Social Features Research Articles

Older Adults’ Perceptions, Experiences, and Preferences of a Gamified Cognitive Training Program

With cognitive plasticity being a “sluggish” process, regular long-term engagement in interventions like cognitive training is required to realize the potential that such interventions may confer for cognitive enhancement. A significant challenge associated with extended cognitive training studies is poor adherence and attrition. The current qualitative investigation therefore explored 66 older adult participants’ experiences of, and motivations during, a gamified cognitive training program to understand reasons for (non)adherence. Preferences regarding cognitive training were also explored to provide insight into how such programs might be designed and implemented to maximize motivation and long-term engagement. Using a qualitative description design drawing upon thematic analysis, findings revealed that participants were generally motivated by challenge, novelty, and opportunity to focus. In contrast, repetition, external factors, and negative mindsets detracted from the motivation of participants. Suggestions to improve cognitive training programs to promote long-term engagement included the addition of a large selection of games, an incentive system, mini daily challenges, reminder notifications, and social features. These findings may inform the design of cognitive training programs that accommodate the preferences and needs of older adults, which in turn, may promote adherence and improve intervention effectiveness.

Information Seeking and Sharing Among LGBTQ University Students: Dynamics Within LGBTQ Communities on Social Media

In my dissertation research, I investigate the nuanced dynamics between LGBTQ university students and social media platform design, identifying the facilitators and obstacles they encounter while seeking and sharing information in online communities. This study serves a dual purpose: to explore the information-seeking and sharing experiences of LGBTQ students on social media, and to analyze platform design aspects that either enhance or hinder these information behaviors. By addressing both elements, the research aims to provide a holistic understanding of information practices within LGBTQ online communities and offer actionable recommendations to improve social media design, fostering a supportive environment for LGBTQ students. Adopting an exploratory mixed-methods approach, I employ both qualitative methods (i.e., initial interviews, diaries, and follow-up interviews) and quantitative method (i.e., online survey questionnaires) to collect data. Integrating qualitative and quantitative methods ensures a thorough exploration of the topic, offering nuanced insights into LGBTQ students’ online experiences. The dissertation holds both theoretical and practical significance. It advances our understanding of LGBTQ students’ information behaviors within online communities and examines the interplay between social media platform features and these behaviors. Practically, the research provides valuable insights for LGBTQ organizations, community administrators, and social media developers. By addressing the unique information needs of LGBTQ students and enhancing social media platform design, this study facilitates the creation of inclusive, supportive, and user-friendly online environments for LGBTQ individuals.

Auditory pallial regulation of the social behavior network

Sensory cues such as vocalizations contain important social information. Processing social features of vocalizations (e.g., vocalizer identity, emotional state) necessitates unpacking the complex sound streams in song or speech; this depends on circuits in pallial cortex. But whether and how this information is then transferred to limbic and hypothalamic regions remains a mystery. Here, using gregarious, vocal songbirds (female Zebra finches), we identify a prominent influence of the auditory pallium on one specific node of the Social Behavior Network, the lateral ventromedial nucleus of the hypothalamus (VMHl). Electrophysiological recordings revealed that social and non-social auditory stimuli elicited stimulus-specific spike trains that permitted stimulus differentiation in a large majority of VMHl single units, while transient disruption of auditory pallium elevated immediate early gene activity in VMHl. Descending functional connections such as these may be critical for the range of vertebrate species that rely on nuanced communication signals to guide social decision-making.

A Classification of Features for Interpersonal Disconnectivity in Digital Media: Block, Unfriend, Unfollow, Mute, Withhold, and Eject

This article presents for the first time a classification of, and lexicon for, features for dissolving interpersonal ties in digital environments: blocking, unfriending, unfollowing, muting, withholding, and ejecting. There are two main motivations and two main contributions. The first motivation is that analyses of social media features have not included treatment of features for interpersonal disconnectivity; the second is that analyses of interpersonal disconnectivity have not included reference to the features that enable it. The two main contributions are the disambiguation of a confusing terminological field, thus making it possible to analytically distinguish between types of feature, and an intervention in the question of whether the features described in the article concern filtering <em>information</em> or avoiding <em>people</em>. Data were collected from 37 social media platforms and other services that enable digitally-mediated communication. Features for interpersonal disconnectivity were documented and then the features were grouped based on five questions about their use, where A is the person using the feature, and B is the target of A’s use of the feature: (a) Does it affect A’s feed?; (b) does it affect B’s feed?; (c) is A still connected to B?; (d) is B still connected to A?; (e) can A and B see each other’s profile?

