scholarly journals One-month-old infants show visual preference for human-like feature

2011 ◽  
Vol 2 (1) ◽  
pp. 5-8 ◽  
Author(s):  
Wakako Sanefuji ◽  
Kazuko Wada ◽  
Tomoka Yamamoto ◽  
Miho Shizawa ◽  
Junko Matsuzaki ◽  
...  

Infants’ behaviors toward humans differ from those toward objects since early development.  Previous studies have mainly investigated the role of motion for the distinction between human and non-human objects, although physical appearance is another crucial factor.  The present study investigated one-month-old infants’ responses to the still-image of human faces and non-human objects including face-like pattern (doll and object), using this infant-control preferential looking procedure.  The results revealed the infants’ preference for human faces over objects including face-like patterns but no such preferences for humans over dolls.  The infants preferred faces resembling human faces in the absence of motion information.  Such preferences for human-like features supplement evidence on the first step of early social cognition, which is important in human communication.

Author(s):  
Ulf Liszkowski

This chapter investigates how infants communicate before they have acquired a language; the underlying social cognition and motivation; and the evolutionary and ontogenetic origins of human communication. Evidence is reviewed that by 12 months of age, infants’ production and comprehension of the human pointing gesture involves several interwoven layers of communicative intentions, and pertains in complexity to unique forms of human communication. Limits of infant communication pertain to representational gesture use, particularly the spontaneous creation of pantomimic iconic gestures, and to the expression of referential intentions in early infancy. Commonalities and differences to ape communication are identified at different developmental ages regarding the use of reaching gestures and communication about distal and absent referents. Recent evidence is presented for the role of social interaction in the early ontogenetic emergence of uniquely human forms of gestural communication.


2020 ◽  
Vol 43 ◽  
Author(s):  
Andrew Whiten

Abstract The authors do the field of cultural evolution a service by exploring the role of non-social cognition in human cumulative technological culture, truly neglected in comparison with socio-cognitive abilities frequently assumed to be the primary drivers. Some specifics of their delineation of the critical factors are problematic, however. I highlight recent chimpanzee–human comparative findings that should help refine such analyses.


Author(s):  
Lawrence M. Zbikowski

This chapter explores the relationship between music and physical gesture, drawing on recent research on the spontaneous gestures that accompany speech. Such gestures appear to be motivated by thought processes that are independent from speech and that in many cases offer analogs for dynamic processes. The chapter outlines the infrastructure for human communication that supports language and gesture as well as music. This outline provides a framework for exploring how music and gesture are similar and for how they are different. These comparisons are made through analyses of the movements Fred Astaire makes while accompanying himself at the piano in the 1936 film Swing Time and those Charlie Chaplin makes to Brahms’s Hungarian Dance No. 5 in the 1941 film The Great Dictator. These analyses further explicate the role of syntactic processes and syntactic layers in musical grammar and introduce referential frameworks, which serve as perceptual anchors for syntactic processes.


2021 ◽  
Vol 11 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Kevin Allan ◽  
Nir Oren ◽  
Jacqui Hutchison ◽  
Douglas Martin

AbstractIf artificial intelligence (AI) is to help solve individual, societal and global problems, humans should neither underestimate nor overestimate its trustworthiness. Situated in-between these two extremes is an ideal ‘Goldilocks’ zone of credibility. But what will keep trust in this zone? We hypothesise that this role ultimately falls to the social cognition mechanisms which adaptively regulate conformity between humans. This novel hypothesis predicts that human-like functional biases in conformity should occur during interactions with AI. We examined multiple tests of this prediction using a collaborative remembering paradigm, where participants viewed household scenes for 30 s vs. 2 min, then saw 2-alternative forced-choice decisions about scene content originating either from AI- or human-sources. We manipulated the credibility of different sources (Experiment 1) and, from a single source, the estimated-likelihood (Experiment 2) and objective accuracy (Experiment 3) of specific decisions. As predicted, each manipulation produced functional biases for AI-sources mirroring those found for human-sources. Participants conformed more to higher credibility sources, and higher-likelihood or more objectively accurate decisions, becoming increasingly sensitive to source accuracy when their own capability was reduced. These findings support the hypothesised role of social cognition in regulating AI’s influence, raising important implications and new directions for research on human–AI interaction.


