scholarly journals Are conspecific social videos rewarding to chimpanzees (Pan troglodytes)? A test of the social motivation theory

PLoS ONE ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 16 (11) ◽  
pp. e0259941
Author(s):  
Michele M. Mulholland ◽  
Sarah J. Neal Webb ◽  
Mary Catherine Mareno ◽  
Kenneth G. Schweller ◽  
Steven J. Schapiro ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Repeated Measures ◽  
Social Motivation ◽  
Social Condition ◽  
Social Reward ◽  
Motivation Theory ◽  
Affiliative Behavior ◽  
Social Stimuli ◽  
The Social ◽  
Video Experiment ◽  
Behavior And Cognition

Many claim that social stimuli are rewarding to primates, but few, if any, studies have explicitly demonstrated their reward value. Here, we examined whether chimpanzees would produce overt responses for the opportunity to view conspecific social, compared to dynamic (video: Experiment 1) and static (picture: Experiment 2) control content. We also explored the relationships between variation in social reward and social behavior and cognition. We provided captive chimpanzees with access to a touchscreen during four, one-hour sessions (two ‘conspecific social’ and two ‘control’). The sessions consisted of ten, 15-second videos (or pictures in Experiment 2) of either chimpanzees engaging in a variety of behaviors (social condition) or vehicles, humans, or other animals engaged in some activity (control condition). For each chimpanzee, we recorded the number of responses to the touchscreen and the frequency of watching the stimuli. Independent t-tests revealed no sex or rearing differences in touching and watching the social or control videos (p>0.05). Repeated measures ANOVAs showed chimpanzees touched and watched the screen significantly more often during the social compared to control video sessions. Furthermore, although chimpanzees did not touch the screen more often during social than control picture sessions in Experiment 2, they did watch the screen more often. Additionally, chimpanzees that previously performed better on a task of social cognition and engaged in more affiliative behavior watched a higher percentage of social videos during the touchscreen task. These results are consistent with the social motivation theory, and indicate social stimuli are intrinsically rewarding, as chimpanzees made more overt responses for the opportunity to view conspecific social, compared to control, content.

Challenges to the social motivation theory of autism: The dangers of counteracting an imprecise theory with even more imprecision

2019 ◽  
Vol 42 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mirko Uljarević ◽  
Giacomo Vivanti ◽  
Susan R. Leekam ◽  
Antonio Y. Hardan
Keyword(s):  
Empirical Evidence ◽  
Social Motivation ◽  
Motivation Theory ◽  
The Social

Abstract The arguments offered by Jaswal & Akhtar to counter the social motivation theory (SMT) do not appear to be directly related to the SMT tenets and predictions, seem to not be empirically testable, and are inconsistent with empirical evidence. To evaluate the merits and shortcomings of the SMT and identify scientifically testable alternatives, advances are needed on the conceptualization and operationalization of social motivation across diagnostic boundaries.

Imaging the “social brain” in schizophrenia: A systematic review of neuroimaging studies of social reward and punishment

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jessica Mow ◽  
Arti Gandhi ◽  
Daniel Fulford
Keyword(s):  
Brain Activity ◽  
Interaction Network ◽  
Social Motivation ◽  
Social Impairment ◽  
Future Research ◽  
Social Reward ◽  
Schizophrenia Spectrum Disorders ◽  
Social Stimuli ◽  
Schizophrenia Spectrum ◽  
Reward And Punishment

Decreased social functioning and high levels of loneliness and social isolation are common in schizophrenia spectrum disorders (SSD), contributing to reduced quality of life. One key contributor to social impairment is low social motivation, which may stem from aberrant neural processing of socially rewarding or punishing stimuli. To summarize research on the neurobiology of social motivation in SSD, we performed a systematic literature review of neuroimaging studies involving the presentation of social stimuli intended to elicit feelings of reward and/or punishment. Across 11 studies meeting criteria, people with SSD demonstrated weaker modulation of brain activity in regions within a proposed social interaction network, including prefrontal, cingulate, and striatal regions, as well as the amygdala and insula. Firm conclusions regarding neural differences in SSD in these regions, as well as connections within networks, are limited due to conceptual and methodological inconsistencies across the available studies. We conclude by making recommendations for the study of social reward and punishment processing in SSD in future research.

