Social Valence Research Articles

Social-valence-related increased attention in rett syndrome cynomolgus monkeys: An eye-tracking study.

The cognitive phenotypes of Rett syndrome (RTT) remain unclarified compared with the well-defined genetic etiology. Recent clinical studies suggest the eye-tracking method as a promising avenue to quantify the visual phenotypes of the syndrome. The present study explored various aspects of visual attention of the methyl-CpG-binding protein 2 gene mutant RTT monkeys with the eye-tracking procedure. Comprehensive testing paradigms, including social valence comparison (SVC), visual paired comparison (VPC), and social recognition memory (SRM), were utilized to investigate their attentional features to social stimuli with differential valence, the novelty preferences, and short-term recognition memory, respectively. To explore the neurobiological mechanisms underlying the eye-tracking findings, we assessed changes of the brain subregion volumes and neurotransmitter concentrations. Compared with control monkeys, RTT monkeys demonstrated increased viewing on the more salient stare faces than profile faces in the SVC test, and increased viewing on the whole presented images composed of monkey faces in the VPC and SRM tests. Brain imaging revealed reduced bilateral occipital gyrus in RTT monkeys. The exploratory neurotransmitter analyses revealed no significant changes of various neurotransmitter concentrations in the cerebrospinal fluid and blood of RTT monkeys. The eye-tracking results suggested social-valence-related increased attention in RTT monkeys, supplementing the cognitive phenotypes associated with the syndrome. Further investigations from broader perspectives are required to uncover the underlying neurobiological mechanisms. Autism Res 2019, 00: 1-13. © 2019 International Society for Autism Research, Wiley Periodicals, Inc. LAY SUMMARY: Altered expressions of the methyl-CpG-binding protein 2 (MECP2) gene are usually associated with neurodevelopmental disorders, such as autism spectrum disorders, Rett syndrome (RTT), and so forth. The present eye-tracking study found social-valence-related increased attention in our firstly established MECP2 mutant RTT monkeys. The novel findings supplement the cognitive phenotypes and potentially benefit the behavioral interventions of the RTT syndrome.

Robots and Artificial Intelligence in Health Care

The infiltration of robotics and artificial intelligence (AI) in the health sector is imminent. Existing and new laws and policies will require careful analysis to ensure the beneficial use of robotics and AI, and to answer glaring questions such as, “when is it appropriate to substitute machines for caregivers?” This article begins part one by offering an overview of the current use of robots and AI in healthcare: from surgical robots, exoskeletons and prosthetics to artificial organs, pharmacy and hospital automation robots. Part one ends by examining social robots and the role of Big Data analytics. In part two, key sociotechnical considerations are discussed, and we examine their impact on medical practice overall, as the understanding and decision-making processes evolve to use AI and robots. In addition, the social valence considerations and the evidenced-based paradox both raise important policy questions related to the appropriateness of delegating human tasks to machines, and the necessary changes in the assessment of liability and negligence. In part three, we address the legal considerations around liability for robots and AI, for physicians, and for institutions using robots and AI as well as AI and robots as medical devices. Key considerations regarding negligence in medical malpractice come into play, and will necessitate an evolution in the duty and standard of care amidst the emergence of technology. Legal liability will also need to evolve as we inquire into whether a physician choosing to rely on their skills, knowledge and judgement over an AI or robot recommendation should be held liable and negligent. Finally, this paper addresses the legal, labour and economic implications that come into play when assessing whether robots should be considered employees of a health care institution, and the potential opening of the door to vicarious liability.

Roots, Return Narratives, Reclaiming “European Americans”: A Review Essay

Evangelia Kindinger’s Homebound: Diaspora Spaces and Selves in Greek American Return Narratives and Theodora Patrona’s Return Narratives: Ethnic Space in Late-Twentieth-Century Greek American and Italian American Literature discuss identity-making in Greek American and Italian American texts that narrate return to the historical homeland. Their interest lies in the poetics—how the returnee Self is constructed in a text—and politics—the impact of these constructions on collective belonging. Both authors mark return as a creative, self-transformative process, a fashioning of identity that is built systematically and achieved copiously, a product of commitment and intensive investment in the value of roots. Writing return also mobilizes an interest in rendering women’s experiences visible and rewriting gender with the aim of empowering diaspora women. There is interest too in the ways in which extratextual economies, such as the publishing industry, and dominant discourses of belonging shape the meaning of roots. In this review essay, I closely analyze how Homebound and Return Narratives bring together the making of textual selves with the political implications of these constructions, and I discuss the way the two books contribute to the (re)thinking of the category “European Americans” as well as its wider social valence, including its place in the US academy. Further, I build on their approaches to the topic of roots to offer a wider reflection on what is at stake in writing and reading return. I make a case that this particular historical moment, when diaspora return is valorized by states and corporations for the purpose of development as well as nation-building, calls for an approach to return that centers on the ethics of commitments to home and homeland and a politics beyond the Self-Other dialectic. The notion of transnational citizenship offers a productive route to chart the ethicopolitical facets associated with the claiming of roots.

