scholarly journals Social Structure Predicts Eye Contact Tolerance in Nonhuman Primates: Evidence from a Crowd-Sourcing Approach

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ethan Harrod ◽  
Christopher L. Coe ◽  
Paula Niedenthal
Keyword(s):  
Social Structure ◽  
Physical Aggression ◽  
Nonhuman Primates ◽  
Eye Contact ◽  
Mental States ◽  
Related Question ◽  
Social Structures ◽  
Primate Species ◽  
Strong Positive Correlation ◽  
Crowd Sourcing

In most primates, eye contact is an implicit signal of threat, and often signals social status and imminent physical aggression. However, in humans and the more gregarious species of nonhuman primates, eye contact is more tolerated and used to communicate emotional and mental states. What accounts for the variation in this critical social behavior across primate species? We crowd-sourced primatologists and found a strong positive correlation between eye contact tolerance and primate social structure. In more egalitarian social structures, eye contact is more tolerated. In addition to constituting the first generalizable demonstration of this relationship, our findings can inform the related question of why eye contact is deferentially avoided in some human cultures, while in others eye contact is both frequent and even encouraged.

scholarly journals Human agency beliefs influence behaviour during virtual social interactions

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Nathan Caruana ◽  
Dean Spirou ◽  
Jon Brock
Keyword(s):  
Social Interactions ◽  
Subjective Experience ◽  
Eye Contact ◽  
Human Agency ◽  
Mental States ◽  
Human Condition ◽  
Human Interaction ◽  
Intentional Stance ◽  
Agency Beliefs ◽  
The Impact

In recent years, with the emergence of relatively inexpensive and accessible virtual reality technologies, it is now possible to deliver compelling and realistic simulations of human-to-human interaction. Neuroimaging studies have shown that, when participants believe they are interacting via a virtual interface with another human agent, they show different patterns of brain activity compared to when they know that their virtual partner is computer-controlled. The suggestion is that users adopt an “intentional stance” by attributing mental states to their virtual partner. However, it remains unclear how beliefs in the agency of a virtual partner influence participants’ behaviour and subjective experience of the interaction. We investigated this issue in the context of a cooperative “joint attention” game in which participants interacted via an eye tracker with a virtual onscreen partner, directing each other’s eye gaze to different screen locations. Half of the participants were correctly informed that their partner was controlled by a computer algorithm (“Computer” condition). The other half were misled into believing that the virtual character was controlled by a second participant in another room (“Human” condition). Those in the “Human” condition were slower to make eye contact with their partner and more likely to try and guide their partner before they had established mutual eye contact than participants in the “Computer” condition. They also responded more rapidly when their partner was guiding them, although the same effect was also found for a control condition in which they responded to an arrow cue. Results confirm the influence of human agency beliefs on behaviour in this virtual social interaction context. They further suggest that researchers and developers attempting to simulate social interactions should consider the impact of agency beliefs on user experience in other social contexts, and their effect on the achievement of the application’s goals.

Profit as Social Rent: Embeddedness and Stratification in Markets

2019 ◽  
Vol 37 (2) ◽  
pp. 162-183 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sascha Muennich
Keyword(s):  
Economic Theory ◽  
Income Inequality ◽  
Social Structure ◽  
Social Stratification ◽  
Main Part ◽  
Social Structures ◽  
Rent Extraction ◽  
Free Competition ◽  
The Social

This article shows how research on the social structure of markets may contribute to the analysis the growing income inequality in contemporary capitalist economies. The author proposes a theoretical link between embeddedness and social stratification by discussing the role of institutions and networks in markets for the distribution of economic profits between firms. The author claims that we must understand profit and free competition as opposites, as economic theory does. In the main part of the article the author illustrates six typical mechanisms of rent extraction from networks or formal and symbolic rules that embed markets. They emerge from material as well as symbolical access to and influence on the orientation of other market actors. Social structures in markets lead to unequal chances for rent extraction, even if actors produce them for coordination rather than for accumulation purposes. This is how market sociology and theory of capitalism can be linked more closely.

scholarly journals Secondary expansion of the transient subplate zone in the developing cerebrum of human and nonhuman primates

2016 ◽  
Vol 113 (35) ◽  
pp. 9892-9897 ◽  
Author(s):  
Alvaro Duque ◽  
Zeljka Krsnik ◽  
Ivica Kostović ◽  
Pasko Rakic
Keyword(s):  
Basal Forebrain ◽  
Regional Differences ◽  
Nonhuman Primates ◽  
Ventricular Zone ◽  
Tritiated Thymidine ◽  
Macaque Monkey ◽  
Primate Species ◽  
Descriptive Data ◽  
Cellular Compartment ◽  
Human Postmortem Tissue

