Parent-child nonverbal engagement during read versus sung book-sharing in preschoolers with and without ASD

Providing natural opportunities that scaffold interpersonal engagement is important for supporting social interactions for young children with autism spectrum disorder (ASD). Musical activities are often motivating, familiar, and predictable, and may support both children and their interaction partners by providing opportunities for shared social engagement. We assessed multiple facets of nonverbal social engagement—child and caregiver visual attention and interpersonal movement coordination—during musical (song) and non-musical (picture) book-sharing contexts in caregiver–child dyads of preschoolers with ( n = 13) and without ( n = 16) ASD. Overall, children with ASD demonstrated reduced visual attention during the book sharing activity, as well as reduced movement coordination with their caregivers, compared to children with typical development. Children in both diagnostic groups, as well as caregivers, demonstrated greater visual attention (gaze toward the activity and/or social partner) during song books compared to picture books. Visual attention behavior was correlated between children and caregivers in the ASD group but only in the song book condition. Findings highlight the importance of considering how musical contexts impact the behavior of both partners in the interaction. Musical activities may support social engagement by modulating the behavior of both children and caregivers.

Positive Peripheral Social Network Members in Older Age: Global and Daily Appraisals of Social Partners

Socioemotional selectivity theory suggests older adults maintain relationships with close social partners with whom they experience positive emotions. It is unclear how age and closeness predict social partner appraisals in different contexts. We examine semantic and experiential appraisals of positivity, as well as emotional outcomes. Participants (N = 258) aged 25-85 (M = 52.05, SD = 16.31) reported their general experience of enjoyment and conflict with social partners of varying closeness. In an experience sampling procedure (6x/day for 10 days), participants reported their current experience of emotions and information about their most recent social interaction: pleasure, discomfort, and relationship closeness with their social partner. Semantic (global) appraisals of relationships positively predicted experiential (daily) appraisals, and this association was stronger among relatively older adults. Results revealed older adults gave less negative appraisals compared to younger adults, regardless of closeness. Older adults reported more positive appraisals than younger adults for non-close relationships, whereas close relationships were evaluated positively regardless of age. For younger adults, interaction pleasure with non-close partners was less strongly linked to subsequent positive emotions than pleasure with close partners. For older adults, however, interaction pleasure predicted greater subsequent positive emotions regardless of relationship closeness. Overall, these findings suggest older adults’ positive appraisals of partners are not simply the result of emotionally gratifying memory distortions. Older adults may be able to derive emotional benefits from a wider variety of social interactions than younger adults, suggesting peripheral social network members can be leveraged to enhance emotional well-being in later adulthood.

Social Contact Reinforces Cocaine Self-Administration in Young Adult Male Rats: The Role of Social Reinforcement in Vulnerability to Drug Use

Drug-using peers are recognized as a leading factor influencing drug use among adolescents and young adults. One mechanism by which peers influence drug use is by providing social reinforcement for using drugs. Social reinforcement may be provided in multiple ways, including by making social contact contingent on drug use (i.e., an individual must use drugs to gain/maintain access to a peer). The purpose of this study was to develop a preclinical model in which intravenous cocaine self-administration was positively reinforced by access to a social partner. Young adult male rats were trained to self-administer cocaine in operant conditioning chambers with a guillotine door that could be opened to an adjacent compartment housing either a social partner or a non-social stimulus. Once cocaine self-administration was established, the guillotine door was activated, and cocaine intake was reinforced by brief access to either a social (age- and sex-matched peer) or non-social (black-and-white athletic sock) stimulus. Contingent access to a social partner rapidly increased cocaine self-administration. Total cocaine intake was 2- to 3-fold greater in rats assigned to the social versus non-social condition across a 100-fold dose range. Cocaine intake rapidly increased when rats in the original non-social group were later provided with social partners, whereas cocaine intake resisted change and remained elevated when rats in the original social group had their partners removed. These data indicate that contingent access to a social partner increases drug intake and suggest that social reinforcement may represent a vulnerability factor that is particularly resistant to psychosocial interventions.

Intranasal oxytocin drives coordinated social approach

Coordinated responses to challenge are essential to survival for bonded monogamous animals and may depend on behavioral compatibility. Oxytocin (OT) context-dependently regulates social affiliation and vocal communication, but its role in pair members’ decision to jointly respond to challenge is unclear. To test for OT effects, California mouse females received an intranasal dose of OT (IN-OT) or saline after bonding with males either matched or mismatched in their approach response to an aggressive vocal challenge. Pair mates were re-tested jointly for approach response, time spent together, and vocalizations. Females and males converged in their approach after pairing, but mismatched pairs with females given a single dose of IN-OT displayed a greater convergence that resulted from behavioral changes by both pair members. Unpaired females given IN-OT did not change their approach, indicating a social partner was necessary for effects to emerge. Moreover, IN-OT increased time spent approaching together, suggesting behavioral coordination beyond a further increase in bonding. This OT-induced increase in joint approach was associated with a decrease in the proportion of sustained vocalizations, a type of vocalization that can be associated with intra-pair conflict. Our results expand OT’s effects on behavioral coordination and underscore the importance of emergent social context.