A taxonomy for human social perception: Data-driven modeling with cinematic stimuli.

Every day, humans encounter complex social situations that need to be encoded effectively to allow interaction with others. Yet, principles for organizing the perception of social features from the external world remain poorly characterized. In this large-scale study, we investigated the principles of social perception in dynamic scenes. In the primary data set, we presented 234 movie clips (41 min) containing various social situations to 1,140 participants and asked them to evaluate the presence of 138 social features in each clip. Analyses of the social feature ratings revealed that some features are perceived categorically (present or absent) and others continuously (intensity) and simple social features requiring immediate response are perceived most consistently across participants. To establish the low-dimensional perceptual organization for social features based on movies, we used principal coordinate analysis and consensus clustering for the feature ratings. These dimension reduction analyses revealed that the social perceptual structure can be modeled with eight main dimensions and that behaviorally relevant perceptual categories emerge from these main dimensions. This social perceptual structure generalized from the perception of unrelated Hollywood movie clips to the perception of a full Finnish movie (70 min) and to the perception of static images (n = 468) and across three independent sets of participants (n = 2,254). Based on the results, we propose eight basic dimensions of social perception as a model for rapid social perception where social situations are perceived along eight orthogonal perceptual dimensions (most importantly emotional valence, empathy vs. dominance, and cognitive vs. physical behavior). (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2024 APA, all rights reserved).

How technical and situational cues affect impulse buying behavior in social commerce? Evidence from bored consumers.

With the rise of social media and web technologies, users are increasingly spending time on browsing and purchasing on social commerce, particularly during idle moments of casual scrolling. Social commerce applications with sophisticated social features and security measures may tend to attract a significant number of highly engaged users. The purpose of this study is to find out whether customers will be interested in the content posted on the applications and generate impulse consumption when they are bored. Drawing on stimulus-organism-response framework, this paper explores how technical cues and situational cues affect impulse buying behavior in social commerce applications and the mediating impact of consumer-perceived values. Data were gathered from 395 respondents who frequently utilize and have shopping experience on social commerce applications. The PLS-SEM and fsQCA were applied to formulate and test the proposed hypotheses. The results of PLS-SEM reveal technical cues (ease of use, visual appeal and security) and situational cues (passing time and serendipity) positively influenced impulse buying. The results of fsQCA offer six solutions of different combinations of constructs which can lead to high impulse buying. These findings may extend existing research on impulse buying behavior and consumer psychology, offering valuable insights for marketers. They also point towards strategies for more effectively encouraging impulse purchase in digital retail environments, particularly among consumers who are browsing out of boredom.

Characteristics of patients who are initiated on long-acting buprenorphine (Buvidal®) in France: A retrospective cross-sectional study

The long-acting buprenorphine Buvidal® is a recent type of opioid agonist treatment (OAT) used for opioid use disorder (OUD). It was initially suggested to preferentially use Buvidal® for specific OUD populations, including people in prison, or patients in recovery and on sublingual buprenorphine. We conducted a national study to examine whether the profile of patients treated with Buvidal® in France matched these initial recommendations. A retrospective cross-sectional study was conducted in 13 national addiction centers (outside prison), using the individual medical records of patients initiated on Buvidal®. Baseline characteristics were collected and described, including sociodemographic features, comorbid medical conditions, concurrent substance use and prescription drug misuse, and OAT features before Buvidal® initiation, respectively. In total 101 patients (72.3% males, mean age 43.9±11.3years) were identified, which corresponded to one sixth of all patients treated with Buvidal® in France at the time of the study. Of them, 36 (36.4%) of them were professionally active, 35 (35.4%) were durably inactive, and the rest in an intermediary situation. Furthermore, 90 (90.0%) patients had at least one medical comorbidity (all types), and 83 (83.0%) at least one psychiatric comorbidity. Most frequent non-psychiatric comorbidities were chronic pain (n=20, 20.0%) and chronic viral infection (n=16, 17.8%). Current use of psychoactive substances included cocaine and crack (n=43, 42.6%), heroin (n=19, 18.8%), but also misuse of prescription drugs (n=20, 20%), mainly opioid analgesics. Moreover, 99 (98.0%) patients had an OAT before Buvidal® initiation, including 7 (8.1%) patients on methadone. The profile of patients initiated on Buvidal® in France was extremely similar to that of patients treated for OUD in France, either in terms of social or clinical features. While initial recommendations essentially underlined the interest of Buvidal® for some niche populations, the on-the-ground practice reveals a more widespread use, including for unrecovered patients, or patients treated with methadone.