2011 ◽  
Vol 6 (2) ◽  
pp. 113-122 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ezequiel Gleichgerrcht ◽  
Teresa Torralva ◽  
María Roca ◽  
Mariángeles Pose ◽  
Facundo Manes

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
◽  
Alana Oakly

<p>Rationale: Given the high prevalence and large burden of psychiatric disorders it is imperative to determine the underling etiology in order for better understanding and treatment. The neurotransmitter serotonin (5-HT) has been associated with mental disorders in humans both pharmacologically and genetically. Individuals with the short-allele of a prominent polymorphism within the 5-HT transporter (SERT) show increased incidence of mood disorders and drug dependence. However, whether or not dysregulation in the 5-HT system causes, or is just associated with, psychiatric disorders is impossible to determine from human studies alone. Consequently, it is imperative to employ an animal model of down-regulated SERT function. To better understand the role of 5-HT in drug dependence, the rat’s behavioural response to the psychostimulant (±) 3, 4-methylenedioxymethamphetamine (MDMA), a preferentially serotonergically mediated drug, was assessed. Finally, the ability to rescue the anxiety-like phenotype in the SERT-/- rat by altering extracellular 5-HT during early development was also evaluated.  Objective: The primary objective of the current thesis was to determine whether dysregulation of 5-HT is directly linked to the occurrence of psychiatric disorders, particularly drug dependence and anxiety.  Methods: A model of down-regulated SERT function, the SERT knock-out (SERT-/-) rat, was used for all experiments in order to determine a causal relationship between 5-HT dysregulation and psychiatric disorders. In Chapter 2, the response of the SERT-/- rats to various tasks usually disrupted by MDMA was assessed. In Chapter 3, the sensitivity of the SERT-/- rats to the reinforcing effects of MDMA was determined using the self-administration paradigm. Finally, in Chapter 4, whether the anxiety-like behaviour of the SERT-/- rat could be rescued through normalising excessive extracellular 5-HT neonatally was assessed. An attempt was also made to determine a mechanism by which 5-HT dysregulation could alter behaviour. To this end, gene expression previously found to be up- or down-regulated in the SERT-/- rat was assessed in the neonatally treated rats.  Results: The results of Chapter 2 indicated the SERT is necessary for MDMA’s disruption of startle habituation but not its psychomotor effects. Moreover, for those rats that could discriminate low dose MDMA from saline, genetic removal of the SERT resulted in the inability to discriminate MDMA from amphetamine, implying that, in these rats, MDMA was now subjectively indistinguishable from amphetamine. Indeed, this alteration also resulted in enhanced sensitivity to the reinforcing properties of MDMA, giving MDMA the qualities of a traditional psychostimulant in SERT-/- rats (Chapter 3). Finally, lowering the excessive 5-HT during neonatal development in SERT-/- rats led to a rescue of mild, but not high, anxiety-like behaviour in males. However, mRNA levels of long 3’NTR BDNF and 5-HT1a, genes associated with neurodevelopment, remained unchanged across genotypes and treatment groups (Chapter 4).  Conclusions: Genetic removal of the 5-HT transporter results in an altered behavioural response to MDMA, in particular an increased sensitivity to its reinforcing properties. However, while the genetic removal of the SERT results in enhanced extracellular 5-HT, the pathological phenotypes present in this rat are likely due to this increase occurring in early development, not its continued presence in adulthood. Overall, these findings contribute to the growing body of literature indicating that enhanced brain 5-HT during early development can lead to pathological behaviour in adulthood.</p>


Author(s):  
Imran Aslan ◽  
Sedat Şi̇mşe

Advertisements that offer consumers both lifestyle and behavior show women in forms. How should consumers’ physical appearance be is said in advertisements. The woman must be beautiful, well-groomed and thin in advertisements. If a fat, ugly or not well-groomed woman is in the advertisement, she changes thanks to the product. Thus, it is thought that consumers who take beautiful women in advertisements as role models will use the product by trying to be like them. The constant beautiful and attractive role of the woman revealed the problem of her commodification in advertisements. This causes ethical violations. Although the target consumers are not fellows, women appear as sexual objects in different product groups. It is common for women to be used in an admirable position other than the roles of housewife, employee, mother or spouse. Accordingly, advertisements can be divided into advertisements with or without sexual content. Women also attract attention in advertisements with or without sexual content. However, women are seen more in advertisements that emphasize sexuality.This study aims to reveal which tabloid magazine advertisements are using women, in which role women are involved in these advertisements, and whether sexuality is used or not. For this purpose, content analysis was performed on 119 advertisements published in magazines and the data were evaluated in the SPSS program. As a result, it is concluded that sexuality is used in the advertisements involving women.


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