Targeted Therapies in Cancer: To Be or Not to Be, Selective

Development of targeted therapies in recent years revealed several nonchemotherapeutic options for patients. Chief among targeted therapies is small molecule kinase inhibitors targeting key oncogenic signaling proteins. Through competitive and noncompetitive inhibition of these kinases, and therefore the pathways they activate, cancers can be slowed or completely eradicated, leading to partial or complete remissions for many cancer types. Unfortunately, for many patients, resistance to targeted therapies, such as kinase inhibitors, ultimately develops and can necessitate multiple lines of treatment. Drug resistance can either be de novo or acquired after months or years of drug exposure. Since resistance can be due to several unique mechanisms, there is no one-size-fits-all solution to this problem. However, combinations that target complimentary pathways or potential escape mechanisms appear to be more effective than sequential therapy. Combinations of single kinase inhibitors or alternately multikinase inhibitor drugs could be used to achieve this goal. Understanding how to efficiently target cancer cells and overcome resistance to prior lines of therapy became imperative to the success of cancer treatment. Due to the complexity of cancer, effective treatment options in the future will likely require mixing and matching these approaches in different cancer types and different disease stages.

The mechanisms of social evaluation in infancy: A preregistered exploration of infants' eye-movement and pupillary responses to prosocial and antisocial events

Past research shows infants selectively touch and look longer at characters who help versus hinder others (Hamlin et al., 2007; 2010); however, the mechanisms underlying this tendency remain under-specified. The current preregistered experiment approaches this question by examining infants’ real-time looking behaviors during prosocial and antisocial events, and exploring how individual infants’ looking behaviors correlate with helper preferences. Using eye-tracking, 34 five-month-olds were familiarized with two blocks of the “hill” scenario originally developed by Kuhlmeier et al., (2003), in which a climber tries unsuccessfully to reach the top of a hill and is alternately helped or hindered. Infants’ visual preferences were assessed after each block of 6 helping and hindering events by proportional looking time to the helper versus hinderer in an image of the characters side-by-side. Results showed that, at the group level, infants looked longer at the helper after viewing 12 (but not after viewing 6) helping and hindering videos. Moreover, individual infants’ average preference for the helper was predicted by their looking behaviors, particularly those suggestive of an understanding of the climber’s unfulfilled goal. These results shed light on how infants process helping/hindering scenarios, and suggest that goal understanding is important for infants’ helper preferences.

Constituents’ Inferences of Government Goals Explain the Relationship Between Political Party and Belief in COVID-19 Misinformation: A Cross-Sectional Survey of Twitter Users Who Follow their State’s Public Health Twitter Account (Preprint)

BACKGROUND Amidst the widespread global COVID-19 pandemic, social media have played a pivotal role in the circulation of health information. Public health agencies often use Twitter as a tool to disseminate and amplify the propagation of such information [1], but exposure to local government-endorsed COVID-19 public health information does not make one immune to believing in misinformation. Moreover, not all health information on Twitter is accurate, and some users may believe misinformation and disinformation just as much as those who endorse more accurate information [2]. This situation is complicated when considering the unfortunate reality that elected officials may be promoting misinformation in pursuit of their other political agendas, like downplaying the need for COVID-19 restrictions to promote their reelection bid [3]. The politicized and polarized nature of information surrounding COVID-19 on social media in the U.S. has fueled a concomitant COVID-19 social media infodemic [4-6]. As such, because pre-existing political beliefs can both facilitate and hinder persuasion [7,8], goal understanding processes are likely at work in the belief of COVID-19 misinformation for Twitter users, such that the valence of users’ goal inferences for their local government agencies likely impact the extent to which they believe state government-endorsed COVID-19 information disseminated via social media. OBJECTIVE The present investigation sheds light on the cognitive processes of goal understanding that underlie the relationship between partisanship and belief in health misinformation. We investigate how Twitter users’ goal inference valence of local government’s COVID-19 efforts predicts their beliefs in COVID-19 misinformation as a function of their political party. METHODS We conducted an online cross-sectional survey of U.S. Twitter users who followed their state’s official department of public health Twitter (n=258) between August 10 and December 23, 2020. Local government goal inferences, demographics, and COVID-19 misinformation were measured. State political affiliation was controlled. RESULTS Participants from all 50 states were in the sample. Results revealed an interaction between political party affiliation and goal inference valence on belief in covid misinformation, R2∆ = .04, F(8,249) = 4.78, p < .001, such that positive goal inference valence predicted increased belief in COVID-19 misinformation for Republicans, β=.47, t(249) = 2.59, p = 0.01 but not Democrats, β= .07, t(249) = 0.84, p = 0.40. CONCLUSIONS Results reveal that positive inferences about local government’s COVID-19 efforts can accelerate beliefs in misinformation for Republican-identifying constituents. Republicans’ inferences that their local government has positive intentions may make republican constituents more vulnerable to republican-endorsed COVID-19 misinformation. In other words, accurate COVID-19 transmission knowledge has been driven by constituents' sentiment about politicians rather than science. This work stresses the need for health campaigns to be sensitive to the preexisting political affiliation of their target audience when constructing persuasive health messages.

