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 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 The Effect of Social Context on the Mind Perception of Robots

2019 ◽  
Vol 63 (1) ◽  
pp. 230-234
Author(s):  
Rebecca Butler ◽  
Zoe Pruitt ◽  
Eva Wiese
Keyword(s):  
Social Context ◽  
Social Environment ◽  
Human Robot Interaction ◽  
Mind Perception ◽  
The Social ◽  
Significant Difference ◽  
Negative Effect ◽  
Perception Of Robots ◽  
The Mind ◽  
The Impact

As social robots are increasingly introduced into our everyday lives, an emphasis on improving the human-robot interaction (HRI), particularly through increased mind perception, is necessary. Substantial research has been conducted that demonstrates how manipulations to a robot’s physical appearance or behavior increases mind perception, yet little has been done to examine the effects of the social environment. This study aims to identify the impact of social context on mind perception by comparing mind perception ratings assigned to robots viewed in a human context with those assigned to robots viewed in a robot context. Participants were assigned to one of the two contexts in which they viewed images of 5 control robots with either 15 humans or 15 robots and answered questions that measured the degree to which they ascribed mind to the agents. A t-test comparing the overall average mind ratings of the control robots between contexts showed a significant difference between the two, with the robots in the robot context having a higher average rating than those in the human context. This result demonstrates a need to consider the social context in which the HRI will take place when designing for the best interaction. Considering that most robots in the foreseeable future will be viewed in a human context, this result also calls for additional research on ways to further increase mind perception to combat the negative effect of the most likely social environment.

Reconciling autistic individuals’ self-reported social motivation with diminished social reward responsiveness in neuroimaging

2019 ◽  
Vol 42 ◽  
Author(s):  
Lisa D. Yankowitz ◽  
Caitlin C. Clements
Keyword(s):  
Social Motivation ◽  
Reward Processing ◽  
The Self ◽  
Self Report ◽  
Social Reward ◽  
Group Level ◽  
Reward Responsiveness ◽  
The Social

Abstract The self-report of some autistic individuals that they experience social motivation should not be interpreted as a refutation of neuroimaging evidence supporting the social motivation hypothesis of autism. Neuroimaging evidence supports subtle differences in unconscious reward processing, which emerge at the group level and which may not be perceptible to individuals, but which may nonetheless impact an individual's behavior.

Mixed-methods and Repeated Measures in Substance Use Research: Implications for Informant Accuracy

Field Methods ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 31 (4) ◽  
pp. 344-358
Author(s):  
Caitlyn D. Placek ◽  
Vijaya Srinivas ◽  
Poornima Jayakrishna ◽  
Purnima Madhivanan
Keyword(s):  
Substance Use ◽  
Mixed Methods ◽  
Repeated Measures ◽  
Self Report ◽  
Time Points ◽  
Sensitive Topics ◽  
The Social ◽  
Reported Data ◽  
Study Participants ◽  
Informant Accuracy

Informant accuracy is a pervasive issue in the social sciences and persists through the ongoing use of self-report measures of behaviors that are subject to recall errors. The current study reports findings from methods we used to measure substance use among adolescents in South India. We used a repeated-measures, mixed-methods design that began with semistructured interviews ( N = 60) to determine the substances used by adolescents. Next, adolescents were recruited to participate in a four-week study that assessed self-reported substance use at three time points and urinary cotinine, a nicotine metabolite, at two time points. Fifty-six participants completed the study protocol. Findings revealed that during the last phase of the study, participants were more willing to admit using substances. Our results add to existing literature that demonstrates the need to move beyond self-reported data of consumption, and to consider using repeated measures, direct observation of behavior, and biometric markers of behavior to ensure more accurate assessments of sensitive topics.

