Using laboratory intergroup conflict and riots as a "stress test".

We apply the author's computational approach to groups to our empirical work studying and modelling riots. We suggest that assigning roles in particular gives insight, and measuring the frequency of bystander behaviour provides a method to understand the dynamic nature of intergroup conflict, allowing social identity to be incorporated into models of riots.

We predict a riot: inequity, relative deprivation and collective destruction in the laboratory.

Riots are unpredictable and dangerous. Our understanding of the factors that cause riots is based on correlational observations of population data, or post hoc introspection of individuals. To complement these accounts, we developed innovative experimental techniques, investigated the psychological factors of rioting and explored their consequences with agent-based simulations. We created a game, 'Parklife', that physically co-present participants played using smartphones. In two teams, participants tapped on their screen to grow trees and flowerbeds on separate but adjacent virtual parks. Participants could also tap to vandalize the other team's park. In some conditions, we surreptitiously introduced inequity between the teams so that one (the disadvantaged team) had to tap more for each reward. The experience of inequity caused the disadvantaged team to engage in more destruction, and to report higher relative deprivation and frustration. Agent-based models suggested that acts of destruction were driven by the interaction between individual level of frustration and the team's behaviour. Our results provide insights into the psychological mechanisms underlying collective action.

Biasing moral decisions by exploiting the dynamics of eye gaze.

Eye gaze is a window onto cognitive processing in tasks such as spatial memory, linguistic processing, and decision making. We present evidence that information derived from eye gaze can be used to change the course of individuals' decisions, even when they are reasoning about high-level, moral issues. Previous studies have shown that when an experimenter actively controls what an individual sees the experimenter can affect simple decisions with alternatives of almost equal valence. Here we show that if an experimenter passively knows when individuals move their eyes the experimenter can change complex moral decisions. This causal effect is achieved by simply adjusting the timing of the decisions. We monitored participants' eye movements during a two-alternative forced-choice task with moral questions. One option was randomly predetermined as a target. At the moment participants had fixated the target option for a set amount of time we terminated their deliberation and prompted them to choose between the two alternatives. Although participants were unaware of this gaze-contingent manipulation, their choices were systematically biased toward the target option. We conclude that even abstract moral cognition is partly constituted by interactions with the immediate environment and is likely supported by gaze-dependent decision processes. By tracking the interplay between individuals, their sensorimotor systems, and the environment, we can influence the outcome of a decision without directly manipulating the content of the information available to them.

Perception, as you make it.

The main question that Firestone & Scholl (F&S) pose is whether "what and how we see is functionally independent from what and how we think, know, desire, act, and so forth" (sect. 2, para. 1). We synthesize a collection of concerns from an interdisciplinary set of coauthors regarding F&S's assumptions and appeals to intuition, resulting in their treatment of visual perception as context-free.

A mass assembly of associative mechanisms: a dynamical systems account of natural social interaction.

The target article offers a negative, eliminativist thesis, dissolving the specialness of mirroring processes into a solution of associative mechanisms. We support the authors' project enthusiastically. What they are currently missing, we argue, is a positive, generative thesis about associative learning mechanisms and how they might give way to the complex, multimodal coordination that naturally arises in social interaction.

The importance of "what": infants use featural information to index events.

Dynamic spatial indexing is the ability to encode, remember, and track the location of complex events. For example, in a previous study, 6-month-old infants were familiarized to a toy making a particular sound in a particular location, and later they fixated that empty location when they heard the sound presented alone (Journal of Experimental Psychology: General, 2004, Vol. 133, pp. 46-62). The basis and developmental trajectory of this ability are currently unclear. We investigated dynamic spatial indexing across the first year after birth and tested the hypothesis that the structure of visual cues supports infants' learning of sound and location associations. In our study, 3-, 6-, and 10-month-olds were tested in a dynamic spatial indexing eye movement paradigm that paired two sounds with two locations. In one condition, these were reliably paired with two sets of visual features (two toys condition), replicating the original studies. We also presented a single set of visual cues in both locations (one toy condition) and multiple sets of visual features in both locations (six toys condition). Infants from 3 months of age onward showed evidence of dynamic spatial indexing in the two toys condition, but only the 10-month-olds succeeded in the one toy and six toys conditions. We argue that this may reflect a broader developmental trajectory, whereby infants first make use of multiple cue integration but with age are able to learn from a narrow set of cues.