The Expression and Transfer of Valence Associated with Social Conformity

Consensus seeking – abandoning one’s own judgment to align with a group majority – is a fundamental feature of human social interaction. Notably, such striving for majority affiliation often occurs in the absence of any apparent economic or social gain, suggesting that achieving consensus might have intrinsic value. Here, using a simple gambling task, in which the decisions of ostensible previous gamblers were indicated below available options on each trial, we examined the affective properties of agreeing with a group majority by assessing the trade-off between social and non-social currencies, and the transfer of social valence to concomitant stimuli. In spite of demonstrating near-perfect knowledge of objective reward probabilities, participant’s choices and evaluative judgments reflected a reliable preference for conformity, consistent with the hypothesized value of social alignment.

Shakespeare in Love: A Fictional Transliteration of the Grammar of Heterosexual Mating

This article explores the structure of the male–female interaction in the human mating process from the perspective of the so-called Tie-Up Theory, applying it to the analysis of a cinematic fictional narrative, namely the Shakespeare in love movie. We look at romantic fictional narratives as possible simulations with a social cognition valence, and show that, in the case study under exam, the actual structure of the interaction between the two main characters reflects the basic steps of a successful mating process. In view of this, the fact that the long-term couple is not formed at the end of the story neither jeopardizes its social cognition valence, nor the audience’s need and expectation of an emotional climax, as what makes the difference in terms of social cognition is not the story outcome, but the process that leads to it. Our research makes a case for a renewed interest toward romantic fictional comedies as an interesting source of insight into real mating-related interactions, provided that such narratives are socially validated in terms of audience response and intergenerational transmission.

Oxytocin Manipulation Alters Neural Activity in Response to Social Stimuli in Eusocial Naked Mole-Rats.

The social decision-making network (SDMN) is a conserved neural circuit that modulates a range of social behaviors via context-specific patterns of activation that may be controlled in part by oxytocinergic signaling. We have previously characterized oxytocin’s (OT) influence on prosociality in the naked mole-rat, a eusocial mammalian species, and its altered neural distribution between animals of differing social status. Here, we asked two questions: (1) do patterns of activation in the SDMN vary by social context and (2) is functional connectivity of the SDMN altered by OT manipulation? Adult subordinate naked mole-rats were exposed to one of three types of stimuli (three behavioral paradigms: familiar adult conspecific, unfamiliar adult conspecific, or familiar pups) while manipulating OT (three manipulations: saline, OT, or OT antagonist). Immediate early gene c-Fos activity was quantified using immunohistochemistry across SDMN regions. Network analyses indicated that the SDMN is conserved in naked mole-rats and functions in a context-dependent manner. Specific brain regions were recruited with each behavioral paradigm suggesting a role for the nucleus accumbens in social valence and sociosexual interaction, the prefrontal cortex in assessing/establishing social dominance, and the hippocampus in pup recognition. Furthermore, while OT manipulation was generally disruptive to coordinated neural activity, the specific effects were context-dependent supporting the hypothesis that oxytocinergic signaling promotes context appropriate social behaviors by modulating co-ordinated activity of the SDMN.

Purification through emotions: The role of shame in Plato’s Sophist 230b4–e5

This article proposes an analysis of Plato’s Sophist (230b4–e5) that underlines the bond between the logical and the emotional components of the Socratic elenchus, with the aim of depicting the social valence of this philosophical practice. The use of emotions characterizing the ‘elenctic’ method described by Plato is crucial in influencing the audience and is introduced at the very moment in which the interlocutor attempts to protect his social image by concealing his shame at being refuted. The audience, thanks to Plato’s literary strategy, realizes the failures of the interlocutor even as he refuses to accept them. As a result, his social image becomes tarnished. Purification through shame reveals how the medium is strictly related to the endorsement of specific ethical and political goals, making the Platonic dialogs the tools for the constitution of a new paideia.

Putting it in Context: Linking Auditory Processing with Social Behavior Circuits in the Vertebrate Brain.

