Christine Larrazet

Isabelle Rigoni

Media and Diversity: A Century-Long Perspective on an Enlarged and Internationalized Field of Research

Media and Diversity: A Century-Long Perspective on an Enlarged and Internationalized Field of Research

Christine Larrazet and Isabelle Rigoni 1What is the influence of the mass media on the social cohesion of diverse societies? Do the mass media contribute to hindering or damaging relationships between the social groups composing diversified societies -be it in terms of "race", ethnicity, culture or gender? Or, on the contrary, can they improve it? For nearly a century these questions have penetrated the academic and political spheres of numerous countries at various times and in various social and political situations but with a constant resurgence up to the point of delineating a large internationalized area of research.

2 Anglo-Saxon countries have been one step ahead on this issue, in particular the United States, where, in the very early days of sociology and communication sciences, scholars investigated the link between mass media and interracial and intercultural relationships. While contributing to the reflection on "Americanization", Robert Ezra Park first inaugurated this specialized field by furnishing an in-depth documentation of the foreign-language press, and its role in encouraging or hindering new immigrants to become Americans. [START_REF] Park | The Immigrant Press and Its Control[END_REF] In 1946, Bernard Berelson, the founding father of content analysis, delved with another researcher into hundreds of pieces of popular fiction appearing in mass magazines to determine what kinds of people appeared in short stories in terms of their racial, religious, and national backgrounds, and how they were treated, with the ambition to investigate the existence and nature of differential treatment accorded to various ethnic groups. Their content analysis revealed that the "100% Americans", whom they defined as "people of 'pure American stock' -white, Protestant, Anglo-Saxons", were better treated, quantitatively and qualitatively, than minorities, in which category they included American Negroes, Jews, Mexicans, Italian-Americans, Japanese-Americans, and Irish-Americans. [START_REF] Berelson | Majority and Minority Americans: An Analysis of Magazine Fiction[END_REF] In 1947, Paul Lazarsfeld, renowned as the father of sophisticated studies of mass communications, investigated the concept of "Tolerance Propaganda" and discussed its assumption that mass media like radio and newspapers could promote friendly relations between racial groups. "If we can sell soap this way, why shouldn't we also be able to sell good interracial relations?" he wondered, before identifying the different shortcomings or risks of this idealistic perception, one of the major ones being that such propaganda might have a boomerang effect that would reinforce the intolerance of those having structured discriminatory attitudes. [START_REF] Lazarsfeld | Some Remarks on the Role of the Mass Media in So-Called Tolerance Propaganda[END_REF] If media were to voluntarily help improve interracial and intercultural relationships, they would have to be backed up by other institutions such as the government or local associations.

After these early studies, analysis of the representation of ethnic minorities and of racism in the mainstream media gained a new force through the impetus of the Kerner Report, which investigated the causes at the roots of repeated riots in the ghettos from 1965 to 1968, and which unexpectedly devoted a specific chapter to the responsibility of the news media in the division of American society into two societies, black and white, separate and unequal. [START_REF] Kerner Commission | The 1968 Report of the National Advisory Commission on Civil Disorders[END_REF] Since then, numerous American studies on media representation of minorities, which has become an established academic research field in the second part of the 20th century, have revealed a tension between the producers of news -the large majority belonging to the white community -and minorities. In spite of real progress, especially since the civil rights movement, stereotypes that white citizens harbored about Americans of color still affected the content of news at the end of the century, and the general lack of coverage of minority communities contributed to a sense of "otherness" about Americans of color, one that induced the audience not to regard them as regular citizens. From the 1960s to the 2000s, most researchers drew the conclusion that by failing to reflect the diversified composition of societies and by fueling misrepresentations of minorities, mass media fed the social distance that separates different groups already distanced by de facto segregation.

After nearly 40 years of theoretical and practical progress in the United States, this seminal field of research has developed in many places throughout the world, and the publication of books on the differential treatment accorded to minorities reveals dynamic scientific activity at the international level. At the beginning of the 21st century, books have been published in the United States, Great Britain, Canada, Australia, Israel, France, Germany and Finland. Since historians have shown the media's role in developing the national narrative and the perpetuation of national identity, the media are now commonly acknowledged as major actors when dealing with identity construction, social and national cohesion as well as citizenship. We now know the way in which the mass media have played a major role in imagining (national) community/ies. While standardizing popular ideologies, media help nationalize culture as it was contextualized in the frame of the emerging nation state. Political scientists and sociologists seek to emphasize the importance of the media in terms of social cohesion at a time of institutional recognition of diversity and discrimination. Specialists in international communications have unraveled processes of identity construction throughout media production as well as media consumption and the appropriation of communication technologies in everyday life.

A Fast-Growing Ethnic Media Production

The first and major line of inquiry -the invisibility, underrepresentation and misrepresentation of minorities in the mainstream news media -which developed first in the United States, before reaching other countries such as Canada or Great Britain has been consolidated by further avenues of research. The large internationalized field of "Media and Minorities" has gone beyond this first dimension and now comprises complementary inquiries. Multidisciplinary approaches on the media have revealed that alongside mainstream media coexist a multitude of media productions led by ethnic and religious groups which, both by their existence and by the positions they take, contribute to a redefinition of national identity, minority groups' identities and individual identities. Migrants and ethnic minorities have a long tradition of establishing ethnic media, which were first created in the 19th century in North America and in some Western European countries. [START_REF] Park | Migrants, minorités ethniques et Internet. Usages et représentations[END_REF] Academics highlighted their role in furthering and supporting democracy and participating in the public sphere, as well as strong vectors of collective representation and mobilization. More recently, due to their extensive use of information and communication technologies (ICT), ethnic media have been described as indicators of transnational and transcultural ways of life. The orientation and production of ethnic media must ultimately be understood within a transnational field of informational flow, diasporic/identity engagement and self-(re)presentation. Despite the still ongoing digital divide, the widespread use of ICT and the advent of Web 2.0 have particularly amplified the expression of cultural and religious actors, in the sense that they have introduced new facilities and new tools. Rich sociological works on the electronic media of ethnic minorities and diaspora show that we are witnessing the emergence of new forms of living together at the same time as new forms of identity representation. The Internet has become, for minorities and diasporas, both a means of group representation and a mode of intervention in public debate.

A Favorable Supranational Context on Diversity and/in the Media

At the turn of the millennium, with the UNESCO Universal Declaration on Cultural Diversity of 2001, the already extended field of "Media and Minorities" has been extended again to new frontiers. The UNESCO declaration -unanimously adopted at the first ministerial-level meeting to be held after September 11 -was an opportunity for States to "reaffirm their conviction that intercultural dialogue is the best guarantee of peace and to reject outright the theory of the inevitable clash of cultures and civilisations". [START_REF] Stenou | UNESCO Universal Declaration on Cultural Diversity. A Vision, A Conceptual Platform, A Pool of Ideas for Implementation, A New Paradigm[END_REF] In this political, philosophical and epistemological evolution towards a greater recognition of diversity, the mass media have become considered one of the key targets of the actions taken by supranational organizations playing a delicate role of providing incentives and encouragement for more inclusive media content. In its action program, UNESCO pays a particular attention to the role of the media in the preservation and promotion of cultural diversity in the context of globalization. The Council of Europe has also repeatedly underlined the role of the media in the promotion of cultural diversity, be they traditional media or "new media" benefiting from the development and popularization of ICT. [START_REF] Mcgonagle | Minority Rights, Freedom of Expression and of the Media: Dynamics and Dilemmas[END_REF] The Framework Convention of the Council of Europe for the Protection of National Minorities (FCNM) in particular demonstrates the strong linkage between the goals of promoting tolerance, social cohesion and cultural diversity, and the instrumental importance of the media in respect of each goal. From the 2000s on, the objective of promoting cultural diversity in respect of the media (including digital) environment became a priority. New information technologies are particularly mentioned in terms of encouraging the production, safeguarding and dissemination of diversified content in the media.

The long-researched field of "Media and Minorities" -which first focused on the intranational visibility or invisibility of minorities, ethnic minorities in particular, and more widely on the representation of diversity -has thus been recently enlarged by questioning on "media and cultural diversity". This themed issue of InMedia aims at painting an internationalized panorama of this enlarged and dynamic field of research. To illustrate and nourish this extended area of research, named here "Media and Diversity", this issue provides a multidisciplinary approach and comparative perspectives, with contributions coming from diverse disciplines, including political sciences, sociology, or science and communication studies, and analysis of different countries or areas (Canada, Spain, Portugal, the United States and the European Community). In the process, it draws out the links among the diverse methodologies and theoretical frameworks employed in case studies, and brings out the points of concordance among the results attained in different countries. Five contributions to the field have been organized according to the three main points of view from which we consider the problem is being approached: Mainstream Media and Minorities; Ethnic Media -Role and Production; and Media and Cultural Diversity.

