111 research outputs found
Children show adult-like facial appearance biases when trusting others
A large research literature details the powerful behavioral consequences that a trustworthy appearance can have on adult behavior. Surprisingly, few studies have investigated how these biases operate among children, despite the theoretical importance of understanding when these biases emerge in development. Here, we used an economic trust game to systematically investigate trust behavior in young children (5-8 years), older children (9-12 years) and adults. Participants played the game with child and adult āpartnersā that varied in emotional expression (mild displays of happiness and anger, and a neutral baseline), which is known to modulate perceived trustworthiness. Strikingly, both groups of children showed adult-like facial appearance biases when trusting others, with no āown-age biasā. There were no developmental differences in the magnitude of this effect, which supports adult-like overgeneralisation of these transient emotion cues into enduring trait impressions that guide interpersonal behavior from as early as 5 years of age. Irrespective of whether or not they were explicitly directed to do so, all participants modulated their behavior in line with the emotion cues: more generous/trusting with happy partners, followed by neutral and then angry. These findings speak to the impressive sophistication of childrenās early social cognition and provide key insights into the causal mechanisms driving trait impressions, suggesting they are not necessarily contingent upon protracted social experience
Best-worst scaling improves measurement of first impressions
This research was supported by the Australian Research Council (ARC) Centre of Excellence for Cognition and its Disorders (CE110001021), an ARC Discovery Project grant to GR and CS (DP170104602) and an ARC Discovery Outstanding Researcher Award to GR (DP130102300). The datasets analysed during the current study are available from the corresponding author on reasonable request.Peer reviewedPublisher PD
Evidence for a Kernel of Truth in Childrenās Facial Impressions of Childrenās Niceness, but not Shyness
Acknowledgements: We are grateful to the parents and children who helped make this research possible. We would like to thank Romina Palermo for providing us the opportunity to contact her sample of participants and to use some existing data. We also thank Lou Ewing for sharing the Zeb the Alien Scientist testing materials, and Saba Siddique for comments regarding a manuscript draft. Finally, we would like to thank Kaitlyn Turbett, Dielle Horne, Saba Siddique, Chloe Giffard, and Maira Vicente Braga, for help testing participants. JC, LJ, GR, and CS conceived the study and helped to draft and edit the manuscript. JC programmed the experiment, collected most participant data, performed the statistical analyses and drafted the first manuscript draft. EB coordinated image collection and testing schedules. All authors participated in the study design, and read, provided critical revisions and approved the final manuscript. The study methods, hypotheses and analyses were pre-registered(https://osf.io/kjtva/registrations). Funding: This research was supported by an APR Internship Academic Mentor Grant to CS, an Australian Research Council (ARC) Centre of Excellence Grant award to GR [CE110001021], ARC Discovery Early Career Research Award to CS [DE190101043], ARC Discovery Grant to GR and CS [DP170104602], ARC Discovery Grant to LJ [140101743], and a Research Training Program stipend to JC.Peer reviewedPostprin
AI Hyperrealism : Why AI Faces Are Perceived as More Real Than Human Ones
Acknowledgment We thank Sophie J. Nightingale and Hany Farid for providing open access to their stimuli and data. Funding This research is supported by the Australian Government through the Australian Research Councilās Discovery Projects funding scheme (Project No. DP220101026), a TRANSFORM Career Development Fellowship to A. Dawel from the Australian National University College of Health and Medicine, and an Experimental Psychology Society Small Grant to C. A. M. Sutherland. The funders had no role in developing or conducting this research.Peer reviewe
Individual differences in trust evaluations are shaped mostly by environments, not genes
Data deposition: Data, code, and materials are available at the Open Science Framework, https://osf.io/35zf8/?view_only=e76c6755dcea4be2adc5b075cae896e8. The face impression tests can be viewed at https://www.testable.org/experiment/855/674205/start. This article contains supporting information online at https://www.pnas.org/lookup/suppl/doi:10.1073/pnas.1920131117/-/DCSupplemental.Peer reviewedPublisher PD
Should I Trust You? Autistic Traits Predict Reduced Appearance-Based Trust Decisions
Facial impressions of trustworthiness guide social decisions in the general population, as shown by financial lending in economic Trust Games. As an exception, autistic boys fail to use facial impressions to guide trust decisions, despite forming typical facial trustworthiness impressions (Ewing et al., 2015). Here, we tested whether this dissociation between forming and using facial impressions of trustworthiness extends to neurotypical men with high levels of autistic traits. Forty-six Caucasian men completed a multi-turn Trust Game, a facial trustworthiness impressions task, the Autism-Spectrum Quotient, and two Theory of Mind tasks. As hypothesized, participantsā levels of autistic traits had no observed effect on the impressions formed, but negatively predicted the use of those impressions in trust decisions. Thus, the dissociation between forming and using facial impressions of trustworthiness extends to the broader autism phenotype. More broadly, our results identify autistic traits as an important source of individual variation in the use of facial impressions to guide behaviour. Interestingly, failure to use these impressions could potentially represent rational behaviour, given their limited validity