Context is critical to the adaptive value of communication. Sensory systems such as the auditory system represent an important juncture at which information on physiological state or social valence can be added to communicative information. However, the neural pathways that convey context to the auditory system are not well understood. The serotonergic system offers an excellent model to address these types of questions. Serotonin fluctuates in the mouse inferior colliculus (IC), an auditory midbrain region important for species-specific vocalizations, during specific social and non-social contexts. Furthermore, serotonin is an indicator of the valence of event-based changes within individual social interactions. We propose a model in which the brain's social behavior network serves as an afferent effector of the serotonergic dorsal raphe nucleus in order to gate contextual release of serotonin in the IC. Specifically, discrete vasopressinergic nuclei within the hypothalamus and extended amygdala that project to the dorsal raphe are functionally engaged during contexts in which serotonin fluctuates in the IC. Since serotonin strongly influences the responses of IC neurons to social vocalizations, this pathway could serve as a feedback loop whereby integrative social centers modulate their own sources of input. The end result of this feedback would be to produce a process that is geared, from sensory input to motor output, toward responding appropriately to a dynamic external world.

Values, heuristics and the politics of knowledge

Há um conjunto de valores, comumente denominados cognitivos, epistêmicos ou científi cos, que com frequência são considerados informativos do bom juízo científi co, quando a evidência se esgota. Contrastando esses valores com um conjunto alternativo, delineado no trabalho de cientistas, historiadoras e fi lósofas feministas, é possível mostrar como a dependência desses valores chamados científi cos tem consequências sociais problemáticas. O artigo examina a valencia social diferencial dos dois conjuntos de valores, argumenta que nenhum dos dois deve ser considerado como dando as condições de produ- ção da verdade e propõe que ambos pertencem a um coleção (provavelmente maior) de heurísticas cuja conveniência depende das características da investigação particular na qual são empregadas

The dark side of online participation: exploring non-, passive and negative participation

ABSTRACTStudies on the ‘second-level digital divide’ explore the socio-economic antecedents and effects of (a lack of) user participation on the Internet. At the same time, some have criticized a normatively affirmative bias in online participation research as well as a one-sided focus on observable user activity. This contribution addresses the ensuing call for a more nuanced understanding of online participation in general, and online political participation in particular. We differentiate the online participation concept based on a focus group study among 96 Internet users from a broad range of social backgrounds in Germany. We derive a framework of eight types of online (non-)participation along three conceptual axes: activity, agency, and social valence. Taking user experiences and terminology into account, we differentiate participation from non-participation, active from passive and positive from negative (non-)participation. The proposed typology allows for a more balanced evaluation and more focused exploration of phenomena such as destructive or involuntary online participation as well as online abstention, boycotts, self-censorship, lurking, or digital exclusion.

Social Threat and Motor Resonance: When a Menacing Outgroup Delays Motor Response.

Motor resonance (MR) involves the activation of matching motor representations while observing others’ actions. Recent research has shown that such a phenomenon is likely to be influenced by higher order variables such as social factors (e.g., ethnic group membership). The present study investigates whether and how the perception of a social threat elicited by an outgroup member and by contextual cues can modulate motor responses while an individual observes others’ movements. In an experimental study based on an action observation paradigm, we asked participants to provide answers through computer mouse movements (MouseTracker). We manipulated the agents’ group membership (ingroup vs. outgroup) and the social valence of the objects present in a context (neutral vs. threatening) to elicit social menace through contextual cues. Response times and computer mouse trajectories were recorded. The results show a higher level of MR (i.e., participants started to respond earlier and were faster at responding) when observing an action performed by the ingroup members rather than by the outgroup members only when threatening objects are present in a given context. Participants seem to resonate better with their ingroup; conversely, the outgroup member movements tend to delay motor responses. Therefore, we extend prior research going beyond the general ingroup bias effect on MR and showing that the interaction between membership and contextual cues is likely to elicit threat-related stereotypes. Practical implications of these findings are discussed.

Near or far? It depends on my impression: Moral information and spatial behavior in virtual interactions

Near body distance is a key component of action and social interaction. Recent research has shown that peripersonal space (reachability-distance for acting with objects) and interpersonal space (comfort-distance for interacting with people) share common mechanisms and reflect the social valence of stimuli. The social psychological literature has demonstrated that information about morality is crucial because it affects impression formation and the intention to approach-avoid others. Here we explore whether peripersonal/interpersonal spaces are modulated by moral information. Thirty-six participants interacted with male/female virtual confederates described by moral/immoral/neutral sentences. The modulation of body space was measured by reachability-distance and comfort-distance while participants stood still or walked toward virtual confederates. Results showed that distance expanded with immorally described confederates and contracted with morally described confederates. This pattern was present in both spaces, although it was stronger in comfort-distance. Consistent with an embodied cognition approach, the findings suggest that high-level socio-cognitive processes are linked to sensorimotor-spatial processes.

