The time course of person perception from voices in the brain.

When listeners hear a voice, they rapidly form a complex first impression of who the person behind that voice might be. We characterize how these multivariate first impressions from voices emerge over time across different levels of abstraction using electroencephalography and representational similarity analysis. We find that for eight perceived physical (gender, age, and health), trait (attractiveness, dominance, and trustworthiness), and social characteristics (educatedness and professionalism), representations emerge early (~80 ms after stimulus onset), with voice acoustics contributing to those representations between ~100 ms and 400 ms. While impressions of person characteristics are highly correlated, we can find evidence for highly abstracted, independent representations of individual person characteristics. These abstracted representationse merge gradually over time. That is, representations of physical characteristics (age, gender) arise early (from ~120 ms), while representations of some trait and social characteristics emerge later (~360 ms onward). The findings align with recent theoretical models and shed light on the computations underpinning person perception from voices.

Trust me if you can: a survey on reliability and interpretability of machine learning approaches for drug sensitivity prediction in cancer.

With the ever-increasing number of artificial intelligence (AI) systems, mitigating risks associated with their use has become one of the most urgent scientific and societal issues. To this end, the European Union passed the EU AI Act, proposing solution strategies that can be summarized under the umbrella term trustworthiness. In anti-cancer drug sensitivity prediction, machine learning (ML) methods are developed for application in medical decision support systems, which require an extraordinary level of trustworthiness. This review offers an overview of the ML landscape of methods for anti-cancer drug sensitivity prediction, including a brief introduction to the four major ML realms (supervised, unsupervised, semi-supervised, and reinforcement learning). In particular, we address the question to what extent trustworthiness-related properties, more specifically, interpretability and reliability, have been incorporated into anti-cancer drug sensitivity prediction methods over the previous decade. In total, we analyzed 36 papers with approaches for anti-cancer drug sensitivity prediction. Our results indicate that the need for reliability has hardly been addressed so far. Interpretability, on the other hand, has often been considered for model development. However, the concept is rather used intuitively, lacking clear definitions. Thus, we propose an easily extensible taxonomy for interpretability, unifying all prevalent connotations explicitly or implicitly used within the field.

Atypical neural encoding of faces in individuals with autism spectrum disorder.

Individuals with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) experience pervasive difficulties in processing social information from faces. However, the behavioral and neural mechanisms underlying social trait judgments of faces in ASD remain largely unclear. Here, we comprehensively addressed this question by employing functional neuroimaging and parametrically generated faces that vary in facial trustworthiness and dominance. Behaviorally, participants with ASD exhibited reduced specificity but increased inter-rater variability in social trait judgments. Neurally, participants with ASD showed hypo-activation across broad face-processing areas. Multivariate analysis based on trial-by-trial face responses could discriminate participant groups in the majority of the face-processing areas. Encoding social traits in ASD engaged vastly different face-processing areas compared to controls, and encoding different social traits engaged different brain areas. Interestingly, the idiosyncratic brain areas encoding social traits in ASD were still flexible and context-dependent, similar to neurotypicals. Additionally, participants with ASD also showed an altered encoding of facial saliency features in the eyes and mouth. Together, our results provide a comprehensive understanding of the neural mechanisms underlying social trait judgments in ASD.

Conceptualizing and Measuring Trust, Mistrust, and Distrust: Implications for Advancing Health Equity and Building Trustworthiness.

Trust is vital to public confidence in health and science, yet there is no consensus on the most useful way to conceptualize, define, measure, or intervene on trust and its related constructs (e.g., mistrust, distrust, and trustworthiness). In this review, we synthesize literature from this wide-ranging field that has conceptual roots in racism, marginalization, and other forms of oppression. We summarize key definitions and conceptual frameworks and offer guidance to scholars aiming to measure these constructs. We also review how trust-related constructs are associated with health outcomes, describe interventions in this field, and provide recommendations for building trust and institutional trustworthiness and advancing health equity. We ultimately call for future efforts to focus on improving the trustworthiness of public health professionals, scientists, health care providers, and systems instead of aiming to increase trust in these entities as they currently exist and behave.

