Toddlers Prefer Agents Who Help Those Facing Harder Tasks.

Capacities to understand and evaluate others' actions are fundamental to human social life. Infants and toddlers are sensitive to the costs of others' actions, infer others' values from the costs of the actions they take, and prefer those who help others to those who hinder them, but it is largely unknown whether and how cost considerations inform early understanding of third-party prosocial actions. In three experiments (N = 94), we asked whether 16-month-old toddlers value agents who selectively help those who need it most. Presented with two agents who attempted two tasks, toddlers preferentially looked to and touched someone who helped the agent in greater need, both when one agent's task required more effort and when the tasks were the same but one agent was weaker. These results provide evidence that toddlers engage in need-based evaluations of helping, applying their understanding of action utilities to their social evaluations.

Dynamic brain communication underwriting face pareidolia.

Face pareidolia is a tendency to seeing faces in nonface images that reflects high tuning to a face scheme. Yet, studies of the brain networks underwriting face pareidolia are scarce. Here, we examined the time course and dynamic topography of gamma oscillatory neuromagnetic activity while administering a task with nonface images resembling a face. Images were presented either with canonical orientation or with display inversion that heavily impedes face pareidolia. At early processing stages, the peaks in gamma activity (40 to 45 Hz) to images either triggering or not face pareidolia originate mainly from the right medioventral and lateral occipital cortices, rostral and caudal cuneus gyri, and medial superior occipital gyrus. Yet, the difference occurred at later processing stages in the high-frequency range of 80 to 85 Hz over a set of the areas constituting the social brain. The findings speak rather for a relatively late neural network playing a key role in face pareidolia. Strikingly, a cutting-edge analysis of brain connectivity unfolding over time reveals mutual feedforward and feedback intra- and interhemispheric communication not only within the social brain but also within the extended large-scale network of down- and upstream regions. In particular, the superior temporal sulcus and insula strongly engage in communication with other brain regions either as signal transmitters or recipients throughout the whole processing of face-pareidolia images.

A bonus task boosts people's willingness to offload cognition to an algorithm.

With the increased sophistication of technology, humans have the possibility to offload a variety of tasks to algorithms. Here, we investigated whether the extent to which people are willing to offload an attentionally demanding task to an algorithm is modulated by the availability of a bonus task and by the knowledge about the algorithm's capacity. Participants performed a multiple object tracking (MOT) task which required them to visually track targets on a screen. Participants could offload an unlimited number of targets to a "computer partner". If participants decided to offload the entire task to the computer, they could instead perform a bonus task which resulted in additional financial gain-however, this gain was conditional on a high performance accuracy in the MOT task. Thus, participants should only offload the entire task if they trusted the computer to perform accurately. We found that participants were significantly more willing to completely offload the task if they were informed beforehand that the computer's accuracy was flawless (Experiment 1 vs. 2). Participants' offloading behavior was not significantly affected by whether the bonus task was incentivized or not (Experiment 2 vs. 3). These results combined with those from our previous study (Wahn et al. in PLoS ONE 18:e0286102, 2023), which did not include a bonus task but was identical otherwise, show that the human willingness to offload an attentionally demanding task to an algorithm is considerably boosted by the availability of a bonus task-even if not incentivized-and by the knowledge about the algorithm's capacity.

Web-based cognitive rehabilitation intervention for cancer-related cognitive impairment following chemotherapy for aggressive lymphoma: protocol for a randomised pilot trial.

INTRODUCTION: Cancer-related cognitive impairment is common among people diagnosed with and treated for cancer. This can be a distressing and disabling side effect for impacted individuals. Interventions to mitigate cognitive dysfunction are available, but, to date, most have been trialled in samples that are largely or exclusively composed of people with solid tumours. Intervention strategies to support cognitive functioning are needed, but there is a paucity of research in this area. The main aim of this study is to test the feasibility and acceptability of methods and procedures intended for use in a definitive trial of a web-based cognitive rehabilitation programme, Responding to Cognitive Concerns (eReCog), in people who have received chemotherapy for aggressive lymphoma. METHODS AND ANALYSIS: The proposed study is a single-site, parallel-group, pilot randomised controlled trial, with one baseline and one follow-up (or postintervention) assessment. 38 people from the target population with low perceived cognitive function based on the Cognitive Change Screen will be recruited from a specialist cancer centre between July 2023 and June 2024. After baseline assessment, participants will be randomised one-to-one to receive usual care only (a factsheet about changes in memory and thinking for people with cancer) or eReCog plus usual care. The 4-week eReCog intervention consists of four online modules offering psychoeducation on cognitive impairment associated with cancer and its treatment, skills training for improving memory, and attention and relaxation training. Study outcomes will include the feasibility of recruitment and retention at follow-up assessment (primary outcomes), as well as adherence to, usability of and intrinsic motivation to engage with eReCog, and compliance with study measures. The potential efficacy of eReCog will also be evaluated. ETHICS AND DISSEMINATION: Ethical approval was granted by the Peter MacCallum Cancer Centre Human Research Ethics Committee in Victoria, Australia (HREC/97384/PMCC). Study findings will be disseminated via peer-reviewed publications and conference presentations. TRIAL REGISTRATION NUMBER: Australian New Zealand Clinical Trials Registry, ACTRN12623000705684.

Neurocognitive Impairment and Social Cognition in Parkinson's Disease Patients.