The subplate (SP) was the last cellular compartment added to the Boulder Committee’s list of transient embryonic zones [Bystron I, Blakemore C, Rakic P (2008) Nature Rev Neurosci 9(2):110–122]. It is highly developed in human and nonhuman primates, but its origin, mode, and dynamics of development, resolution, and eventual extinction are not well understood because human postmortem tissue offers only static descriptive data, and mice cannot serve as an adequate experimental model for the distinct regional differences in primates. Here, we take advantage of the large and slowly developing SP in macaque monkey to examine the origin, settling pattern, and subsequent dispersion of the SP neurons in primates. Monkey embryos exposed to the radioactive DNA replication marker tritiated thymidine ([3H]dT, or TdR) at early embryonic ages were killed at different intervals postinjection to follow postmitotic cells' positional changes. As expected in primates, most SP neurons generated in the ventricular zone initially migrate radially, together with prospective layer 6 neurons. Surprisingly, mostly during midgestation, SP cells become secondarily displaced and widespread into the expanding SP zone, which becomes particularly wide subjacent to the association cortical areas and underneath the summit of its folia. We found that invasion of monoamine, basal forebrain, thalamocortical, and corticocortical axons is mainly responsible for this region-dependent passive dispersion of the SP cells. Histologic and immunohistochemical comparison with the human SP at corresponding fetal ages indicates that the same developmental events occur in both primate species.

Deception

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Alfonso Troisi
Keyword(s):  
Theory Of Mind ◽  
Cognitive Abilities ◽  
Animal Species ◽  
Mental States ◽  
Evolutionary Strategy ◽  
Primate Species ◽  
Clinical Syndromes ◽  
Biological Studies ◽  
Long Time ◽  
Evolution Of Communication

For a long time, biological studies of communication have been based on the postulate that communication has evolved to ensure the transmission of veridical information between conspecifics. Ethological studies of a variety of animal species have demonstrated that transmission of false information is a relevant component of intraspecific signals and that the adaptive benefit of deceiving others was a driving force in the evolution of communication. In primate species, evolving a larger neocortex was a viable evolutionary strategy to respond to environmental challenges that demand enhanced capacities of social manipulation. Among all animal species, humans are the masters of social deception. This chapter focuses on the cognitive abilities related to voluntary deception in humans, with special regard to the role of theory of mind (i.e. the capacity to infer the mental states of other individuals). Different aspects of theory of mind are discussed, including the evolution of social brain, the distinction between mentalizing and empathizing, and the abnormalities of social cognition in clinical syndromes such as autistic spectrum disorders and primary psychopathy.

Feminist Challenges to the Social Structure and Sex Roles

1979 ◽  
Vol 4 (1) ◽  
pp. 16-31 ◽  
Author(s):  
Helen R. Kearney
Keyword(s):  
Social Structure ◽  
Sex Roles ◽  
Historical Context ◽  
Social Structures ◽  
Social Psychological ◽  
Feminine Identity ◽  
Voluntary Childlessness ◽  
The Social ◽  
The Family ◽  
Complex Relationships

A social-psychological and historical context for understanding contemporary sex roles, fertility, parenting, and the family is provided by reviewing origins and objectives of the Women's Movement. Feminist efforts to change social structures affecting women's choice of roles and fertility require continued attention. Increased voluntary childlessness seriously challenges the concept of motherhood as central to adult feminine identity and legitimization of choice in whether or not to become a parent provides a new context for studying women, sex roles, fertility, and their complex relationships to the social structure. Continued challenges to premises, methodologies, and conclusions of such research are urged.

scholarly journals Topography of social touching depends on emotional bonds between humans

2015 ◽  
Vol 112 (45) ◽  
pp. 13811-13816 ◽  
Author(s):  
Juulia T. Suvilehto ◽  
Enrico Glerean ◽  
Robin I. M. Dunbar ◽  
Riitta Hari ◽  
Lauri Nummenmaa
Keyword(s):  
Social Network ◽  
Nonhuman Primates ◽  
Social Bonds ◽  
Cross Cultural ◽  
Social Structures ◽  
Social Touch ◽  
Emotional Bonds ◽  
The United Kingdom ◽  
The Relationship

Nonhuman primates use social touch for maintenance and reinforcement of social structures, yet the role of social touch in human bonding in different reproductive, affiliative, and kinship-based relationships remains unresolved. Here we reveal quantified, relationship-specific maps of bodily regions where social touch is allowed in a large cross-cultural dataset (N = 1,368 from Finland, France, Italy, Russia, and the United Kingdom). Participants were shown front and back silhouettes of human bodies with a word denoting one member of their social network. They were asked to color, on separate trials, the bodily regions where each individual in their social network would be allowed to touch them. Across all tested cultures, the total bodily area where touching was allowed was linearly dependent (mean r2 = 0.54) on the emotional bond with the toucher, but independent of when that person was last encountered. Close acquaintances and family members were touched for more reasons than less familiar individuals. The bodily area others are allowed to touch thus represented, in a parametric fashion, the strength of the relationship-specific emotional bond. We propose that the spatial patterns of human social touch reflect an important mechanism supporting the maintenance of social bonds.