Mainstream Media and Minorities

To correct and improve minorities' visibility in terms of both quantity and quality, one solution envisaged and implemented by news media professionals in the Anglo-Saxon countries has been to hire minority journalists at the level of minority representation in society. In the United States, Canada or Great Britain, it is now commonly accepted that all members of society must participate in the democratic process of which, needless to say, the media are a major component, and that a comprehensive and fair representation of society requires the inclusion of ethnic, racial and gender diversity in the content of news and among media personnel. Part of the research conducted in "Media and Diversity" is therefore questioning the diversification effect. Does the diversification of media personnel, be it in newsrooms (for news media) or among creators and producers (for entertainment media), have a noticeable impact on media content? Is it sufficient? Does minority staffing increase community audiences and/or improve minority readers' trust?

In this set of questioning on the diversification effect, Bradley Clark used a participant observer methodology to analyze a Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (CBC) news and current affairs operation with the ambition to unveil the influence of production norms and long-held news values on the coverage of minority groups. His study, which examines the forces that shape news content at its principal site of production, i.e. the newsroom, reveals that corporate culture, hiring diverse staff, and the deployment of more resources can all work to bring diversity to news content. However, Clark observes that more inclusive journalism remains sporadic, as mainstream bias pervades newsgathering routines. Clark provides a detailed analysis that supports Augie Fleras's contention that the challenge of reforming media coverage of minority groups would be the equivalent of "walking up a down escalator". [START_REF] Fleras | The Media Gaze: Representations of Diversities in Canada[END_REF] On the other side of the spectrum of media production, the reception and effects of noninclusiveness of diversity in the content of news or entertainment, or of its progressive diversification, are investigated. Does non-inclusiveness of diversity or, on the contrary, media content diversification impact interracial, intercultural or gender relationships? Can this impact be assessed and measured? This is what Maria Soto-Sanfiel, Rosa Palencia Villa and Adriana Ibiti endeavor to address regarding the appreciation of lesbian narratives. Using a mixed-methods approach, providing further proof of the complementariness of both quantitative and qualitative methods, their study explores the effect of manifest sexual orientation and gender on the appreciation of the TV series The L word in Spain, with appreciation being defined as a psychological response to narratives that prompts a profound perception of meaning or a motivation to create reflections or thoughts among audiences. The investigation published here reveals that sexual orientation affects magnitudes of appreciation, while gender does not.

Ethnic Media -Role and Production

Most of the research on ethnic media has for a long time concerned deprived foreign workers. In this issue, Inês David offers a paper that explores an under-researched topic in the field of ethnic media: initiatives concerning relatively affluent populations. The discussion is based on a mapping of radio initiatives in Portugal and focuses on the role of a local station founded by, and catering for, self-designated "expatriates" residing in the touristic region of the Algarve. The paper problematizes the issues of inclusion/exclusion, voice, transnational connectivity, and cultural reproduction that are central to mediated self-representation in migratory contexts. It suggests the consideration of a category of media pertaining to relatively privileged populations in studies of ethnic media. Kira Kosnick analyzes some unexpected effects of ethnic media production. Whereas migration and media are often assumed to be primary agents in the intensification of flows of people, ideas, images, and the blurring of boundaries, Kosnick highlights the role of media in regulating migration flows to the EU and the United States. Beyond constructing representations of minorities and migration processes that impact on interethnic relations and politics in countries of immigration, it is argued that media technologies and representations have new roles to play when it comes to targeting potential migrants to prevent mobility across borders, both in the sense of addressing them as audiences in order to discourage migration, and in the sense of noncommunicative technologies that provide data in order to engage in social sorting and identification for the purposes of mobility control and surveillance.

Media and Cultural Diversity

This special issue ends on a paper that enlarges the debate on cultural diversity and the media. Through a decade-long literature review, Mélodine Sommier delivers a study that examines the way culture has been researched in media studies and suggests how critical intercultural communication could contribute to the field. Results show that studies dealing with media and culture do not systematically define the concept of culture. Findings also indicate that culture is oftentimes taken for granted instead of being problematized and addressed as a source of struggle. From there, the advantages of using a critical intercultural communication framework to examine culture are discussed.

14 We hope with this issue to reveal the dynamic dimension of an international area of research that has nearly reached hundred years of age and still has long to live. In a world where most of the populations of democracies are diversified and where major public institutions are forced to deal with issues of ethnic, gender and cultural diversity and with discrimination and racism, this field of research, which questions the relationship, or the absence of relationship, between actors of the media and diverse communities, is becoming increasingly relevant. We thus hope to contribute to fueling this area with new reflections and paths.

  Media and Diversity: A Century-Long Perspective on an Enlarged and Internatio... InMedia, 5 | 2014

  Media and Diversity: A Century-Long Perspective on an Enlarged and Internatio... InMedia, 5 | 2014

  ISABELLE RIGONIIsabelle Rigoni is an associate professor in sociology at INS HEA and a researcher at Grhapes. She has been the team leader of the EU Marie Curie excellence project MINORITYMEDIA (6th PCRDT) hosted at Migrinter -University of Poitiers in 2006-10. She has published extensively on media and migration (http://irigoni.blogspot.com/). and Diversity: A Century-Long Perspective on an Enlarged and Internatio...

	Media

InMedia,

5 | 2014

Media and Diversity: A Century-Long Perspective on an Enlarged and Internatio... InMedia, 5 | 2014


Aurélie Catel Duet

The Governance of Corporate Groups

Introduction

We propose a sociological approach of corporate groups governance. Corporate groups are sets of legally separate firms owned by the same decision maker. These last years, enterprises have increasingly chosen to organize and conduct their business operations in the form of a cluster of various separate corporations, rather than as a single corporate entity. Corporate groups dominate the economies of many developed countries, they are worth considerable attention. But since component firms are legally separate and corporate groups have no clear legal status in a lot of countries, their study is difficult. Corporate groups can be invisible.

Moreover, the literature is highly focused on the idea of the corporation as an autonomous unit.

The aim of this paper is to further our understanding of this organizational structure. How to characterize the link between parent company and subsidiary ? What is the nature of corporate groups ? Why does this form emerge ? "Understanding business groups is a special case of a central problem of modern sociology : what determines the scope of relationship in which individuals and larger social units engage." [START_REF] Granovetter | Business Groups and Social Organization[END_REF] In corporation law, corporate groups can be analysed as a model living under a typical separation between ownership and control. But this perspective is not satisfactory.

Unexpectedly, we observe that subsidiaries can be integrated units or, conversely, can be autonomous.

International Conference -"Coordination and cooperation across organisational boundaries" -Milan April 20-21, 2006 2

Our aim is to show the complexity of this organizational form. We propose to consider corporate groups as hybrid structures where there is an unification rather than a separation of ownership and control. The parent corporation appears to be simultaneously the owner and the manager of the subsidiary. This analysis is based on two arguments. First, the parent company can take advantage of an open range of prerogatives vis a vis its subsidiaries. This is a continnuum of governance between autonomy and control. Secondly, all corporate groups face management dilemma. It is an evidence of tensions or contradictions between diversity and unity.

We conclude that the corporate group is a flexible structure, an "ambivalent" structure, capable of adjusting its behavior to various conditions. This form has developed new ways to mobilize resources, complete complex tasks... The great empirical significance of this structure may be explained by this potential flexibility.

Our analysis is based on eight case studies including French and international groups. We interviewed managers and executives both within parent company and subsidiaries1 .

This paper is composed of three sections : firstly, it focuses on the "positions of governance".

The second part considers groups as hybrid structures : there is a continuum of governance.

Finally, we see that all groups face management dilemma concerning, for example, transfer prices, parent company liability... On the whole, we try to characterize the relations between firms in corporate groups.

"Positions of governance" : autonomy versus control

The traditional model of the firm is that of the large public corporation [START_REF] Chandler | The Visible Hand. The Managerial Revolution in American Business[END_REF]. This firm is owned by numerous powerless shareholders and governed by independant managers management and ownership. Thus, the archetype of the corporation is the "single firm".

In a corporate group, the parent company is the dominant shareholder. And the governance structure could be marked by the separation between ownership and management. But, in our case studies, we observe that parent company can have contrasted behaviors. Group phenomenon is extremely heterogeneous. From our observations, we wish to sort out some references for analysis. Our aim is to draw a "cartography of corporate groups". The first point is the split between control and autonomy. In this respect, autonomy and control are the two sides of the same phenomenon : the power in corporate groups ; not only legally, but also from an organizational point of view. Indeed, parent company can keep its control just to the minimum level of intrusion on subsidiaries business. Inversely, it can tightly monitor all subsidiaries business activities. Thus, there is two opposite positions : the parent company can be loosely or strongly engaged in their subsidiaries.

