Lab member Stefanie Marie Mutialu will present her research at the Office of Educational Opportunity and
Enrichment Services (OEOES) Summer Research Fellowship Symposium at UC Davis. This research is a collaborative project between the Cognitive Communication Science Lab and the researchers at The Ohio State University and University of Illinois Urbana Champagne.

Presentation Title: What Do People Remember From Narratives and Why Do We Remember It?
Date: September 4, 2022
Time: 3:20 – 3:40pm
Location: 114 South Hall, UC Davis
Abstract: The purpose of this presentation is to examine narrative persuasion in health message contexts. Many studies have found narratives to be more persuasive than non-narrative messages. However, people’s memory of information in these messages is not well understood. To address this gap, a recent study examined narrative persuasion and processing fluency by comparing narrative to non-narrative messages. Unexpectedly, the results showed participants had an increase in message recognition from non-narrative messages. Moreover, people had better message recognition when processing fluency was at a moderate level. We are currently conducting a follow-up study to verify this result. The importance of developing an understanding of the specific types of messages that strengthen persuasion can offer a different perception of how to deliver health and prosocial-related messages, ultimately making them more effective.

Lab member Valerie Klein will present her research at the ASPIRE Research Symposium, hosted by the UC Davis Center for Mind and Brain. This research is a collaborative project between the Cognitive Communication Science Lab and the VICTOR Lab, directed by Dr. Jorge Peña, the NOM Lab directed by Dr. Ralf Schmälzle, and the Stanford Social Media Lab directed by Dr. Jeffrey T. Hancock.

Presentation Title: AR Tangram + Muse EEG: A New Hyperscanning Paradigm For Studying Shared Neural Responses During Naturalistic Tasks.
Date: June 3, 2022
Time: 4:15 – 6:15
Location: UC Davis Center for Mind and Brain
Abstract: Hyperscanning approaches are becoming increasingly common for studying shared neural responses during collaborative or social tasks. Many of the current hyperscanning procedures rely on one of two possible approaches: (1) tightly controlled, highly structured, rigid tasks, or (2) loosely controlled, unstructured, flexible tasks. Both approaches make important and non-trivial tradeoffs regarding internal and ecological validity. Here, we present a novel third approach that balances these tradeoffs. AR Tangram is a mobile-phone based application that uses augmented reality technology to allow pairs of participants to simultaneously complete a naturalistic tangram figure matching task. Tangram matching is a well-validated procedure that belongs to a family of communication tasks that are employed to measure trust, mutual understanding, coordination, shared goals, and partner impression. Importantly, AR Tangram’s use of mobile technology allows for the simultaneous and time-locked recording and automatic annotation of relevant behavioral and linguistic markers that can be used in subsequent analysis. The task is, therefore, suitable for paradigms designed to examine behavioral, linguistic, and neural synchrony among pairs of participants. We will present a demonstration of the hyperscanning paradigm using AR Tangram and the Muse EEG system along with the relevant code and materials for deploying the paradigm in other labs.