The Social Shapes Test: A New Measure of Social Intelligence, Mentalizing, and Theory of Mind

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Matt Brown ◽  
Adrianna Ratajska ◽  
Shannon Hughes ◽  
Julie B. Fishman ◽  
Elisa Huerta ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Theory Of Mind ◽  
Cognitive Abilities ◽  
Social Intelligence ◽  
Verbal Ability ◽  
Self Report ◽  
Cognitive Reflection ◽  
The Social ◽  
Race Ethnicity ◽  
Human Faces ◽  
Development And Validation

Although individual differences in the ability known as social intelligence, mentalizing, and Theory of Mind are important in social psychology, clinical psychology, organizational psychology, and other areas of psychological science, there are few validated measures of this capacity. Existing measures often involve complex verbal materials, focus on images of human faces, or are based on self-report judgments of one’s own competence. Here we describe the development and validation of a new measure of social intelligence: the Social Shapes Test (SST). The SST is inspired by the seminal work of Heider and Simmel (1944), Klin (2000), and recent applications of their work in social and clinical neuroscience studies of mentalizing and Theory of Mind. Each SST item consists of a short, silent video of 4–6 simple geometric shapes that are animated to simulate human social interactions, paired with an objectively scored, multiple-choice question. Based on three waves of validation studies, SST scores predict incremental validity in socioemotional ability beyond the effects of general cognitive abilities. Factor analysis results also indicate that SST scores are distinct from verbal ability, cognitive reflection, and abstract reasoning. SST scores are also less confounded by verbal ability compared to similar socioemotional measures and do not appear to vary based on sex, race/ethnicity, or current affect. With just 23 engaging items and a duration of about 10 minutes, the SST is a quick and easy way for researchers to measure social intelligence, alone or in combination with other established measures.

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.

Individual differences, social attention, and the history of the social motivation hypotheses of autism

2019 ◽  
Vol 42 ◽  
Author(s):  
Peter C. Mundy
Keyword(s):  
Individual Differences ◽  
Early Development ◽  
Emotional Development ◽  
Social Motivation ◽  
Social Attention ◽  
Social Emotional Development ◽  
Social Emotional ◽  
Precise Understanding ◽  
The Social ◽  
History Of

Abstract The stereotype of people with autism as unresponsive or uninterested in other people was prominent in the 1980s. However, this view of autism has steadily given way to recognition of important individual differences in the social-emotional development of affected people and a more precise understanding of the possible role social motivation has in their early development.

Classical social reward signatures in infants with later ASD

2019 ◽  
Vol 42 ◽  
Author(s):  
Teodora Gliga ◽  
Mayada Elsabbagh
Keyword(s):  
Early Development ◽  
Social Motivation ◽  
Self Report ◽  
Social Reward ◽  
Socially Motivated

Abstract Autistic individuals can be socially motivated. We disagree with the idea that self-report is sufficient to understand their social drive. Instead, we underscore evidence for typical non-verbal signatures of social reward during the early development of autistic individuals. Instead of focusing on whether or not social motivation is typical, research should investigate the factors that modulate social drives.

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.

Psychometric Properties of the Social Phobia and Anxiety Inventory for Children (SPAI-C)

2012 ◽  
Vol 28 (1) ◽  
pp. 51-59 ◽  
Author(s):  
Anna Ogliari ◽  
Simona Scaini ◽  
Michael J. Kofler ◽  
Valentina Lampis ◽  
Annalisa Zanoni ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
General Population ◽  
Social Phobia ◽  
Psychometric Properties ◽  
Emotional Disorders ◽  
Child Anxiety ◽  
Self Report ◽  
Public Performance ◽  
Confirmatory Factor Analyses ◽  
The Social ◽  
General Populations

Reliable and valid self-report questionnaires could be useful as initial screening instruments for social phobia in both clinical settings and general populations. The present study investigates the factor structure and psychometric properties of the Social Phobia and Anxiety Inventory for Children (SPAI-C) in a sample of 228 children from the Italian general population aged 8 to 11. The children were asked to complete the Italian version of the SPAI-C and the Screen for Child Anxiety Related Emotional Disorders (SCARED) questionnaire. Confirmatory factor analyses revealed that social phobia can be conceptualized as a unitary construct consisting of five distinct but interrelated symptom clusters named Assertiveness, General Conversation, Physical/Cognitive Symptoms, Avoidance, and Public Performance. Internal consistency of the SPAI-C total scores and two subscales was good; correlations between SPAI-C total scores and SCARED total scores/subscales ranged from moderate to high (Generalized Anxiety Disorder, for social phobia), with the SCARED Social Phobia subscale as the best predictor of SPAI-C total scores. The results indicate that the SPAI-C is a reliable and sensitive instrument suitable for identifying Social Phobia in the young Italian general population.

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