In integrated groups, the parent company intervenes extensively in the entire business activity and management of its subsidiaries. The dominant corporation can supervise all fields of group life because, as a rule, the firm owns the totality of the equity capital of the subsidiary corporation. First, the parent corporation draws up strategic plans. Strategic and financial decisions are centralized by the top management. But also, choice of technology, information systems, marketing policies are under control of the dominant firm. Subsidiaries have no autonomy : affiliated corporations "ratify" and implement the parent projects. The aim is to standardize and homogenize group functioning. In order to achieve this, the parent company uses management tools such as contracts, procedures... These are mechanisms of coordination and control. By integrating its subsidiaries, the firm alleviate legal, geographic separations. In this case, the interests of the parent company and those of the subsidiaries are the same. In this that of tensions between centralization and decentralization, center and periphery.

In these integrated groups, various subsidiaries profiles can be pointed. First, we find some vertically integrated subsidiaries. Subsidiary integration can be explained by its integration to the production cycle. Relations between units are "customers/ suppliers". Subsidiaries can have different functions :

-specialized, in production or commercialization, -general : in this case, subsidiaries are "replicas" of the parent company for a market or a country.

In the second place, we find "binded subsidiaries". Actually, the subsidiarization can be an obligation for legal or commercial reasons. For example, local laws can oblige multinational groups to create subsidiaries : the subsidiary is a legal declension of international development.

In autonomous groups, the subsidiaries are considered as actual firms : the parent company does not constrain the daily functioning. The affiliated firms enjoy a high level of self determination in the conduct of its own business. In fact, the group of corporations applies its legal rights. The first is the voting right. Thus, the dominant firm can choose subsidiaries corporate executives in general assembly. This right has a noteworthy consequence : the parent company can indirectly influence subsidiaries' strategies. For instance, the parent company pays a detailed attention to subsidiaries activities, resources, investments... As a dominant shareholder, the parent company has aslo the right to be informed. Headquarters request all financial, commercial... information. This means that subsidiaries have to do a regular reporting. Finally, we can say that the parent company pilots subsidiaries, but does not control them. The group sets targets to its subsidiaries but their functioning remains "a black

The continuum of governance

Autonomy and control are lying at the ends of the organizational spectrum. But, these situations correspond to theoretical or polar cases. There are probably no fully integrated or autonomous groups. Actually, a situation of total autonomy is impossible because it is incompatible with the centralization imperatives imposed by the existence of unified management. Also, a situation of full control by the parent company is also completely impossible both on practical and legal grounds.

For a better understanding of parent-subsidiary relationships, we propose to consider that autonomy and control constitute an organizational continuum. In this regard, the parent company can take advantage of an open range of prerogatives vis a vis its subsidiaries. We observe that subsidiary dependency is complex and nuanced.

From our interviews, we have built six levels of involvement of the parent company in subsidiary activites : the financial link, the strategic control, the control as a preemption right, the creation of 'common spaces', the managerial control and the organizational integration.

The result is the following diagram. 7

In corporate groups, the minimum link is financial. The parent company plays only its shareholder role. Thus, the dominant firm applies legal rights -voting right, information right...

The strategic control represents an additional step : the parent company involvement is more extensive. Headquarters have the possibility to choose activities fields of subsidiaries and to allocate resources. They take an interest in the strategic or budgetary planification, investments, markets targeted, group boundaries...

In other situations, the parent company can infer in subsidiaries business : it is a preemption right. This is particularly true concerning transfer prices or relationships between subsidiaries and external firms. Therefore, the financial link allows the parent company to prescribe its choices.

Another control level is the creation of 'common spaces' concerning taxes, labor markets... For example, in France, there are agreements to integrate subsidiaries for taxes or accounting ('convention d'intégration fiscale', 'convention de trésorerie'). About labor market, the parent company can encourage intragroup mobility.

But the control of the head office can go even further with the managerial control. In this case, the parent company manages information system, quality devices, meetings planning... Then, at the right-hand extremity of our continuum, we find organizational integration. The parent company behaves as if subsidiaries were integrated divisions. There is an unification, rather than a separation, of ownership and control : the parent company is not only the owner but also the manager of the subsidiary. In our case studies, we observe two clues of this situation: the subordination of subsidiaries'managers and the equivalence between organizational structures (subsidiary and parent company have a similar structures, similar flowsharts).

International Conference -"Coordination and cooperation across organisational boundaries" -Milan April 20-21, 2006

8

The interest of this continuum is twofold. First, it shows different ways of governing.

Secondly, it allows to think strategies variations as movements on the continuum. Indeed, the parent company has the possibility to change its position depending on circumstanceseconomic environment, "economic health"... Groups constantly change their positions in the continuum : corporations "balance" between autonomy and control.

Management dilemma

The core problem of corporate groups is identified as being the tension between unity and diversity, between control and autonomy. The hybrid governance has consequences on groups management. Corporate groups face management dilemmas, which are evidence of complexity and difficulties to govern these organizational structures. We now consider two examples. We begin with the question of transfer prices : what is the 'medium' which govern them, the market or the hierarchy ? In the second place, we mention the liability problems :

what connections between power and liability ?

Transfer prices : hierarchy or market ?

In corporate groups, competition can be considered at two levels : first, subsidiaries can compete with each other. Second, they can face competition from the outside. We want to understand prices mechanism : who is in charge of pricing ? Can a subsidiary refuse a transaction ? How are the conflicts managed ? ... Financial managers point that the transactions between affiliated companies are based on market prices. However, beyond this formal discourse, we quickly realize that several nuances have to be taken into account. First of all, these prices are negotiated between parent company and subsidiaries'managers. These discussions often generate opposite interests and conflicts

International Conference -"Coordination and cooperation across organisational boundaries" -Milan April 20-21, 2006 9 between firms'managers; everyone trying to take advantage. In these bargainings, the parent company acts as decision maker in last resort. Moreover, if a subsidiary has economic troubles, the parent company can decide to "freeze" prices for a certain period of time. So, a subsidiary's future can depend on the parent company's appreciation.

Subsidiaries are not necessarily free to trade with external firms. When transactions are considered as strategic by the parent company, it can choose the trade partner and impose it :

the subsidiary is a "captive partner". So we state the difficulties to conciliate the collaboration and the management of antagonistic interests.

Every transfer pricing policy has purposes : transfer prices enables the head firm to shift profits to its subsidiaries. Therefore, affiliated firms are considered as cost center or profit center ; the parent company being the decision maker.

We conclude that the determination of transfer prices is a prerogative used by the parent company as a preemption right. Therefore, these prices are nothing but the result of a power game, ultimately led by the parent company. So, this mechanism is not a mere problem of resources allocation as argued by some economists. "Even if the managers of the parent company believe in the market, they do not let the invisible hand operate" [START_REF] Bouquin | Le contrôle de gestion[END_REF].

As a stockholder, the head company can monitor transfer prices. Although the parent company "fakes" a free market, organizational mechanisms actually govern intragroup relations. "The group looks like a sort of internal or organized market, where a permanent manipulation and reallocation of resources of different affiliates is being carried out by the parent corporation with a view towards maximizing investment return and exploiting the best business chances" (Engracia [START_REF] Antunes | Liability of corporate groups : autonomy and control in parentsubsidiary relationships in US, German, and EU law : an international and comparative perspective[END_REF].

International Conference -"Coordination and cooperation across organisational boundaries" -Milan April 20-21, 2006 10

Corporate groups : power without liability ?

Enterprise activity is risky. The firm constitutes an independent legal entity, with its own rights and duties, with it own assets and liabilities. This means that the corporation is a corporate body. But corporation law is, in fact, the law of the individual corporation.

Moreover, it is necessary to know that french law contains some legal provisions regarding a few fragmentary aspects of groups, which nevertheless cannot be viewed as a global regulatory framework for such phenomenon. Innovation on the topic is coming from other branches of law -labor law, tax law... Nevertheless, since the beginning of last century, some enterprises have evolved as corporate groups. Nowadays, corporate groups are a central facet of capitalism. This mutation in the organization and structure of the modern enterprise has introduced a gap between the law and reality. Indeed, the area of corporate liability, or more precisely the way to deal with liability issues, in the context of parent-subsidiary relationship, has to be adapted.

We have seen that the parent company is the decision maker in a lot of cases but, the corporation law restricts its liabilities because each corporation, in the group, is an autonomous and separate entity. Even when a subsidiary owned by another corporation and is completely integrated, classical corporation law still insists on the formal autonomy of the affiliate corporation.

In French law, it is the concept of "group interest" which has called our attention. This concept is a jurisprudence creation, which allows group managers to favor group interest at the expense of subsidiaries interest. Thus, group interest transcends the corporate body. It is particularly true concerning 'l'abus de bien social 2 '. Thus, since thirty years, the jurisprudence acknowledges the group phenomenon. But in some cases, the recognition of group interest 2 'L'abus de bien social' correspond to abusive or fraudulent behavior of parent company.