Can extreme experiences enhance creativity? The case of the underwater nightclub.

Creativity is a valuable commodity. Research has revealed some identifying characteristics of creative people and some of the emotional states that can bring out the most creativity in all of us. It has also been shown that the long-term experience of different cultures and lifestyles that is the result of travel and immigration can also enhance creativity. However, the role of one-off, extreme, or unusual experiences on creativity has not been directly observed before. In part, that may be because, by their very nature, such experiences are very difficult to bring into the laboratory. Here, we brought the tools and empirical methods of the laboratory into the wild, measuring the psychological effects of a unique multisensory experience: an underwater nightclub. We showed - with fully randomized and experimentally controlled conditions - that such an experience boosted measures of divergent thinking in participants. This demonstrates that one element of creativity can be directly enhanced by unusual situations, and that experimental tools of psychology can be used to investigate a range of consumer experiences.

Video meeting signals: Experimental evidence for a technique to improve the experience of video conferencing.

We found evidence from two experiments that a simple set of gestural techniques can improve the experience of online meetings. Video conferencing technology has practical benefits, but psychological costs. It has allowed industry, education and social interactions to continue in some form during the covid-19 lockdowns. But it has left many users feeling fatigued and socially isolated, perhaps because the limitations of video conferencing disrupt users' ability to coordinate interactions and foster social affiliation. Video Meeting Signals (VMS™) is a simple technique that uses gestures to overcome some of these limitations. First, we carried out a randomised controlled trial with over 100 students, in which half underwent a short training session in VMS. All participants rated their subjective experience of two weekly seminars, and transcripts were objectively coded for the valence of language used. Compared to controls, students with VMS training rated their personal experience, their feelings toward their seminar group, and their perceived learning outcomes as significantly higher. Also, they were more likely to use positive language and less likely to use negative language. A second, larger experiment replicated the first, and added a condition where groups were given a version of the VMS training but taught to use emoji response buttons rather than gestures to signal the same information. The emoji-trained groups did not experience the same improvement as the VMS groups. By exploiting the specific benefits of gestural communication, VMS has great potential to overcome the psychological problems of group video meetings.

Sitting in Judgment: How Body Posture Influences Deception Detection and Gazing Behavior.

Body postures can affect how we process and attend to information. Here, a novel effect of adopting an open or closed posture on the ability to detect deception was investigated. It was hypothesized that the posture adopted by judges would affect their social acuity, resulting in differences in the detection of nonverbal behavior (i.e., microexpression recognition) and the discrimination of deceptive and truthful statements. In Study 1, adopting an open posture produced higher accuracy for detecting naturalistic lies, but no difference was observed in the recognition of brief facial expressions as compared to adopting a closed posture; trait empathy was found to have an additive effect on posture, with more empathic judges having higher deception detection scores. In Study 2, with the use of an eye-tracker, posture effects on gazing behavior when judging both low-stakes and high-stakes lies were measured. Sitting in an open posture reduced judges' average dwell times looking at senders, and in particular, the amount and length of time they focused on their hands. The findings suggest that simply shifting posture can impact judges' attention to visual information and veracity judgments (Mg = 0.40, 95% CI (0.03, 0.78)).

Veracity judgement, not accuracy: Reconsidering the role of facial expressions, empathy, and emotion recognition training on deception detection.

People hold strong beliefs about the role of emotional cues in detecting deception. While research on the diagnostic value of such cues has been mixed, their influence on human veracity judgements is yet to be fully explored. Here, we address the relationship between emotional information and veracity judgements. In Study 1, the role of emotion recognition in the process of detecting naturalistic lies was investigated. Decoders' veracity judgements were compared based on differences in trait empathy and their ability to recognise microexpressions and subtle expressions. Accuracy was found to be unrelated to facial cue recognition and negatively related to empathy. In Study 2, we manipulated decoders' emotion recognition ability and the type of lies they saw: experiential or affective (emotional and unemotional). Decoders received either emotion recognition training, bogus training, or no training. In all scenarios, training did not affect veracity judgements. Experiential lies were easier to detect than affective lies; however, affective unemotional lies were overall the hardest to judge. The findings illustrate the complex relationship between emotion recognition and veracity judgements, with abilities for facial cue detection being high yet unrelated to deception accuracy.

