Theory-Based Social and Non-Social Engagement Features in Smoking Cessation Mobile Apps: A Content Analysis

Despite the ubiquity of smartphone ownership and the increasing integration of social engagement features in smoking cessation apps to engage users, the social and non-social engagement features that are present in current smoking cessation apps and the effectiveness of these features in engaging users remain understudied. To fill the gap in the literature, a content analysis of free and paid smoking cessation mobile apps was conducted to examine (a) the presence of social features (i.e., social support, social announcement, and social referencing) and non-social engagement features (e.g., personal environmental changes, goal setting, progress tracking, reinforcement tracking, self-monitoring, and personalized recommendations) and (b) their relationships with user engagement scores measured by the Mobile App Rating Scale. In this study, 28.2% of the smoking cessation apps enable social announcement and 8.1% offered the social support feature. Only two apps provided a social referencing feature (1.3%). No app included reinforcement tracking, with the percentage of other non-social engagement features ranging from 9.4% to 49.0%. Social support (β = 0.30, p < 0.001), social announcement (β = 0.21, p < 0.05), and social referencing (β = 0.18, p < 0.05) were significant predictors of user engagement. Regarding the non-social engagement features, personal environment changes (β = 0.38, p < 0.001), progress tracking (β = 0.18, p < 0.05), and personalized recommendations (β = 0.37, p < 0.001) significantly predicted user engagement. The findings not only contribute to the mobile communication literature by applying and extending the theory-based mobile health apps engagement typology, but also inform the future architecture design of smoking cessation mobile apps.

Young children learn first impressions of faces through social referencing

Previous research has demonstrated that the tendency to form first impressions from facial appearance emerges early in development. We examined whether social referencing is one route through which these consistent first impressions are acquired. In Study 1, we show that 5- to 7-year-old children are more likely to choose a target face previously associated with positive non-verbal signals as more trustworthy than a face previously associated with negative non-verbal signals. In Study 2, we show that children generalise this learning to novel faces who resemble those who have previously been the recipients of positive non-verbal behaviour. Taken together, these data show one means through which individuals within a community could acquire consistent, and potentially inaccurate, first impressions of others faces. In doing so, they highlight a route through which cultural transmission of first impressions can occur.

Sharing Experiences in Infancy: From Primary Intersubjectivity to Shared Intentionality

We contrast two theses that make different assumptions about the developmental onset of human-unique sociality. The primary intersubjectivity thesis (PIT) argues that humans relate to each other in distinct ways from the beginning of life, as is shown by newborns' participation in face-to-face encounters or “primary intersubjectivity.” According to this thesis, humans' innate relational capacity is the seedbed from which all subsequent social-emotional and social-cognitive developments continuously emerge. The shared intentionality thesis (SIT) states that human-unique forms of interaction develop at 9–12 months of age, when infants put their heads together with others in acts of object-focused joint attention and simple collaborative activities. According to this thesis, human-unique cognition emerges rapidly with the advent of mind-reading capacities that evolved specifically for the purpose of coordination. In this paper, we first contrast the two theses and then sketch the outlines of an account that unifies their strengths. This unified account endorses the PIT's recognition of the fundamental importance of primary intersubjectivity. Any act of sharing experiences is founded on the communicative capacity that is already displayed by young infants in primary intersubjectivity. At the same time, we question the PIT's interpretation that dyadic encounters have the triadic structure of joint attention. Lastly, we draw on empirical work on the development of joint attention, imitation, and social referencing that serves as evidence that primary intersubjectivity continuously unfolds into the capacity for triadic joint attention.

Feline communication strategies when presented with an unsolvable task: the attentional state of the person matters

Research on social cognitive ability in domestic cats is limited. The current study investigated social referencing in cats when exposed to first, a solvable, and then, an unsolvable scenario (i.e., reachable and unreachable treats) in the presence of either an attentive or an inattentive caregiver. Cats expressed more gaze alternation (P = 0.013), but less interaction with the caregiver (P = 0.048) and approached the treat container less frequently (P = 0.017) during the unsolvable test, compared to the solvable test. When in the presence of an attentive caregiver, cats initiated first gaze at the caregiver faster (P = 0.001); gazed at the caregiver for longer (P = 0.034); and approached the treat more frequently (P = 0.040), compared to when the caregiver was inattentive. Significant interaction was observed between test and caregiver’s attentional state on the expression of sequential behavior, a type of showing behavior. Cats exhibited this behavior marginally more with attentive caregivers, compared to inattentive caregivers, but only during the unsolvable test. There was a decrease in sequential behavior during the unsolvable test, compared to solvable test, but this was only seen with inattentive caregivers (P = 0.018). Our results suggest that gaze alternation is a behavior reliably indicating social referencing in cats and that cats’ social communication with humans is affected by the person’s availability for visual interaction.