scholarly journals Mother brain is wired for social moments

eLife ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 10 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ortal Shimon-Raz ◽  
Roy Salomon ◽  
Miki Bloch ◽  
Gabi Aisenberg Romano ◽  
Yaara Yeshurun ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Infant Development ◽  
Temporal Cortex ◽  
Neural Response ◽  
Social Condition ◽  
Brain Maturation ◽  
Temporal Consistency ◽  
Social Stimuli ◽  
Double Blind ◽  
The Social ◽  
Maternal Brain

Reorganization of the maternal brain upon childbirth triggers the species-typical maternal social behavior. These brief social moments carry profound effects on the infant's brain and likely have a distinct signature in the maternal brain. Utilizing a double-blind, within-subject oxytocin/placebo administration crossover design, mothers' brain was imaged twice using fMRI while observing three naturalistic maternal-infant contexts in the home ecology; ‘unavailable’, ‘unresponsive’, and ‘social’, when mothers engaged in synchronous peek-a-boo play. The social condition elicited greater neural response across the human caregiving network, including amygdala, VTA, hippocampus, insula, ACC, and temporal cortex. Oxytocin impacted neural response primarily to the social condition and attenuated differences between social and non-social stimuli. Greater temporal consistency emerged in the ‘social’ condition across the two imaging sessions, particularly in insula, amygdala, and TP. Findings describe how mother's brain varies by caregiving experiences and gives salience to moments of social synchrony that support infant development and brain maturation.

Pragmatics and social motivation in autism

2019 ◽  
Vol 42 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mikhail Kissine
Keyword(s):  
Social Motivation ◽  
Central Feature ◽  
Motivation Theory ◽  
The Social

Abstract Pragmatic deficits constitute a central feature of autism, which is highly relevant to Jaswal & Akhtar's criticisms of the social motivation theory of autism. Recent research reveals that while certain context-based interpretations are accessible, more complex pragmatic phenomena remain challenging for people on the spectrum. Such a selective pragmatic impairment is difficult to account for in motivational terms.

Adaptive behaviour and predictive processing accounts of autism

2019 ◽  
Vol 42 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kelsey Perrykkad
Keyword(s):  
Social Motivation ◽  
Predictive Processing ◽  
Adaptive Behaviour ◽  
Motivation Theory ◽  
Adaptive Responses ◽  
Autistic People ◽  
The Social

Abstract Many autistic behaviours can rightly be classified as adaptive, but why these behaviours differ from adaptive neurotypical behaviours in the same environment requires explanation. I argue that predictive processing accounts best explain why autistic people engage different adaptive responses to the environment and, further, account for evidence left unexplained by the social motivation theory.

scholarly journals Faces do not attract more attention than non-social distractors in the Stroop task

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Anna Henschel ◽  
Hannah Bargel ◽  
Emily S. Cross
Keyword(s):  
Repeated Measures ◽  
Reaction Times ◽  
Incongruent Condition ◽  
Social Motivation ◽  
Human Robot Interaction ◽  
Self Report ◽  
Japanese Family ◽  
The Social ◽  
Perception Of Robots ◽  
Human Faces

