What Neuroscience Can Tell Us about Social Situations

2018 ◽  
pp. 436-455
Author(s):  
Kalina Michalska ◽  
Gwendolyn Gardiner ◽  
Brent L. Hughes
Keyword(s):  
Subjective Experience ◽  
Interpersonal Interactions ◽  
Neural Responses ◽  
Social Situations ◽  
Situational Context ◽  
Situational Contexts ◽  
Situational Experience ◽  
Neuroimaging Techniques

The goal of this chapter is to highlight how neuroimaging techniques can complement behavioral approaches for understanding situations. The chapter describes three situational contexts relevant to applying these techniques to study situational contexts. First, it considers the neuroimaging environment itself as situational context and delineates unique features of this environment that can impact subjective experience. Second, it reviews methodological trends for eliciting situational experiences in a neuroimaging environment, particularly in the domain of interpersonal interactions. Third, it discusses recent neuroimaging evidence suggesting that diverse social situations share common underlying neural responses. The chapter highlights how manipulating an individual’s construal of a situation can provide additional insights into the neurobiology of positive and negative situations. Together, neuroimaging approaches can provide one organizing principle for the vast constellation of situations. The hope is to encourage researchers to apply these approaches to gain novel and complementary insights into situational experience.

scholarly journals Pain Detection and the Privacy of Subjective Experience

2007 ◽  
Vol 33 (2-3) ◽  
pp. 433-456 ◽  
Author(s):  
Adam J. Kolber
Keyword(s):  
Subjective Experience ◽  
Brain Regions ◽  
Physical Pain ◽  
Medical Evidence ◽  
Functional Magnetic Resonance ◽  
Positron Emission ◽  
Pain Symptoms ◽  
The Brain ◽  
Insight Into ◽  
Neuroimaging Techniques

A neurologist with abdominal pain goes to see a gastroenterologist for treatment. The gastroenterologist asks the neurologist where it hurts. The neurologist replies, “In my head, of course.” Indeed, while we can feel pain throughout much of our bodies, pain signals undergo most of their processing in the brain. Using neuroimaging techniques like functional magnetic resonance imaging (“fMRI”) and positron emission tomography (“PET”), researchers have more precisely identified brain regions that enable us to experience physical pain. Certain regions of the brain's cortex, for example, increase in activation when subjects are exposed to painful stimuli. Furthermore, the amount of activation increases with the intensity of the painful stimulus. These findings suggest that we may be able to gain insight into the amount of pain a particular person is experiencing by non-invasively imaging his brain.Such insight could be particularly valuable in the courtroom where we often have no definitive medical evidence to prove or disprove claims about the existence and extent of pain symptoms.

Situational Embarrassment and Its Relationship to Social Anxiety in Adults Who Stutter

2021 ◽  
pp. 1-10
Author(s):  
Yvonne Tran ◽  
Elaine Blumgart ◽  
Ashley Craig
Keyword(s):  
Social Anxiety ◽  
Construct Validity ◽  
Social Contexts ◽  
Validity And Reliability ◽  
Social Situations ◽  
Situational Contexts ◽  
Increased Risk ◽  
Adults Who Stutter ◽  
Relationship Of ◽  
At Home

Purpose Adults who stutter (AWS) have increased risk of comorbid social anxiety about speaking in social contexts. AWS also report experiencing embarrassment in different social situations; however, research has rarely been conducted on embarrassment and its relationship to social anxiety in AWS. Method AWS ( N = 200) reported their level of embarrassment on four 10-point Likert items when speaking in four situational contexts: at home, to an individual important to them, in social groups, and at work. Participants were also assessed for sociodemographic, stuttering, and anxiety variables. Construct validity for the four embarrassment items was examined, the extent of embarrassment established in the four contexts as a function of age and sex, and the relationship of embarrassment to social anxiety evaluated. Results Evidence of acceptable construct validity and reliability is presented for the four embarrassment Likert items. Sixty-five percent of the sample experienced high levels of embarrassment when speaking in groups or at work, while 35.5% experienced high levels when speaking at home or to an individual important to them. Participants were significantly more embarrassed ( p < .01) when speaking at work or when socializing in groups. Embarrassment was lowest when speaking in the home. Younger females were significantly more embarrassed when speaking at work or when socializing in groups. Those with high embarrassment scores on all four items were more likely to have elevated social anxiety scores ( p < .001). Conclusion These preliminary results suggest that the assessment of situational embarrassment could be an important clinical measure that may help improve stuttering treatment outcomes that also target social anxiety.

