The Things You Do:Internal Models of Others' Expected Behaviour Guide Action Observation

Predictions allow humans to manage uncertainties within social interactions. Here, we investigate how explicit and implicit person models-how different people behave in different situations-shape these predictions. In a novel action identification task, participants judged whether actors interacted with or withdrew from objects. In two experiments, we manipulated, unbeknownst to participants, the two actors action likelihoods across situations, such that one actor typically interacted with one object and withdrew from the other, while the other actor showed the opposite behaviour. In Experiment 2, participants additionally received explicit information about the two individuals that either matched or mismatched their actual behaviours. The data revealed direct but dissociable effects of both kinds of person information on action identification. Implicit action likelihoods affected response times, speeding up the identification of typical relative to atypical actions, irrespective of the explicit knowledge about the individual's behaviour. Explicit person knowledge, in contrast, affected error rates, causing participants to respond according to expectations instead of observed behaviour, even when they were aware that the explicit information might not be valid. Together, the data show that internal models of others' behaviour are routinely re-activated during action observation. They provide first evidence of a person-specific social anticipation system, which predicts forthcoming actions from both explicit information and an individuals' prior behaviour in a situation. These data link action observation to recent models of predictive coding in the non-social domain where similar dissociations between implicit effects on stimulus identification and explicit behavioural wagers have been reported

Autoinflammatory diseases

This book discusses the role of the microbiome in rheumatic diseases and details its implications for patient treatment. Recently, with technological advances, there has been significant research into the microbiome. This has enabled us to more profoundly understand its role in our immune system maturation as well as the role played by microorganisms in autoimmunity and the deeply related rheumatic diseases. This book comprehensively explains the emerging microbiome research through the interrelationships of biomedical sciences, including: immunology, microbiology, bioinformatics, and, with special emphasis, the clinical aspect of rheumatology. It examines the interplay between infectious organisms and major autoimmune diseases, including rheumatoid arthritis, psoriatic arthritis, juvenile arthritis, systemic lupus erythematosus, and vasculitis, and explains how to apply that knowledge to diagnostic techniques and treatment decisions. The international team of expert authors provides insight into current therapies and future interventions specifically targeting the microbiota and explores the impact of our deeper understanding on enhancing personalized medicine. The Microbiome in Rheumatic Diseases and Infection is an essential resource for rheumatologists, pediatricians, internists, microbiologists, and critical care providers caring for children and adults with rheumatic diseases. © Springer International Publishing AG, part of Springer Nature 2018. All Rights Reserved

Incentive motivation in pet dogs - preference for constant vs varied food rewards.

Recently, there has been a move towards positive reinforcement using food rewards in animal training. By definition, rewards function as reinforcers if they increase or maintain the frequency of behaviour that they follow. However, in operant conditioning tasks animals frequently show systematic changes in performance - in particular a reduction in responding over time. One suggested strategy to avoid such performance decrements is to provide a variety of food rewards, rather than the same food reward in all trials. The enhancement of appetitive behaviour and consumption by reward variation is referred to as 'variety effect'. We investigated whether dogs preferred a variable or a constant food reward in a concurrent two-choice test. Of 16 dogs, six subjects showed a significant preference for the varied food reward and six for the constant food reward, while four dogs exhibited no significant preference for either option. At the group level, there was a significant effect of block: preference for the varied food reward increased across six blocks of ten trials each. Thus, although some individuals may prefer a single, favourite food reward in the short term, introducing variation in reward types may maintain dogs' motivation in operant tasks over a longer time period