Affiliated Signals Research Articles

The Functionality of Spontaneous Mimicry and Its Influences on Affiliation: An Implicit Socialization Account.

There is a broad theoretical and empirical interest in spontaneous mimicry, or the automatic reproduction of a model’s behavior. Evidence shows that people mimic models they like, and that mimicry enhances liking for the mimic. Yet, there is no satisfactory account of this phenomenon, especially in terms of its functional significance. While affiliation is often cited as the driver of mimicry, we argue that mimicry is primarily driven by a learning process that helps to produce the appropriate bodily and emotional responses to relevant social situations. Because the learning process and the resulting knowledge is implicit, it cannot easily be rejected, criticized, revised, and employed by the learner in a deliberative or deceptive manner. We argue that these characteristics will lead individuals to preferentially mimic ingroup members, whose implicit information is worth incorporating. Conversely, mimicry of the wrong person is costly because individuals will internalize “bad habits,” including emotional reactions and mannerisms indicating wrong group membership. This pattern of mimicry, in turn, means that observed mimicry is an honest signal of group affiliation. We propose that the preferences of models for the mimic stems from this true signal value. Further, just like facial expressions, mimicry communicates a genuine disposition when it is truly spontaneous. Consequently, perceivers are attuned to relevant cues such as appropriate timing, fidelity, and selectivity. Our account, while assuming no previously unknown biological endowments, also explains greater mimicry of powerful people, and why affiliation can be signaled by mimicry of seemingly inconsequential behaviors.

Young Children's Motor Interference Is Influenced by Novel Group Membership.

From early childhood onward, individuals use behavior copying to communicate liking and belonging. This non-verbal signal of affiliation is especially relevant in the context of social groups and indeed both children and adults copy in-group more than out-group members. Given the societal importance of inter-group interactions, it is imperative to understand the mechanistic level at which group modulations of copying occur early in development. The current study was designed to investigate the effect of novel group membership on young children’s motor behavior during a simultaneous movement-observation and -execution task. Four- to six-year-olds (n = 65) first gained membership to one of two novel groups based on their color preference and put on a vest in their chosen color. Subsequently, they were instructed to draw a straight line back-and-forth on a tablet computer that was concurrently displaying a stimulus video in which a model moved her arm congruently or incongruently to the child’s instructed direction. In half of the stimulus videos the model belonged to the in-group, while in the other half the model belonged to the out-group, as identified by the color of her dress. The deviations into the uninstructed direction of the children’s drawings were quantified as a measure of how much observing the models’ behaviors interfered with executing their own behaviors. The motor interference effect, namely higher deviations in the incongruent trials than in the congruent trials, was found only for the out-group condition. An additional manipulation of whether the models’ arms followed a biological or non-biological velocity profile had little effect on children’s motor interference. The results are interpreted in the context of the explicit coordinative nature of the task as an effect of heightened attention toward interacting with an out-group member. This study demonstrates that already during early childhood, novel group membership dynamically influences behavior processing as a function of interaction context.

Multivariate dependence concepts through copulas

In this paper, multivariate dependence concepts such as affiliation, association and positive lower orthant dependent are studied in terms of copulas. Relationships among these dependent concepts are obtained. An affiliation is a notion of dependence among the elements of a random vector. It has been shown that the affiliation property is preserved using linear interpolation of subcopula. Also our results are applied to the multivariate skew-normal copula. As an application, the dependence concepts used in auction with affiliated signals are discussed. Several examples are given for illustration of the main results.

Distinct neural processes are engaged in the modulation of mimicry by social group-membership and emotional expressions

People often spontaneously engage in copying each other's postures and mannerisms, a phenomenon referred to as behavioral mimicry. Social psychology experiments indicate that mimicry denotes an implicit affiliative signal flexibly regulated in response to social requirements. Yet, the mediating processes and neural underpinnings of such regulation are largely unexplored. The present functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) study examined mimicry regulation by combining an automatic imitation task with facial stimuli, varied on two social-affective dimensions: emotional expression (angry vs happy) and ethnic group membership (in- vs out-group). Behavioral data revealed increased mimicry when happy and when out-group faces were shown. Imaging results revealed that mimicry regulation in response to happy faces was associated with increased activation in the right temporo-parietal junction (TPJ), right dorsal premotor cortex (dPMC), and right superior parietal lobule (SPL). Mimicry regulation in response to out-group faces was related to increased activation in the left ventral premotor cortex (vPMC) and inferior parietal lobule (IPL), bilateral anterior insula, and mid-cingulate cortex (MCC). We suggest that mimicry in response to happy and to out-group faces is driven by distinct affiliative goals, and that mimicry regulation to attain these goals is mediated by distinct neuro-cognitive processes. Higher mimicry in response to happy faces seems to denote reciprocation of an affiliative signal. Higher mimicry in response to out-group faces, reflects an appeasement attempt towards an interaction partner perceived as threatening (an interpretation supported by implicit measures showing that out-group members are more strongly associated with threat). Our findings show that subtle social cues can result in the implicit regulation of mimicry. This regulation serves to achieve distinct affiliative goals, is mediated by different regulatory processes, and relies on distinct parts of an overarching network of task-related brain areas. Our findings shed new light on the neural mechanisms underlying the interplay between implicit action control and social cognition.