International Conference -"Coordination and cooperation across organisational boundaries" -Milan April 20-21, 2006 11 also permits to prevent from the risk of 'confusion de patrimoine 3 ' : the jurisprudence reasserts the separation between entities. The negation of corporate body is rare.

The organization of the modern enterprise allows to "switch off" the power and the liability.

The law ignores actual dependency links. In this regard, the corporate body is a tool to divide up and to border economic risks.

Conclusion

In conclusion, we ask why firms adopt the organizational form of groups rather than some other form and what are reasons of their emergence.

There is many variations in the way groups of corporations are constructed. Group can emerge out of a single firm that acquires firms by diversification or by specialization. Groups can also emerge out of a single firm that spins off multiple subordination firms. Regarding the emergence of corporate groups, there is no singular and general theory. Previous studies have focused on three theories : market imperfections, cultural heritage and political economy. In economics, corporate groups emerge in response to economic problems : alleviate transaction costs, reduce agency problems... Cultural explanations establish a connection between the family, value system... and the rise of groups. Another set of theories focuses on the political economy of societies. These explanations suggest a connection between the emergence of groups and national model of buisness.

We consider that the specificity of corporate groups consists in the conduct of a business through extremely flexible governance and action structure. Groups can be an avatar of modern organizational forms : its structure permits to exploit many advantages.

Organizationnally, groups can "balance" between centralization and decentralization. Groups can also change their position of governance. Thus, the parent company can, not only manage 12 subsidiaries business, but also its liability is not necessarily engaged. Their specificity may explain their central role in capitalist economies. The flexibility of corporate group becomes particularly evident if one reflects on the evolution of organizational forms from an economichistorical viewpoint. This starts with H-form (holding form), a loosely organized firm, it then evolves into the U-form (unitary form), a tightly controlled firm and it reaches the M-form (multi-divisional form), where centralization is combined with decentralization in the divisions. In this regard, the corporate group would be the most effective hybrid form.

3'

  La confusion de patrimoine' is characterized by abnormal flux between two legal persons. International Conference -"Coordination and cooperation across organisational boundaries" -Milan April 20-21, 2006

Table 1 .

 1 the parent company because results are audited a posteriori. In these groups, affiliated firms are independent in choosing their suppliers, in recruiting their employees, in adopting their own internal organization... The affiliated company is the guarantor of its activity, of its economic viability... In autonomous groups, several subsidiaries profiles can be sorted out. The first is a nonstrategic subsidiary, also called 'spin-off'. In this case, subsidiarization offers a lot of advantages. The group confines economic risks in a new independent entity and the subsidiary enjoys the group support regarding financial, commercial operations. The second Two polar forms of governance and subsidiaries profiles

	Autonomy

International Conference -"Coordination and cooperation across organisational boundaries" -Milan April 20-21, 2006 5 box" for profile is that the subsidiary whose core competence, or activity in general, is very different from that of the group. This group is called 'conglomerate'. In conglomerates, subsidiaries are independent and the only link is financial because productive logic, markets... are very different. Conglomerate groups have the advantage of being present on contracyclic markets. The 'multidivisional subsidiary' is the last profile. This subsidiary is similar to the traditional M-form (multi-divisional form) where centralized control exercised by top management is combined with far-reaching decentralization granted to group sub-units or 'profit centers.' To sum up this part, we propose the following diagram : International Conference -"Coordination and cooperation across organisational boundaries" -Milan April 20-21, 2006 6

Table 2 .

 2 The continuum of governance

				Creation of
	Financial	Strategic	Preemption	common	Managerial	Organizational
	link	initiative	right	spaces	control	integration
	Autonomy

Integration International Conference -"Coordination and cooperation across organisational boundaries" -Milan April 20-21, 2006

Our analysis is based on groups and subsidiaries implanted in France and, thus, regulated by french law : our thoughts dependent on it.


Deepak Akkil
email: deepak.akkil@uta.fi

Deepshika Salian

Nitendra Rajput
email: nitendra@acm.org

Gaze Awareness in Agent-Based Early-Childhood Learning Application

Keywords: Gaze, Touch, Pedagogical Agent, Early-childhood learning, Vocabulary building, Games, Mobile devices, Engagement, Comparative study

Use of technological devices for early childhood learning is increasing. Now, kindergarten and primary school children use interactive applications on mobile phones and tablet computers to support and complement classroom learning. With increase in cognitive technologies, there is further potential to make such applications more engaging by understanding the user context. In this paper, we present the Little Bear, a gaze aware pedagogical agent, that tailors its verbal and non-verbal behavior based on the visual attention of the child and employs means to reorient the attention of the child, when distracted from the learning activity. We used the Little Bear agent in a learning application to enable teaching the vocabulary of everyday fruits and vegetables. Our user-study (n=12) with preschoolers shows that children interacted longer and showed improved shortterm retention of the vocabulary using the gaze aware agent compared to a baseline touch-based application. Our results demonstrate the potential of gaze aware application design for early childhood learning.

Introduction

The use of developmentally and pedagogically appropriate technology to promote early childhood learning is on the rise. Recently, a variety of technological tools, such as digital whiteboards [START_REF] Ovaska | Electronic whiteboard in kindergarten: Opportunities and requirements[END_REF], touch sensitive tabletops [START_REF] Evans | Multi-touch tabletop computing for early childhood mathematics: 3D interaction with tangible user interfaces[END_REF], Kinect sensors for whole body gestural interaction [START_REF] Homer | Moved to learn: The effects of interactivity in a Kinect-based literacy game for beginning readers[END_REF], and tangible objects [START_REF] Chipman | A case study of tangible flags: a collaborative technology to enhance field trips[END_REF] are beginning to be applied in the early childhood pedagogical environment. In addition, mobile phones and tablet computers are among the most popular technological devices applied in early childhood learning environment. Growing popularity and access to technology enable learners to become familiar in interacting with these devices at a very young age and provide scope for designing innovative, ubiquitous, and constructive learning experiences [START_REF] Rogers | Ubi-learning integrates indoor and outdoor experiences[END_REF].

Currently, touch-based interaction is the most common technique in learning applications on mobile devices. Direct-touch interactive applications enhance learning compared to non-interactive video viewing [START_REF] Aladé | Measuring with Murray: Touchscreen technology and preschoolers' STEM learning[END_REF] and is also known to be both easier and preferred by children than indirect interfaces such as a mouse [START_REF] Lu | Mastering the machine: A comparison of the mouse and touch screen for children's use of computers[END_REF]. However, there are also several challenges in designing touch-based interactive applications for children. Plowman and Mcpake [START_REF] Plowman | Seven myths about young children and technology[END_REF] note that if children do not understand what they need to do, the interactivity offered by such devices may be counter-productive to learning. Touch interactions require the children to reach to the screen and tap the screen or do specific touch gestures, to perform an action. This requires careful design of the stimuli and prompts to make it intuitive [START_REF] Hiniker | Touchscreen prompts for preschoolers: designing developmentally appropriate techniques for teaching young children to perform gestures[END_REF]. Further, reaching to touch the screen maybe difficult depending on how the screen is positioned in front of the child [START_REF] Romeo | Touching the screen: Issues related to the use of touchscreen technology in early childhood education[END_REF]. Also, for early learners, the problem of accidental touches, and need for fine motor skills to perform complex actions has been recognised as challenges for using touch interactivity.

Another challenge in designing optimal learning experiences for young children is that the children have very limited attention span and get easily distracted (e.g. a noise from the hallway or colorful object in the tablet screen of a peer)) [START_REF] Fisher | Visual environment, attention allocation, and learning in young children when too much of a good thing may be bad[END_REF]. Luna [START_REF] Luna | Developmental changes in cognitive control through adolescence[END_REF] notes that younger the child is, the more easily distractible they are. It is hence important in educational applications designed for early learners to be aware of children's attention and employ ways to reorient the attention when the child is distracted to facilitate continuous learning.

Recent advancements in computer vision software and hardware technology, have made gaze tracking cheaper, more accurate and ergonomic to use. The technology is increasingly seen as a viable and potentially beneficial interaction technique in mobile devices [START_REF] Kangas | Gaze gestures and haptic feedback in mobile devices[END_REF]. Gaze tracking has been previously used with children. For example, as a methodology in early developmental research [START_REF] Feng | Eye Tracking: A brief guide for developmental researchers[END_REF], as a tool to diagnose and understand different psychiatric disorders in young children [START_REF] Vidal | Wearable eye tracking for mental health monitoring[END_REF], and as an assistive technology for children with physical [START_REF] Borgestig | Eye gaze performance for children with severe physical impairments using gaze-based assistive technology: A longitudinal study[END_REF][START_REF] Hornof | EyeDraw: enabling children with severe motor impairments to draw with their eyes[END_REF] or learning [START_REF] Sibert | The reading assistant: eye gaze triggered auditory prompting for reading remediation[END_REF] disabilities. However, the potential of gaze-based interaction remains unexplored for early childhood learning, among the general children population.

