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Defining an interpersonal event requires specifying who the actor is and who the object of action is. Specify the actor by making a selection from the Actor pop-up menu on this form. Specify the object person by making a selection from the Object person pop-up menu.
The behavior that the actor performs toward the object is specified by selecting from the list of behaviors. Use the scroll-bar at the side of the panel in order to move through the entire list of behaviors. Select a word or phrase in the behavior list by clicking on it. The selected item will be highlighted. (Click on it again to de-select.)
Example: You might have "Person 1" showing in the Actor pop-up menu, "Person 2" showing in the Object-person pop-up menu, and "accomodate" highlighted in the behavior list. This would mean that the specified event is "Person 1 accomodates Person 2."
Click the Insert this event button in order to add the event to the list in the Events box. Adding multiple events to the panel defines an event sequence.
An event with no specified behavior will be added if you click Insert this event without selecting a behavior. This allows you to have Interact compute an optimal behavior for the given actor and object person when you go to the Analyze events form. (While you may select this option in Basic mode, Interact changes to Advanced mode automatically when you click the event on the Analyze events form. This is so you see that Interact is giving the actor's optimal current behavior rather than next behavior.)
You can specify a self-directed action by choosing "self" in the Object menu. Alternatively, choose the same person in the Actor and Object pop-up menus.
Having defined a set of events to be experienced by Person 1, you can go on to define events experienced by another person. Use the Experiences of pop-up menu to select a different experiencer.
When you go to the experiences of someone other than Person 1, a button, Use events of Person 1, allows you to duplicate events already specified for Person 1. Duplicated events incorporate Person 1's definitions of people, even if you have specified different definitions for other interactants.
An event is recorded with the actor first, the behavior second, and the object person third. Brackets are added after the names of the interactants, and the person's attribute and role are specified within the brackets. A line within the brackets means that no personal attribute was specified. A line at the behavior position means that the behavior is unspecified, to be computed by Interact.
You can edit events by clicking inside the Events panel in order to get an editing cursor. Identities, modifiers, or behaviors may be entered by typing (provided you type only entries that are in the Interact dictionaries). An event can be removed from the event sequence by deleting the line.
Event definitions with the character "&" at the beginning define a set of events occurring simultaneously. For example, the list of lines
causes Interact to do the following.
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First, the EPA profile for sweetheart is used to set the initial transient impression of both people, and then the transient impressions resulting from Person 2 greeting Person 1 are computed. |
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The transient impressions produced by Person 1 kissing Person 2 are computed, based on the transient impressions produced by the first event. |
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The transient impressions produced by Person 2 kissing Person 1 are computed, based on the transient impressions produced by the first event. |
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The transient impressions of Person 1 produced by both kissing events are averaged, and the transient impressions of Person 2 produced by both kissing events are averaged. These mean transient impressions are the outcome transients for the simultaneous events. |
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The transient impressions produced by Person 1 complimenting Person 2 are computed, based on the averaged transient impressions from the simultaneous events. |
Two sets of simultaneous events in a row can be distinguished by extra characters after the ampersand, as in this example.
More than two simultaneous events can be in a set, assuming that an experiencer is aware of all events at the same time. Consider the next list of events.
In this case, the outcome for Person 2 is averaged over all three simultaneous events. Thus, in the last event shown, the input transient for Person 2 is the average outcome from all three prior events, even though the input transient for Person 1 is the outcome from just the one prior event in which Person 1 was involved.
Event sequences on the Define-Event form can be saved for future use. Copy the events listed in the text box, and paste them into a document in a word processor. Later you can retrieve the events from the document and paste them into the Define Event text box to analyze again.
Events prepared externally in a word-processing program may be pasted into the Events panel. CAUTION: lines that are not correctly formatted as events will foul analyses! Each line must be one of the following forms:
A person's sex influences experiences of all events for that person, but experiencer sex is not specified for an event. Similarly, specification of a setting is not specified for each event. Therefore sex and setting cannot be specified within imported events. You have to specify sex by selecting a male or female experiencer on the Analyze events form. A setting can be specified for that experiencer using the Define situation screen.
An
additional option is to begin a line with "$," in order to stop
effects of prior events and start anew. For example, the line
$,Person 1[_,professor],ignore,Person
2[_,student]
will start a new analytic sequence, as if it were the first line, even
though
other events are listed before it. This restarting option allows
multiple
analyses to be imported all at once.
In advanced mode, EPA profiles are shown for selected behaviors, and additions can be made to the behavior list. To make an addition, click in the number box at the bottom of the list to get a cursor. Type an EPA profile with the three numbers separated by spaces and/or commas, and press Enter. You will see a new entry in the behavior list whose "word" is composed of the numbers that you entered. The new entry has the same EPA profile for both males and females. The entry has every Interact gate set to open.
The entry is not a permanent addition to the list, but the entry does remain available until you end your Interact session. The temporary entry can be used in defining events just like regular words in the list.
Events create impressions of behaviors as well as of people, so a given behavior changes meaning if it is repeated over and over in an interaction. In advanced mode, a Repeated behaviors pop-up menu appears to let you choose how you want to deal with meaning changes in behavior.
One option is to not repeat behaviors in an interaction sequence. This is the way Interact works unless you change this option: any behavior that has occurred no longer is displayed as an Interact prediction, even when affectively appropriate. (However, behaviors can repeat in a pre-defined list of events that you create, even if the pop-up menu indicates no repeats. In this case, the meaning of a behavior stays the same throughout, as in the next option.)
A second option—Constant transients—is to allow repeated behaviors, and to use the same affective meaning every time.
The third option—Evolving transients—is to allow repeated behaviors, changing the meaning of the behavior as it is re-used. The transient impression of the behavior produced by its last usage is employed as its meaning when it is used again.
Three checkboxes follow
the phrase "Switch to" at the bottom of this form. Each checkbox
specifies a kind of behavior. When a box is unchecked, that kind of
behavior is interspersed with other kinds of behaviors in Interact's behavior predictions on the Analyze events form. When a box is checked, only behaviors of that kind are included in Interact's predictions on the Analyze events form.
Corporal behaviors imply some sort of bodily contact - e.g., kissing someone, or subduing someone. Corporal behaviors contrast especially with verbal behaviors.
Interact ordinarily reports both corporal and non-corporal behaviors on the Analyze events form. Only corporal behaviors will be reported if you check Corporal.
Behaviors have been coded as either Overt or Surmised. Overt behaviors are those that can be recognized largely through perception alone - e.g., hitting someone. Surmised behaviors are those are recognized indirectly through conjectures or valuative judgments - e.g., forgetting someone, or reforming someone.
This category is checked by default, so Interact ordinarily reports Overt behaviors only on the Analyze events form. Unchecking Overt reverses this, so both overt and surmised behaviors will be reported on the Analyze events form.
Assemblage behaviors are those that imply a third party, besides the actor and object - e.g., defending someone.
Interact ordinarily reports both assemblage and non-assemblage behaviors on the Analyze events form. Only assemblage behaviors will be reported if you check Assemblage.