The severity of bullying messages predicts increased levels of targets’ depression and general anxiety as a function of targets’ inferences of a bully’s goals

Being the recipient of severe bullying messages for a period of time is a meaningful predictor of subsequent mental health issues. Employing Goal Understanding Theory, we test an explanation for this association. Specifically, we hypothesize and generally confirm that targets’ adverse emotional reaction and hurt from bullying messages serially mediate the positive association between message severity and depression and general anxiety, depending on the goal understanding of targets (i.e., inferences of upward-mobility, personal-attack, and highlight-differences goals motivating a bully). That is, the mediation of message severity on mental health via emotional reaction and then hurt is present at high (not low) levels of goal inferences. Implications of the communicative processes connecting severe bullying with mental health are discussed.

Victims' Goal Understanding, Uncertainty Reduction, and Perceptions in Cyberbullying: Theoretical Evidence From Three Experiments

Cyberbullying is repetitive and aggressive behavior transmitted through mediated channels aimed at directing malice toward a victim with a to-harm goal. Three experiments manipulated a cyberbully's identity uncertainty—each employing different stimuli and scenarios—and assessed individuals' responses to being victimized. Experiment 1 demonstrated victims' information-seeking about a bully's identity and motives, emotional valence, and social attractiveness to the bully depend on victims' uncertainties about the bully's motives and identity. Experiment 2 examined victims' particular inferences about a bully's goals, revealing victims find bullies more socially attractive when they think a bully is trying to personally attack them or gain status, but only if the bully is anonymous. Experiment 3 aimed to replicate findings with a modified method and an extended rationale explaining why inferring attack and upward-mobility goals enhances the attractiveness of an unknown bully, showing that victims' ability to cope with the bullying episode is a critical mediator.

Introduction

The discipline of cognitive archaeology has now been around for well over four decades. In this introduction to the book the field’s mid-1970s antecedents are presented as a reaction to processual archaeology. The work of visionary pioneers like archaeologists Thomas Wynn, Glynn Isaac, Colin Renfrew, John Gowlett, and Iain Davidson, psychologist William Noble, evolutionary primatologist William McGrew, biological anthropologist Sue Taylor Parker, and evolutionary neurobiologist Kathleen Gibson is used to discuss how many of the same concerns and challenges are found in contemporary cognitive archaeology: questions of methodologies and theoretical frameworks, commonalities with other species, cultural accumulation and transmission, language evolution, and the turn toward constructs from philosophy of mind. These issues are illustrated in the chapters in this volume, contributed by authors, existing and emerging scholars in cognitive archaeology, who are united by the same goal: understanding the ancient mind from the archaeological record. The introduction also provides an overview of the book.

The role of suspiciousness in understanding others’ goals

An experiment examined goal understanding and how perceivers’ suspiciousness was associated with the accuracy, valence, and certainty of their inferences about a pursuer’s goal. In initial interactions, one dyad member was randomly assigned as the pursuer, and the other was the perceiver. The congruency of the perceiver’s and the pursuer’s conversation goals (i.e., discordant, identical, or concordant) and the perceiver’s cognitive busyness were manipulated. Results confirmed that accuracy decreased as perceivers’ suspiciousness increased only for not-busy perceivers in the goal-discord condition because perceivers’ inferences were negatively valenced. Results also supported the hypotheses that certainty decreased as perceivers’ suspiciousness increased only for not-busy perceivers in the goal-discord condition and that certainty increased as perceivers’ suspiciousness increased both for not-busy perceivers in the identical-goal condition and for busy perceivers in the goal-discord condition.

Mirror Neurons and Mirror-Touch Synesthesia

Since mirror neurons were introduced to the neuroscientific community more than 20 years ago, they have become an elegant and intuitive account for different cognitive mechanisms (e.g., empathy, goal understanding) and conditions (e.g., autism spectrum disorders). Recently, mirror neurons were suggested to be the mechanism underlying a specific type of synesthesia. Mirror-touch synesthesia is a phenomenon in which individuals experience somatosensory sensations when seeing someone else being touched. Appealing as it is, careful delineation is required when applying this mechanism. Using the mirror-touch synesthesia case, we put forward theoretical and methodological issues that should be addressed before relying on the mirror-neurons account.

Topic Avoidance, Goal Understanding, and Relational Perceptions: Experimental Evidence

Much research demonstrates an inverse correlation between topic avoidance (or aspects of avoidance) and relational perceptions, such as satisfaction. These data are almost always correlational, which does not afford causal conclusions despite statistical techniques that simulate causality. We present experimental data (using a scenario method) that examine two constructs involved in topic avoidance—avoided topics and inferred goals that precipitate topic avoidance—and their effects on the relational perceptions of satisfaction, hurt, and distance in the context of friendship. Both topics and inferred goals led to changes in perceptions of the friendship. Specifically, participants who inferred that their friend avoided a topic for self-protection goals reported lower levels of satisfaction and higher levels of hurt and distance than those who inferred relationship-protection goals. This difference was especially true for the relationship-issue topic.