Goal slippage : a mechanism for spontaneous instrumental helping in infancy?

In recent years, developmental psychologists have increasingly been interested in various forms of prosocial behavior observed in infants and young children—in particular comforting, sharing, pointing to provide information, and spontaneous instrumental helping. We briefly review several models that have been proposed to explain the psychological mechanisms underpinning these behaviors. Focusing on spontaneous instrumental helping, we home in on models based upon what Paulus (Child Development Perspectives 8(2):77–81, 2014) has dubbed ‘goal-alignment’, i.e. the idea that the identification of an agent’s goal leads infants to take up that goal as their own. We identify a problem with the most well-known model based upon this idea, namely the ‘goal contagion’ model. The problem arises from the way in which the model specifies the content of the goal which is identified and taken up. We then propose an alternative way of specifying the content of the goal, and use this as a starting point for articulating an alternative model based upon the idea of alignment, namely the ‘goal slippage’ model. By elucidating the difference between goal contagion and goal slippage, we contribute to the articulation of experimental criteria for assessing whether and when the mechanisms specified by these two models are at work

Investing in commitment : persistence in a joint action is enhanced by the perception of a partner's effort

Can the perception that one’s partner is investing effort generate a sense of commitment to a joint action? To test this, we developed a 2-player version of the classic snake game which became increasingly boring over the course of each round. This enabled us to operationalize commitment in terms of how long participants persisted before pressing a ‘finish’ button to conclude each round. Our results from three experiments reveal that participants persisted longer when they perceived what they believed to be cues of their partner’s effortful contribution (Experiment 1). Crucially, this effect was not observed when they knew their partner to be an algorithm (Experiment 2), nor when it was their own effort that had been invested (Experiment 3). These results support the hypothesis that the perception of a partner’s effort elicits a sense of commitment, leading to increased persistence in the face of a temptation to disengage

The developmental origins of commitment

As adults, we are quite proficient in generating commitments, and in identifying, keeping track of, and responding appropriately to our own and others’ commitments. This proficiency is fundamentally important for uniquely human forms of sociality. By illuminating the cognitive processes underpinning commitments, we may therefore gain insight into the ways in which human cognition is unique, and into the ways in which it is shared with other species. In pursuing this aim, one valuable strategy is to investigate the emergence of an understanding of commitment in ontogeny, i.e. to isolate distinct components of this proficiency as they emerge, and to learn how they relate to each other, which are the most basic, etc. Our aim in this paper is to contribute to this project by articulating a theoretical framework to structure research on the emergence of an understanding of commitment in childhood

Using episodic memory to gauge implicit and/or indeterminate social commitments

In discussing Mahr and Csibra’s observations about the role of episodic memory in grounding social commitments, we propose that episodic memory is especially useful for gauging cases of implicit commitment and cases in which the content of a commitment is indeterminate. We conclude with some thoughts about how commitment may relate to the evolution of episodic memory

Molekuláris faj-diverzitás vizsgáló módszerek fajkompozíció torzításának elemzése, optimális eljárás kidolgozása és gyakorlati alkalmazása = Analysis of method inherent species composition biases of molecular species diversity analyses, method optimatisation and practical application

