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.

scholarly journals Mother Brain is Wired for Social Moments

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ortal Shimon-Raz ◽  
Roy Salomon ◽  
Miki Bloch ◽  
Gabi Aisenberg Romano ◽  
Talma Hendler ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Neural Response ◽  
Brain Network ◽  
Behavior Patterns ◽  
Placebo Administration ◽  
Social Brain ◽  
Double Blind ◽  
Generational Transmission ◽  
The Social ◽  
Maternal Brain ◽  
Brain Behavior

AbstractReorganization of the maternal brain, primed by oxytocin surge during childbirth, triggers the species-typical maternal social behavior. These brief social moments carry profound effects on the infant’s social brain and likely have a distinct signature in the maternal brain. Utilizing a double-blind, oxytocin/placebo administration crossover design, we imaged mothers twice while observing three naturalistic maternal-infant contexts in the home ecology; “unavailable”, “unresponsive”, and “social”, when mothers engaged in synchronous pick-a-boo play. We found four processes by which mother’s brain registers social moments. Salience - social moments increased activations throughout the maternal brain network; Brain-behavior coupling - caregiving behavior linked with socially-driven neural response; Oxytocin sensitivity – administration impacted neural response mainly to the social context; and Temporal engrams–consistent temporal patterns in insula and TP characterized response to social play. Findings describe how mother’s brain compiles and amplifies these precious social moments to generate dyad-specific brain-behavior patterns that initiate the cross-generational transmission of human sociality.

scholarly journals The effect of social preference on academic diligence in adolescence

2019 ◽  
Vol 6 (9) ◽  
pp. 190165
Author(s):  
J. L. Andrews ◽  
L. Foulkes ◽  
C. Griffin ◽  
S. J. Blakemore
Keyword(s):  
Social Preference ◽  
Social Condition ◽  
Female Adolescents ◽  
Choice Behaviour ◽  
Social Stimuli ◽  
Arithmetic Task ◽  
The Social ◽  
Significant Difference ◽  
Adolescents And Adults

In the current study, we were interested in whether adolescents show a preference for social stimuli compared with non-social stimuli in the context of academic diligence, that is, the ability to expend effort on tedious tasks that have long-term benefits. Forty-five female adolescents (aged 11–17) and 46 female adults (aged 23–33) carried out an adapted version of the Academic Diligence Task (ADT). We created two variations of the ADT: a social ADT and non-social ADT. Individuals were required to freely split their time between an easy, boring arithmetic task and looking at a show-reel of photographs of people (in the social ADT) or landscapes (in the non-social ADT). Individuals also provided enjoyment ratings for both the arithmetic task and the set of photographs they viewed. Adolescents reported enjoying the social photographs significantly more than the non-social photographs, with the converse being true for adults. There was no significant difference in the time spent looking at the social photographs between the adolescents and adults. However, adults spent significantly more time than adolescents looking at the non-social photographs, suggesting that adolescents were less motivated to look at the non-social stimuli. Further, the correlation between self-reported enjoyment of the pictures and choice behaviour in the ADT was stronger for adults than for adolescents in the non-social condition, revealing a greater discrepancy between self-reported enjoyment and ADT choice behaviour for adolescents. Our results are discussed within the context of the development of social cognition and introspective awareness between adolescence and adulthood.

scholarly journals The effect of intranasal oxytocin on visual processing and salience of human faces

2020 ◽  
Vol 10 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Daniel Hovey ◽  
Louise Martens ◽  
Bruno Laeng ◽  
Siri Leknes ◽  
Lars Westberg
Keyword(s):  
Binocular Rivalry ◽  
Visual Processing ◽  
Emotional Expressions ◽  
Social Stimuli ◽  
Double Blind ◽  
Final Sample ◽  
The Social ◽  
Visual Phenomenon ◽  
Human Faces

Abstract The mechanisms underlying the role of oxytocin (OT) as a regulator of social behavior in mammals are only partly understood. Recently, it has been proposed that OT increases the salience of social stimuli. We carried out a randomized, double-blind, cross-over study of the effects of OT on binocular rivalry, a visual phenomenon underpinned by the interplay of excitation and inhibition in the cortex. A final sample of 45 participants viewed images of social stimuli (faces with different emotional expressions) and non-social stimuli (houses and Gabor patches). We demonstrate a robust effect that intranasal OT increases the salience of human faces in binocular rivalry, such that dominance durations of faces are longer—this effect is not modulated by the facial expression. We tentatively show that OT treatment increases dominance durations for non-social stimuli. Our results lend support to the social salience hypothesis of OT, and in addition offer provisional support for the role of OT in influencing excitation-inhibition balance in the brain.

scholarly journals The effect of social preference on academic diligence in adolescence

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jack L Andrews ◽  
Lucy Foulkes ◽  
Cait Griffin ◽  
Sarah-Jayne Blakemore
Keyword(s):  
Social Preference ◽  
Social Condition ◽  
Female Adolescents ◽  
Choice Behaviour ◽  
Social Stimuli ◽  
Arithmetic Task ◽  
The Social ◽  
Significant Difference ◽  
Adolescents And Adults