Comparison of the Effect of Selective Serotonin and Norepinephrine Reuptake Inhibitors on Bone Mineral Density with Selective Serotonin Reuptake Inhibitors and Healthy Controls

Purpose: This study investigated the association between selective serotonin reuptake inhibitor (SSRI) and selective serotonin and norepinephrine reuptake inhibitor (SNRI) use and the risk of decreased bone mineral density in postmenopausal women.Methods: Sixty-three patients diagnosed with GAD (Generalized Anxiety Disorder) were treated with venlafaxine or duloxetine from the SNRI group, and sixty patients treated with SSRIs were enrolled. Social demographic features, the Hamilton Anxiety Scale (HAS) results, and the Hamilton Depression Scale (HDS) scores of all the patients were assessed. The BMD (bone mineral density) of the patients was measured by dual-energy X-ray absorptiometry (DXA) at the femoral and lumbar regions. The BMD of the patients was compared with that of 40 healthy controls.Results: Bone measurements in the SNRI and SSRI users were similar to those of the healthy controls. However, osteopenic values were observed in the SSRI users, while normal bone density was found in the SNRI users. Also, the bone mineral densities were compared between patients using duloxetine and venlafaxine with healthy controls, showing similar T-score and Z-score values with no significant differences compared to the control group. However, while the lumbar region T-scores of those using duloxetine were within normal values, they were within the osteopenia range of venlafaxine and healthy controls.Conclusion: SNRIs may have a lower risk of developing osteoporosis than SSRIs. Of the SNRIs, duloxetine appears to be safer than venlafaxine. Further randomized controlled studies are warranted to determine whether SNRI use is risky.

Theorizing Social Media from Capitalism and Culture Industry Perspective

This article proposes PRANC as a theoretical framework to help rethink, understand, and deconstruct the monopolizing influence of mass media in this social media age. From Marxist perspective, mass media centered on and dominated capital accumulation through excessive culture production such as television drama programs. Mass media was also manipulated and controlled from the center with producer-consumer dichotomy. However, I argue in this article that through its affordances social media disrupts a centeralized information production and dissemination discouraging mass media’s monopoly on capitalism and culture industry. Social media also serves as a platform with which societies challenge dictatorship, expose, and withstand various forms of oppression as has been witnessed in different parts of the world over the last decade. Portability of communication technologies enabled users to carry along their devices that enables them have access to social media anytime anywhere, while retrievability allows users to search and recover information shared on social media. Affordability is another social media feature that promotes broader participation in sociocultural and political activities, while networkability is the ability of agile social media to empower marginalized voices to stand united for a common good fighting oppression. On the other hand, customizability of social media enables users to conceal and shape their identities to protect themselves from attack due to the content they share or due to their engagement with contents users share. Social media viewed from PRANC framework offers a new opportunity for the powerless communities to struggle for their rights. It fosters inclusivity, democratizes cultural landscapes, and redefines how culture is produced, disseminated, and consumed in the digital age, challenging capitalism and culture industry. Keywords: PRANC, portability, retrievability, affordability, networkability, customizability, capitalism, culture industry, creative culture