Gaze provides implicit information about the attention, intention, and rich cues of the interest of a child. Unlike touch-based interaction which needs an explicit action, a gaze-based application could adapt itself based on visual attention of the child, integrating learning with their curious visual exploration [START_REF] Gottlieb | Information-seeking, curiosity, and attention: computational and neural mechanisms[END_REF] of young minds, providing a rich and embodied experience. Gaze aware applications could also keep track of the visual attention of the child and employ means to reorient the attention, when the child is distracted from the learning activity.

In this paper, we present the Little Bear, a gaze-aware pedagogical agent designed for early childhood learners. The Little Bear tailors its verbal and non-verbal behavior in response to the visual attention of the child. The agent also exhibits emotional responses of sadness and boredom when the user is distracted from the learning activity, to help reorient the attention of the child to the learning activity. We developed an educational application using the Little Bear as the central character, to teach the vocab-ulary of everyday fruits and vegetables. Further, to evaluate the feasibility and usefulness of the gaze-aware pedagogical agent, we conducted two user studies with children from the 4-5 years age group. The purpose of the first study was to understand how children interacted with the application using the Little Bear and compare it with a baseline application that makes use of conventional touch-based interaction. The purpose of the second study was to understand the feasibility of integrating the gaze-aware agent in a touch-based application.

1: Comparing gaze-aware application with the baseline touch-based application: Different fruits and vegetables appeared onscreen and the learner was free to explore them. When the user activated an object, by either looking at it (LittleBear) or touching the item (baseline), the agent spoke interesting details about the item. Additionally, in the LittleBear application, the agent exhibited verbal and non-verbal behavior to help reorient the attention of the child, when the child looked away from the tablet screen. In this study, we wanted to understand how learners interacted with the application based on the conditions and observe differences in engagement, if any.

2: Feasibility of combining gaze and touch input:

The agent asked a question regarding an onscreen fruit or vegetable (e.g. could you show me the fruit banana) and the learner had to touch the corresponding fruit. The agent proactively encouraged the learner if they gazed at the correct item before touching it or provided clues to guide the learner to the correct fruit if they gazed at the wrong item without touching it. With this observational study, we wanted to know if the two modalities can be combined in the current state of the technologies for children.

We begin by reviewing the relevant related work. We then describe the agentbased learning application we developed and the two user studies we conducted with it. Next, we report the results, followed by discussion of our key findings and observations.

2

Background Literature

Touch-based interaction for early learners

Aladé et al. [START_REF] Aladé | Measuring with Murray: Touchscreen technology and preschoolers' STEM learning[END_REF] studied the pedagogical value of touchscreen technology for preschoolers and found that such interactive technology can facilitate and enhance learning compared to conventional mediums. Previous research has also investigated the challenges of using a touchscreen by young children. Hourcade [START_REF] Hourcade | Interaction design and children[END_REF] notes that children under the age of seven have underdeveloped fine motor skills and not yet well established hand preferences, and these affect how they use touch to interact. Vatavu et al. [START_REF] Vatavu | Touch interaction for children aged 3 to 6 years: Experimental findings and relationship to motor skills[END_REF] studied touchscreen interaction for children between 3 to 6 years and found that children are significantly slower than adults and made more mistakes in performing simple touch interaction tasks. They partly attributed this to the under-developed finger dexterity and visuospatial processing abilities. Nacher [START_REF] Nacher | Multi-touch gestures for prekindergarten children[END_REF] investigated the feasibility of multi-touch gesture for pre-kindergarten (2-3 years) children and found that some gestures such as double tap, long tap and two finger rotations are especially difficult to perform. McKnight and Fitton [START_REF] Mcknight | Touch-screen technology for children: giving the right instructions and getting the right responses[END_REF] studied young children's abilities to use touchscreen and found that children are more prone to accidental or unintended touches.

Complementary input modalities such as gaze tracking are expected to be available in mobile devices in the future. Our work investigates the feasibility and usefulness of applying gaze as an input modality in an agent-based learning application.

Animated pedagogical agent-based learning application

Animated pedagogical agents are virtual characters designed to teach or guide users in an educational environment. While the pedagogical value of such agents are still debated [START_REF] Heidig | Do pedagogical agents make a difference to student motivation and learning?[END_REF], a well-established benefit of having a life-like tutoring agent is the engagement and motivational benefit it provides. Studies have shown that even the mere presence of a lifelike agent, even if not interactive, is capable of fostering interest and attention. Black et al. [START_REF] Black | Comparison of child-human and child-computer interactions based on manual annotations[END_REF] studied how children converse with virtual agents and humans. They found that children tend to smile more, sit up and stay oriented towards the dyad when speaking to an agent rather than with humans.

Atkinson et al. [START_REF] Atkinson | Optimizing learning from examples using animated pedagogical agents[END_REF] showed that the visual presence of the agent when combined with spoken instruction is more effective at promoting learning than an agent incapable of speaking. Krämer and Bente [START_REF] Krämer | Personalizing e-learning. The social effects of pedagogical agents[END_REF] note that improvement in non-verbal communication is required for agents to be more successful. While pedagogical agents were widely expected to transfer the benefits of human-human tutoring, the current generation of agents do not exhibit sophisticated non-verbal communication nor do they exert a social influence. Pedagogical agents that tailor their behaviour based on the emotional and cognitive state of the learner and show capacities for non-verbal communication, may have more pedagogical value [START_REF] Krämer | Personalizing e-learning. The social effects of pedagogical agents[END_REF].

Our study extends the previous knowledge on animated pedagogical agent. We designed an animated pedagogical agent capable of oral communication that is also aware of the visual attention of the learner. The agent exhibits emotional states, depending on whether the user is paying attention to the learning activity and, also uses the gaze information of the user to establish joint attention (agent looks where the child is looking), then guides the user based on the visual interest.

Gaze-aware virtual agents

Gaze awareness has been studied in virtual agents previously. Lahiri et al. [START_REF] Lahiri | Design of a gaze-sensitive virtual social interactive system for children with autism[END_REF] studied how gaze data of adolescents with autism, recorded while interacting with a virtual agent could be used to provide personalised feedback regarding appropriateness of gaze behaviour. Similarly, Ramloll et al. [START_REF] Ramloll | A gaze contingent environment for fostering social attention in autistic children[END_REF] developed a gaze contingent environment for fostering social attention in autistic children, using an avatar that rewards socially appropriate gaze behaviour of the user. Eichner et al. [START_REF] Eichner | Attentive presentation agents[END_REF] investigated gaze awareness in virtual agents capable of giving oral presentations and found that agents that tailor the presentation based on interest and disinterest of the user provide a more natural interaction experience. Bee et al. [START_REF] Bee | Interacting with a gaze-aware virtual character[END_REF] notes that agents that use the gaze information of the user to exhibit socially acceptable mutual gaze and gaze aversion behaviour are rated more positively. D'Mello et al. [START_REF] Mello | Gaze tutor: A gaze-reactive intelligent tutoring system[END_REF] studied gaze aware tutoring agents for young adults and found that using audio prompts such as "please pay attention" was an effective way in dynamically orienting the user's attention.

Previous research on gaze-aware virtual agents has shown they provide therapeutic benefits for children with autism, and can make the interaction more natural and effective for normal users. Our work complements the previous work in this by investigating the value of gaze-ware agents, exhibiting emotional response, for early learners.

3

Comparing Gaze-Aware Application with Baseline Touchbased Application

Design of the gaze-aware learning application

We designed a learning application with the "Little Bear", a bear character, as the pedagogical agent. The application was designed to teach children the names of different everyday fruits and vegetables. The application was set in a garden-like 3D environment, where the agent would take the child for a walk. Different fruits and vegetables would appear on screen at pre-defined locations during the walk. The environment was chosen to provide a realistic context to the learning, similar to a human companion taking the child to a garden and teaching about the different items (see Figure 1). Once a fruit or vegetable appeared on screen, it could be activated by glancing at the fruit, making the agent speak an interesting detail about the fruit. For gaze tracking, we used an off-the-shelf gaze tracker. Since accuracy of tracking maybe affected by the frequent movement of children, the gaze reactive areas were made slightly larger than the size of the fruit (see Figure 1). When the fruits were visible, background image was dimmed, so that the fruits are the most salient objects in the vicinity to reduce the probability of the child looking something in the background activating the fruit. Once the fruit was activated, a short animation was played where the fruits were scaled to 25% larger than their size then back to the original size and the agent also spoke an interesting detail about the fruit. The agent communicated orally using pre-recorded voice generated using the IBM Watson Text-to-Speech service. The parameters for speed of speech, pitch and, pauses between words were carefully chosen to make the speech feel natural, fitting to the character and easy to understand. The agent knew four different facts about each fruit (colour, size, where it grows etc.) and told one fact at a time in order, once the item was activated. Every fact included the name of the fruit (e.g. "apple is red in colour"). Once a fruit was activated, the agent speech lasted 3-5 seconds and during this window the application did not respond to any other gaze activations of fruits until the agent finished speaking.