Multicenter veterinary practice assessment of the effects of omega-3 fatty acids on osteoarthritis in dogs.

OBJECTIVE: To assess the effect of food containing high concentrations of fish oil omega-3 fatty acids and a low omega-6-omega-3 fatty acid ratio on clinical signs of osteoarthritis in dogs. DESIGN: Randomized, double-blinded, controlled clinical trial. ANIMALS: 127 client-owned dogs with osteoarthritis in 1 or more joints from 18 privately owned veterinary clinics. PROCEDURES: Dogs were randomly assigned to be fed for 6 months with a typical commercial food or a test food containing a 31-fold increase in total omega-3 fatty acid content and a 34-fold decrease in omega-6-omega-3 ratio, compared with the control food. Dog owners completed a questionnaire about their dog's arthritic condition, and investigators performed a physical examination and collected samples for a CBC and serum biochemical analyses (including measurement of fatty acids concentration) at the onset of the study and at 6, 12, and 24 weeks afterward. RESULTS: Dogs fed the test food had a significantly higher serum concentration of total omega-3 fatty acids and a significantly lower serum concentration of arachidonic acid at 6, 12, and 24 weeks. According to owners, dogs fed the test food had a significantly improved ability to rise from a resting position and play at 6 weeks and improved ability to walk at 12 and 24 weeks, compared with control dogs. CONCLUSIONS AND CLINICAL RELEVANCE: Ingestion of the test food raised blood concentrations of omega-3 fatty acids and appeared to improve the arthritic condition in pet dogs with osteoarthritis.

Evaluation of the effects of dietary supplementation with fish oil omega-3 fatty acids on weight bearing in dogs with osteoarthritis.

OBJECTIVE: To evaluate the effects of a food supplemented with fish oil omega-3 fatty acids on weight bearing in dogs with osteoarthritis. DESIGN: Randomized, double-blinded, controlled clinical trial. ANIMALS: 38 client-owned dogs with osteoarthritis examined at 2 university veterinary clinics. PROCEDURES: Dogs were randomly assigned to receive a typical commercial food (n = 16) or a test food (22) containing 3.5% fish oil omega-3 fatty acids. On day 0 (before the trial began) and days 45 and 90 after the trial began, investigators conducted orthopedic evaluations and force-plate analyses of the most severely affected limb of each dog, and owners completed questionnaires to characterize their dogs' arthritis signs. RESULTS: The change in mean peak vertical force between days 90 and 0 was significant for the test-food group (5.6%) but not for the control-food group (0.4%). Improvement in peak vertical force values was evident in 82% of the dogs in the test-food group, compared with 38% of the dogs in the control-food group. In addition, according to investigators' subjective evaluations, dogs fed the test food had significant improvements in lameness and weight bearing on day 90, compared with measurements obtained on day 0. CONCLUSIONS AND CLINICAL RELEVANCE: At least in the short term, dietary supplementation with fish oil omega-3 fatty acids resulted in an improvement in weight bearing in dogs with osteoarthritis.

Self-categorization as a basis of behavioural mimicry: Experiments in The Hive.

INTRODUCTION: Do we always do what others do, and, if not, when and under what conditions do we do so? In this paper we test the hypothesis that mimicry is moderated by the mere knowledge of whether the source is a member of the same social category as ourselves. METHODS: We investigated group influence on mimicry using three tasks on a software platform which interfaces with mobile computing devices to allow the controlled study of collective behaviour in an everyday environment. RESULTS: Overall, participants (N = 965) were influenced by the movements of confederates (represented as dots on a screen) who belonged to their own category in both purposive and incidental tasks. CONCLUSION: Our results are compatible with collective level explanations of social influence premised on shared social identification. This includes both a heuristic of unintended mimicry (the acts of group members are diagnostic of how one should act), and communication of affiliation (based on a desire to make one's group cohesive). The results are incompatible with traditional 'contagion' accounts which suggest mimicry is automatic and inevitable. The results have practical implications for designing behavioural interventions which can harness the power of copying behaviour, for example in emergency evacuations.