Neighborhood predictors of suicide and firearm suicide in Detroit, Michigan

BackgroundSuicide is a leading cause of death in the United States with rates increasing over the past two decades. The rate of suicide is higher in rural areas, but a greater number of people in urban areas die by suicide; understanding risk factors for suicide in this context is critically important to public health. Additionally, while many studies have focused on individual-level risk factors, few studies have identified social or structural features associated with suicide or firearm suicide, especially among young people.MethodsStudy outcomes included total firearm suicide, total youth (age 10–29) firearm suicide, total suicide, and total youth suicide in Detroit, Michigan from 2012 through 2019. The predictors in this study included 58 census-tract level variables characterizing the physical features, residential stability, socioeconomic status, and demographics of neighborhoods in Detroit over the study period. We used random forest, extreme gradient boosting (XGBoost), and generalized linear mixed models to predict the four outcomes.ResultsWe found that the tract-level variables used in all three modeling approaches performed poorly at predicting the suicide outcomes, with area under the curve values at times exceeding 0.60 but with extremely low sensitivity (ranging from 0.05 to 0.45). However, the percentage of parcels sold in arms-length transfers in the previous 5 years, the count of vacant lots per square mile, and the percentage of children aged three and older who were enrolled in preschool each demonstrated associations with at least two of the outcomes studied.ConclusionsOur findings suggest place-based factors at the tract level do not provide meaningful insight into the risk of suicide or firearm suicide among youth or the general population in Detroit, Michigan. Future practice and study should consider focusing on both larger and smaller areas, including city and individual-level factors. For example, studies might benefit from the use of both neighborhood and individual-level measures and their interactions to improve our understanding of place-based risk factors and suicide risk.

Echoes of the past: The enduring impact of communism on contemporary freedom of speech values

Free speech is essential for informed decision-making, government efficacy, and fostering innovation in liberal societies. But what promotes or hinders freedom of speech values? Exploiting the natural experiment of German separation and later reunification, we show that living under communism has had lasting effects on free speech opinions, and the convergence process has been slow. East Germans are still less likely to consider freedom of speech a key government priority than West Germans. The effects are the largest for cohorts that lived the longest under communism. This provides evidence that more prolonged exposure to the features of socialism—including indoctrination and repression—collectively lowers the appreciation of freedom of speech values. Our results are robust to a battery of sensitivity checks and provide suggestive evidence pointing to indoctrination as a mechanism behind our findings. As such, our paper contributes to the scarce body of literature on the economics of free speech, suggesting that freedom of speech may be a part of informal institutions and slow-changing cultural values.

Ideological narratives of liberalism and socialism

Objective: to compare the ideologies of liberalism and socialism in economic science in the context of the current stage of their evolution. For this purpose, the paper identifies the goals of these ideologies by analyzing the scientific narratives of economists. The study is also aimed at identifying similarities and differences between the ideologies of liberalism andsocialism. Methods: qualitative methods, narrative analysis, review of scientific literature. Results: the comparison of common interpretations of the “ideology” concept in various branches of economics and in other social sciences shows differences in terminology. The comparison of the liberalism and socialism ideologies in economics shows the difference between the declared goals of liberals and socialists. The goal of liberalism ideology is human freedom,and of socialism ideology – distribution equality. The ideologies considered are internally heterogeneous and have evolved over time. At present, liberalism is continued in neoliberalism, which aims at increasing the population wealth rather than freedom as an end in itself. There are non-egalitarian interpretations of the essence of socialism, which reduce it to the economy governmentalization. There are also debates about the advantages of the market over centralized planning in socialism. The extremes of the ideologies of liberalism and socialism can be clearly distinguished, but in practice, many studies take an intermediate position. A common feature of liberalism and socialism is their modernist character and criticism of archaic economic institutions designed to redistribute wealth from the poor to the rich. Scientific novelty: it consists in identifying the economic goals proclaimed by the ideologies of liberalism and socialism, based on the analysis of the relevant theoretical narratives in scientific literature. Practical significance: it is determined by the need to understand the factors influencing the economists’ worldview. Studying the ideologies of liberalism and socialism is useful for understanding the intent of the authors of recommendations for improving the institutions of the modern Russian economic order.