Reducing Facial Stereotype Bias in Consequential Social Judgments: Intervention Success With White Male Faces.

Initial impressions of others based on facial appearances are often inaccurate yet can lead to dire outcomes. Across four studies, adult participants underwent a counterstereotype training to reduce their reliance on facial appearance in consequential social judgments of White male faces. In Studies 1 and 2, trustworthiness and sentencing judgments among control participants predicted whether real-world inmates were sentenced to death versus life in prison, but these relationships were diminished among trained participants. In Study 3, a sequential priming paradigm demonstrated that the training was able to abolish the relationship between even automatically and implicitly perceived trustworthiness and the inmates' life-or-death sentences. Study 4 extended these results to realistic decision-making, showing that training reduced the impact of facial trustworthiness on sentencing decisions even in the presence of decision-relevant information. Overall, our findings suggest that a counterstereotype intervention can mitigate the potentially harmful effects of relying on facial appearance in consequential social judgments.

Learned trustworthiness does not have the same influence on implicit responses measured via fast periodic visual stimulation as face trustworthiness.

Past research has demonstrated that it is possible to detect implicit responses to face trustworthiness using fast periodic visual stimulation (FPVS). Because people readily retrieve affective associations with faces, the current study investigated whether learned trustworthiness would yield similar responses to face trustworthiness as measured via FPVS. After learning to associate faces with untrustworthy or trustworthy behaviors, participants completed three separate tasks while electroencephalography (EEG) was recorded. In each of these tasks, participants viewed oddball sequences of faces where a single base face was presented repeatedly at a rate of 6 Hz and oddball faces with different identities were presented every fifth face (6 Hz/5 = 1.2 Hz). Providing evidence of learning, the oddball response at 1.2 Hz and its harmonics was stronger for the learned faces compared to novel faces over bilateral occipitotemporal cortex and beyond. In addition, reproducing previous findings with face trustworthiness, we observed a stronger response at 1.2 Hz and its harmonics for sequences with less trustworthy-looking versus trustworthy-looking oddball faces over bilateral occipitotemporal cortex and other sites. However, contrary to our predictions, we did not observe a significant influence of learned trustworthiness on the oddball response. These data indicate that impressions based on learning are treated differently than impressions based on appearance, and they raise questions about the types of design and stimuli that yield responses that are measurable via FPVS.

Alcohol does not influence trust in others or oxytocin, but increases positive affect and risk-taking: a randomized, controlled, within-subject trial.

BACKGROUND: Alcohol consumption to facilitate social interaction is an important drinking motive. Here, we tested whether alcohol influences trust in others via modulation of oxytocin and/or androgens. We also aimed at confirming previously shown alcohol effects on positive affect and risk-taking, because of their role in facilitating social interaction. METHODS: This randomized, controlled, within-subject, parallel group, alcohol-challenge experiment investigated the effects of alcohol (versus water, both mixed with orange juice) on perceived trustworthiness via salivary oxytocin (primary and secondary endpoint) as well as testosterone, dihydrotestosterone, positive affect, and risk-taking (additional endpoints). We compared 56 male participants in the alcohol condition (1.07 ± 0.18 per mille blood alcohol concentration) with 20 in the control condition. RESULTS: The group (alcohol versus control condition) × time (before [versus during] versus after drinking) interactions were not significantly associated with perceived trustworthiness (η2 < 0.001) or oxytocin (η2 = 0.003). Bayes factors provided also substantial evidence for the absence of these effects (BF01 = 3.65; BF01 = 7.53). The group × time interactions were related to dihydrotestosterone (η2 = 0.018 with an increase in the control condition) as well as positive affect and risk-taking (η2 = 0.027 and 0.007 with increases in the alcohol condition), but not significantly to testosterone. DISCUSSION: The results do not verify alcohol effects on perceived trustworthiness or oxytocin in male individuals. However, they indicate that alcohol (versus control) might inhibit an increase in dihydrotestosterone and confirm that alcohol amplifies positive affect and risk-taking. This provides novel mechanistic insight into social facilitation as an alcohol-drinking motive.