In the current study, we were interested in whether adolescents show a preference for social stimuli compared with non-social stimuli in the context of academic diligence, that is, the ability to expend effort on tedious tasks that have long term benefits. 45 female adolescents (aged 11-17) and 46 female adults (aged 23-33) carried out an adapted version of the Academic Diligence Task (ADT). We created two variations of the ADT: a social ADT and non-social ADT. Individuals were required to freely split their time between an easy, boring arithmetic task and looking at a show-reel of photographs of people (in the social ADT) or landscapes (in the non-social ADT). Individuals also provided enjoyment ratings for both the arithmetic task and the set of photographs they viewed. Adolescents reported enjoying the social photographs significantly more than the non-social photographs, with the converse being true for adults. There was no significant difference in the time spent looking at the social photographs between the adolescents and adults. However, adults spent significantly more time than adolescents looking at the non-social photographs, suggesting that adolescents were less motivated to look at the non-social stimuli. Further, the correlation between self-reported enjoyment of the pictures and choice behaviour in the ADT was stronger for adults than for adolescents in the non-social condition, revealing a greater discrepancy between self-reported enjoyment and ADT choice behaviour for adolescents. Our results are discussed within the context of the development of social cognition and introspective awareness between adolescence and adulthood.

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.

Attentional Bias Among Adolescents Who Stutter: Evidence for a Vigilance–Avoidance Effect

2020 ◽  
Vol 63 (10) ◽  
pp. 3349-3363
Author(s):  
Naomi H. Rodgers ◽  
Jennifer Y. F. Lau ◽  
Patricia M. Zebrowski
Keyword(s):  
Social Anxiety ◽  
Attentional Bias ◽  
Preliminary Evidence ◽  
Cutoff Score ◽  
Attentional Disengagement ◽  
Social Stimuli ◽  
Facial Stimuli ◽  
The Social ◽  
Attentional Engagement ◽  
High Social Anxiety

Purpose The purpose of this study was to examine group and individual differences in attentional bias toward and away from socially threatening facial stimuli among adolescents who stutter and age- and sex-matched typically fluent controls. Method Participants included 86 adolescents (43 stuttering, 43 controls) ranging in age from 13 to 19 years. They completed a computerized dot-probe task, which was modified to allow for separate measurement of attentional engagement with and attentional disengagement from facial stimuli (angry, fearful, neutral expressions). Their response time on this task was the dependent variable. Participants also completed the Social Anxiety Scale for Adolescents (SAS-A) and provided a speech sample for analysis of stuttering-like behaviors. Results The adolescents who stutter were more likely to engage quickly with threatening faces than to maintain attention on neutral faces, and they were also more likely to disengage quickly from threatening faces than to maintain attention on those faces. The typically fluent controls did not show any attentional preference for the threatening faces over the neutral faces in either the engagement or disengagement conditions. The two groups demonstrated equivalent levels of social anxiety that were both, on average, very close to the clinical cutoff score for high social anxiety, although degree of social anxiety did not influence performance in either condition. Stuttering severity did not influence performance among the adolescents who stutter. Conclusion This study provides preliminary evidence for a vigilance–avoidance pattern of attentional allocation to threatening social stimuli among adolescents who stutter.

The Social Condition of Lepers in the Gospels

2018 ◽  
Vol 137 (4) ◽  
pp. 915
Author(s):  
Myrick C. Shinall Jr.
Keyword(s):  
Social Condition ◽  
The Social

»Gender« and (a-)symmetry

2011 ◽  
Vol 2011 (2) ◽  
pp. 377-400 ◽  
Author(s):  
Anna Schober
Keyword(s):  
Social Condition ◽  
The Self ◽  
The Social ◽  
Institutional Success

In recent years cultural definitions of »gender« have had extraordinary institutional success. This paper analyses visual worlds that have been motivated by constructivist gender concepts that often display a pronounced symmetry. It relates them to competing images which present difference as scandal, as a mirrored form of the self, or as figurations, and which politicize a-symmetrical forms. The study looks into the social condition of publicity that is constituted by such »picture acts«.

Field Dependence and Self-Disclosure

1973 ◽  
Vol 36 (3) ◽  
pp. 735-738 ◽  
Author(s):  
Joaquin F. Sousa-Poza ◽  
Robert Rohrberg ◽  
Ernest Shulman
Keyword(s):  
Social Behavior ◽  
Field Dependence ◽  
The Self ◽  
Social Stimuli ◽  
Self Disclosure ◽  
Field Independent ◽  
The Social ◽  
Field Dependent ◽  
Personality Theories

Some characteristics of the social behavior of field-dependents as well as their superior recognition of ambiguous social stimuli led to the hypothesis that they would show greater self-disclosure than field-independents. This hypothesis was tested by administering the 60-item Jourard Self-disclosure Questionnaire (JSDQ) to 13 field-dependent and 13 field-independent Ss. In terms of total self-disclosure scores, field-dependents showed significantly (.025) higher levels than field-independents. Results are discussed in light of personality theories which emphasize the role of self-conceptual transactions in the development of the self.

Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document