Run for the group: Examining the effects of group-level social interaction features of fitness apps on exercise participation

Mobile fitness apps have gained popularity as a way of improving healthy behaviors. This study investigates the design and influence of fitness apps from a novel “group” perspective, focusing on the effects of group-level social interaction features in exercise participation. Through empirical studies on a unique dataset, we propose and verify a conceptual framework that shows that (1) group role model inspiration and group comparison features facilitate the intra-group assimilation and inter-group contrast processes and further significantly improve group participation, and that (2) offline activities moderate the effects of group comparison features on group participation. This study contributes to the literature on online communities and fitness apps/service design by demonstrating the motivating power of group-level interactions and online–offline engagement. It also provides practical guidelines for fitness app developers.

Краткосрочная динамика интересов студентов гуманитарного направления на основе анализа семантического поля понятия «интересы» (по данным психолингвистического эксперимента)

The aim of the research is to identify the short-term dynamics of youth interests based on psycholinguistic experiment data. The article examines the semantic field of the notion “interests”, obtained through a series of psycholinguistic experiments conducted from 2019 to 2023. The scientific novelty of the research lies in considering interests as an independent system, whose structure provides insight into its social context (values, identity characteristics, socialization features, and social activity of youth) and the factors influencing its changes. As a result, the core and periphery of the “Interests” field have been identified through graphosemantic analysis. The core and near-periphery zones include the fields “Creativity”, “Commercial Activity”, “Internet”, and “Information”. The analysis reveals connections between individual groups of hobbies, gender-based differences in the field structures of the informants, and describes the dynamic changes in interest towards specific activities. Factors such as professional activities and digitalization are identified as determining the stability and dynamic changes in interests.

Chinese Culture with Socialist Characteristics

Chinese Culture with Socialist Characteristics

A social context-aware graph-based multimodal attentive learning framework for disaster content classification during emergencies

In times of crisis, the prompt and precise classification of disaster-related information shared on social media platforms is of paramount importance for effective disaster response and public safety. During such critical events, people utilize social media as a medium for communication, sharing multimodal textual and visual content. However, due to the substantial influx of unfiltered and diverse data, humanitarian organizations face challenges in effectively leveraging this information. Numerous methods have been proposed for classifying disaster-related content, but these methods lack modeling users’ credibility, emotional context, and social interaction information, which is crucial for classification. In this context, we propose a method, CrisisSpot, that leverages a Graph-based Neural Network to comprehend intricate relationships between textual and visual modalities and Social Context Features to incorporate user-centric and content-centric information. We also propose Inverted Dual Embedded Attention, which captures both harmonious and contrary patterns present in the data to harness complex interactions and facilitate richer insights in multimodal data. We have developed a multimodal disaster dataset, TSEqD (Turkey-Syria Earthquake Dataset), which is a large annotated dataset for a single disaster event containing 10,352 data samples. Through extensive experimentation, CrisisSpot has demonstrated significant improvements, achieving an average gain of 9.45% and 5.01% in F1-score compared to the state-of-the-art methods on the publicly available CrisisMMD dataset and TSEqD dataset, respectively.

Cognitive and Social-Emotional Development in Girls With Fragile X Syndrome.

To evaluate the developmental trajectory of key cognitive, social, and emotional features in girls with fragile X syndrome (FXS). This longitudinal, parallel cohort study collected data between January 2018 and December 2022. Participants were evaluated 3 times with ∼12-18 months between visits. Participants included 65 girls with FXS, 6 to 16 years, and 52 age- and developmentally-matched girls without FXS. Participants' scores from direct assessment and caregiver report evaluated 3 cognitive domains (verbal abilities, nonverbal abilities, executive function) and 4 social-emotional domains (depression, general anxiety, social behavior, and social anxiety). Participants included 117 girls (mean [M] [SD] age at study entry: FXS M = 10.59 [3.00]; comparison M = 10.45 [2.40])). Omnibus tests showed 4 domains with significant group differences: Verbal (P < .0001, eg, Differential Abilities Scale-II(DAS-II), Picture Vocabulary (-6.25 [1.87])), nonverbal (P < .0001, eg, Kaufman Test of Educational Achievement, Third Edition, Brief Form, Math (-8.56 [2.90])), executive function (P < .0001, eg, NIH Toolbox List Sorting (-6.26 [1.48])), and social anxiety (P < .03, eg, Anxiety, Depression, and Mood Scale (ADAMS) Social Avoidance (1.50 [0.65])). Three domains had significant group by age interaction: Verbal (P < .04, eg, DAS-II, Word Definitions (-1.33 [0.55])), social behavior (P < .01, eg, Social Responsiveness Scale-2 Social Communication (1.57 [0.51])), and social anxiety (P < .01, eg, ADAMS Social Avoidance (0.46 [0.19])). These findings support the development of early, disorder specific interventions for girls with FXS targeting verbal and nonverbal skills, executive function, social behavior, and social anxiety.