Distrust before first sight? Examining knowledge- and appearance-based effects of trustworthiness on the visual consciousness of faces.

The present EEG study with 32 healthy participants investigated whether affective knowledge about a person influences the visual awareness of their face, additionally considering the impact of facial appearance. Faces differing in perceived trustworthiness based on appearance were associated with negative or neutral social information and shown as target stimuli in an attentional blink task. As expected, participants showed enhanced awareness of faces associated with negative compared to neutral social information. On the neurophysiological level, this effect was connected to differences in the time range of the early posterior negativity (EPN)-a component associated with enhanced attention and facilitated processing of emotional stimuli. The findings indicate that the social-affective relevance of a face based on emotional knowledge is accessed during a phase of attentional enhancement for conscious perception and can affect prioritization for awareness. In contrast, no clear evidence for influences of facial trustworthiness during the attentional blink was found.

Masks wearing off: Changing effects of face masks on trustworthiness over time.

During the global COVID-19 pandemic, the wearing of face masks became a common practice, raising questions about how masks affect perceptions of and behaviour towards others. Numerous studies have explored the impact of face masks on perceptions of trustworthiness, but results have been mixed and it remains unclear whether masks influence perceptions via their social meaning or their effects on facial appearance. In this study, Australian participants (N = 363) rated a series of faces which were either masked, unmasked, or occluded by a non-mask object (computer) in terms of perceived trustworthiness in 2020, 2022, or 2023. The apparent trustworthiness of unmasked faces remained stable across years, but masked faces were rated significantly more trustworthy in 2020 compared to 2022 and 2023. Furthermore, ratings of masked faces, but not unmasked faces, were correlated with participants' attitudes towards wearing masks. Faces occluded by a non-mask object were perceived to be less trustworthy than masked faces. Together, results strongly suggest the increase in perceived trustworthiness of masked faces reported in numerous studies conducted during COVID-19 were driven by positive social meanings around mask wearing rather than by their effect on facial appearance.

On the compatibility of established methods with emerging artificial intelligence and machine learning methods for disaster risk analysis.

There is growing interest in leveraging advanced analytics, including artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML), for disaster risk analysis (RA) applications. These emerging methods offer unprecedented abilities to assess risk in settings where threats can emerge and transform quickly by relying on "learning" through datasets. There is a need to understand these emerging methods in comparison to the more established set of risk assessment methods commonly used in practice. These existing methods are generally accepted by the risk community and are grounded in use across various risk application areas. The next frontier in RA with emerging methods is to develop insights for evaluating the compatibility of those risk methods with more recent advancements in AI/ML, particularly with consideration of usefulness, trust, explainability, and other factors. This article leverages inputs from RA and AI experts to investigate the compatibility of various risk assessment methods, including both established methods and an example of a commonly used AI-based method for disaster RA applications. This article utilizes empirical evidence from expert perspectives to support key insights on those methods and the compatibility of those methods. This article will be of interest to researchers and practitioners in risk-analytics disciplines who leverage AI/ML methods.

Adherence of Clinical Practice Guidelines for Oropharyngeal Dysphagia in Parkinson Disease to Trustworthy Standards: A Systematic Survey.

