Politeness and compassion differentially predict adherence to fairness norms and interventions to norm violations in economic games

Adherence to norms and interventions to norm violations are two important forms of social behaviour modelled in economic games. While both appear to serve a prosocial function, they may represent separate mechanisms corresponding with distinct emotional and psychological antecedents, and thus may be predicted by different personality traits. In this study, we compared adherence to fairness norms in the dictator game with responses to violations of the same norms in third-party punishment and recompensation games with respect to prosocial traits from the Big Five and HEXACO models of personality. The results revealed a pattern of differential relations between prosocial traits and game behaviours. While norm adherence in the dictator game was driven by traits reflecting good manners and non-aggression (i.e., the politeness aspect of Big Five agreeableness and HEXACO honesty-humility), third-party recompensation of victims—and to a lesser extent, punishment of offenders—was uniquely driven by traits reflecting emotional concern for others (the compassion aspect of Big Five agreeableness). These findings demonstrate the discriminant validity between similar prosocial constructs and highlight the different prosocial motivations underlying economic game behaviours

Cortical Representation of Lateralized Grasping in Chimpanzees (Pan troglodytes): A Combined MRI and PET Study

Functional imaging studies in humans have localized the motor-hand region to a neuroanatomical landmark call the KNOB within the precentral gyrus. It has also been reported that the KNOB is larger in the hemisphere contralateral to an individual's preferred hand, and therefore may represent the neural substrate for handedness. The KNOB has also been neuronatomically described in chimpanzees and other great apes and is similarly associated with handedness. However, whether the chimpanzee KNOB represents the hand region is unclear from the extant literature. Here, we used PET to quantify neural metabolic activity in chimpanzees when engaged in unilateral reach-and-grasping responses and found significantly lateralized activation of the KNOB region in the hemisphere contralateral to the hand used by the chimpanzees. We subsequently constructed a probabilistic map of the KNOB region in chimpanzees in order to assess the overlap in consistency in the anatomical landmarks of the KNOB with the functional maps generated from the PET analysis. We found significant overlap in the anatomical and functional voxels comprising the KNOB region, suggesting that the KNOB does correspond to the hand region in chimpanzees. Lastly, from the probabilistic maps, we compared right- and left-handed chimpanzees on lateralization in grey and white matter within the KNOB region and found that asymmetries in white matter of the KNOB region were larger in the hemisphere contralateral to the preferred hand. These results suggest that neuroanatomical asymmetries in the KNOB likely reflect changes in connectivity in primary motor cortex that are experience dependent in chimpanzees and possibly humans

Comparative Anatomical Analyses of the Forearm Muscles of Cebus libidinosus (Rylands et al. 2000): Manipulatory Behavior and Tool Use

The present study describes the flexor and extensor muscles in Cebus libidinosus' forearm and compares them with those from humans, chimpanzees and baboons. The data is presented in quantitative anatomical indices for similarity. The capuchin forearm muscles showed important similarities with chimpanzees and humans, particularly those that act on thumb motion and allow certain degree of independence from other hand structures, even though their configuration does not enable a true opposable thumb. The characteristics of Cebus' forearm muscles corroborate the evolutionary convergence towards an adaptive behavior (tool use) between Cebus genus and apes

Whole genome sequencing of Saccharomyces cerevisiae: from genotype to phenotype for improved metabolic engineering applications

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>The need for rapid and efficient microbial cell factory design and construction are possible through the enabling technology, metabolic engineering, which is now being facilitated by systems biology approaches. Metabolic engineering is often complimented by directed evolution, where selective pressure is applied to a partially genetically engineered strain to confer a desirable phenotype. The exact genetic modification or resulting genotype that leads to the improved phenotype is often not identified or understood to enable further metabolic engineering.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>In this work we performed whole genome high-throughput sequencing and annotation can be used to identify single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) between <it>Saccharomyces cerevisiae </it>strains S288c and CEN.PK113-7D. The yeast strain S288c was the first eukaryote sequenced, serving as the reference genome for the <it>Saccharomyces </it>Genome Database, while CEN.PK113-7D is a preferred laboratory strain for industrial biotechnology research. A total of 13,787 high-quality SNPs were detected between both strains (reference strain: S288c). Considering only metabolic genes (782 of 5,596 annotated genes), a total of 219 metabolism specific SNPs are distributed across 158 metabolic genes, with 85 of the SNPs being nonsynonymous (e.g., encoding amino acid modifications). Amongst metabolic SNPs detected, there was pathway enrichment in the galactose uptake pathway (<it>GAL1</it>, <it>GAL10</it>) and ergosterol biosynthetic pathway (<it>ERG8</it>, <it>ERG9</it>). Physiological characterization confirmed a strong deficiency in galactose uptake and metabolism in S288c compared to CEN.PK113-7D, and similarly, ergosterol content in CEN.PK113-7D was significantly higher in both glucose and galactose supplemented cultivations compared to S288c. Furthermore, DNA microarray profiling of S288c and CEN.PK113-7D in both glucose and galactose batch cultures did not provide a clear hypothesis for major phenotypes observed, suggesting that genotype to phenotype correlations are manifested post-transcriptionally or post-translationally either through protein concentration and/or function.</p> <p>Conclusions</p> <p>With an intensifying need for microbial cell factories that produce a wide array of target compounds, whole genome high-throughput sequencing and annotation for SNP detection can aid in better reducing and defining the metabolic landscape. This work demonstrates direct correlations between genotype and phenotype that provides clear and high-probability of success metabolic engineering targets. The genome sequence, annotation, and a SNP viewer of CEN.PK113-7D are deposited at <url>http://www.sysbio.se/cenpk</url>.</p