Gender Differences in the Perceptions of Genuine and Simulated Laughter and Amused Facial Expressions

This article addresses gender differences in laughter and smiling from an evolutionary perspective. Laughter and smiling can be responses to successful display behavior or signals of affiliation amongst conversational partners—differing social and evolutionary agendas mean there are different motivations when interpreting these signals. Two experiments assess perceptions of genuine and simulated male and female laughter and amusement social signals. Results show male simulation can always be distinguished. Female simulation is more complicated as males seem to distinguish cues of simulation yet judge simulated signals to be genuine. Females judge other female’s genuine signals to have higher levels of simulation. Results highlight the importance of laughter and smiling in human interactions, use of dynamic stimuli, and using multiple methodologies to assess perception.

The role of signature whistle matching in bottlenose dolphins, Tursiops truncatus

The addressing of individuals with learned signals is inherent to human social interactions. It allows individuals to solicit the attention of a particular social companion or to direct information towards an intended recipient. The ability to address individual conspecifics with learned signals is not limited to humans, however. In songbirds, the selective addressing of individuals is facilitated by song type matching but is very much a signal of aggressive intent. The matching of learned signals is also observed in bottlenose dolphins, which will match one another's highly individualized signature whistle. Copying in dolphins occurs between close associates, which suggests that it is an affiliative signal. It could, however, also serve to manage aggression. We investigated the valence of signature whistle matching by performing interactive playback experiments. We waited until an animal produced its signature whistle and then either played back a synthetic version of its own whistle (match) or a different signature whistle (control). A total of 110 playback experiments were conducted with seven different animals from two managed groups of dolphins. The responses to the playback treatments were significantly different. Animals produced a consistent vocal response to being vocally matched, by returning the match, with no associated signal of aggression and did not respond to control playbacks in the same way. There was also an optimum time interval (<1 s) in which a match was most successful in eliciting a vocal response. Our results show that signature whistle matching is an affiliative signal that allows bottlenose dolphins to address social companions. Furthermore, these matching exchanges are driven by temporal associations, which appear to be essential in allowing animals to direct signals to particular individuals in large communication networks.

Facial expressions and the evolution of the speech rhythm.

In primates, different vocalizations are produced, at least in part, by making different facial expressions. Not surprisingly, humans, apes, and monkeys all recognize the correspondence between vocalizations and the facial postures associated with them. However, one major dissimilarity between monkey vocalizations and human speech is that, in the latter, the acoustic output and associated movements of the mouth are both rhythmic (in the 3- to 8-Hz range) and tightly correlated, whereas monkey vocalizations have a similar acoustic rhythmicity but lack the concommitant rhythmic facial motion. This raises the question of how we evolved from a presumptive ancestral acoustic-only vocal rhythm to the one that is audiovisual with improved perceptual sensitivity. According to one hypothesis, this bisensory speech rhythm evolved through the rhythmic facial expressions of ancestral primates. If this hypothesis has any validity, we expect that the extant nonhuman primates produce at least some facial expressions with a speech-like rhythm in the 3- to 8-Hz frequency range. Lip smacking, an affiliative signal observed in many genera of primates, satisfies this criterion. We review a series of studies using developmental, x-ray cineradiographic, EMG, and perceptual approaches with macaque monkeys producing lip smacks to further investigate this hypothesis. We then explore its putative neural basis and remark on important differences between lip smacking and speech production. Overall, the data support the hypothesis that lip smacking may have been an ancestral expression that was linked to vocal output to produce the original rhythmic audiovisual speech-like utterances in the human lineage.