Despite the high prevalence and burden of dysphagia in Parkinson disease (PD), the availability and trustworthiness of clinical practice guidelines (CPGs) regarding its assessment and management remains uncertain. The objective of this study is to appraise the quality of CPGs for dysphagia in PD. We searched OVID Medline, Embase, CINAHL and SpeechBite from January 2011 to July 2023 for guidance documents addressing screening, referral, monitoring, assessment, or management of dysphagia in PD. We additionally conducted an informal search of web pages of relevant professional societies and government organizations. Paired reviewers independently screened studies, and for relevant guidance documents, abstracted data and assessed their quality using the National Guideline Clearinghouse Extent of Adherence to Trustworthy Standards instrument. Thirteen CPGs proved eligible. Of these, eight (62%) were developed by professional societies. Overall, CPGs were deemed low quality. Eleven (85%) CPGs reported funding sources, and nine (69%) reported conflicts of interest. Five (35%) guidance documents included a methodologist, four (30%) included patient partners, four (30%) described study selection processes, and two (15%) clearly described relevant benefits and harms. Regarding dysphagia-specific recommendations, less than half of guidance documents met standards for trustworthiness; six (46%) provided a synthesis of available evidence, eight (54%) specified strength of recommendations, and two (15%) articulated unambiguous recommendations. Limited guidance exists regarding screening, monitoring and referral for dysphagia in PD. Existing guidance frequently fails to meet standards for trustworthiness. International, multidisciplinary, evidence-based practice guidelines with adequate methodological and patient partner involvement are needed.

Trustworthiness for an Ultra-Wideband Localization Service.

Trustworthiness assessment is an essential step to assure that interdependent systems perform critical functions as anticipated, even under adverse conditions. In this paper, a holistic trustworthiness assessment framework for ultra-wideband self-localization is proposed, including the attributes of reliability, security, privacy, and resilience. Our goal is to provide guidance for evaluating a system's trustworthiness based on objective evidence, i.e., so-called trustworthiness indicators. These indicators are carefully selected through the threat analysis of the particular system under evaluation. Our approach guarantees that the resulting trustworthiness indicators correspond to chosen real-world threats. Moreover, experimental evaluations are conducted to demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed method. While the framework is tailored for this specific use case, the process itself serves as a versatile template, which can be used in other applications in the domains of the Internet of Things or cyber-physical systems.

When Trustworthiness Meets Face: Facial Design for Social Robots.

As a technical application in artificial intelligence, a social robot is one of the branches of robotic studies that emphasizes socially communicating and interacting with human beings. Although both robot and behavior research have realized the significance of social robot design for its market success and related emotional benefit to users, the specific design of the eye and mouth shape of a social robot in eliciting trustworthiness has received only limited attention. In order to address this research gap, our study conducted a 2 (eye shape) × 3 (mouth shape) full factorial between-subject experiment. A total of 211 participants were recruited and randomly assigned to the six scenarios in the study. After exposure to the stimuli, perceived trustworthiness and robot attitude were measured accordingly. The results showed that round eyes (vs. narrow eyes) and an upturned-shape mouth or neutral mouth (vs. downturned-shape mouth) for social robots could significantly improve people's trustworthiness and attitude towards social robots. The effect of eye and mouth shape on robot attitude are all mediated by the perceived trustworthiness. Trustworthy human facial features could be applied to the robot's face, eliciting a similar trustworthiness perception and attitude. In addition to empirical contributions to HRI, this finding could shed light on the design practice for a trustworthy-looking social robot.

Trustworthy Localization in IoT Networks: A Survey of Localization Techniques, Threats, and Mitigation.

The Internet of Things (IoT) has revolutionized the world, connecting billions of devices that offer assistance in various aspects of users' daily lives. Context-aware IoT applications exploit real-time environmental, user-specific, or situational data to dynamically adapt to users' needs, offering tailored experiences. In particular, Location-Based Services (LBS) exploit geographical information to adapt to environmental settings or provide recommendations based on users' and nodes' positions, thus delivering efficient and personalized services. To this end, there is growing interest in developing IoT localization systems within the scientific community. In addition, due to the sensitivity and privacy inherent to precise location information, LBS introduce new security challenges. To ensure a more secure and trustworthy system, researchers are studying how to prevent vulnerabilities and mitigate risks from the early design stages of LBS-empowered IoT applications. The goal of this study is to carry out an in-depth examination of localization techniques for IoT, with an emphasis on both the signal-processing design and security aspects. The investigation focuses primarily on active radio localization techniques, classifying them into range-based and range-free algorithms, while also exploring hybrid approaches. Next, security considerations are explored in depth, examining the main attacks for each localization technique and linking them to the most interesting solutions proposed in the literature. By highlighting advances, analyzing challenges, and providing solutions, the survey aims to guide researchers in navigating the complex IoT localization landscape.