Sensory responsivity and its relation to alexithymia, social processing and restricted interests and repetitive behaviour in autistic children

BackgroundAlthough noted in the earliest descriptions of autism, differences in sensory processing, including hyper-responsivity, hypo-responsivity and sensory seeking, have only been included as a diagnostic criterion more recently. Understanding how these unique features of sensory processing are related to the emotional and social aspects of autism is an ongoing question. Here we ask whether differences in sensory processing are associated with alexithymia, a trait characterised by an inability to identify and describe one’s feelings, which has a high incidence in autism. MethodParents of autistic children (n = 38) and parents of non-autistic children (n = 35) completed four standardized scales, the Short Sensory Profile-2, Social Responsiveness Scale-2, Social Communication Questionnaire, and the Children’s Alexithymia Measure. ResultsAcross all four scales the autistic children showed higher scores than the non-autistic children, with large effect sizes. Using the subscales of the SSP-2 we show that, for the autistic children but not for the non-autistic children, sensory hyper-responsivity is predictive of alexithymia, of core social features of autism and of restricted interests and repetitive behaviour (RIRB), after controlling for hypo-responsivity and sensory seeking. ConclusionsThese results add to a small but growing literature on the relationship between sensory processing and social and emotional behaviours in autistic children, and are discussed with reference to predictive coding and ‘sensory first’ accounts of autism. As sensory differences in autism impact children’s daily functioning and educational opportunities, understanding how these differences relate to social and emotional behaviour is important.

Deciphering digital popularity from question quality: the preeminence of social attributes over textual dimensions in driving CQA platform traffic

ABSTRACT Community Question Answering (CQA) sites, now navigating through millions of daily user visits, hinge significantly on the quality of user-generated questions to bolster user satisfaction and, consequently, website traffic – crucial for platform sustainability. While the quality of questions ostensibly sets the stage for insightful answers, thereby attracting substantial traffic, existing research has predominantly sidelined the significance of questions, favoring a focus on traditional factors, such as answer quality, to elucidate traffic determinants. In this study we quantified the interrelation between question quality and traffic by extracting 15 relevant question-quality features and corresponding traffic (i.e. pageview) data from a leading Chinese CQA platform. Utilizing Grey Relational Analysis, we assessed these attributes’ relative influence on pageviews and created a ranking list of features of questions. Based on the rankings, our findings spotlight the paramount influence of a question's digital popularity and attributes tied to the questioner – central pillars of social features – surpassing the impact of textual elements. This study further delineates the underlying reasons for such patterns based on traffic sourced from diverse channels. Our revelations offer pivotal insights for optimizing CQA platform engagement and furnish avenues for prospective research.

The impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on daily life: do social and individual features affect the family atmosphere and the views on the future?

ABSTRACT According to several studies, the Covid-19 pandemic has also impacted the home environment and daily life, leading to tensions and sometimes conflicts among family members. To explore these domestic dynamics, quantitative research was conducted to investigate social issues related to contemporary living conditions, ideas, and problems. In this context, a web survey conducted in 2021 with international students allowed for a deeper examination of whether positive or negative attitudes were common (or not) across different habits and cultures, providing both national and international perspectives. Further analysis shows that the emotional states experienced during the pandemic also affect the perception of futureperspectives, regardless of the spent home atmosphere during 2020. Moreover, if during the pandemic some significant relationships are highlighted between the indexes and specific socio-demographic variables, looking at the future it seems that emergencies undo these differences.