As robots begin to receive citizenship, be treated as beloved pets, and are given a place at Japanese family tables, it is becoming clear that these machines are taking on increasingly social roles. While human robot interaction research relies heavily on self-report measures for assessing people’s perception of robots, a distinct lack of robust cognitive and behavioural measures to gage the scope and limits of social motivation towards artificial agents exists. Here we adapted Conty and colleagues’ (2010) social version of the classic Stroop paradigm, in which we showed four kinds of distractor images above incongruent and neutral words: human faces, robot faces, object faces (for example, a cloud with facial features) and flowers (control). We predicted that social stimuli, like human faces, would be extremely salient and draw attention away from the to-be-processed words. A repeated-measures ANOVA indicated that the task worked (the Stroop effect was observed), and a distractor-dependent enhancement of Stroop interference emerged. Planned contrasts indicated that specifically human faces presented above incongruent words significantly slowed participants’ reaction times. To investigate this small effect further, we conducted a second study (N=51) with a larger stimulus set. While the main effect of the incongruent condition slowing down the reaction time of the participants replicated, we did not observe an interaction effect of the social distractors (human faces) drawing more attention than the other distractor types. We question the suitability of this task as a robust measure for social motivation and discuss our findings in the light of recent conflicting results in the social attentional capture literature.

scholarly journals Faces Do Not Attract More Attention Than Non-Social Distractors in the Stroop Task

2021 ◽  
Vol 7 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Anna Henschel ◽  
Hannah Bargel ◽  
Emily S. Cross
Keyword(s):  
Repeated Measures ◽  
Reaction Times ◽  
Incongruent Condition ◽  
Social Motivation ◽  
Human Robot Interaction ◽  
Self Report ◽  
Japanese Family ◽  
The Social ◽  
Perception Of Robots ◽  
Human Faces

As robots begin to receive citizenship, are treated as beloved pets, and given a place at Japanese family tables, it is becoming clear that these machines are taking on increasingly social roles. While human-robot interaction research relies heavily on self-report measures for assessing people’s perception of robots, a distinct lack of robust cognitive and behavioural measures to gauge the scope and limits of social motivation towards artificial agents exists. Here we adapted Conty and colleagues’ (2010) social version of the classic Stroop paradigm, in which we showed four kinds of distractor images above incongruent and neutral words: human faces, robot faces, object faces (for example, a cloud with facial features) and flowers (control). We predicted that social stimuli, like human faces, would be extremely salient and draw attention away from the to-be-processed words. A repeated-measures ANOVA indicated that the task worked (the Stroop effect was observed), and a distractor-dependent enhancement of Stroop interference emerged. Planned contrasts indicated that specifically human faces presented above incongruent words significantly slowed participants’ reaction times. To investigate this small effect further, we conducted a second experiment (N=51) with a larger stimulus set. While the main effect of the incongruent condition slowing down participants’ reaction time replicated, we did not observe an interaction effect of the social distractors (human faces) drawing more attention than the other distractor types. We question the suitability of this task as a robust measure for social motivation and discuss our findings in the light of recent conflicting results in the social attentional capture literature.

scholarly journals The social motivation theory of autism

2012 ◽  
Vol 16 (4) ◽  
pp. 231-239 ◽  
Author(s):  
Coralie Chevallier ◽  
Gregor Kohls ◽  
Vanessa Troiani ◽  
Edward S. Brodkin ◽  
Robert T. Schultz
Keyword(s):  
Social Motivation ◽  
Motivation Theory ◽  
The Social

scholarly journals Expanding the critique of the social motivation theory of autism with participatory and developmental research

2019 ◽  
Vol 42 ◽  
Author(s):  
Steven K. Kapp ◽  
Emily Goldknopf ◽  
Patricia J. Brooks ◽  
Bella Kofner ◽  
Maruf Hossain
Keyword(s):  
Action Research ◽  
Participatory Action Research ◽  
Developmental Trajectories ◽  
Social Motivation ◽  
Motivation Theory ◽  
Developmental Research ◽  
Participatory Action ◽  
The Social

AbstractWe argue that understanding of autism can be strengthened by increasing involvement of autistic individuals as researchers and by exploring cascading impacts of early sensory, perceptual, attentional, and motor atypicalities on social and communicative developmental trajectories. Participatory action research that includes diverse participants or researchers may help combat stigma while expanding research foci to better address autistic people's needs.

Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document