Relationship status moderates avoidant attachment differences in positive emotion decoding accuracy

AbstractWe investigated attachment differences in the perception of facial emotion expressions. Participants completed a dimensional assessment of adult attachment and recognition accuracy tasks for positive and negative facial emotion expressions. Consistently, avoidant participants who were in romantic relationships, in comparison to singles, had lower decoding accuracy for facial expressions of positive emotions. The results were in line with the hypothesis that being in relationship functions as a naturalistic prime of avoidant persons' defensive tendency to ignore affiliative signals, facial expressions of positive emotion in this instance. The results inform emerging research on attachment and emotion perception by highlighting the role of perceivers' motivated social cognitions.

Real-time feedback on nonverbal clinical communication. Theoretical framework and clinician acceptance of ambient visual design.

This article is part of the focus theme of Methods of Information in Medicine on "Pervasive Intelligent Technologies for Health". Effective nonverbal communication between patients and clinicians fosters both the delivery of empathic patient-centered care and positive patient outcomes. Although nonverbal skill training is a recognized need, few efforts to enhance patient-clinician communication provide visual feedback on nonverbal aspects of the clinical encounter. We describe a novel approach that uses social signal processing technology (SSP) to capture nonverbal cues in real time and to display ambient visual feedback on control and affiliation--two primary, yet distinct dimensions of interpersonal nonverbal communication. To examine the design and clinician acceptance of ambient visual feedback on nonverbal communication, we 1) formulated a model of relational communication to ground SSP and 2) conducted a formative user study using mixed methods to explore the design of visual feedback. Based on a model of relational communication, we reviewed interpersonal communication research to map nonverbal cues to signals of affiliation and control evidenced in patient-clinician interaction. Corresponding with our formulation of this theoretical framework, we designed ambient real-time visualizations that reflect variations of affiliation and control. To explore clinicians' acceptance of this visual feedback, we conducted a lab study using the Wizard-of-Oz technique to simulate system use with 16 healthcare professionals. We followed up with seven of those participants through interviews to iterate on the design with a revised visualization that addressed emergent design considerations. Ambient visual feedback on non- verbal communication provides a theoretically grounded and acceptable way to provide clinicians with awareness of their nonverbal communication style. We provide implications for the design of such visual feedback that encourages empathic patient-centered communication and include considerations of metaphor, color, size, position, and timing of feedback. Ambient visual feedback from SSP holds promise as an acceptable means for facilitating empathic patient-centered nonverbal communication.

An evolutionary perspective on the behavioral consequences of exogenous oxytocin application

Oxytocin (OT) is released in response to social signals, particularly positive ones like eye contact, social touch, sexual behavior, and affiliative vocalizations. Conversely, exogenous delivery of OT has diverse behavioral effects, sometimes promoting affiliative and prosocial behaviors, but sometimes suppressing them. Here, we argue that one unifying interpretation of these diverse effects is to view OT as an evolutionarily conserved physiological signal indicating affiliative interactions and predicting their behavioral consequences. In this model, OT regulates the way information about the social environment accesses the neural circuitry responsible for social behavior, thereby shaping it in sometimes counter intuitive but adaptive ways. Notably, prosociality is not always the most adaptive response to an affiliative signal from another individual. In many circumstances, an asocial or even antisocial response may confer greater fitness benefits. We argue that the behavioral effects of exogenous OT delivery not only parallel the behavioral effects of affiliative interactions, but are themselves adaptive responses to affiliative interactions. In support of this idea, we review recent evidence that OT does not unilaterally enhance social attention, as previously thought, but rather can reduce the typical prioritization of social information at the expense of other information or goals. Such diminished social vigilance may be an adaptive response to affiliative social interactions because it frees attentional resources for the pursuit of other goals. Finally, we predict that OT may mediate other behavioral consequences of social interactions, such as reduced predator vigilance, and argue that this is a rich avenue for future behavioral and neurobiological study.

The Impact of Early Amygdala Damage on Juvenile Rhesus Macaque Social Behavior

The present experiments continue a longitudinal study of rhesus macaque social behavior following bilateral neonatal ibotenic acid lesions of the amygdala or hippocampus, or sham operations. Juvenile animals (approximately 1.5-2.5 years) were tested in four different social contexts--alone, while interacting with one familiar peer, while interacting with one unfamiliar peer, and in their permanent social groups. During infancy, the amygdala-lesioned animals displayed more interest in conspecifics (indexed by increased affiliative signaling) and paradoxically demonstrated more submission or fear (Bauman, Lavenex, Mason, Capitanio, & Amaral, 2004a, this journal). When these animals were assessed as juveniles, differences were less striking. Amygdala-lesioned animals generated fewer aggressive and affiliative signals (e.g., vocalizations, facial displays) and spent less time in social interactions with familiar peers. When animals were observed alone or with an unfamiliar peer, amygdala-lesioned animals, compared with other subjects, spent more time being inactive and physically explored the environment less. Despite the subtle, lesion-based differences in the frequency and duration of specific social behaviors, there were lesion-based differences in the organization of behavior such that lesion groups could be identified based on the patterning of social behaviors in a discriminant function analysis. The findings indicate that, although overall frequencies of many of the observed behaviors do not differ between groups, the general patterning of social behavior may distinguish the amygdala-lesioned animals.

