Seeing two faces together: preference formation in humans and rhesus macaques

Humans, great apes and old world monkeys show selective attention to faces depending on conspecificity, familiarity, and social status supporting the view that primates share similar face processing mechanisms. Although many studies have been done on face scanning strategy in monkeys and humans, the mechanisms influencing viewing preference have received little attention. To determine how face categories influence viewing preference in humans and rhesus macaques (Macaca mulatta), we performed two eye-tracking experiments using a visual preference task whereby pairs of faces from different species were presented simultaneously. The results indicated that viewing time was significantly influenced by the pairing of the face categories. Humans showed a strong bias towards an own-race face in an Asian–Caucasian condition. Rhesus macaques directed more attention towards non-human primate faces when they were paired with human faces, regardless of the species. When rhesus faces were paired with faces from Barbary macaques (Macaca sylvanus) or chimpanzees (Pan troglodytes), the novel species’ faces attracted more attention. These results indicate that monkeys’ viewing preferences, as assessed by a visual preference task, are modulated by several factors, species and dominance being the most influential

Convergence in the physical appearance of spouses

This study attempted to determine whether people who live with each other for a long period of time grow physically similar in their facial features. Photographs of couples when they were first married and 25 years later were judged for physical similarity and for the likelihood that they were married. The results showed that there is indeed an increase in apparent similarity after 25 years of cohabitation. Moreover, increase in resemblance was associated with greater reported marital happiness. Among the explanations of this phenomenon that were examined, one based on a theory of emotional efference emerged as promising. This theory proposes that emotional processes produce vascular changes that are, in part, regulated by facial musculature. The facial muscles are said to act as ligatures on veins and arteries, and they thereby are able to divert blood from, or direct blood to, the brain. An implication of the vascular theory of emotional efference is that habitual use of facial musculature may permanently affect the physical features of the face. The implication holds further that two people who live with each other for a longer period of time, by virtue of repeated empathic mimicry, would grow physically similar in their facial features. Kin resemblance, therefore, may not be simply a matter of common genes but also a matter of prolonged social contact.Peer Reviewedhttp://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/45361/1/11031_2004_Article_BF00992848.pd

The boomerang effect of radicalism in Discursive Psychology: A critical overview of the controversy with the Social Representations Theory.

This article provides a critical overview of the controversy between the Radical approach to Discursive Psychology (RDP) and the Social Representations Theory (SRT) and aims: a)?to show what is potentially complementary and contradictory in Discursive Psychology (DP) and the Social Representations Theory, when and why they are incompatible, and whether and how it is possible and/or desirable to integrate these two approaches. b)?to describe how the radicalism of the socio-constructionist thesis upheld by Discourse Analysis can give rise to several hard-to-solve problems, which may then be translated into a boomerang effect. In the final section, it highlights interest in dialog and “cross-fertilization” between researchers inspired by the less radical approach to discursive psychology and those inspired by the Social Representations Theory, pointing out the effect of methodological implications that would ensue

Swearing, Euphemisms, and Linguistic Relativity

Participants read aloud swear words, euphemisms of the swear words, and neutral stimuli while their autonomic activity was measured by electrodermal activity. The key finding was that autonomic responses to swear words were larger than to euphemisms and neutral stimuli. It is argued that the heightened response to swear words reflects a form of verbal conditioning in which the phonological form of the word is directly associated with an affective response. Euphemisms are effective because they replace the trigger (the offending word form) by another word form that expresses a similar idea. That is, word forms exert some control on affect and cognition in turn. We relate these findings to the linguistic relativity hypothesis, and suggest a simple mechanistic account of how language may influence thinking in this context

The Mere Exposure Effect in the Domain of Haptics

Background: Zajonc showed that the attitude towards stimuli that one had been previously exposed to is more positive than towards novel stimuli. This mere exposure effect (MEE) has been tested extensively using various visual stimuli. Research on the MEE is sparse, however, for other sensory modalities. Methodology/Principal Findings: We used objects of two material categories (stone and wood) and two complexity levels (simple and complex) to test the influence of exposure frequency (F0 = novel stimuli, F2 = stimuli exposed twice, F10 = stimuli exposed ten times) under two sensory modalities (haptics only and haptics & vision). Effects of exposure frequency were found for high complex stimuli with significantly increasing liking from F0 to F2 and F10, but only for the stone category. Analysis of ‘‘Need for Touch’ ’ data showed the MEE in participants with high need for touch, which suggests different sensitivity or saturation levels of MEE. Conclusions/Significance: This different sensitivity or saturation levels might also reflect the effects of expertise on the haptic evaluation of objects. It seems that haptic and cross-modal MEEs are influenced by factors similar to those in the visual domain indicating a common cognitive basis