Features of speech in German and US-American mother–toddler dyads during toy play and book-reading

2019 ◽  
Vol 47 (1) ◽  
pp. 112-131
Author(s):  
Elena DOERING ◽  
Kevin SCHLUTER ◽  
Antje von SUCHODOLETZ
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
The United States ◽  
Book Reading ◽  
Situational Context ◽  
Situational Contexts ◽  
The Us ◽  
Toy Play ◽  
Language Variables

AbstractPrevious research indicates that features of speech during mother–toddler interactions are dependent on the situational context. In this study, we explored language samples of 69 mother–toddler dyads collected during standardized toy play and book-reading situations across two countries, Germany and the United States (US). The results showed that features of speech differed across situational contexts. However, situational differences were mostly found among the sample from the US but not from Germany. Few significant associations between mothers’ and toddlers’ language variables were found. Findings are discussed with regard to variations in language across situations and countries.

scholarly journals Titrating the Smell of Fear: Initial Evidence for Dose-Invariant Behavioral, Physiological, and Neural Responses

2021 ◽  
Vol 32 (4) ◽  
pp. 558-572
Author(s):  
Jasper H. B. de Groot ◽  
Peter A. Kirk ◽  
Jay A. Gottfried
Keyword(s):  
Olfactory System ◽  
Null Hypothesis ◽  
Response Analysis ◽  
Emotional Intensity ◽  
Neural Responses ◽  
Double Blind ◽  
Within Subjects ◽  
Human Body Odor ◽  
Dose Dependent ◽  
Neuroimaging Techniques

It is well accepted that emotional intensity scales with stimulus strength. Here, we used physiological and neuroimaging techniques to ask whether human body odor—which can convey salient social information—also induces dose-dependent effects on behavior, physiology, and neural responses. To test this, we first collected sweat from 36 males classified as low-, medium-, and high-fear responders. Next, in a double-blind within-subjects functional-MRI design, 31 women were exposed to three doses of fear-associated human chemosignals and neutral sweat while viewing face morphs varying between expressions of fear and disgust. Behaviorally, we found that all doses of fear-sweat volatiles biased participants toward perceiving fear in ambiguous morphs, a dose-invariant effect generally repeated across physiological and neural measures. Bayesian dose-response analysis indicated moderate evidence for the null hypothesis (except for the left amygdala), tentatively suggesting that the human olfactory system engages an all-or-none mechanism for tagging fear above a minimal threshold.

scholarly journals Migrants and Spatial Marginality in Urban Digital Media (The Case of Irkutsk)

2021 ◽  
Vol 20 (1) ◽  
pp. 124-147
Author(s):  
Dmitriy Timoshkin
Keyword(s):  
Urban Communities ◽  
Digital Media ◽  
Subjective Experience ◽  
Urban Life ◽  
Social Situations ◽  
Digital Platforms ◽  
Spatial Image ◽  
Space Production ◽  
Google Search ◽  
The City

The article analyzes “migrant” spaces created in Irkutsk by journalists and users of urban digital media. We considered professional news agencies, groups in Vkontakte, and forums as a tool for “space production” in combining many autobiographical descriptions of interaction with the city, images, and publicistic texts into an integral socio-spatial image. We were interested in how the texts’ authors of digital media integrate migrants into the “image of Irkutsk”: do they create specific “migrant” places on the map of Irkutsk? What are their features? Do the “migrant” spaces created on various digital platforms differ from each other? Does the social marginality of the “migrant” receive spatial expression? The materials were selected in the Google search engine, as well as in the built-in search engines of urban communities on Vkontakte and forums, using the keywords “Irkutsk” + “migrants” or “newcomers”. We used the method of retrospective online observation and discourse analysis. By observing the users’ dialogues and publicistic texts posted at different times, we determined which localities “migrants” and “newcomers” were placed in, and what characteristics they were given. It was found that the professional media mainly broadcasts the bureaucratic vision of the “migrant” and its location: it is associated with a set of “suspect spaces”, points of concentration of informal jobs, and are regularly “checked” by officials. Spaces are presented as marginal, do not fit into the city as an established socio-spatial order, and therefore are “dirty” and dangerous. These images move to social media where the image of “dirty” spaces and the “migrant” hiding there, as transmitted by the bureaucracy, collide with the subjective experience of users, becoming more complex and ambiguous. Thus, the “migrant” is placed in a wider range of spaces and social situations, gradually becoming a part of everyday urban life.