As Far as the Eye Can See: Relationship between Psychopathic Traits and Pupil Response to Affective Stimuli

Psychopathic individuals show a range of affective processing deficits, typically associated with the interpersonal/affective component of psychopathy. However, previous research has been inconsistent as to whether psychopathy, within both offender and community populations, is associated with deficient autonomic responses to the simple presentation of affective stimuli. Changes in pupil diameter occur in response to emotionally arousing stimuli and can be used as an objective indicator of physiological reactivity to emotion. This study used pupillometry to explore whether psychopathic traits within a community sample were associated with hypo-responsivity to the affective content of stimuli. Pupil activity was recorded for 102 adult (52 female) community participants in response to affective (both negative and positive affect) and affectively neutral stimuli, that included images of scenes, static facial expressions, dynamic facial expressions and sound-clips. Psychopathic traits were measured using the Triarchic Psychopathy Measure. Pupil diameter was larger in response to negative stimuli, but comparable pupil size was demonstrated across pleasant and neutral stimuli. A linear relationship between subjective arousal and pupil diameter was found in response to sound-clips, but was not evident in response to scenes. Contrary to predictions, psychopathy was unrelated to emotional modulation of pupil diameter across all stimuli. The findings were the same when participant gender was considered. This suggests that psychopathy within a community sample is not associated with autonomic hypo-responsivity to affective stimuli, and this effect is discussed in relation to later defensive/appetitive mobilisation deficits

Visuospatial Integration: Paleoanthropological and Archaeological Perspectives

The visuospatial system integrates inner and outer functional processes, organizing spatial, temporal, and social interactions between the brain, body, and environment. These processes involve sensorimotor networks like the eye–hand circuit, which is especially important to primates, given their reliance on vision and touch as primary sensory modalities and the use of the hands in social and environmental interactions. At the same time, visuospatial cognition is intimately connected with memory, self-awareness, and simulation capacity. In the present article, we review issues associated with investigating visuospatial integration in extinct human groups through the use of anatomical and behavioral data gleaned from the paleontological and archaeological records. In modern humans, paleoneurological analyses have demonstrated noticeable and unique morphological changes in the parietal cortex, a region crucial to visuospatial management. Archaeological data provides information on hand–tool interaction, the spatial behavior of past populations, and their interaction with the environment. Visuospatial integration may represent a critical bridge between extended cognition, self-awareness, and social perception. As such, visuospatial functions are relevant to the hypothesis that human evolution is characterized by changes in brain–body–environment interactions and relations, which enhance integration between internal and external cognitive components through neural plasticity and the development of a specialized embodiment capacity. We therefore advocate the investigation of visuospatial functions in past populations through the paleoneurological study of anatomical elements and archaeological analysis of visuospatial behaviors

Chimpanzee (Pan troglodytes) Precentral Corticospinal System Asymmetry and Handedness: A Diffusion Magnetic Resonance Imaging Study

Most humans are right handed, and most humans exhibit left-right asymmetries of the precentral corticospinal system. Recent studies indicate that chimpanzees also show a population-level right-handed bias, although it is less strong than in humans.We used in vivo diffusion-weighted and T1-weighted magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) to study the relationship between the corticospinal tract (CST) and handedness in 36 adult female chimpanzees. Chimpanzees exhibited a hemispheric bias in fractional anisotropy (FA, left>right) and mean diffusivity (MD, right>left) of the CST, and the left CST was centered more posteriorly than the right. Handedness correlated with central sulcus depth, but not with FA or MD.These anatomical results are qualitatively similar to those reported in humans, despite the differences in handedness. The existence of a left>right FA, right>left MD bias in the corticospinal tract that does not correlate with handedness, a result also reported in some human studies, suggests that at least some of the structural asymmetries of the corticospinal system are not exclusively related to laterality of hand preference

Visual attention and action: How cueing, direct mapping, and social interactions drive orienting

Despite considerable interest in both action perception and social attention over the last 2 decades, there has been surprisingly little investigation concerning how the manual actions of other humans orient visual attention. The present review draws together studies that have measured the orienting of attention, following observation of another’s goal-directed action. Our review proposes that, in line with the literature on eye gaze, action is a particularly strong orienting cue for the visual system. However, we additionally suggest that action may orient visual attention using mechanisms, which gaze direction does not (i.e., neural direct mapping and corepresentation). Finally, we review the implications of these gaze-independent mechanisms for the study of attention to action. We suggest that our understanding of attention to action may benefit from being studied in the context of joint action paradigms, where the role of higher level action goals and social factors can be investigated