Asymmetric first-price menu auctions under intricate uncertainty

Abstract This paper studies asymmetric first-price menu auctions in the procurement environment where the buyer does not commit to a decision rule and asymmetric sellers have interdependent costs and statistically affiliated signals. Sellers compete in bidding a menu of contracts, where a contract specifies a vector of characteristics and a payment required from the buyer for delivering these characteristics. The buyer does not commit ex-ante to a decision rule but rather upon observing all the menus offered by sellers chooses the best contract. This paper establishes the existence of a continuum of separating monotone equilibria in this game bounded above by the jointly ex-post efficient outcome and below by the jointly interim efficient outcome. It shows that the jointly ex-post efficient equilibrium outcome is the only ex-post renegotiation-proof outcome and it is also ex-ante robust to all continuation equilibria.

Vocal copying of individually distinctive signature whistles in bottlenose dolphins.

Vocal learning is relatively common in birds but less so in mammals. Sexual selection and individual or group recognition have been identified as major forces in its evolution. While important in the development of vocal displays, vocal learning also allows signal copying in social interactions. Such copying can function in addressing or labelling selected conspecifics. Most examples of addressing in non-humans come from bird song, where matching occurs in an aggressive context. However, in other animals, addressing with learned signals is very much an affiliative signal. We studied the function of vocal copying in a mammal that shows vocal learning as well as complex cognitive and social behaviour, the bottlenose dolphin (Tursiops truncatus). Copying occurred almost exclusively between close associates such as mother–calf pairs and male alliances during separation and was not followed by aggression. All copies were clearly recognizable as such because copiers consistently modified some acoustic parameters of a signal when copying it. We found no evidence for the use of copying in aggression or deception. This use of vocal copying is similar to its use in human language, where the maintenance of social bonds appears to be more important than the immediate defence of resources.

Facilitating Play Through Communication: Significance of Teeth Exposure in the Gorilla Play Face

Primate facial expressions (FEs) likely play an important role in primate society: through facial signals, individuals can potentially send and receive information and may benefit from coordinating their behavior accordingly. Many primates use a relaxed open mouth (ROM) facial display or “play face” (PF) during play behavior, where the mouth is open but teeth are covered. In addition to this conventional PF, however, Western Lowland gorillas (Gorilla gorilla gorilla) also use a full PF where the upper teeth are exposed. As the teeth are similarly exposed in the bared-teeth expression (which is a signal of appeasement, submission and/or affiliation), the full PF may be a blend of the PF and bared-teeth face, and have a different signal function to the PF alone. Focal animal sampling of captive Western Lowland gorillas (N=10) showed that the full PF was more often observed in intense rather than gentle play, and intense play bouts that featured the full PF were longer than those that featured only the PF. Both expressions were associated with an increase in affinitive behavior between sender and receiver postplay, but only the full PF was associated with an increase higher than that of play alone. Overall, the findings suggest that the full PF has an additional role in coordinating and maintaining play, possibly though reducing uncertainty in the receiver and confirming that play is only play.

Transplantation of Derivative Actions to Vietnam - Tip-offs from Absence of Academic Debate

AbstractDerivative actions have just been newly introduced into Vietnamese company law in 2010. The adoption of the derivative action is a striking signal of Vietnam's affiliation with the litigation bandwagon of East Asian countries. Unlike those Asian countries where the issue of the transplanting and functioning of derivative actions are well-discussed topics in the corporate governance literature, such discussions have not yet begun in Vietnam. In fact, the derivative action was adopted without a domestic academic debate to pave the way for its introduction. The lack of discussion on the one hand is troublesome to those who want to review the transplantation of the derivative action to Vietnam. On the other hand, this absence also detaches the Vietnamese academic debate from the on-going international debate on the subject.Seeking possible explanations for the absence of such debate is the first aim of this article. Towards this end, the article proposes three explanation which help to explain why the derivative action had never been widely discussed in Vietnam before its introduction. Such explanations enable us to better understand the context in which the action was introduced. Moreover, the explanations provide us with hints to predict the feasibility of the derivative action in the jurisdiction. The second aim of this article is to give some suggestions to improve the newly-adopted regulations on derivative actions. For this purpose, some of the ambiguities and deficiencies of the regulations are discussed. Based on the understanding of its surrounding context and its own deficiencies, the article comes up with conclusions on the future of the derivative action in Vietnam.