A baktérium közösségek szerkezetéről molekuláris módszerekkel levont következtetések feltevése, hogy a vizsgálati lépések során a minta faj-abundancia viszonyai nem változnak. A kutatások ennek ellenkezőjét sugallják. Vizsgálataink a multitemplát PCR, ill. a klónkönyvtár készítés közösségszerkezet-torzító hatásait térképezte fel. A preferenciális amplifikációt bacteria specifikus primerekkel elemeztük, az annelációs hőmérséklet, ill. a ciklusszám hatására. Ismert genomú törzsek DNS keverékein a PCR termékek mennyiségi viszonyait TRFLP-vel vizsgáltuk. 1:1 arányú templátkeverékeknél az illeszkedési hibával bíró a tökéletesen illeszkedő templáttal szemben hátrányba került. Az aránytorzítás exponenciális összefüggést mutat az annelációs hőmérséklettel. A PCR ciklusszámnak elhanyagolható hatása van a PCR termékek arányaira. Környezeti minták vizsgálatai alapján javasoljuk a kis annelációs hőmérsékletek használatát a torzulások elkerülésére. A klónozás során fellépő preferenciális ligációt TA vektor segítségével vizsgáltuk. A 16S-23S spacer elemzésnél jellemző inzertméret különbségek esetén a klónkönyvtárak összetétele erősen eltolódott a rövidebb inzertek felé. Ha az inzertek csak szekvenciában különböztek, enyhe torzulást kaptunk. Vagyis a nagy hossz heterogenitású génszakaszokra épülő klónozásos vizsgálatoknál a rövidebb inzertet adó fajok túlreprezentáltak lesznek. A környezeti klónokból az első 12 faj izolálása (Bacteria és Archaea) megtörtént. | There are several biasing factors in molecular microbiological community analyses though the quantitative aspect of multitemplate PCR and ligation at clone library construction is poorly investigated. The biases were investigated using bacteria specific primers, focusing on the effect of primer mismatch, annealing temperature and PCR cycle numbers. The distortion of template-to-product ratio was measured using TRFLP analysis. At 1:1 genomic DNA template mixtures, primer mismatches presented serious bias, with preferential amplification of the template with perfectly matching sequence. The extent of preferential amplification showed exponential relation with increasing annealing temperatures. The number of PCR cycles had little influence on template-to-product ratios. Analysing environmental samples, the use of low annealing temperature was recommended to reduce preferential amplification. Blunt-end cloning ligation step was investigated for the insert length heretogeneity. Strong preferential ligation of the shorter PCR amplicon was shown. Slightly skewed ratios were detected at the same insert length and GC content. These findings indicate that members of a diverse microbial sample may be excluded during clone library construction because of preferential ligation, this way biasing the true community picture.Environmental clones detected by the optimised techniques were targeted to culture. 12 new species (Bacteria and Archaea) were isolated and partially characterised

The perception of a robot partner’s effort elicits a sense of commitment to human-robot interaction

Previous research has shown that the perception that one’s partner is investing effort in a joint action can generate a sense of commitment, leading participants to persist longer despite increasing boredom. The current research extends this finding to human-robot interaction. We implemented a 2-player version of the classic snake game which became increasingly boring over the course of each round, and operationalized commitment in terms of how long participants persisted before pressing a ‘finish’ button to conclude each round. Participants were informed that they would be linked via internet with their partner, a humanoid robot. Our results reveal that participants persisted longer when they perceived what they believed to be cues of their robot partner’s effortful contribution to the joint action. This provides evidence that the perception of a robot partner’s effort can elicit a sense of commitment to human-robot interaction

Joint action goals reduce visuomotor interference effects from a partner’s incongruent actions

Joint actions often require agents to track others’ actions while planning and executing physically incongruent actions of their own. Previous research has indicated that this can lead to visuomotor interference effects when it occurs outside of joint action. How is this avoided or overcome in joint actions? We hypothesized that when joint action partners represent their actions as interrelated components of a plan to bring about a joint action goal, each partner’s movements need not be represented in relation to distinct, incongruent proximal goals. Instead they can be represented in relation to a single proximal goal – especially if the movements are, or appear to be, mechanically linked to a more distal joint action goal. To test this, we implemented a paradigm in which participants produced finger movements that were either congruent or incongruent with those of a virtual partner, and either with or without a joint action goal (the joint flipping of a switch, which turned on two light bulbs). Our findings provide partial support for the hypothesis that visuomotor interference effects can be reduced when two physically incongruent actions are represented as mechanically interdependent contributions to a joint action goal

Effort-based decision making in joint action : evidence of a sense of fairness

As humans, we are unique with respect to the flexibility and scope of our cooperative behavior. In recent years, considerable research has been devoted to investigating the psychological mechanisms which support this. One key finding is that people frequently calibrate their effort level to match a cooperation partner's effort costs - although little is known about exactly why they do so. We hypothesized that people calibrate with the ultimate goal of attracting and keeping good collaboration partners, with the proximal psychological motive being a preference for fairness. Across four lab-based, pre-registered experiments (N = 142), we found support for these hypotheses, and distinguished them from plausible alternative explanations, such as the conjecture that people may use their partner's effort costs as information to infer the value of opportunities afforded by their environment, and the conjecture that people may calibrate their effort investment in order to appear competent

Klinikopatológiai szemléletű emlőrákkutatások

In the second half of the 20th century research focusing to breast carcinomas at the Semmelweis University had been mostly linked to the 2nd Department of Pathology. Nowadays, following the rapidly improving treatment modalities in breast cancer there is an increasing need for defining new predictive and prognostic markers. The modern molecular pathological approach helps tremendously in mapping the biological behavior of individual cases of breast cancers and meanwhile, it is one of the prerequisites of a more efficient treatment both in neoadjuvant and adjuvant settings, as well as in metastatic disease. We provide a brief review of the relevant results we have obtained in breast cancer research between 2000 and 2015