The Perception of Behavioral Units.

Abstract

Is THE STREAM OF BEHAVIOR seen as a continuum or as a sequence of discrete units? If the latter, do different people see the same units? People behave toward others, and they speak and write about their own and other's behavior as if they perceive behavior in units; and the degree of harmony with which interacting individuals guide their behavior suggests considerable agreement regarding the beginning and end-points of the behavior units they discern. The research reported in this chapter provides the first precise and systematic information about these important matters. In addition to his empirical findings, Dr. Dickman presents his thinking about the grounds people use in dividing the behavior stream and about the sources of their agreements and disagreements.

Emulating human observers with bayesian binning

“…Comparing the position of perceived and expected endpoints, subjects had a mean hit rate of 0.69 (standard error 0.05) within an accuracy window of less than 500 ms. These results are in accordance with previous findings about the agreement of human raters on boundary placing in movement sequences [Dickman 1963;Newtson and Engquist 1976;Zacks et al 2009]. …”

Pragmatic structure in appointment-making conversations

“…For instance, there are data consistent with the view that, among children and adults, the interpretation and production of linguistic and nonlinguistic activity with overall goals is based partly on subgoaldirected aspects of the activity (Barker & Wright, 1971;Dickman, 1963;Goldman, 1982;Omanson et al, 1978;Rumelhart, 1976). It is reasonable to begin to address the role that pragmatic conversational structure might play in comprehension models.…”

The shape of action.

“…As observers view videos of ongoing activities, they press a key to indicate the moments when one action unit ends and another begins, termed breakpoints. Although activities could be segmented at inflnite temporal locations, people are remarkably consistent, both with one another and with themselves across viewings, in marking breakpoints (Dickman, 1963;Hard, Tversky, & Lang, 2006;Newtson & Engquist, 1976;Zacks, Tversky, & Iyer, 2001). The action units bookended by these breakpoints are described or recalled with expressions like rinsed the dish or smoothed the sheet, indicating that they correspond to actions on objects or accomplished goals (e.g., Baldwin & Baird, 1999;Kurby & Zacks, 2008;Newtson, 1973;Zacks, Speer, Swallow, Braver, & Reynolds, 2007;Zacks, Tversky, & Iyer, 2001).…”