The influence of face mask color on perceptions of African American and white men.

Despite their widespread use during the COVID-19 pandemic, face masks hinder abilities to interpret facial expressions. Yet, they can also reduce the appearance of characteristics that are used to categorize individuals into racial groups, such as Afrocentric features. The color of a face mask might also promote associations with certain types of behavior and professional occupations (e.g., blue surgical mask connoting physician stereotypes; black masks potentially being associated with criminality). This study assessed whether the presence and color of a face mask impacted perceptions of a target male of varying race. White participants (N = 250) were presented with an African American or White male adult face from the Chicago Face Database (of equal age and attractiveness) wearing a blue or black surgical mask, or no mask (Photoshopped onto the face) and rated the man on emotions (happy, sad, angry) as well as how trustworthy, threatening, and attractive the target appeared. Targets wearing a blue surgical mask were judged as more trustworthy and attractive than those wearing no mask (perhaps due to association with medical professions), but these judgements were not qualified by race, despite the African American target's selection based on Afrocentric features. The color black on a face mask did not exacerbate negative perceptions of targets, perhaps suggesting a decline effect in previously demonstrated associations between this color and criminal actions. Unlike previous research performed at the beginning of the Covid-19 Pandemic on cloth masks shown to potentially exacerbate racial biases, surgical masks (pleated and made of polymeric materials), appear to lessen potential stereotyping of Black relative to White men.

"We're Here to Take Care of Our Community": Lessons Learned From the U.S. Federal Health Center Covid-19 Vaccine Program.

Equitable access to vaccination is crucial to mitigating the disproportionate impact of Covid-19 on low-income communities and people of color in the United States. As primary care clinics for medically underserved patients, Federally Qualified Health Centers (FQHCs) emerged as a success story in the national effort to vaccinate the U.S. public against Covid-19. In February 2021, the Federal Health Center Covid-19 Vaccine Program began allocating vaccine supply directly to FQHCs in an effort to improve vaccine equity. This qualitative study documents how FQHCs in two states successfully mitigated barriers to vaccine access, responded to patient concerns about vaccination, and worked to maintain and grow community trust in a climate of uncertainty and fear during early vaccine roll-out to the general population. Using a socio-ecological model, we show how FQHCs intervened at multiple levels to advance vaccine equity, revealing valuable lessons for health promotion practice in primary care settings or underserved communities. Our findings provide descriptive context for existing quantitative evidence showing FQHCs' greater success in vaccinating people of color, and foreground valuable and innovative strategies for trustworthy health communication practices and equitable resource allocation to medically underserved patients and populations.

Analysis of the Brazilian-Portuguese Content on Autism Spectrum Disorder Available on YouTube Videos.

AIMS: Information about Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) is available in different videos on YouTube. However, these videos might present inaccurate or outdated information. The aims of this study were to 1) identify characteristics of Brazilian-Portuguese videos about ASD (i.e., type of content, number of views, likes, and dislikes); 2) analyze the content of informative videos about ASD, by assessing their trustworthiness and overall quality; and 3) investigate the most popular topics of informative videos about ASD over time. METHODS: This is a cross-sectional study that investigated Brazilian-Portuguese ASD content on YouTube. Videos were selected by two examiners and categorized as experiential or informative. The Discern checklist and the Global Quality Score (GQS) were used to analyze the trustworthiness and quality of informative videos. RESULTS: In total, 216 videos were analyzed, of which 19.5% and 85% were classified as experiential and informative, respectively. The majority of informative videos presented moderate trustworthiness and quality. Videos about ASD clinical aspects were the most popular. CONCLUSION: YouTube offers a large number of experiential and informative videos on ASD. However, some of these videos fail to present reliable and additional sources of information for stakeholders. Efforts to promote knowledge translation about ASD on YouTube are necessary.