Blocking of Stimulus Control in Children with Autism

The present study aimed to investigate the blocking of stimulus control in three children with autism. We used a go/no-go procedure in a standard blocking paradigm. In Phase 1, we established one of two sounds or colored squares as a discriminative stimulus for touching a tablet screen. In Phase 2, a colored square was added to the sound or a sound was added to the colored square in a stimulus compound. The discrimination training continued as in Phase 1. We subsequently tested discriminative control by each of the single stimuli separately and by the compounds. Finally, after testing with no programmed consequences, we reestablished the original discrimination and replicated the test of stimulus control. The results support previous experiments by demonstrating that the establishment of discriminative control by a second stimulus by adding it to a previously established discriminative stimulus in a compound was blocked by the earlier discrimination training in all three participants. We discuss procedural details that may be critical to avoid the blocking of stimulus control in the applied field, particularly with respect to the acquisition of skills that involve multiple stimuli, such as joint attention, social referencing, and bidirectional naming.

Comparing the Effects of a Different Social Partner (Social Robot vs. Human) on Children's Social Referencing in Interaction

Social robots have emerged as a new digital technology that is increasingly being implemented in the educational landscape. While social robots could be deployed to assist young children with their learning in a variety of different ways, the typical approach in educational practices is to supplement the learning process rather than to replace the human caregiver, e.g., the teacher, parent, educator or therapist. When functioning in the role of an educational assistant, social robots will likely constitute a part of a triadic interaction with the child and the human caregiver. Surprisingly, there is little research that systematically investigates the role of the caregiver by examining the ways in which children involve or check in with them during their interaction with another partner—a phenomenon that is known as social referencing. In the present study, we investigated social referencing in the context of a dyadic child–robot interaction. Over the course of four sessions within our longitudinal language-learning study, we observed how 20 pre-school children aged 4–5 years checked in with their accompanying caregivers who were not actively involved in the language-learning procedure. The children participating in the study were randomly assigned to either an interaction with a social robot or a human partner. Our results revealed that all children across both conditions utilized social referencing behaviors to address their caregiver. However, we found that the children who interacted with the social robot did so significantly more frequently in each of the four sessions than those who interacted with the human partner. Further analyses showed that no significant change in their behavior over the course of the sessions could be observed. Findings are discussed with regard to the caregiver's role during children's interactions with social robots and the implications for future interaction design.

Determining the Function of Social Referencing: The Role of Familiarity and Situational Threat

In ambiguous situations, infants have the tendency to gather information from a social interaction partner to regulate their behavior [social referencing (SR)]. There are two main competing theories concerning SR’s function. According to social-cognitive information-seeking accounts, infants look at social interaction partners to gain information about the ambiguous situation. According to co-regulation accounts, infants look at social interaction partners to receive emotional support. This review provides an overview of the central developments in SR literature in the past years. We focus on the role of situational aspects such as familiarity of SR partners and situational threat, not only for SR (looking), but also for subsequent behavioral regulation (exploration, affect). As the competing accounts make different predictions concerning both contextual factors, this approach may reveal novel insights into the function of SR. Findings showed that a higher familiarity of SR partners consistently resulted in decreased looking (cf. social-cognitive accounts) and that higher threat remains largely understudied, but seemed to increase looking in the first few studies (cf. co-regulation accounts). Concerning behavioral regulation (exploration, affect) findings are mixed. We point out that moving toward a more complex situatedness may help to disentangle the heterogeneous results by considering the interaction between familiarity and threat rather than investigating the factors in isolation. From a general perspective, this review underlines the importance of situational factors and their interaction in eliciting a phenomenon, such as SR, but also in determining the nature of the phenomenon itself.