The interplay of prior experience and actual situational context in intercultural first encounters

2019 ◽  
Vol 26 (1) ◽  
pp. 112-134
Author(s):  
Istvan Kecskes
Keyword(s):  
Common Ground ◽  
Behavior Pattern ◽  
Prior Experience ◽  
Social Situation ◽  
Target Language ◽  
Speech Community ◽  
Situational Context ◽  
Intercultural Encounters ◽  
Intercultural Interactions ◽  
Situational Experience

Abstract The study aims to investigate how prior experience of interlocutors interacts with actual situational context in intercultural interactions when the latter is represented by a well-known frame: getting acquainted with others. It attempts to demonstrate how the cultural frame of the target language is broken up and substituted with an emergent frame that is co-constructed from elements from prior experience with the target language, the first language and the actual situational experience. Getting acquainted with others is a closed social situation, a cultural frame in which interlocutors usually have to follow a behavior pattern dictated by the requirements of the socio-cultural background in a given speech community. There is a ‘skeleton’ of these ‘getting to know you’ procedures that can be considered universal but is substantiated differently in every language. In each conversation in any language, ‘flesh’ is added to the ‘skeleton’ in a dynamic and co-constructed manner. However, there is a difference between how this happens in L1 and in intercultural interactions. While in L1 the ‘flesh’ on the skeleton is predetermined to a significant extent by requirements of core common ground in the given language, in intercultural encounters this ‘flesh building’ process in the target language (in this case English) is not set but is co-constructed by the interlocutors as emergent common ground relying on their prior experience with their own L1 culture, limited experience with the target culture and the assessment of the actual situational context. In this study the co-construction process, i.e. emergent common ground will be analyzed by examining the use of formulaic language and freely generated language in several discourse segments.

scholarly journals Early and Late Stimulus-Evoked Cortical Hemodynamic Responses Provide Insight into the Neurogenic Nature of Neurovascular Coupling

2011 ◽  
Vol 32 (3) ◽  
pp. 468-480 ◽  
Author(s):  
Aneurin J Kennerley ◽  
Sam Harris ◽  
Michael Bruyns-Haylett ◽  
Luke Boorman ◽  
Ying Zheng ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Neural Activity ◽  
Imaging Spectroscopy ◽  
Impulse Response Function ◽  
Neurovascular Coupling ◽  
Neural Responses ◽  
Coupling Relationship ◽  
Rat Somatosensory Cortex ◽  
High Level ◽  
Insight Into ◽  
Neuroimaging Techniques

Understanding neurovascular coupling is a prerequisite for the interpretation of results obtained from modern neuroimaging techniques. This study investigated the hemodynamic and neural responses in rat somatosensory cortex elicited by 16 seconds electrical whisker stimuli. Hemodynamics were measured by optical imaging spectroscopy and neural activity by multichannel electrophysiology. Previous studies have suggested that the whisker-evoked hemodynamic response contains two mechanisms, a transient ‘backwards’ dilation of the middle cerebral artery, followed by an increase in blood volume localized to the site of neural activity. To distinguish between the mechanisms responsible for these aspects of the response, we presented whisker stimuli during normocapnia (‘control’), and during a high level of hypercapnia. Hypercapnia was used to ‘predilate’ arteries and thus possibly ‘inhibit’ aspects of the response related to the ‘early’ mechanism. Indeed, hemodynamic data suggested that the transient stimulus-evoked response was absent under hypercapnia. However, evoked neural responses were also altered during hypercapnia and convolution of the neural responses from both the normocapnic and hypercapnic conditions with a canonical impulse response function, suggested that neurovascular coupling was similar in both conditions. Although data did not clearly dissociate early and late vascular responses, they suggest that the neurovascular coupling relationship is neurogenic in origin.

scholarly journals Vocal Imitation and Linguistic Processing of Super Mario Theme Music by Yorùbá Gamers

