Computer-Mediated Deception: Collective Language-action Cues as Stigmergic Signals for Computational Intelligence

Collective intelligence is easily observable in group-based or interpersonal pairwise interaction, and is enabled by environment-mediated stigmertic signals. Based on innate ability, human sensors not only sense and coordinate, but also tend to solve problems through these signals. This paper argues the efficacy of computational intelligence for adopting the collective language-action cues of human intelligence as stigmertic signals to differentiate deception. A study was conducted in synchronous computer-mediated communication environment with a dataset collected from 2014 to 2015. An online game was developed to examine the accuracy of certain language-action cues (signs), deceptive actors (agents) during pairwise interaction (environment). The result of a logistic regression analysis demonstrates the computational efficacy of collective language-action cues in differentiating and sensing deception in spontaneous communication. This study contributes to the computational modeling in adapting human intelligence as a base to attribute computer-mediated deception

Psychopaths Online: The Linguistic Traces of Psychopathy in Email, Text Messaging and Facebook

Individuals high in psychopathy are interpersonally manipulative, exhibit callous affect, and have criminal tendencies. The present study examines whether these attributes of psychopathy are correlated with linguistic patterns present in everyday online communication. Participants’ emails, SMS messages, and Facebook messages were collected and analyzed in relation to their scores on the Self-Report Psychopathy Test III. The findings suggest that psychopathic tendencies leave a trace in online discourse, and that different forms of online media sometimes moderate the association between a linguistic dimension and psychopathy scores. Consistent with previous studies and the emotional and interpersonal deficits central to psychopathy, participants higher in psychopathy showed more evidence of psychological distancing, wrote less comprehensible discourse, and produced more interpersonally hostile language. The results reveal that linguistic traces of psychopathy can be detected in online communication, and that those with higher traits of psychopathy fail to modify their language use across media types

To use or be used? The role of agency in social media use and well-being

In this paper, we develop the concept of agentic social media use: a way of engaging with social media that emphasizes having the beliefs, knowledge, and practices to use it intentionally. In comparison to instances of “mindless” social media use, people who use social media agentically do so with a purpose in mind: they leverage the affordances of social media to do things that are meaningful, useful, or satisfying for them. For example, people can use social media to intentionally build or manage their relationships, to seek out and learn new information about their interests, or to craft a positive image of themselves through the content they post. Crucially, however, there are many other valuable uses of social media that may not be considered conventionally productive but are nonetheless deliberate and useful, such as using social media intentionally to relax, unwind, and entertain themselves in an effort to modulate their emotions. To use social media agentically means to (1) hold an agentic mindset about one's relationship with social media, (2) have the knowledge and literacy to understand how to navigate social media effectively, and (3) enact practices that assert control over specific elements of social media use, such as curating content and refining algorithmic recommendation. Approaching social media use from the perspective of agency and intentionality allows us to better understand heterogeneous social media effects and to identify new ways of helping people benefit from these technologies

Authentic First Impressions Relate to Interpersonal, Social, and Entrepreneurial Success

This paper examines how verbal authenticity influences person perception. Our work combines human judgments and natural language processing to suggest verbal authenticity is a positive predictor of interpersonal interest (Study 1: 294 dyadic conversations), engagement with speeches (Study 2: 2,655 TED talks), entrepreneurial success (Study 3: 478 Shark Tank pitches), and social media engagements (Studies 4a-c; N = 387,039 Tweets). We find that communicating authenticity is associated with increased interest in and perceived connection to another person, more comments and views for TED talks, receiving a financial investment from investors, and more social media likes and retweets. Our work is among the first to evaluate how authenticity relates to person perception and manifests naturally using verbal data

Cytomegaloviral determinants of CD8+ T cell programming and RhCMV/SIV vaccine efficacy

Simian immunodeficiency virus (SIV) insert-expressing, 68–1 Rhesus Cytomegalovirus (RhCMV/SIV) vectors elicit major histocompatibility complex (MHC)-E- and -II-restricted, SIV-specific CD8(+) T cell responses, but the basis of these unconventional responses and their contribution to demonstrated vaccine efficacy against SIV challenge in the rhesus monkeys (RMs) has not been characterized. We show that these unconventional responses resulted from a chance genetic rearrangement in 68–1 RhCMV that abrogated the function of eight distinct immunomodulatory gene products encoded in two RhCMV genomic regions (Rh157.5/Rh157.4 and Rh158–161), revealing three patterns of unconventional response inhibition. Differential repair of these genes with either RhCMV-derived or orthologous human CMV (HCMV)-derived sequences (UL128/UL130; UL146/UL147) leads to either of two distinct CD8(+) T cell response types – MHC-Ia-restricted-only, or a mix of MHC-II- and MHC-Ia-restricted CD8(+) T cells. Response magnitude and functional differentiation are similar to RhCMV 68–1, but neither alternative response type mediated protection against SIV challenge. These findings implicate MHC-E-restricted CD8(+) T cell responses as mediators of anti-SIV efficacy and indicate that translation of RhCMV/SIV vector efficacy to humans will likely require deletion of all genes that inhibit these responses from the HCMV/HIV vector

Negative Regulators of Insulin Signaling Revealed in a Genome-Wide Functional Screen

Type 2 diabetes develops due to a combination of insulin resistance and β-cell failure and current therapeutics aim at both of these underlying causes. Several negative regulators of insulin signaling are known and are the subject of drug discovery efforts. We sought to identify novel contributors to insulin resistance and hence potentially novel targets for therapeutic intervention.An arrayed cDNA library encoding 18,441 human transcripts was screened for inhibitors of insulin signaling and revealed known inhibitors and numerous potential novel regulators. The novel hits included proteins of various functional classes such as kinases, phosphatases, transcription factors, and GTPase associated proteins. A series of secondary assays confirmed the relevance of the primary screen hits to insulin signaling and provided further insight into their modes of action.Among the novel hits was PALD (KIAA1274, paladin), a previously uncharacterized protein that when overexpressed led to inhibition of insulin's ability to down regulate a FOXO1A-driven reporter gene, reduced upstream insulin-stimulated AKT phosphorylation, and decreased insulin receptor (IR) abundance. Conversely, knockdown of PALD gene expression resulted in increased IR abundance, enhanced insulin-stimulated AKT phosphorylation, and an improvement in insulin's ability to suppress FOXO1A-driven reporter gene activity. The present data demonstrate that the application of arrayed genome-wide screening technologies to insulin signaling is fruitful and is likely to reveal novel drug targets for insulin resistance and the metabolic syndrome