In addition to speaking about the fruit or vegetable based on the current visual attention of the child, the agent also used the gaze information to reorient the attention of the child back to the learning activity when distracted. When the child is distracted Fig. 1. Learning application using the Little Bear. The red semi-transparent boxes indicate the gaze interactive area. The application used in the baseline condition also had the same visual appearance and layout and does not look at the tablet screen, the character becomes sad (see Figure 2a) and uses speech to attract attention by saying "I become sad when you do not look at me".

Further, when the agent was not speaking, the head of the agent was oriented towards the direction the user is looking at (obtained from gaze tracker), giving an implicit feedback of gaze tracking and helping establish joint attention (see Figure 2 (b)-(e)). However, when the agent was speaking, the head of the character was oriented directly ahead, abiding by the established social conventions of eye contact during face to face conversation. To further improve the realism of the agent, the agent also exhibited realistic lip movement and blink behavior to complement the speech. Table 1. Description of various behavior of the agent-guided interaction for various modalities in the application.

Design of the baseline touch-based application

The baseline touch-based application used the identical learning context and visual appearance of the agent as in the gaze-aware application (See Figure 1) and the difference was only in the interaction mechanism. In the baseline condition, touching the on-screen fruit or vegetable activated it and the agent was not aware of attention of the child and always appeared happy with the head oriented directly ahead. We did not employ methods to predict to the attention using the frequency of touch activity (e.g. assuming that the child is not attending to the screen, if no touch activity is detected for a specific duration). Our application design was based on the affordances offered by modality, i.e., gaze has a strong association with attention, and looking away strongly indicates distraction, while a gap in touch interaction need not always mean lack of attention. Table 1 lists the verbal and non-verbal behaviour of the agent depending on the visual attention of the child.

User Study

The purpose of the study was to understand and compare the engagement and learning benefits provided by gaze awareness in agent-based learning application compared to the baseline touch-based application. We initially conducted a pilot study with 2 participants (1 male and 1 female) of the age group 4-5 years. The values for the dwellduration for the character (3.5sec), duration to activate the fruits (500ms), the duration of time for which the user looked away from the screen before the character responded

Agent response Trigger in LittleBear condition

Trigger in baseline condition Agent shows signs of sadness and utters "I become sad when you do not look at me" User is distracted and looks away from the screen for 1.25sec.

Not possible

The agent acts happy and energetic.

User attends to the screen Always

The agent orients its head in realtime to the direction the user is looking at.

User looks around different parts of the screen without activating any onscreen object

Not possible

The agent utters "I love the attention you are giving me, but did you notice the fruits we just found?"

User looks at the agent for a predefined duration (3.5sec) without looking at other fruits and vegetables on the screen.

User taps the agent

The agent speaks a detail about the item each time it is activated. E.g. name of the fruit, its colour, size etc.

User looks at the fruit or vegetable for 500ms.

User taps a fruit visually (1.25sec) and verbally (6sec) with sad emotion were chosen based on the pilot evaluation. The chosen value for dwell duration for activating a fruit was short (500ms). The median fixation duration for children (4-6yrs) in free viewing task is 280ms [START_REF] Helo | The maturation of eye movement behavior: Scene viewing characteristics in children and adults[END_REF] and it is also known that children have less ability to perform longer fixations at a target than adults [START_REF] Ygge | Fixation stability in normal children[END_REF]. We noticed that a longer dwell was considerably difficult for our pilot participants. Choosing a relatively short dwell time allowed our application to be implicitly reactive to the interest/visual attention of the child than requiring an explicit gaze action.

Participants.

We worked with Kidzee Kindergarten in Bangalore, India for the user study. We invited 12 children (5 females, 7 males) enrolled at the kindergarten to take part in the study. The participants were between the age group 4-5 years old and all participants had normal vision. English was not the first language of any of the participants and the participants were nominated by the teachers based on the English language proficiency. All the participants were familiar with mobile devices. The kindergarten itself has the policy of using learning applications on mobile devices, allowing every child to play with the devices once a week. Informed consent for the study was received from the teachers. No personally identifiable data of the child was collected or maintained.

Design.

We chose a within-subject design. The two experimental conditions were labelled as follows: LittleBear: participants used the gaze-aware learning application with the Little Bear agent and used gaze input only and Baseline: participants interacted using touch input only (see Table 1).

We constructed two lists of 20 fruits and vegetables each for the test. Each list was constructed such that both had approximately the same number of everyday and uncommon fruits, making it safe to assume that participants were equally likely to know the names of the same number of fruits in both the lists before the test. The two lists were used in the application for the two different conditions. The order of the condition and the list for the condition were counter-balanced.

There were three dependent measures: (i) the duration of time participants interacted with the application, (ii) the number of times on average the participants activated each fruit, and (iii) the short-term retention of the vocabulary soon after the interaction as measured using a paper-based evaluation at the end of the session. For the paper-based evaluation, we showed the participant a paper with pictures of four fruits each and asked them to point at a specific fruit (e.g. can you show me the fruit banana?). The evaluation consisted of 10 such questions for each condition and was conducted soon after the interaction for the condition.

To test for differences between the LittleBear and Baseline conditions we used a non-parametric pair-wise (Monte Carlo) randomisation test [START_REF] Dugard | Randomization tests: A new gold standard?[END_REF]. In the randomisation test, the null hypothesis is that pair-wise differences are equally likely to be positive or negative. Repeated resampling (n=10,000) with a random assignment of signs for the difference between the conditions gives us a sampling distribution of the mean difference. The observed mean difference is compared to the sampling distribution to estimate how likely the observed difference is by chance.

Apparatus.

The learning application was developed using Unity 5.3 on a Microsoft surface pro 4 touchscreen tablet. We used a Tobii EyeX gaze tracker to record the gaze information. The tracker was mounted at the bottom of the tablet. See Figure 3(a) for the experimental set up.

Procedure.

The test was conducted in the Kidzee kindergarten premises. The participants were seated facing the tablet, which was positioned on a table in normal viewing position, approximately 40cm away (similar to situations when using tables with special holders for mobile devices). In the baseline condition, the participants were free to lean forward or re-position themselves as they felt comfortable. The gaze tracker was first calibrated. We used the built-in Tobii EyeX "pop the dots" calibration process. It used seven calibration points. The visual stimuli used for the calibration were coloured dots, which burst when the user looked at one for a specific duration. We used the built-in calibration procedure because we felt the playful element in the calibration procedure was well-suited for children.

Before the LittleBear condition, a short interactive introduction was shown to the participant. In the introduction material, the character spoke "I will tell you a secret. I have eyes and I know where you are looking". We used the metaphor that the agent has eyes to convey the gaze awareness feature of the application. In the interactive introduction, the child could see the smoothened gaze point of where they were looking and the character would also look at the same area (shown in figure 3(b)). The bear also showed the emotions of sadness and boredom when the participant did not look at the screen. The moderator encouraged the participants to look away from the screen and observe the response of the character (as shown in Table 1). After the interactive character introduction, the learning application was started.

In both the conditions, the character introduced the environment as a garden with a lot of fruits and vegetables and encouraged the participant to walk with him to find interesting items. The character then turned around and started walking in the garden, where we used background animation and music to give a perception of a virtual tour around the garden. At different points during the walk, four different fruits/vegetables appeared at the sides of the screen (see Figure 1). The character encouraged the participant to explore the fruits by saying, for example, "we just found more fruits, do you know what these are?".

In total, there were five phases for each condition and each phase had four items appear onscreen (altogether 20 fruits/vegetables). In the first phase, the moderator encouraged the participant to activate the different onscreen fruits (by touching them or dwelling at them by using gaze) and this phase was treated as practice and excluded from all the analysis. For each condition, the participant was encouraged to interact with the different onscreen fruits and vegetables, listen to what the agent said and repeat after the character. The application did not require the participants to activate any fruits to go to the next phase. When the participant wanted to go to the next location they had to press the "NEXT" button (see Figure 1) on the screen, which made the character walk to a new location and four new items then appeared on screen, starting the next phase.

After each session, we used a five level smiley-meter [START_REF] Zaman | Measuring product liking in preschool children: An evaluation of the Smileyometer and This or That methods[END_REF] to record participant response along with qualitative feedback. We used the smiley-meter with two questions: "Did you like the game you played?" and "Did you like the bear character?" and the participants had to respond by selecting an appropriate smiley face from the smileymeter shown on paper. In addition, we also logged the interaction events for further analysis.