Trust, entrusting and the role of trustworthiness for adult survivors of child sexual abuse.

BACKGROUND: Survivors of Child Sexual Abuse (CSA) are reported to have difficulties in trusting. Yet no previous study investigating CSA survivors' subjective experiences of trust exists and there is a paucity of clinical research into constructs and definitions of "trust." AIMS: To use a phenomenological lens to investigate CSA survivors' descriptions of trust relationships and trustworthy others by privileging their subjective experience. To better understand how trust can be built within therapeutic relationships. METHODS: A qualitative methodology using Interpretative Phenomenological Analysis was conducted within the survivor-research paradigm. The researcher was a person with lived experience of CSA who co-produced the study with CSA survivor advisors and co-constructed interviews with 17 adult CSA survivors. RESULTS: Findings present a "Survivor Trust Enactment Model" that delineates the process of building/repairing relational trust and advancing "transactional trust." Trust is portrayed as nuanced and formed across and according to context, including the demarcation of generalised and relational trust. The findings emphasise that trustees' trustworthiness is key to building trust which challenges assumptions that survivors are deficient in trust. CONCLUSION: The foregrounding of subjective trust experiences challenges diagnostic and clinical views on trust deficiency in adult CSA survivors. The study develops clinical constructs of trust, considers implications for clinical practice, and indicates areas for further research into trust dynamics in therapeutic relationships.

Why does one trust? A 360-degree perspective on the role of position power in weighting trustworthiness factors.

The purpose of the current paper is to explore the influence of the perceived trustworthiness factors of ability, benevolence and integrity on general and specific trust across supervisors, subordinates and peers with the same focal referent. This study used a 360-degree approach to examine how positional power asymmetries influence the relationship between trustworthiness and trust for a general and situation-specific referent. Data were obtained from military supervisors (N = 200), peers (N = 123), and subordinates (N = 85). Measures of trustworthiness and trust of a common military officer were obtained. Supervisors and subordinates differed in their relative weighting of trustworthiness factors (i.e. ability, benevolence, and integrity) when evaluating general and specific trust. Peers evidenced no difference in the relative weighting of trustworthiness factors. The relationship between benevolence and specific trust was stronger for subordinates than for supervisors. One implication of our findings is that trust can develop differently in bottom-up versus top-down organizational relationships. This study provides evidence that supervisors and subordinates emphasize different aspects of trustworthiness when evaluating their trust of a focal officer, and this process was different for general versus specific trust referents. The study also extends previous research by replicating previous findings across raters.

From the Viscera to First Impressions: Phase-Dependent Cardio-Visual Signals Bias the Perceived Trustworthiness of Faces.

When we see new people, we rapidly form first impressions. Whereas past research has focused on the role of morphological or emotional cues, we asked whether transient visceral states bias the impressions we form. Across three studies (N = 94 university students), we investigated how fluctuations of bodily states, driven by the interoceptive impact of cardiac signals, influence the perceived trustworthiness of faces. Participants less often chose faces presented in synchrony with their own cardiac systole as more trustworthy than faces presented out of synchrony. Participants also explicitly judged faces presented in synchrony with their cardiac systole as less trustworthy. Finally, the presentation of faces in synchrony with participants' cardiac diastole did not modulate participants' perceptions of the faces' trustworthiness, suggesting that the systolic phase is necessary for such interoceptive effects. These findings highlight the role of phasic interoceptive information in the processing of social information and provide a mechanistic account of the role of visceroception for social perception.