Google searches and twitter mood: nowcasting telecom sales performance

The web currently carries vast amounts of information as to what consumers search for, comment on, and purchase in the real economy. This paper leverages a mash-up of online Google search queries and of social media comments (from Twitter, Facebook and other blogs) to "nowcast" the product sales evolution of the major telecom companies in Belgium. A few findings stand out. With an Error Correction Mechanism (ECM) model of sales dynamics, a co-integration relationship prevails between social media valence (respectively, between search query) and telecom operators' sales for both internet and digital television access provision (respectively, for fixed telephony provision). Elasticity estimates on sales are relatively larger for valence than for search queries. The ECM model with nowcasting variables improves telecom sales forecasts by about 25 % versus a naive autoregressive sales model.

Physiological effect of sweeping grooming movements in macaque monkey: preliminary data

Grooming is a widespread, essential and complex behavior with social and affiliative valence in the non-human primate world. It was recently proposed that the sweeping movement of allogrooming may activate the CT fibers. Although the C-tactile (CT) fibers is a privileged peripheral channel for perceiving pleasantness in humans, there is no evidence to support a possible physiological role of the fibers during grooming among monkeys. We analyzed the sweeping movements during allogrooming from the kinematic and physiological perspectives. The kinematic analysis, conducted on videos of monkeys groom each other, demonstrated that the velocity of sweeping movement is in the range of the optimal velocity to activate CT fibers (approximately 1–10 cm/sec). The physiological analysis was conducted evaluating the heart rate and the heart rate variability of a monkey receiving sweeps by experimenter. This analysis underlined that 1) a sweep on the back of a male macaque monkey at velocities in the range of 1–10 cm/sec, but not lower or higher, determined a decrement of the heart rate and increment of heart rate variability; and 2) a sweeping movement on the arm of the monkey at the same velocities did not determine any cardio-physiological changes. Human studies underlined that caress done at 1-10 cm/s activate the CT fibers, are perceived as pleasant and determine positive physiological effects. The present preliminary study provides the possible role of CT fibers during the sweeping movements of grooming in macaque monkeys, from both the kinematic and physiological points of view.

Psychosocial Factors Predicting Job Search Behaviour of Long-Term Welfare Recipients in the Netherlands

In spite of active labour market policies, a considerable number of welfare recipients in the Netherlands are long-term unemployed. In order to investigate the job search behaviour of this group, we developed a model of job search behaviour, inspired by the theory of planned behaviour, expectancy value theory and self-determination theory Survey data relating to 193 individuals receiving welfare benefits for at least one year were collected. A model, consisting of six social-demographic and eight social and psychosocial variables, was tested with hierarchical multiple regression. Seven factors were found to be positively related to job search behaviour: being a non-Western immigrant, having recently started receiving welfare benefits, receiving encouragement in searching for work from an intimate social network, having a job search requirement imposed, having an expectation of finding a job, individual work valence and job search attitudes. Of these, duration of welfare assistance, the encouragement of an intimate social network, work valence and job search attitude appeared to be mediating factors. The article concludes that activation policy might benefit from a combination of improving job searching attitudes, for instance by discussing ideas about the valence of employment and expectations of success or by considering potential barriers to finding employment within social networks, and introducing a clear requirement to search for jobs, in particular for native Dutch, single mothers and people who have been in receipt of benefits for a long period of time. Such policies have been absent in the Netherlands for a long time, priority being given to those with better chances in the labour market.

Body space in social interactions: a comparison of reaching and comfort distance in immersive virtual reality.

BackgroundDo peripersonal space for acting on objects and interpersonal space for interacting with con-specifics share common mechanisms and reflect the social valence of stimuli? To answer this question, we investigated whether these spaces refer to a similar or different physical distance.MethodologyParticipants provided reachability-distance (for potential action) and comfort-distance (for social processing) judgments towards human and non-human virtual stimuli while standing still (passive) or walking toward stimuli (active).Principal FindingsComfort-distance was larger than other conditions when participants were passive, but reachability and comfort distances were similar when participants were active. Both spaces were modulated by the social valence of stimuli (reduction with virtual females vs males, expansion with cylinder vs robot) and the gender of participants.ConclusionsThese findings reveal that peripersonal reaching and interpersonal comfort spaces share a common motor nature and are sensitive, at different degrees, to social modulation. Therefore, social processing seems embodied and grounded in the body acting in space.

