Editorial: Group Analysis and Multi-Agent Interaction – Bridging the Gap Between Social Investigations and Computational Analysis

Details

• Personal Author:
  Allen JA ; Böck R
• Description:
  Human beings are interactive and socially engaged, as they often gather and communicate in either dyads or groups. During such interactions, each communication partner is providing a variety of information, including general information/content, as well as personal and relational information. These communication aspects and information are truly on display in group interactions or multi-party interactions (Böck, 2020; Reed and Allen, 2021). For many years, analyses of communication were a major objective of several areas within the social sciences, including areas such as investigating inter-personal relationships of the group members and the dynamics of group interaction, cohesion, and performance (Lehmann-Willenbrock and Allen, 2018). In this sense, mainly a human-centered perspective was considered. Meanwhile, computer scientists started to investigate groups using automatic analyses (Böck, 2021), often borrowing theoretical foundations from the social sciences. Unfortunately, these two groups, social scientists and computer scientists, have only begun to collaborate. Yet, these collaborations are beginning to be fruitful, showing interesting and promising results. However, this interdisciplinary exchange of ideas needs to be emphasized, especially with respect to multi-agent interactions where multiple human communicators interact with multiple technical systems (Böck, 2020). Unfortunately, in particular, the interdisciplinary collaboration between these research communities is currently rather limited. There are some attempts and efforts to link and bring together researchers from the different disciplines (e.g., the Interdisciplinary Network on Group Research, the Geeks "n" Groupies initiative, or the EMERGent workshops), but there is still need for additional efforts. Especially, in terms of collaborative, interdisciplinary papers have (almost) no home because of the limited possible publication options. Therefore, the main purpose of this Research Topic was to provide an outlet for these collaborative initiatives. This Research Topic provided an opportunity for scholars and researchers to contribute original research articles as well as review articles that will stimulate the continuing effort in group analyses and multi-agent interactions. In addition to methodological and theoretical contributions, we welcomed also practical applications in various Research Topics like (multimodal) group analysis, (multimodal) multi-agent analysis, (multimodal) multi-agent interaction from both communities, also highlighting effects on reactions of technical systems (Weißkirchen and Böck, 2022). We were also interested in the social and technical implications of group investigations, group and teams research using novel technology, and so on, which is of greater importance in the new post-COVID-19 pandemic world (Reed and Allen, 2022). Given this opportunity, we were trying to bridge the gap between social investigations and computational analysis. [Description provided by NIOSH]
• Subjects:
  Communication Occupational Health Safety
• Keywords:
  Analytical Processes Author Keywords: Editorial Communication Research Emerging Technology Group Analyses Group Behavior Group Dynamics Group Interaction Multi-agent Interaction Multi-party Interaction Technical Personnel

  More +
• ISSN:
  2624-9898
• Document Type:
  Text
• Funding:
  Grant
• Genre:
  Journal Article
• Place as Subject:
  OSHA Region 8 ; Utah
• CIO:
  National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH)
• Topic:
  Workplace Safety & Health
• Location:
  North America
• Volume:
  4
• NIOSHTIC Number:
  nn:20067824
• Citation:
  Front Comput Sci 2022 Sep; 4:1030966
• Contact Point Address:
  Joseph A. Allen, Center for Meeting Effectiveness, Rocky Mountain Center for Occupational and Environmental Health, Department of Family and Preventive Medicine, University of Utah Health, Salt Lake City, UT, United States
• Email:
  joseph.a.allen@utah.edu
• Federal Fiscal Year:
  2022
• Performing Organization:
  University of Utah
• Peer Reviewed:
  False
• Start Date:
  20050701
• Source Full Name:
  Frontiers in Computer Science
• End Date:
  20280630
• Collection(s):
  National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health
• Main Document Checksum:
  urn:sha-512:c03b651c17faf998b8230dab3019495e025d407a7a0593b36d799d1ef564b1df28957d5b8aa24f6b54d04ab213e244c76406843d701bd88d8c587b4b39947f89
• Download URL:
  https://stacks.cdc.gov/view/cdc/230079/cdc_230079_DS1.pdf
• File Type:
  [PDF - 95.89 KB ]