The role of social cognition in decision making

Successful decision making in a social setting depends on our ability to understand the intentions, emotions and beliefs of others. The mirror system allows us to understand other people's motor actions and action intentions. ‘Empathy’ allows us to understand and share emotions and sensations with others. ‘Theory of mind’ allows us to understand more abstract concepts such as beliefs or wishes in others. In all these cases, evidence has accumulated that we use the specific neural networks engaged in processing mental states in ourselves to understand the same mental states in others. However, the magnitude of the brain activity in these shared networks is modulated by contextual appraisal of the situation or the other person. An important feature of decision making in a social setting concerns the interaction of reason and emotion. We consider four domains where such interactions occur: our sense of fairness, altruistic punishment, trust and framing effects. In these cases, social motivations and emotions compete with each other, while higher-level control processes modulate the interactions of these low-level biases

Oral contraception and eye disease: findings in two large cohort studies

AIM : To investigate the relation between oral contraceptive use and certain eye diseases. \ud \ud METHODS : Abstraction of the relevant data from the two large British cohort studies of the effects of oral contraception, the Royal College of General Practitioners' (RCGP) Oral Contraception Study and the Oxford-Family Planning Association (Oxford-FPA) Contraceptive Study. Both cohort studies commenced in 1968 and were organised on a national basis. Between them they have accumulated over 850 000 person years of observation involving 63 000 women. \ud \ud RESULTS : The conditions considered in the analysis were conjunctivitis, keratitis, iritis, lacrimal disease, strabismus, cataract, glaucoma, retinal detachment, and retinal vascular lesions. With the exception of retinal vascular lesions, there was no consistent evidence of important increases in risk of eye diseases in users of oral contraception. There was about a twofold increase in the risk of retinal vascular lesions in recent pill users in both studies (statistically significant only in the RCGP study). The increase was not limited to any specific type of lesion and may well reflect diagnostic bias. \ud \ud CONCLUSION : Oral contraceptive use does not appear to increase the risk of eye disease, with the possible exception of retinal vascular lesions. \ud \ud Keywords: oral contraception; eye disease; cohort studie

Independent neural computation of value from other people's confidence

Expectation of reward can be shaped by the observation of actions and expressions of other people in one's environment. A person's apparent confidence in the likely reward of an action, for instance, makes qualities of their evidence, not observed directly, socially accessible. This strategy is computationally distinguished from associative learning methods that rely on direct observation, by its use of inference from indirect evidence. In twenty-three healthy human subjects, we isolated effects of first-hand experience, other people's choices, and the mediating effect of their confidence, on decision-making and neural correlates of value within ventromedial prefrontal cortex (vmPFC). Value derived from first hand experience and other people's choices (regardless of confidence) were indiscriminately represented across vmPFC. However, value computed from agent choices weighted by their associated confidence was represented with specificity for ventromedial area 10. This pattern corresponds to shifts of connectivity and overlapping cognitive processes along a posterior-anterior vmPFC axis. Task behavior and self-reported self-reliance for decision-making in other social contexts correlated. The tendency to conform in other social contexts corresponded to increased activation in cortical regions previously shown to respond to social conflict in proportion to subsequent conformity (Campbell-Meiklejohn et al., 2010). The tendency to self-monitor predicted a selectively enhanced response to accordance with others in the right temporoparietal junction (rTPJ). The findings anatomically decompose vmPFC value representations according to computational requirements and provide biological insight into the social transmission of preference and reassurance gained from the confidence of others. Significance Statement: Decades of research have provided evidence that the ventromedial prefrontal cortex (vmPFC) signals the satisfaction we expect from imminent actions. However, we have a surprisingly modest understanding of the organization of value across this substantial and varied region. This study finds that using cues of the reliability of other peoples'; knowledge to enhance expectation of personal success generates value correlates that are anatomically distinct from those concurrently computed from direct, personal experience. This suggests that representation of decision values in vmPFC is suborganized according to the underlying computation, consistent with what we know about the anatomical heterogeneity of the region. These results also provide insight into the observational learning process by which someone else's confidence can sway and reassure our choices

Higher-order thoughts in action : Consciousness as an unconscious re-description process