The eye contact effect in request and emblematic hand gestures

Request and emblematic gestures, despite being both communicative gestures, do differ in terms of social valence. Indeed, only the former are used to initiate/maintain/terminate an actual interaction. If such a difference is at stake, a relevant social cue, i.e. eye contact, should have different impacts on the neuronal underpinnings of the two types of gesture. We measured blood oxygen level-dependent signals, using functional magnetic resonance imaging, while participants watched videos of an actor, either blindfolded or not, performing emblems, request gestures, or meaningless control movements. A left-lateralized network was more activated by both types of communicative gestures than by meaningless movements, regardless of the accessibility of the actor's eyes. Strikingly, when eye contact was taken into account as a factor, a right-lateralized network was more strongly activated by emblematic gestures performed by the non-blindfolded actor than by those performed by the blindfolded actor. Such modulation possibly reflects the integration of information conveyed by the eyes with the representation of emblems. Conversely, a wider right-lateralized network was more strongly activated by request gestures performed by the blindfolded than by those performed by the non-blindfolded actor. This probably reflects the effect of the conflict between the observed action and its associated contextual information, in which relevant social cues are missing.

Social Media Blog Sentiments and Brand Performances: Competitive and Asymmetric Effects

How and to what extent social media can generate desired benefits for firms has been of great interest to both researchers and practitioners. Extant literature has offered mixed perspectives comprising both optimism and skepticism. Furthermore, research has only begun to examine how social media can bring forth sustainable value for firms beyond sales and a simultaneous consideration of their impacts on a firm as well as its rivals in today’s competitive market remains lacking. In this study, we investigate the competitive effects of social media blog sentiments and brand performances of firms operating within the same industry. We assembled a novel, comprehensive dataset that combined the extent of social media blog valence and volume of competing brands in the personal computer industry and individual consumers’ evaluations of the brands collected at a daily level with 7,871 brand-day observations. Our analyses unveil three key insights: 1) a focal brand’s social media blog sentiment enhances its own brand performances and undermines its competitors’ brand performances in the long run; 2) the focal brand’s blog sentiment has a reinforcing carry-over effect on its own subsequent sentiment and a cannibalistic effect on its competitor brands’ social media blog sentiment; and 3) the positive effect of blog sentiment on brand performances is stronger when the focal brand is a non-leading (versus leading) brand, while the reinforcing effect on social media blog sentiment is stronger when the focal brand is a leading (versus non-leading) brand. The findings advance research by offering a more holistic understanding about the competitive and dynamic effects of social media, enabling firms to gauge what they may gain (or lose) from their own (or competitors’) use of social media.

Decoding the representation of learned social roles in the human brain

Humans as social beings are profoundly affected by exclusion. Short experiences with people differing in their degree of prosocial behaviour can induce reliable preferences for including partners, but the neural mechanisms of this learning remain unclear. Here, we asked participants to play a short social interaction game based on “cyber-ball” where one fictive partner included and another excluded the subject, thus defining social roles (includer – “good”, excluder – “bad”). We then used multivariate pattern recognition on high-resolution functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) data acquired before and after this game to test whether neural responses to the partners' and neutral control faces during a perceptual task reflect their learned social valence. Support vector classification scores revealed a learning-related increase in neural discrimination of social status in anterior insula and anterior cingulate regions, which was mainly driven by includer faces becoming distinguishable from excluder and control faces. Thus, face-evoked responses in anterior insula and anterior cingulate cortex contain fine-grained information shaped by prior social interactions that allow for categorisation of faces according to their learned social status. These lasting traces of social experience in cortical areas important for emotional and social processing could provide a substrate of how social inclusion shapes future behaviour and promotes cooperative interactions between individuals.

“Words with Friends”: Socially Networked Reading onGoodreads

Reading isn't what it was. As we enter the “late age of print,” E-Books are still less common than “P-Books” (printed books), but the balance is quickly changing, especially in the world of academic publishing (Striphas xii). While many lament the loss of the p-book's materiality, texts have become more lively as a result of digitization: textual-production platforms like blogging let writers and readers interact with each other and create intimate social relationships. As Kathleen Fitzpatrick found while writing her bookPlanned ObsolescenceusingCommentPress, an online platform that enables readers' commenting, writing can become a more social and creative process when done in dialogue with readers. This turn to the social in writing parallels a turn to the social in media generally. Thus, it makes sense to evaluate not how far our devices are taking us from paper—the answer is already pretty far—but rather how digital media are creating new social valences of reading.