Random Signals and Systems (Pincibono, B.; 2003) [Book reviews

This excellent book answers the need for proper modeling methodologies in order to advance our structural knowledge of the human brain. Some of the topics covered include: random signals and probability; multidimensional random variables; spectral properties of random signals; statistical models for random signals; Poisson processes and affiliated signals; random signals and dynamic systems; mean square estimation for stationary signals; prediction for stationary signals; time recursive methods; and matched filters. Suitable problems are set out at the end of each chapters. The audience of this volume should consist of researchers in computational intelligence, biomedical signal processing, and artificial neural networks, engineers, professionals, and academics.

The `cartoons controversy': a Critical Discourse Analysis of English-language Arab newspaper discourse

This study is unique in two ways: 1) it explores the little-known discourse site of English-language Arab newspapers; and 2) it applies quantitative methods to a large amount of data to uncover patterns that show how these newspapers reproduce, resist and/or challenge the discourse that stems from a dominant Euro-centered culture. The article focuses on a corpus of 422 `hard' news texts that address the events and issues known as the `Prophet Muhammad cartoons controversy'. The analysis of the data is approached via the contextual linguistic paradigm of Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA). An important model in this study is derived from Mills' (1995) concept of `signals of affiliation' which is here adapted specifically to the context of Arab newspaper discourse production. Central to the investigation is a computer-assisted quantitative frequency and concordance analysis of the corpus.

Bounds on Revenue Distributions in Counterfactual Auctions with Reserve Prices

In first-price auctions with interdependent bidder values, the distributions of private signals and values cannot be uniquely recovered from bids in Bayesian Nash equilibria. Non-identification invalidates structural analyses that rely on the exact knowledge of model primitives. In this paper I introduce tight, informative bounds on the distribution of revenues in counterfactual first-price and second-price auctions with binding reserve prices. These robust bounds are identified from distributions of equilibrium bids in first-price auctions under minimal restrictions where I allow for affiliated signals and both private and common-value paradigms. The bounds can be used to compare auction formats and to select optimal reserve prices. I propose consistent nonparametric estimators of the bounds. I extend the approach to account for observed heterogeneity across auctions, as well as binding reserve prices in the data. I use a recent data of 6,721 first-price auctions of U.S. municipal bonds to estimate bounds on counterfactual revenue distributions. I then bound optimal reserve prices for sellers with various risk attitudes.

Sex-specific responses to vocal convergence and divergence of contact calls in orange-fronted conures (Aratinga canicularis)

We investigated the signal function of vocal imitation of contact calls in orange-fronted conures (OFCs; Aratinga canicularis) in Costa Rica. OFCs live in dynamic social systems with frequent flock fusions and fissions. Exchanges of contact calls precede these flock changes. During call exchanges, the similarity between the contact calls of different individuals may either increase (converge) or decrease (diverge). We conducted a playback experiment on wild-caught captive birds in which we simulated convergent, divergent and no-change interaction series with male and female contact calls. OFCs responded differently to convergent and divergent series of contact calls, but only when we considered the sex of the test birds. Males called most in response to convergent series, whereas females demonstrated high calling rates in response to both convergent and divergent interactions. Both sexes responded most to contact calls from the opposite sex, but overall females produced more calls and had shorter latencies to calling than males. These results demonstrate that OFCs can discriminate between male and female contact calls and that subtle changes in contact call structure during interactions have signal function. The stronger overall response to convergent series suggests that convergence of contact calls is an affiliative signal.

Friend or foe? Brain systems involved in the perception of dynamic signals of menacing and friendly social approaches

During every social approach, humans must assess each other's intentions. Facial expressions provide cues to assist in these assessments via associations with emotion, the likelihood of affiliation, and personality. In this functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) study, participants viewed animated male characters approaching them in a hallway and making either a happy or an angry facial expression. An expected increase in amygdala and superior temporal sulcus activation to the expression of anger was found. Notably, two other social brain regions also had an increased hemodynamic response to anger relative to happiness, including the lateral fusiform gyrus and a region centered in the middle temporal gyrus. Other brain regions showed little differentiation or an increased level of activity to the happy stimuli. These findings provide insight into the brain mechanisms involved in reading the intentions of other human beings in an overtly social context. In particular, they demonstrate brain regions sensitive to social signals of dominance and affiliation.