Social Stress Increases Anxiety-Like Behavior Equally in Male and Female Zebrafish

Zebrafish anxiety-like behavior was assessed in the novel tank test after the formation of dominant-subordinate hierarchies. Ten pairs of animals were subjected to dyadic interactions for 5 days, and compared with control animals. After this period, a clear dominance hierarchy was established across all dyads, irrespective of sex. Social status affected parameters of anxiety-like behavior in the novel tank test, with subordinate males and females displaying more bottom-dwelling, absolute turn angle, and freezing than dominant animals and controls. The results suggest that subordinate male and female zebrafish show higher anxiety-like behavior, which together with previous literature suggests that subordination stress is conserved across vertebrates.

Measuring Dyadic Interactions and Dining Environment in Dementia Mealtime Care: A Systematic Review of Instruments

It is critical to use validated instruments to assess mealtime dyadic interactions and dining environment for people with dementia to evaluate the process and efficacy of mealtime interventions. However, the quantity and psychometric quality of such instruments are unknown. This systematic review aimed to synthesize the quantity and quality of instruments that assess dyadic interactions, physical environment, and/or social environment during dementia mealtime care. We searched Pubmed, CINAHL, AgeLine, PsychINFO, and Cochrane Library for records published between 1980-2020. Records were eligible if they included any instrument assessing concepts of interest (i.e., mealtime dyadic interactions, physical and/or social dining environment). From eligible records, eligible instruments originally developed or later modified to measure concepts of interest were identified, and instruments’ characteristics were extracted: 1) development process, 2) concept/construct assessed, 3) sample/setting, 4) administration method, 5) item description, 6) scoring format/interpretation, 7) reliability, and 8) validity. A newly developed tool was used to evaluate instruments’ psychometric quality. In total, 26 eligible instruments were identified. Seventeen instruments assessed dyadic interactions, 1 assessed only physical environment, and 8 assessed physical & social environment. All instruments were observational tools and scored as having low psychometric quality. Reasons for low psychometric quality included use of small sample size compared to the number of items, limited psychometric testing, and inadequate estimates. A number of instruments were developed and/or used to assess dyadic interactions, physical and/or social environment in dementia mealtime care. All instruments warrant further testing to accumulate psychometric evidence in larger diverse samples in different care settings.

Navigating the complex social ecology of screen-based activity in video-mediated interaction

Task-oriented video-mediated interaction takes place within a complex digital-social ecology which presents, to participants, a practical problem of social coordination: How to navigate, in mutually accountable ways, between interacting with the remote co-participants and scrutinizing one’s own screen –which suspends interaction–, for instance when searching for information on a search engine. Using conversation analysis for the examination of screen-recorded dyadic interactions, this study identifies a range of practices participants draw on to alert co-participants to incipient suspensions of talk. By accounting for such suspensions as being task-related through verbal alerts, typically in the form let me/let’s X, participants successfully ‘buy time’, which allows them to fully concentrate on their screen activity and thereby ensure the progression of task accomplishment. We discuss how these findings contribute to our understanding of the complex ecologies of technology-mediated interactions.

Rhythm in dyadic interactions

This review paper discusses rhythmic interactions and distinguishes them from non-rhythmic interactions. We report on communicative behaviours in social and sexual contexts, as found in dyads of humans, non-human primates, non-primate mammals, birds, anurans and insects. We discuss observed instances of rhythm in dyadic interactions, identify knowledge gaps and propose suggestions for future research. We find that most studies on rhythmicity in interactive signals mainly focus on one modality (acoustic or visual) and we suggest more work should be performed on multimodal signals. Although the social functions of interactive rhythms have been fairly well described, developmental research on rhythms used to regulate social interactions is still lacking. Future work should also focus on identifying the exact timing mechanisms involved. Rhythmic signalling behaviours are widespread and critical in regulating social interactions across taxa, but many questions remain unexplored. A multidisciplinary, comparative cross-species approach may help provide answers. This article is part of the theme issue ‘Synchrony and rhythm interaction: from the brain to behavioural ecology’.