scholarly journals Social structure and residency in aggregations of male sperm whales

2002 ◽  
Vol 80 (7) ◽  
pp. 1189-1196 ◽  
Author(s):  
Erland Lettevall ◽  
Christoph Richter ◽  
Nathalie Jaquet ◽  
Elizabeth Slooten ◽  
Steve Dawson ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Social Structure ◽  
Social Structures ◽  
Spatial Proximity ◽  
Residence Times ◽  
Physeter Macrocephalus ◽  
Sperm Whales ◽  
Apparent Lack ◽  
Male Sperm ◽  
Close Spatial Proximity

Sperm whales (Physeter macrocephalus) are sexually dimorphic in several respects, including size, latitudinal distribution, and social structure. Females are known to have complex social structures, including long-term bonds, but the social structures of sexually mature or maturing males have received much less attention. Using data from aggregations of males off Norway, Nova Scotia, New Zealand, and the Galápagos Islands, we examined aggregation size, residence times within aggregations, clustering at the surface, and long-term bonds. Results were generally consistent among study areas. The aggregations found in each area contained around 10–30 males at any time, and were usually a few tens of kilometres across. Mean residence times within aggregations ranged from a few days to a few weeks. Close clustering at the surface was rare, but present at each site. There was no evidence for preferred companionship between individuals at any temporal scale in any of the study areas. The rarity of clustering and the apparent lack of long-term relationships amongst male sperm whales contrast strongly with results of studies on females, suggesting that both close spatial proximity at the surface and permanent bonds between individuals may be a consequence of the need for care of the young.

Darwinian Dynamics of Depression

2009 ◽  
Vol 43 (11) ◽  
pp. 1029-1037
Author(s):  
John Price
Keyword(s):  
Social Relations ◽  
Social Life ◽  
Social Role ◽  
Selection Process ◽  
Well Being ◽  
Mental States ◽  
Social Structures ◽  
Loss Of Life ◽  
The Social ◽  
Depressive States

Darwin's theory of sexual selection offers a challenge to psychology and psychiatry. We select each other, and have been doing so since social life first evolved. But who is selected and what happens to those who are not selected? What social structures have evolved to contain the unselected? What behaviours have evolved to manage the selection process? How do the selected relate to the unselected and what behaviours have evolved to manage this asymmetry in social relations? What mental states have evolved to characterize the selected and the unselected? These questions should be kept in mind when we observe and study the social structures, behaviours and mental states that we see displayed before us in all the variety of nature. It is suggested that a significant amount of current psychiatric disorder, especially depressive states and both social and generalized anxiety disorder, have evolved because they managed the processes of being unselected and de-selected, and maintained the unselected in that social role without loss of life or physical incapacity, and enabled the unselected to contribute to general social well-being.

Is There a Social Module? Language, Face Processing, and Theory of Mind in Individuals with Williams Syndrome

1995 ◽  
Vol 7 (2) ◽  
pp. 196-208 ◽  
Author(s):  
Annette Karmiloff-Smith ◽  
Edward Klima ◽  
Ursula Bellugi ◽  
Julia Grant ◽  
Simon Baron-Cohen
Keyword(s):  
Down Syndrome ◽  
Theory Of Mind ◽  
Williams Syndrome ◽  
Face Processing ◽  
Nonhuman Primates ◽  
Neurodevelopmental Disorder ◽  
Mental States ◽  
Current Thinking ◽  
Series Of Experiments ◽  
The Brain

Many species can respond to the behavior of their conspecifics. Human children, and perhaps some nonhuman primates, also have the capacity to respond to the mental states of their conspecifics, i.e., they have a “theory of mind.” On the basis of previous research on the theory-of-mind impairment in people with autism, together with animal models of intentionality, Brothers and Ring (1992) postulated a broad cognitive module whose function is to build representations of other individuals. We evaluate the details of this hypothesis through a series of experiments on language, face processing, and theory of mind carried out with subjects with Williams syndrome, a rare genetic neurodevelopmental disorder resulting in an uneven lin-guisticocognitive profile. The results are discussed in terms of how the comparison of different phenotypes (e.g., Williams syndrome, Down syndrome, autism, and hydrocephaly with associated myelomeningocele) can contribute both to understanding the neuropsychology of social cognition and to current thinking about the purported modularity of the brain.

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