Results.

Average time spent per phase.

Figure 4(a) shows the time spent per phase interacting with the application for the two conditions. This study was about free exploration and the application did not have any restriction on how many times user had to activate each fruit. The extent of time spent on each phase was hence completely controlled by the child in both conditions. Therefore, we can assume that the time spent in each of the phases in different conditions reflects the overall engagement. The median value indicates that our participants spent almost twice as much time interacting with the application in the LittleBear condition than baseline. The difference was found to be statistically significant using the pair-wise randomisation test (p=0.02).

Average activations per fruit.

Figure 4(b) shows the average number of activations per fruit for the two conditions. The median value indicates that participants activated each fruit almost twice as often in the LittleBear condition as in the baseline condition and hence indulged in more learning activity. The difference was found to be statistically significant using the pairwise randomisation test (p=0.001). Figure 5 shows the boxplot for the number of correct answers in the paper-based evaluation following each condition. This evaluation was used as a measure of the shortterm retention of the vocabulary, following the interaction. The median values indicate that our participants retained about 23% more names of fruits and vegetables after using the gaze-based learning application when compared to touch-based interaction. The difference was found to be statistically significant using the pair-wise randomisation test (p=0.03)

Smiley-Meter Data

We did not notice any difference between the Smiley-Meter data for the questions "Did you like the game?" and "Did you like the little bear character?" for the two conditions. Both the conditions were rated very highly (4 or 5 out of the 5 levels) for both the questions. Randomisation test showed that the differences were not statistically significant (p>0.05).

Other Observations: Children interacting with gaze-aware Agent

Using the agent's emotion to regain the child's visual attention was a useful technique. All the participants reported that they did not want to make the character sad or tried their best to keep the character happy. This proved helpful in two ways: first, to attract the participant's attention when they were distracted or looking away from the screen and second, the participants could successfully tell when the agent could not see them (i.e. gaze tracker could not track their eyes) as the bear appeared sad (e.g. when the child moved out of the view of the tracker), and hence re-positioned themselves, making the agent happy again.

Often, our participants would be distracted by external factors, e.g. by the objects or noise in the environment. However, this made the agent appear sad and was a motivator for them to return their attention to the application. This was also clear in two separate scenarios when two of the participants were casually interacting with the application after the test, in the presence of other children observing them. The users specifically wanted the observers to leave the room as their presence and conversations were distracting the user, which in turn was making the character appear sad. Further, our participants sometimes made significant movements of their head and upper body while interacting with the application. This, at times, meant that they moved out of the view of the tracker, which again made the character appear sad. In the beginning phase of the study this sometimes caused confusion. For example, one of the participants commented "why cannot he see me, I am looking at him?" and another participant leaned very close to the display and commented "he still cannot see me, my bear has bad eyes". These situations required moderator assistance to help the participants re-position themselves such that they were in the view of the gaze tracker. However, the required moderator assistance reduced in the later phases of the study and the participants could work independently. In contrast, the children worked almost always independently in the baseline condition.

Also, the notion of an agent "with eyes and emotion" was received positively and sparked playful interactions where the children covered their faces, deliberately moved away so that the bear could not see them anymore, or tried to cover the eyes of the bear on the screen with their hands. When asked why they were "making the character sad", in all cases, children reported that they were simply playing "hide and seek" with the character. Overall, gaze-based interaction was well received. During the test, children did not show any signs of confusion or not able to control the application with the eyes due to Midas Touch. They could correctly associate the fruit that they looked and the spoken description of the agent. Figure 6 shows a representative gaze distribution pattern for the participant P11, interacting with the Little Bear. Next, we wanted to understand the feasibility of combining implicit gaze-input and explicit touch input for children in their early learning years. There are numerous previous works that have investigated the combination of interaction techniques for adults [START_REF] Schroeder | When Seeing Is Better than Doing: Preschoolers' Transfer of STEM Skills Using Touchscreen Games[END_REF]44]. While touch is a familiar, and the primary, input modality in mobile devices, gaze provides a wealth of information from a pedagogy point of view. Gaze could be used as a cue to evaluate common ground in conversational interfaces [START_REF] Dugard | Randomization tests: A new gold standard?[END_REF], be useful to predict intentions to provide guidance (like in our Study-2), as a reliable way to evaluate comprehension [START_REF] Feng | Eye Tracking: A brief guide for developmental researchers[END_REF] etc. Hence, gaze and touch is a valuable combination of input modalities for early learners. We extended the gaze-aware agent application that we used in the previous comparative evaluation. The main difference was that instead of allowing the users to freely explore the fruits and vegetables, the agent asked the user a question (e.g. can you show me the fruit banana?) and the user had to touch the correct fruit, out of the four on-screen alternatives. The agent implicitly used the gaze information to understand if the user was confused or unsure about the answer. For example, if the user glanced at the wrong fruit for 500ms, the agent would proactively tell the user how the fruit they were looking at is different in terms of size and colour from the fruit they need to find (e.g. "you are looking at apple, apple is red in colour, while banana is yellow in colour") or if the user looked at the correct fruit while being hesitant to touch it, the agent would encourage the user to touch it (e.g. "Yes, that is the one, go ahead and touch it!"). When the user touched the wrong fruit, the agent gave the same response, comparing the fruit that was touched with the fruit they needed to find. If the user touched the correct fruit, the agent thanked the user for helping him find the fruit and danced for a few seconds, before moving to the next location where the user had to help find a different fruit.

We felt that with such gaze-based proactive intervention could potentially reduce the cognitive load associated with selecting a choice, and even possibly enhance learning [START_REF] Schroeder | When Seeing Is Better than Doing: Preschoolers' Transfer of STEM Skills Using Touchscreen Games[END_REF] . The focus of the study was to observe how children would interact with an application that combines implicit gaze-input with explicit touch input and understand the real-world feasibility of combining gaze and touch input, in the current state of the technology, an early childhood learning application.

User Study

We used the same participants and same experimental set up as in the previous study. The participants completed 4 onscreen questions and each question had four onscreen alternatives (same as Figure 1). We used the fruits/vegetables the participants had incorrectly answered in the paper-based evaluation of Study-1. In a few cases, the participants had less than 4 incorrect answers in paper-based evaluation after Study-1. In those cases, we used a predefined set of fruits which were not part of the evaluation to be used in the Study-2. The task for the participants was to find the specific fruit asked for by the agent among other onscreen fruits and touch it.

Results and Observations.

As we had anticipated, almost all participants had one or more questions about which they were noticeably unsure or had selected the wrong answer at first. However, gazebased guidance was rarely invoked due to issues with gaze tracking. Figure 7 shows the gaze data loss for each participant. The gaze data loss was calculated based on the number of valid samples expected, based on the approximate sampling rate of the tracker and the number of actual valid samples returned by the tracker.

Participants

There were two separate issues that caused problems in gaze tracking:

1. Short arms of the participants meant that, as soon as a question was asked by the agent, they leaned forward to touch the screen and the distance from the screen was insufficient for the gaze tracker to work. Optimal working distance of Tobii EyeX tracker is 40cm-90cm. 2. In our study, the tracker was positioned at the bottom part of the tablet. This meant that normally when the children used their hands to touch the screen, the hands would obstruct the gaze tracking sensor causing tracking issues.

There were also differences between how participants interacted with the application. E.g. P1 was always close to the tablet making gaze tracking difficult almost all the time, while P3 and P4 moved closer when the interaction required touch activation. For all participants, there were problems in gaze tracking just before and while they were touching the screen for interaction. In the discussion section, we reflect on the technological improvements required to make the combination of gaze and touch work smoothly for early learners.

Discussion

We investigated the value of gaze awareness in an agent-based learning application for children. Before the study, we did not know if the gaze input is feasible; how children would react to the notion of an "agent with eyes"; nor how it compares against baseline touch-based interaction. Our results from study-1, suggest that an application that uses the attention information of the children to tailor the agent's verbal and non-verbal behavior may lead to better engagement, help develop a closer connection with the agent and provide learning benefits than a baseline touch-based application, that is unaware of the attention of the user. All the participants in our experiment (study-1) completed both the conditions successfully. While we did encounter challenges with continuously gaze tracking the user when the children moved a lot, we did not face any issues with gaze tracker calibration and accuracy of tracking. Our study shows the feasibility of gaze-based interaction in early childhood learning applications. Our participants also reacted very positively to the concept of a gaze-aware pedagogical agent or "bear with eyes and emotions". Our results from Study-1 suggest that such gaze-aware applications are not only engaging but could also help motivate the children to attend to the learning material, and prove beneficial in learning as indicated by our results on improved short-term retention. In the LittleBear condition, our participants developed a closer emotional connection with the agent and all the participants reported that they did not want to make the agent sad. The agent, who became sad when not looked at, may have motivated the participants to attend more to the on-screen items.