Facial first impressions across culture : data-driven modelling of Chinese and British perceiversā unconstrained facial impressions
People form first impressions from facial appearance rapidly, and these impressions can have considerable social and economic consequences. Three dimensions can explain Western perceiversā impressions of Caucasian faces: approachability, youthful-attractiveness, and dominance. Impressions along these dimensions are theorized to be based on adaptive cues to threat detection or sexual selection, making it likely that they are universal. We tested whether the same dimensions of facial impressions emerge across culture by building data-driven models of first impressions of Asian and Caucasian faces derived from Chinese and British perceiversā unconstrained judgments. We then cross-validated the dimensions with computer-generated average images. We found strong evidence for common approachability and youthful-attractiveness dimensions across perceiver and face race, with some evidence of a third dimension akin to capability. The models explained ~75% of the variance in facial impressions. In general, the findings demonstrate substantial cross-cultural agreement in facial impressions, especially on the most salient dimensions
Impressions of sexual unfaithfulness and their accuracy show a degree of universality
his research was supported by the Australian Research Council (ARC) Centre of Excellence in Cognition and its Disorders (CE110001021) and an ARC Discovery Outstanding Researcher Award to GR (DP130102300), an ARC Discovery project to GR and CS (DP170104602) and an ARC Professorial Fellowship to LS (DP110104594). The funders had no influence on the research.Peer reviewedPublisher PD
Appearance-based trust processing in schizophrenia
Objectives: Schizophrenia is characterized by impaired social interactions and altered trust. In the general population, trust is often based on facial appearance, with limited validity but enormous social consequences. The aim was to examine trust processing in schizophrenia and specifically to examine how people with schizophrenia use facial appearance as well as actual partner fairness to guide trusting decisions. Design: An experimental economic game study. Methods: Here, we tested how patients with schizophrenia and control participants (each NĀ =Ā 24) use facial trustworthiness appearance and partner fairness behaviour to guide decisions in a multi-round Trust Game. In the Trust Game, participants lent money to āpartnersā whose facial appearance was either untrustworthy or trustworthy, and who either played fairly or unfairly. Clinical symptoms were measured as well as explicit trustworthiness impressions. Results: Overall, the patients with schizophrenia showed unimpaired explicit facial trustworthiness impressions and unimpaired facial appearance biases in the Trust Game. Crucially, patients and controls significantly differed so that the patients with schizophrenia did not learn to discriminate in the Trust Game based on actual partner fairness, unlike control participants. Conclusion: A failure to discriminate trust has important implications for everyday functioning in schizophrenia, as forming accurate trustworthiness beliefs is an essential social skill. Critically, without relying on more valid trust cues, people with schizophrenia may be especially susceptible to the misleading effect of appearance when making trusting decisions. Practitioner points: Findings. People with schizophrenia made very similar facial trustworthiness impressions to healthy controls and also used facial appearance to guide trust decisions similarly to controls. However, the patient group were less able to explicitly distinguish between fair and unfair partners based on their behaviour compared with the control group. Moreover, people with schizophrenia failed to use actual partner fairness to guide their financial decisions in the Trust Game, unlike controls, and this impairment was specific to a social task. People with schizophrenia may be particularly reliant on facial appearance when trusting others, as they may struggle to incorporate more valid trustworthiness information in their decision-making, such as actual partner fairness
Targeting the macrophage in equine post-operative ileus
Post-operative ileus (POI) is the functional inhibition of propulsive intestinal motility
which is a frequent occurrence following abdominal surgery in the horse and in
humans. Rodent and human-derived data have shown that manipulation-induced
activation of the resident muscularis externa (ME) macrophages in the intestine
contributes to the pathophysiology of the disease. Most studies of the disease,
specifically in the horse, have focussed on identification of risk factors, descriptive
studies of the disease or the assessment of the efficacy of various therapeutic and
prophylactic interventions. As a result, the proposed pathogenesis of equine POI is
largely reliant on the translation of data from rodent models. The aims of this thesis
were to identify macrophage populations in the normal equine gastrointestinal tract
(GIT) and to study equine macrophage activation by stimulating equine bone marrow-derived
macrophages (eqBMDMs) with lipopolysaccharide (LPS) as a model for
intestinal macrophage activation.