Reaching Out for Inaccessible Food Is a Potential Begging Signal in Cooperating Wild-Type Norway Rats, Rattus norvegicus

Begging is widespread in juvenile animals. It typically induces helpful behaviours in parents and brood care helpers. However, begging is sometimes also shown by adults towards unrelated social partners. Adult Norway rats (Rattus norvegicus) display a sequence of different behaviours in a reciprocal food provisioning task that have been interpreted as such signals of need. The first behaviour in this sequence represents reaching out for a food item the animal cannot obtain independently. This may reflect either an attempt to grasp the food object by itself, or a signal to the social partner communicating the need for help. To distinguish between these two possibilities, we tested in female wild-type Norway rats if the amount of reaching performed by a food-deprived rat changes with the presence/absence of food and a social partner. Focal rats displayed significantly more reaching behaviour, both in terms of number and total duration of events, when food and a potentially helpful partner were present compared to when either was missing. Our findings hence support the hypothesis that rats use reaching behaviour to signal need to social partners that can help them to obtain food.

Third-party punishers do not compete to be chosen as partners

Third-party punishment has been hypothesised to act as an honest signal of cooperative intent. Previous theoretical and empirical work has shown that individuals might escalate signals of cooperative intent when there is competition to be chosen as a partner. Here, we investigate the hypothesis that competition to be chosen as a social partner leads to escalating investment in third-party punishment. In the same scenario, we also consider the case of signalling via helpful acts to provide a direct test of the relative strength of the two types of signals. Investments in third-party helping were higher than investments in third-party punishment – and also exhibited a more robust positive association with audience effects. We did not find a clear effect of partner choice (over and above simply being observed) on either punishment or helping investments. Third-parties who invested more in helping were preferred as partners and were sent more money in a subsequent trust game. Third-party punishers were slightly preferred as interaction partners but less so than third-party helpers. In addition, we found that the amount invested in third-party punishment or helping was a reliable indicator of the individual’s trustworthiness: those who invested more returned a higher proportion of any entrusted amount. Individuals who did not invest in third-party helping were more likely to be untrustworthy, but the same was not true for individuals who did not invest in third-party punishment. This supports the conception of help as a less ambiguous signal of cooperative intent.

Steps towards a computational ethology: an automatized, interactive setup to investigate filial imprinting and biological predispositions

Soon after hatching, the young of precocial species, such as domestic chicks or ducklings, learn to recognize their social partner by simply being exposed to it (imprinting process). Even artificial objects or stimuli displayed on monitor screens can effectively trigger filial imprinting, though learning is canalized by spontaneous preferences for animacy signals, such as certain kinds of motion or a face-like appearance. Imprinting is used as a behavioural paradigm for studies on memory formation, early learning and predispositions, as well as number and space cognition, and brain asymmetries. Here, we present an automatized setup to expose and/or test animals for a variety of imprinting experiments. The setup consists of a cage with two high-frequency screens at the opposite ends where stimuli are shown. Provided with a camera covering the whole space of the cage, the behaviour of the animal is recorded continuously. A graphic user interface implemented in Matlab allows a custom configuration of the experimental protocol, that together with Psychtoolbox drives the presentation of images on the screens, with accurate time scheduling and a highly precise framerate. The setup can be implemented into a complete workflow to analyse behaviour in a fully automatized way by combining Matlab (and Psychtoolbox) to control the monitor screens and stimuli, DeepLabCut to track animals’ behaviour, Python (and R) to extract data and perform statistical analyses. The automated setup allows neuro-behavioural scientists to perform standardized protocols during their experiments, with faster data collection and analyses, and reproducible results.

Institutions or resources and capabilities? Explaining engagement in European sectoral social dialogue

In this article the authors analyse social partner engagement in European sectoral social dialogue, testing two prominent theories to disentangle sector and country dynamics: institutional and resources and capabilities theories. While institutional theory accounted for certain social partner preferences, resources and capability theory proved stronger in predicting participation and provided insight into regulatory preferences. The authors conclude that resources and capability theory better explains their case, associating it with weaknesses of transnational governance. Specifically, limited incentives for participation mean that social partners with fewer resources forego participation, entailing pre-eminence of social partners with greater resources and hindering outcomes reflecting national institutional influences.