Structure of a Classical MHC Class I Molecule That Binds “Non-Classical” Ligands

The chicken MHC YF1*7.1 X-ray structures reveal that this protein binds lipids and thus represents a "hybrid" class I complex with features of classical as well as non-classical MHC molecules

Australians’ views on carbon pricing before and after the 2013 federal election

As climate policies change through the legislative process, public attitudes towards them may change as well. Therefore, it is important to assess how people accept and support controversial climate policies as the policies change over time. Policy acceptance is a positive evaluation of, or attitude towards, an existing policy; policy support adds an active behavioural component1, 3. Acceptance does not necessarily lead to support. We conducted a national survey of Australian residents to investigate acceptance of, and support for, the Australian carbon pricing policy before and after the 2013 federal election, and how perceptions of the policy, economic ideology, and voting behaviour affect acceptance and support. We found acceptance and support were stable across the election period, which was surprising given that climate policy was highly contentious during the election. Policy acceptance was higher than policy support at both times and acceptance was a necessary but insufficient condition of support. We conclude that acceptance is an important process through which perceptions of the policy and economic ideology influence support. Therefore, future climate policy research needs to distinguish between acceptance and support to better understand this process, and to better measure these concepts

Pleasure in decision-making situations

BACKGROUND: This study explores the role of pleasure in decision making. RESULTS: In Experiment 1, 12 subjects were presented with a questionnaire containing 46 items taken from the literature. Twenty-three items described a situation where a decision should be made and ended with a suggested solution. The other items served as filler items. The subjects were requested not to make a decision but to rate the pleasure or displeasure they experienced when reading the situation described in the item. The subjects' ratings were then compared to the decisions on the same situations made by the other subjects of the studies published by other workers. The ratings of pleasure/displeasure given by our subjects correlated significantly with the choices published by other authors. This result satisfies a necessary condition for pleasure to be the key of the decision making process in theoretical situations. In Experiment 2, a new group of 12 subjects rated their experience of pleasure/displeasure when reading various versions of 50 situations taken from daily life where an ethical decision had to be made (Questionnaire I) including 200 items. This was followed by a multiple-choice test with the 50 situations (Questionnaire II) using the same 200 items and offering the various behaviors. Subjects tended to choose ethical and unethical responses corresponding to their highest pleasure rating within each problem. In all cases the subjects' behavior was higher than chance level, and thus, followed the trend to maximize pleasure. In Experiment 3, 12 subjects reading 50 mathematical short problems followed by correct and incorrect versions of the answer to the problem (Questionnaire III), including 200 items. This was followed by a multiple-choice mathematical test with the 50 problems (Questionnaire IV) using the same 200 items and offering the correct and incorrect answers. In questionnaire IV, subjects tended to choose correct as well as incorrect responses corresponding to their highest hedonic rating within each problem. In all cases the subjects' behavior was higher than chance level, and thus, followed the trend to maximize pleasure. CONCLUSIONS: The results of the three experiments support the hypothesis according to which decisions are made in the hedonic dimension of conscious experience

Making oneself predictable: reduced temporal variability facilitates joint action coordination

Performing joint actions often requires precise temporal coordination of individual actions. The present study investigated how people coordinate their actions at discrete points in time when continuous or rhythmic information about others’ actions is not available. In particular, we tested the hypothesis that making oneself predictable is used as a coordination strategy. Pairs of participants were instructed to coordinate key presses in a two-choice reaction time task, either responding in synchrony (Experiments 1 and 2) or in close temporal succession (Experiment 3). Across all experiments, we found that coactors reduced the variability of their actions in the joint context compared with the same task performed individually. Correlation analyses indicated that the less variable the actions were, the better was interpersonal coordination. The relation between reduced variability and improved coordination performance was not observed when pairs of participants performed independent tasks next to each other without intending to coordinate. These findings support the claim that reducing variability is used as a coordination strategy to achieve predictability. Identifying coordination strategies contributes to the understanding of the mechanisms involved in real-time coordination