Communication with young people through normatively fixed dialogue institutions in the regions of Russia

The study of the regional legislation of 85 constituent entities of the Russian Federation was carried out by the author in order to identify the normatively fixed channels of communication between the state and youth at the regional level, which could make it possible through formalized institutions to carry out dialogue interaction, stimulate the desire of young people to participate in the life of society, participate in the development of the agenda in the constituent entity of Russia. As a result, the author comes to the conclusion that the created youth governments, youth parliaments, youth public chambers and other similar institutions in the regions are not a sufficient channel for full-fledged communication with young people. Formalized platforms involve rather loyal youth in a dialogue with the authorities, leaving behind those whose opinion, attitude to the political, economic, and social decisions taken by the authorities is sometimes quite critical.

Social Decisions from Description Compared to Experience Rely on Different Cognitive and Neural Processes

Social decisions reveal the degree to which people consider societal needs relative to their own desires. Although many studies showed how social decisions are taken when the consequences of actions are given as explicit information, little is known about how social choices are made when the relevant information was learned through repeated experience. Here, we compared how these two different ways of learning about the value of alternatives (description versus experience) impact social decisions in 147 healthy young adult humans. Using diffusion decision models, we show that, although participants chose similar outcomes across the learning conditions, they sampled and processed information differently. During description decisions, information sampling depended on both chosen and foregone rewards for self and society, while during experience decisions sampling was proportional to chosen outcomes only. Our behavioral data indicate that description choices involved the active processing of more information. Additionally, neuroimaging data from 40 participants showed that the brain activity was more closely associated with the information sampling process during description relative to experience decisions. Overall, our work indicates that the cognitive and neural mechanisms of social decision making depend strongly on how the values of alternatives were learned in addition to individual social preferences.

A common neural currency account for social and non-social decisions

To date, social and non-social decisions have been studied in isolation. Consequently, the extent to which social and non-social forms of decision uncertainty are integrated using shared neurocomputational resources remains elusive. Here, we address this question using simultaneous EEG-fMRI and a task in which decision evidence in social and non-social contexts varies along comparable scales. First, we identify comparable time-resolved build-up of activity in the EEG, akin to a process of evidence accumulation. We then use the endogenous trial-by-trial variability in the slopes of these accumulating signals to construct parametric fMRI predictors. We show that a region of the posterior-medial frontal cortex (pMFC) uniquely explains trial-wise variability in the process of evidence accumulation in both the social and non-social contexts. We further demonstrate a task-dependent coupling between the pMFC and regions of the human valuation system in dorso- and ventro-medial prefrontal cortex (dmPFC/vmPFC) across both contexts. Finally, we report domain-specific representations in regions known to encode the early decision evidence for each context. These results are suggestive of a domain-general decision-making architecture, whereupon domain-specific information is likely converted into a "common currency" in the dmPFC/vmPFC and accumulated for the decision in the pMFC.

Neuronal Circuits for Social Decision-Making and Their Clinical Implications

Social living facilitates individual access to rewards, cognitive resources, and objects that would not be otherwise accessible. There are, however, some drawbacks to social living, particularly when competing for scarce resources. Furthermore, variability in our ability to make social decisions can be associated with neuropsychiatric disorders. The neuronal mechanisms underlying social decision-making are beginning to be understood. The momentum to study this phenomenon has been partially carried over by the study of economic decision-making. Yet, because of the similarities between these different types of decision-making, it is unclear what is a social decision. Here, we propose a definition of social decision-making as choices taken in a context where one or more conspecifics are involved in the decision or the consequences of it. Social decisions can be conceptualized as complex economic decisions since they are based on the subjective preferences between different goods. During social decisions, individuals choose based on their internal value estimate of the different alternatives. These are complex decisions given that conspecifics beliefs or actions could modify the subject’s internal valuations at every choice. Here, we first review recent developments in our collective understanding of the neuronal mechanisms and circuits of social decision-making in primates. We then review literature characterizing populations with neuropsychiatric disorders showing deficits in social decision-making and the underlying neuronal circuitries associated with these deficits.

General Education Curricula in Saudi Arabia: A Study of Trends and Methods

Objectives: This research aims to examine contemporary trends and methods to improve general education curricula in Saudi Arabia. The study employs a qualitative technique based on recent research, books, journals, and other publications. The findings of this study show that the ministry of education in Saudi Arabia must follow current trends and approaches in improving general education curricula that strive to afford educated individuals with a suitable scientific education that prepares them for life in the twenty-first century, which leads them to the acquisition and mastery of advanced and usable scientific concepts. There is, also, a greater understanding and mastery of advanced scientific concepts, as well as the ability to apply science skills and processes, which led to an improvement in students’ innovative and creative abilities, positive scientific attitudes towards science, and the ability to make sound personal and social decisions. It is possible to develop an educational curriculum in a variety of ways, such as by staying abreast of changes in the work environment which also ensures professional and individual growth. The changes in the economy, the agricultural sector, culture, education, availability of suitable logistics, and a balance between theoretical themes and practical applications are all components of the general education curricula in Saudi Arabia.

A Cautionary Note on Predicting Social Judgments from Faces with Deep Neural Networks

People spontaneously infer other people’s psychology from faces, encompassing inferences of their affective states, cognitive states, and stable traits such as personality. These judgments are known to be often invalid, but nonetheless bias many social decisions. Their importance and ubiquity have made them popular targets for automated prediction using deep convolutional neural networks (DCNNs). Here, we investigated the applicability of this approach: how well does it generalize, and what biases does it introduce? We compared three distinct sets of features (from a face identification DCNN, an object recognition DCNN, and using facial geometry), and tested their prediction across multiple out-of-sample datasets. Across judgments and datasets, features from both pre-trained DCNNs provided better predictions than did facial geometry. However, predictions using object recognition DCNN features were not robust to superficial cues (e.g., color and hair style). Importantly, predictions using face identification DCNN features were not specific: models trained to predict one social judgment (e.g., trustworthiness) also significantly predicted other social judgments (e.g., femininity and criminal), and at an even higher accuracy in some cases than predicting the judgment of interest (e.g., trustworthiness). Models trained to predict affective states (e.g., happy) also significantly predicted judgments of stable traits (e.g., sociable), and vice versa. Our analysis pipeline not only provides a flexible and efficient framework for predicting affective and social judgments from faces but also highlights the dangers of such automated predictions: correlated but unintended judgments can drive the predictions of the intended judgments.

Contextual Modulation of Binary Decisions in Dyadic Social Interactions

The present experimental design allowed binary decisions (i.e., to choose between proactive approaching or withdrawing behavior). These decisions were made on complex social interaction scenarios displayed on videos. The videos were taken from a first-person perspective. They were preceded by one sentence each that provided additional information about the context of the displayed scenario. The sentence preceding the video and the video jointly provided a context of emotional valence. That context varied from trial to trial. We observed that provocative and threatening videos produced predominantly fear and anger responses. Fear was associated with withdrawal decisions, while anger led to approach decisions. Negative contextual information increased the probability of approach decisions in aggressive provocative videos; positive contextual information enhanced the chance of approach decisions in socially positive videos. In neutral situations, displayed in videos, the probability of the approach behavior was reduced in case of negative contextual information. Yet, the probability for approach behavior was increased if positive contextual information preceded neutral videos. Our experimental setup provided a paradigm that can be adapted and accommodated for the examination of future research questions on social decisions in multidimensional, complex social situations.