There are two different factors that could have jointly contributed to the improved overall engagement and performance in the paper-based evaluation in the LittleBear application. First is the input modality that was used to activate the fruits. The Little Bear used the visual attention of the user to tailor its response and spoke about the fruits and vegetables that were of current interest to the user. Eichner et al. [START_REF] Eichner | Attentive presentation agents[END_REF] showed that an agent that tailor its verbal response based on the attention of the user improves the overall engagement in adult users. In some situations, interacting with the application may have been easier with gaze than using explicit touch actions; for example, when the user wanted to activate the same fruits multiple times. While interacting with the Little Bear, children often exhibited a gaze behavior where they kept looking at the same fruit even after the agent had finished speaking a detail for that fruit. A cue that can be considered as if the child "wants to know more" about that fruit. This meant that the agent continued explaining the next detail about the same fruit, as opposed to the baseline condition which required another explicit touch action for the next activation. The fact that our participants spent more time using the application in the LittleBear condition could have influenced how well they performed in the paper-based evaluation.

Second, Little bear also exhibited feelings of sadness when the child looked away, as a mean to reorient the attention of the user back to the learning activity. D'Mello et al. [START_REF] Mello | Gaze tutor: A gaze-reactive intelligent tutoring system[END_REF] have shown that using simple audio prompts to regain the attention of a distracted user to a learning application could produce significant learning gains, even at deeper levels of comprehension. This emotional response may have motivated our participants to focus on the learning activity and this additional engagement possibility may also be one of the reasons the users interacted longer with the Little bear compared to the baseline condition. Overall, our results show the strong potential of gaze-based educational applications for early learners.

Our participants rated both the conditions very highly in the smiley-meter based questions. There could be two plausible explanations for this. First, it could be because our participants did not have any strong preference between the two conditions and enjoyed using both equally well. Touch-based interaction used in the baseline condition was a familiar interaction technique for our participants. While our participants were noticeably more engaged interacting with the Little Bear using gaze, they were also noticeably more confident and independent in the baseline condition. Second, it could have been a problem with our methodology of getting feedback from the participants. Previous research had also reported similar results using a smiley-meter with rural Indian children of age group 6-7 years. Kam et al. [START_REF] Kam | Mobile gaming with children in rural India: Contextual factors in the use of game design patterns[END_REF] note that their participants chose smiling faces, simply because they were more aesthetically appealing than frowns. We keep this as an important area to address in future studies.

Further, we also investigated the feasibility of combining gaze and touch-based interaction for early learners. Both gaze and touch modalities worked well when used as the sole interaction techniques, however, we faced unexpected technical challenges relating to gaze tracking robustness when using the combination of gaze and touch to interact. The two main reasons for the tracking issue was the sub-optimal working distance of gaze trackers, and hands obstructing the tracker view while interacting by using touch. In the current state of the gaze tracking technology, it seems difficult to combine gaze-input with touch interaction in mobile devices for early learners. Technological improvements are needed before the combination would work seamlessly. In the next section, we discuss the technological improvements required for gaze tracking to be useful for field applications for children.

Technological improvement required in gaze trackers

When using touch-based interaction, children position the mobile device very close to them, to perform easy touch actions. This distance is often less than the optimal working distance of commercial gaze trackers. Unlike adult users, children are even more restless and move a lot while interacting with technological devices. It would hence be beneficial for gaze trackers to have a larger range of operating distance and a larger field of view to efficiently track children.

Further, almost all gaze trackers are mounted below the screen, possibly to avoid the occlusion of the eyes by the eyelid and get a clearer image of the pupil. However, when mounted below the screen, frequent touch-based operations would cause the hands to obstruct the view of the tracker. While this is also an issue with older users [START_REF] Pfeuffer | Gaze-touch: combining gaze with multitouch for interaction on the same surface[END_REF], it is aggravated in the case of young users, as they do not show any specific preference of hands when touching the screen [START_REF] Hourcade | Interaction design and children[END_REF], and as we noticed in our study, sometimes even use both hands together to point at and touch an item. A potential solution to this would be to mount the camera above the screen or use multiple gaze tracking cameras to improve the accuracy and robustness of tracking.

Further, collaborative learning is common and encouraged in early childhood pedagogical environment (e.g. two children sharing a tablet). In our study, two of our participants wanted the few curious onlookers to leave the room because they were distracting the participant, which in turn was making the agent sad. While this shows that our approach of using agent emotion to reorient the child's attention may not be conducive to collaborative learning, this is also an inherent problem with gaze trackers. Currently, commercial gaze trackers do not support tracking multiple users simultaneously. It would hence be beneficial for gaze tracking devices, that are meant to be applied in early childhood learning environments, to support the inherent pedagogical practices of collaborative learning and playing.

Limitations and future work

We have identified five limitations in our study. First, the study was conducted by a trained external moderator and the reported results are based on short-term evaluation. There is growing understanding in the Child-Computer Interaction research community for the need of long-term evaluation of technologies in naturalistic settings. The presence of the moderator, who is unfamiliar to the children may have influenced how long they interacted with the systems. Novelty of the gaze-based interaction may have influenced the engagement. Future work will investigate the long term engagement and pedagogical value of gaze-aware learning applications, for example, by training the teachers to help in the data collection [START_REF] Robertson | Robust evaluation for a maturing field: the train the teacher method[END_REF].

Second, the task used in our study-1 involved only simple selection/activation of fruits (with either gaze in the LittleBear condition or touch in the baseline condition). Using gaze as the sole input modality may only be suitable for such simple interaction tasks. Other input modalities such as touch/tilting the device affords more complex interaction possibilities. The purpose of the study was to demonstrate the engagement possibility and learning benefit offered by gaze awareness in an agent-based application for children and further research is required to understand how this gaze awareness can be best combined with other expressive interaction.

Third, we placed the device in a viewing position. In study-1, baseline condition, the children were free to lean forward or re-position themselves as they felt comfortable. However, in a naturalistic setting children may position the device differently (e.g. on the lap or flat on the table). The positioning of the device may have an influence on how children interact with the device using touch [START_REF] Romeo | Touching the screen: Issues related to the use of touchscreen technology in early childhood education[END_REF]. Further research is required to understand the effect of device positioning on our results.

Fourth, the small sample size (N=12) is a limitation of the study. While many of the reported results were statistically significant, a larger number of participants could have been beneficial to understand any difference based on gender of the participant, or familiarity of mobile devices.

Finally, all our participants were between the age group of 4-5 years old and from an urban community. Age and culture may have an influence on how people respond to novel technologies, pedagogical agents, or the acceptable social gaze behaviour [START_REF] Lafrance | Cultural aspects of nonverbal communication[END_REF] with the agent. Future work should also investigate if our results could be applicable to children of different age groups and cultural representation.

Conclusion

We investigated how children of the age group 4-5 years interact and engage with a gaze-aware pedagogical agent that tailors both its verbal and non-verbal behaviour to the visual attention of the user. Our results suggest that gaze is a promising input modality for early learners. Gaze awareness in the agent-based application not only improved the children's engagement with the application, but also improved their shortterm retention of the vocabulary learnt, and helped develop a closer connection with the agent. We further investigated the feasibility of combining implicit gaze and explicit touch input in a learning application. While the combination of modality has strong potential in applications for children, our results suggests that several technical improvements are required for this combination to work seamlessly for children.

Fig. 2 .

 2 Fig. 2. Agent non-verbal behaviour in response to visual attention of the child. (a) A frame from the 'sad' animation when the child does not look at the screen. (b)-(e) head orientation of the bear changes based on the visual attention of the child (agent looks where the child is looking).

Fig. 3 .

 3 Fig. 3. (a) Experimental setup. (b) A frame from the interactive introduction of the Little Bear gaze-aware agent. The green dot indicates the current gaze point of the user.

Fig. 4 .

 4 Fig. 4. (a) Average time (in seconds) spent per phase for the two conditions. (b) Average number of activations per fruits for the two conditions

Fig. 5 .

 5 Fig. 5. Boxplot showing the number of fruits the participants recalled correctly in the paper-based evaluation following the interaction. There were in total 10 questions and each question had four different alternatives.

Fig. 6 .

 6 Fig. 6. An example gaze distribution pattern for the LittleBear condition

Fig. 7 .

 7 Fig. 7. Percentage of time gaze data could not be tracked for the participants.

Acknowledgement

We thank Nathalie Henry Riche for her valuable inputs while shepherding this paper. We also thank the staff members at Kidzee Kindergarten, Domlur, Bangalore for their support to conduct the study.

* This work was done when Nitendra Rajput was working for IBM Research.