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Samuel Akinbo
Keyword(s):  
Video Game ◽  
Background Music ◽  
Similar Function ◽  
Linguistic Processing ◽  
Situational Context ◽  
Vocal Imitation ◽  
Situational Contexts ◽  
Social Expectation ◽  
Gaming Culture ◽  
Acoustic Analyses

An aspect of gaming culture among Yorùbá millennials is the linguistic interpretations of the background music that accompanies the popular video game called Super Mario. The themes of the interpretations are comparable to those of music texts at traditional Yorùbá events. Drawing on the Yorùbá tradition, the account is that the gamers assumed that the background music of the game has a similar function as the music at traditional Yorùbá events. The choice of words in the interpretation is conditioned by the situational contexts where the music is heard in the video game. The results of acoustic analyses show that the interpretations are also determined by mapping the pitch trajectories of the music melodies to the tones of the gamers’ language. Notably, the results of this study suggest that the linguistic processing of music may not only involve phonetic iconicity (Steinbeis and Koelsch, 2011) but situational context and social expectation.

Higher empathy is associated with stronger social bonding when moving together with music

2021 ◽  
pp. 030573562110506
Author(s):  
Jan Stupacher ◽  
Jannie Mikkelsen ◽  
Peter Vuust
Keyword(s):  
Instrumental Music ◽  
Mental States ◽  
Social Bonding ◽  
Social Stimulus ◽  
Interpersonal Interactions ◽  
Social Situations ◽  
Virtual Self ◽  
Interpersonal Synchrony ◽  
Trait Empathy

Empathy—understanding and sharing the feelings and experiences of others—is one of our most important social capacities. Music is a social stimulus in that it involves communication of mental states, imitation of behavior, and synchronization of movements. As empathy and music are so closely linked, we investigated whether higher empathy is associated with stronger social bonding in interpersonal interactions that feature music. In two studies, participants watched videos in which we manipulated interpersonal synchrony between the movements of a virtual self and a virtual other person during walking with instrumental music or a metronome. In both studies, temporally aligned movements increased social bonding with the virtual other and higher empathy was associated with increased social bonding in movement interactions that featured music. Additionally, in Study 1, participants with lower empathy felt more connected when interacting with a metronome compared to music. In Study 2, higher trait empathy was associated with strong increases of social bonding when interacting with a temporally aligned virtual other, but only weak increases of social bonding with a temporally misaligned virtual other. These findings suggest that empathy plays a multifaceted role in how we enjoy, interpret, and use music in social situations.

scholarly journals The monitoring system is attuned to others' actions during dyadic motor interactions

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Quentin Moreau ◽  
Gaetano Tieri ◽  
Vanessa Era ◽  
Salvatore M Aglioti ◽  
Matteo Candidi
Keyword(s):  
Monitoring System ◽  
Social Role ◽  
Spatial Task ◽  
Interpersonal Interactions ◽  
Neural Responses ◽  
Self Monitoring ◽  
Action Monitoring ◽  
Self And Other ◽  
Eeg Recordings

Successful interpersonal motor interactions necessitate the simultaneous monitoring of our own and our partner's actions. To characterize the dynamics of the action monitoring system for tracking self and other behaviors during dyadic synchronous interactions, we combined EEG recordings and immersive Virtual Reality in two tasks where participants were asked to coordinate their actions with those of a Virtual Partner (VP). The two tasks differed in the features to be monitored: the Goal task required participants to predict and monitor the VP's reaching goal; the Spatial task required participants to predict and monitor the VP's reaching trajectory. In both tasks, the VP performed unexpected movement corrections to which the participant needed to adapt. By comparing the neural activity locked to the detection of unexpected changes in the VP action (other-monitoring) or to the participants' action-replanning (self-monitoring), we show that during interpersonal interactions the monitoring system is more attuned to others' than to one's own actions. Additionally, distinctive neural responses to VP's unexpected goals and trajectory corrections were found: goal corrections were reflected both in early fronto-central and later posterior neural responses while trajectory deviations from the expected movement were reflected only in later and posterior responses. Since these responses were locked to the partner's behavior and not to one's own, our results indicate that during interpersonal interactions the action monitoring system is dedicated to evaluating the partner's movements. Hence, our results reveal an eminently social role of the monitoring system during motor interactions.

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