Peer reviewedPostprin

Estimating Uncertainty in Long Term Total Ozone Records from Multiple Sources

Total ozone measurements derived from the TOMS and SBUV backscattered solar UV instrument series cover the period from late 1978 to the present. As the SBUV series of instruments comes to an end, we look to the 10 years of data from the AURA Ozone Monitoring Instrument (OMI) and two years of data from the Ozone Mapping Profiler Suite (OMPS) on board the Suomi National Polar-orbiting Partnership satellite to continue the record. When combining these records to construct a single long-term data set for analysis we must estimate the uncertainty in the record resulting from potential biases and drifts in the individual measurement records. In this study we present a Monte Carlo analysis used to estimate uncertainties in the Merged Ozone Dataset (MOD), constructed from the Version 8.6 SBUV2 series of instruments. We extend this analysis to incorporate OMI and OMPS total ozone data into the record and investigate the impact of multiple overlapping measurements on the estimated error. We also present an updated column ozone trend analysis and compare the size of statistical error (error from variability not explained by our linear regression model) to that from instrument uncertainty

Frontal alpha oscillations distinguish leaders from followers: Multivariate decoding of mutually interacting brains

Successful social interactions rely upon the abilities of two or more people to mutually exchange information in real-time, while simultaneously adapting to one another. The neural basis of social cognition has mostly been investigated in isolated individuals, and more recently using two-person paradigms to quantify the neuronal dynamics underlying social interaction. While several studies have shown the relevance of understanding complementary and mutually adaptive processes, the neural mechanisms underlying such coordinative behavioral patterns during joint action remain largely unknown. Here, we employed a synchronized finger-tapping task while measuring dual-EEG from pairs of human participants who either mutually adjusted to each other in an interactive task or followed a computer metronome. Neurophysiologically, the interactive condition was characterized by a stronger suppression of alpha and low-beta oscillations over motor and frontal areas in contrast to the non-interactive computer condition. A multivariate analysis of two-brain activity to classify interactive versus non-interactive trials revealed asymmetric patterns of the frontal alpha-suppression in each pair, during both task anticipation and execution, such that only one member showed the frontal component. Analysis of the behavioral data showed that this distinction coincided with the leader–follower relationship in 8/9 pairs, with the leaders characterized by the stronger frontal alpha-suppression. This suggests that leaders invest more resources in prospective planning and control. Hence our results show that the spontaneous emergence of leader–follower relationships in dyadic interactions can be predicted from EEG recordings of brain activity prior to and during interaction. Furthermore, this emphasizes the importance of investigating complementarity in joint action

Jamming and unjamming of concentrated colloidal dispersions in channel flow

We investigated the pressure driven flow of concentrated colloidal dispersions in a converging channel geometry. Optical microscopy and image analysis were used to track tracer particles mixed into dispersions of sterically stabilized poly(methyl methacrylate) (PMMA) spheres. The dispersions were drawn into a round \unit[0.5]{mm} capillary at one of two pump speeds ($\equiv$ applied pressure): v_1=\unit[0.245]{ml\,\, min^{-1}} and v_2=\unit[0.612]{ml\,\, min^{-1}}. We observed that the dispersions at particle volume fractions $\phi\leqslant0.50$ followed Hagen-Poiseuille flow for a simple fluid; i.e. the mean flow rate $\langle V\rangle$ is approximately proportional to pressure drop (pump speed) and inversely proportional viscosity $\eta$. Above this concentration ($\phi\geqslant0.505$), the dispersions exhibit granular-like jamming behavior with $\langle V\rangle$ becoming independent of the pressure drop. However, at the highest applied pressure ($v_2$), the dispersions are able to unjam and switch from granular-like behaviour back to a simple hard-sphere liquid like system, due to the formation of rotating vortices in the spatial flow pattern. This mechanism is consistent with computer simulations of granular systems and supports for example proposed explanations of anomalously low friction in earthquake faults

The transformative potential of reflective diaries for elite English cricketers

The sport of cricket has a history of its players suffering from mental health issues. The psychological study of cricket and, in particular, the attendant demands of participating at an elite level has not previously received rigorous academic attention. This study explored ten elite male cricketers’ experiences of keeping a daily reflective diary for one month during the competitive season. The aim was to assess how valuable qualitative diaries are in this field. Participants were interviewed regarding their appraisal of the methodology as a self‐help tool that could assist coping with performance pressures and wider life challenges. Three outcomes were revealed: first, that diary keeping was an effective opportunity to reflect upon the past and enhance one’s self (both as an individual and a performer); second, that diary keeping acted as a form of release that allowed participants to progress; and third, that diary keeping allowed participants to discover personal patterns of success that increased the likeliness of optimum performance