used motion-tracked digital video to measure continuous changes in vertical lip aperture. In sets with initial segment overlap, participants configured their lips to anticipate upcoming aerodynamic demands, before stimulus presentation. Anticipatory posturing arose even when initial segment was only 75% certain. These findings appear inconsistent with extant speech models that assume ballistic execution of a fully encoded, certainly known response. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2019 APA, all rights reserved).