Firstly, the normal population of macrophages in the equine GIT was determined.
Using CD163 as an immunohistochemical marker for macrophages. CD163+ve cells
were present in all tissue layers of the equine intestine: mucosa, submucosa, ME and
serosa. CD163+ve cells were regularly distributed within the ME, with accumulations
adjacent to the myenteric plexus, and therefore to intestinal motility effector cells
such as neurons and the Interstitial Cells of Cajal.
The differentiation and survival of intestinal macrophages depends upon signals
from the macrophage colony-stimulating factor (CSF-1) receptor. LPS translocation
from the gut lumen is thought to be a key activator of ME macrophages. To provide
a model for gut macrophages, a protocol was optimised to produce pure populations
of equine bone marrow-derived macrophages (eqBMDMs) by cultivation of equine
bone marrow in CSF-1. Macrophage functionality was assessed using microscopy,
flow cytometry and phagocytosis assays. EqBMDMs responded to LPS stimulation
with increases in expression of positive control genes, tumour necrosis factor alpha
(TNF-Ī±) and Indoleamine 2,3-dioxygenase (IDO1). The same mRNA was subjected to
transcriptomic (RNA-Seq) analysis. Differential gene expression and network cluster
analysis demonstrated an inflammatory response characterised by the production of
pro-inflammatory cytokines such as interleukin 1 beta (IL-1Ī²) and interleukin 6 (IL-6).
However, in contrast to rodent macrophages, eqBMDMs failed to produce nitric oxide
in response to LPS, showing species-specific variation in innate immune biology.
Using these data, we compared gene expression in normal equine intestine and in
intestine from horses undergoing abdominal surgery for colic (abdominal pain).
Horses undergoing abdominal surgery showed evidence of increased expression of
IL-1Ī², IL-6 and TNF-Ī± in the mucosa and ME when compared to control tissue. Horses
with post-operative reflux (POR), a clinical sign of POI, had increased gene expression
of IL-1Ī², IL-6 and TNF-Ī± compared to horses that did not develop POR following
abdominal surgery. These preliminary data suggest that there is macrophage
activation within the ME of the intestine during abdominal surgery in the horse, and
that a greater activation state is present in horses that subsequently develop POR.
The final part of this study was to investigate the effect of a long-acting form of CSF-
1, an Fc fusion protein (CSF1-Fc), as a potential treatment for POI using a mouse
model. This work, performed in collaboration with another research group, found
that mice lacking the C-C chemokine receptor type 2 (CCR2) gene, which is required
for monocyte recruitment into tissues, had a longer recovery period following
intestinal manipulation (IM) than wild type (WT) mice. With the administration of
CSF1-Fc, infiltration of neutrophils to the ME was reduced and the number of
macrophages in the ME was increased in both WT and CCR2-/- mice following IM.
Administration of CSF1-Fc in CCR2-/- mice improved recovery of gastrointestinal
transit three days following IM, to the same extent as WT mice. Network cluster
analysis and RT-qPCR of the ME revealed clusters of genes induced and
downregulated by CSF1-Fc, with increased expression of anti-inflammatory and pro-resolving
genes after IM in WT and CCR2-/- mice following treatment with CSF1-Fc
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