A Framework for Studying Human Multimodal Communication - Coverbal Synchrony in Human-Machine Interaction - page 32

an English speaker saying delicious while eating. In this case, you can
probably connect what you perceive to already stored information,
enabling you to understand what is being said.
Analyzed this way, understanding linguistic expressions can be seen
as a special case of understanding in general, which always involves
connecting input information to stored background information in
a meaningful way. The depth of understanding is dependent on the
extent to which such connections can be made, where more connections
mean increased depth of understanding. Understanding a phenomenon
means becoming aware of how the phenomenon relates to other
phenomena.
In communication, one particularly interesting type of connection,
relevant both for production and understanding, relates input
information to stored information concerning the social activity
that is being pursued. This is done in such a way that the activation
involved in perception and understanding involves predictions about
what the relevant next stage of the activity could be which means
that relevant responses can fairly rapidly be activated and given. In
this way, communication relevant to a particular social activity can be
driven forward by relevant co-activation on several levels of awareness
(Allwood, 2000).
9. Activity, Personality and Culture
9.1 Factors that influence communication—Activity
Actual communication is always multi-causally influenced.
Communicators have multiple overlapping roles and purposes
that are given by culture, age, gender, occupation and not least
activity. They can draw on many communicative resources even in a
particular activity, which means that the activity can contain types of
communication, which are not strictly speaking part of this activity. A
very common example of this is small talk (see above), which can be
a part of as diverse social activities as a patient-doctor consultation
or a negotiation between politicians.
Thus, there are many factors that influence and are influenced by
the way that contributions are produced and understood in dialog.
Consider for example the factors influencing a German politician
negotiating with a French politician in the context of the European
Parliament in Strasbourg. Starting from a general level, we have the
influence of human nature and the external physical environment.
On a slightly less general level, there is a particular national culture