Engagement in video and audio narratives: contrasting self-report and physiological measures.

Stories play a fundamental role in human culture. They provide a mechanism for sharing cultural identity, imparting knowledge, revealing beliefs, reinforcing social bonds and providing entertainment that is central to all human societies. Here we investigated the extent to which the delivery medium of a story (audio or visual) affected self-reported and physiologically measured engagement with the narrative. Although participants self-reported greater involvement for watching video relative to listening to auditory scenes, stronger physiological responses were recorded for auditory stories. Sensors placed at their wrists showed higher and more variable heart rates, greater electrodermal activity, and even higher body temperatures. We interpret these findings as evidence that the stories were more cognitively and emotionally engaging at a physiological level when presented in an auditory format. This may be because listening to a story, rather than watching a video, is a more active process of co-creation, and that this imaginative process in the listener's mind is detectable on the skin at their wrist.

When facts go down the rabbit hole: contrasting features and objecthood as indexes to memory.

People will often look to empty, uninformative locations in the world when trying to recall spoken information. This spatial indexing behaviour occurs when the information had previously been associated with those locations. It remains unclear, however, whether this behaviour is an example of a simple association across perceptual and cognitive systems, or whether location information plays a role in memory retrieval. In the current study, we investigate whether higher-level cognitive processes, such as object-based attention, are involved in spatial indexing. Participants saw creatures burrowing around the screen, appearing from underground to tell them facts. They saw the same creature in two locations, or two identical creatures in two locations, depending on spatiotemporal cues conveyed by a burrowing animation. While answering questions, we found that participants relied on these spatiotemporal cues, fixating the previous locations of the creature associated with the relevant fact, rather than the location of an identical creature. We interpret these findings in terms of an object-based attentional mechanism that is common to semantic memory and scene perception, and allows 'external memory' to be exploited in a dynamic environment.

Detecting Genuine and Deliberate Displays of Surprise in Static and Dynamic Faces.

People are good at recognizing emotions from facial expressions, but less accurate at determining the authenticity of such expressions. We investigated whether this depends upon the technique that senders use to produce deliberate expressions, and on decoders seeing these in a dynamic or static format. Senders were filmed as they experienced genuine surprise in response to a jack-in-the-box (Genuine). Other senders faked surprise with no preparation (Improvised) or after having first experienced genuine surprise themselves (Rehearsed). Decoders rated the genuineness and intensity of these expressions, and the confidence of their judgment. It was found that both expression type and presentation format impacted decoder perception and accurate discrimination. Genuine surprise achieved the highest ratings of genuineness, intensity, and judgmental confidence (dynamic only), and was fairly accurately discriminated from deliberate surprise expressions. In line with our predictions, Rehearsed expressions were perceived as more genuine (in dynamic presentation), whereas Improvised were seen as more intense (in static presentation). However, both were poorly discriminated as not being genuine. In general, dynamic stimuli improved authenticity discrimination accuracy and perceptual differences between expressions. While decoders could perceive subtle differences between different expressions (especially from dynamic displays), they were not adept at detecting if these were genuine or deliberate. We argue that senders are capable of producing genuine-looking expressions of surprise, enough to fool others as to their veracity.

Social Beliefs and Visual Attention: How the Social Relevance of a Cue Influences Spatial Orienting.

We are highly tuned to each other's visual attention. Perceiving the eye or hand movements of another person can influence the timing of a saccade or the reach of our own. However, the explanation for such spatial orienting in interpersonal contexts remains disputed. Is it due to the social appearance of the cue-a hand or an eye-or due to its social relevance-a cue that is connected to another person with attentional and intentional states? We developed an interpersonal version of the Posner spatial cueing paradigm. Participants saw a cue and detected a target at the same or a different location, while interacting with an unseen partner. Participants were led to believe that the cue was either connected to the gaze location of their partner or was generated randomly by a computer (Experiment 1), and that their partner had higher or lower social rank while engaged in the same or a different task (Experiment 2). We found that spatial cue-target compatibility effects were greater when the cue related to a partner's gaze. This effect was amplified by the partner's social rank, but only when participants believed their partner was engaged in the same task. Taken together, this is strong evidence in support of the idea that spatial orienting is interpersonally attuned to the social relevance of the cue-whether the cue is connected to another person, who this person is, and what this person is doing-and does not exclusively rely on the social appearance of the cue. Visual attention is not only guided by the physical salience of one's environment but also by the mental representation of its social relevance.

The Choreography of Group Affiliation.

When two people move in synchrony, they become more social. Yet it is not clear how this effect scales up to larger numbers of people. Does a group need to move in unison to affiliate, in what we term unitary synchrony; or does affiliation arise from distributed coordination, patterns of coupled movements between individual members of a group? We developed choreographic tasks that manipulated movement synchrony without explicitly instructing groups to move in unison. Wrist accelerometers measured group movement dynamics and we applied cross-recurrence analysis to distinguish the temporal features of emergent unitary synchrony (simultaneous movement) and distributed coordination (coupled movement). Participants' unitary synchrony did not predict pro-social behavior, but their distributed coordination predicted how much they liked each other, how they felt toward their group, and how much they conformed to each other's opinions. The choreography of affiliation arises from distributed coordination of group movement dynamics.

How different cultures look at faces depends on the interpersonal context.

Culture can influence how we see and experience the world, and recent research shows that it even determines how we look at each other. Yet, most of these laboratory studies use images of faces that are deprived of any social context. In the real world, we not only look at people's faces to perceive who they are, but also to signal information back to them. It is unknown, therefore, within which interpersonal contexts cultural differences in looking at faces emerge. In the current study, we manipulated one aspect of the interpersonal context of faces: whether the target face either established mutual gaze looking directly into the camera as if talking to the viewer or averted gaze slightly to the side as if talking to another person. East Asian and Western participants viewed target face videos while their eye movements were recorded. If cultural differences are exclusively related to encoding information from others, interpersonal context should not matter. However, if cultural differences are also the result of culturally specific expectations about how to appropriately interact with another person, then cultural differences should be modulated by whether the speaker seemingly addresses the viewer or another person. In support of the second hypothesis, we only find cultural differences in looking at faces in the mutual gaze condition. We speculate that cultural norms surrounding the use of gaze as a social signal may underlie previous findings of cultural differences in face perception. (PsycINFO Database Record

Joint action aesthetics.

Synchronized movement is a ubiquitous feature of dance and music performance. Much research into the evolutionary origins of these cultural practices has focused on why humans perform rather than watch or listen to dance and music. In this study, we show that movement synchrony among a group of performers predicts the aesthetic appreciation of live dance performances. We developed a choreography that continuously manipulated group synchronization using a defined movement vocabulary based on arm swinging, walking and running. The choreography was performed live to four audiences, as we continuously tracked the performers' movements, and the spectators' affective responses. We computed dynamic synchrony among performers using cross recurrence analysis of data from wrist accelerometers, and implicit measures of arousal from spectators' heart rates. Additionally, a subset of spectators provided continuous ratings of enjoyment and perceived synchrony using tablet computers. Granger causality analyses demonstrate predictive relationships between synchrony, enjoyment ratings and spectator arousal, if audiences form a collectively consistent positive or negative aesthetic evaluation. Controlling for the influence of overall movement acceleration and visual change, we show that dance communicates group coordination via coupled movement dynamics among a group of performers. Our findings are in line with an evolutionary function of dance-and perhaps all performing arts-in transmitting social signals between groups of people. Human movement is the common denominator of dance, music and theatre. Acknowledging the time-sensitive and immediate nature of the performer-spectator relationship, our study makes a significant step towards an aesthetics of joint actions in the performing arts.