In addition to motor symptoms, neurocognitive impairment (NCI) affects patients with prodromal Parkinson's disease (PD). NCI in PD ranges from subjective cognitive complaints to dementia. The purpose of this review is to present the available evidence of NCI in PD and highlight the heterogeneity of NCI phenotypes as well as the range of factors that contribute to NCI onset and progression. A review of publications related to NCI in PD up to March 2023 was performed using PubMed/Medline. There is an interconnection between the neurocognitive and motor symptoms of the disease, suggesting a common underlying pathophysiology as well as an interconnection between NCI and non-motor symptoms, such as mood disorders, which may contribute to confounding NCI. Motor and non-motor symptom evaluation could be used prognostically for NCI onset and progression in combination with imaging, laboratory, and genetic data. Additionally, the implications of NCI on the social cognition of afflicted patients warrant its prompt management. The etiology of NCI onset and its progression in PD is multifactorial and its effects are equally grave as the motor effects. This review highlights the importance of the prompt identification of subjective cognitive complaints in PD patients and NCI management.

Emotion recognition in amyotrophic lateral sclerosis in a dynamic environment.

OBJECTIVE: The aim of our study was to measure the ability of ALS patients to process dynamic facial expressions as compared to a control group of healthy subjects and to correlate this ability in ALS patients with neuropsychological, clinical and neurological measures of the disease. METHODS: Sixty-three ALS patients and 47 healthy controls were recruited. All the ALS patients also underwent i) the Geneva Emotion Recognition Test (GERT) in which ten actors express 14 types of dynamic emotions in brief video clips with audio, ii) the Edimburgh Cognitive and Behavioral ALS Screen (ECAS) test; iii) the ALS Functional Rating Scale Revised (ALSFRS-R) and iv) the Medical Research Council (MRC) for the evaluation of muscle strength. All the healthy subjects enrolled in the study underwent the GERT. RESULTS: The recognition of irritation and pleasure was significantly different between ALS patients and the control group. The amusement, despair, irritation, joy, sadness and surprise had been falsely recognized differently between the two groups. Specific ALS cognitive impairment was associated with bulbar-onset phenotype (OR = 14,3889; 95%CI = 3,96-52,16). No association was observed between false emotion recognition and cognitive impairment (F(1,60)=,56,971, p=,45,333). The number of categorical errors was significantly higher in the ALS patients than in the control group (27,66 ± 7,28 vs 17,72 ± 5,29; t = 8723; p = 0.001). CONCLUSIONS: ALS patients show deficits in the dynamic processing of a wide range of emotions. These deficits are not necessarily associated with a decline in higher cognitive functions: this could therefore lead to an underestimation of the phenomenon.

Three key questions to move towards a theoretical framework of visuospatial perspective taking.

What would a theory of visuospatial perspective taking (VSPT) look like? Here, ten researchers in the field, many with different theoretical viewpoints and empirical approaches, present their consensus on the three big questions we need to answer in order to bring this theory (or these theories) closer.

Multiracial Reading the Mind in the Eyes Test (MRMET): An inclusive version of an influential measure.

Can an inclusive test of face cognition meet or exceed the psychometric properties of a prominent less inclusive test? Here, we norm and validate an updated version of the influential Reading the Mind in the Eyes Test (RMET), a clinically significant neuropsychiatric paradigm that has long been used to assess theory of mind and social cognition. Unlike the RMET, our Multiracial Reading the Mind in the Eyes Test (MRMET) incorporates racially inclusive stimuli, nongendered answer choices, ground-truth referenced answers, and more accessible vocabulary. We show, via a series of large datasets, that the MRMET meets or exceeds RMET across major psychometric indices. Moreover, the reliable signal captured by the two tests is statistically indistinguishable, evidence for full interchangeability. We thus present the MRMET as a high-quality, inclusive, normed and validated alternative to the RMET, and as a case in point that inclusivity in psychometric tests of face cognition is an achievable aim. The MRMET test and our normative and validation data sets are openly available under a CC-BY-SA 4.0 license at osf.io/ahq6n.

Children's evaluations of culturally diverse lunchbox foods.

Previous research indicates that children make ingroup-outgroup judgments based on notions of food conventionality and that ethnic minority children have been teased or bullied for bringing non-conventional foods to school. This series of three studies experimentally investigated U.S. school-age children's evaluations of culturally diverse lunchbox foods. Study 1 examined an online sample of children aged 5 to 12 years and their evaluations of foods from four cultures (mainstream American, Chinese, Indian, and Mexican) on the taste, smell, and messiness of the food, the appropriateness of bringing the food to school, and whether "cool kids" eat the food. Compared with the mainstream American lunchbox, children rated the Chinese, Indian, and Mexican lunchboxes as less tasty, more messy, and less likely that cool kids would bring those foods to school. In Studies 2 and 3, we examined children's behavioral choices in a hypothetical cafeteria. In both studies, we found that the match between children's own lunch preferences and what was displayed in the mainstream American lunchbox was the only predictor of children's choice to sit at the table with the American lunchbox. Individual variables (e.g., child age, food pickiness) and contextual variables (e.g., neighborhood diversity) did not predict children's table choices. This research highlights children's understanding of familiarity and conventionality of foods and the social consequences of their behavioral choices.

Social cognition differentiates phenocopy syndrome of behavioural variant frontotemporal dementia from behavioural variant frontotemporal dementia.

BACKGROUND: Patients displaying clinical features of behavioural variant of frontotemporal dementia (bvFTD) but lacking both neuroimaging abnormalities and clinical progression are considered to represent the phenocopy syndrome of bvFTD (phFTD). Extensive clinical overlap between early phase bvFTD and phFTD hampers diagnostic distinction. We aimed to assess the diagnostic value of clinician-rated, self-reported and caregiver-reported symptoms for clinical distinction between phFTD and bvFTD. METHODS: There were 33 phFTD and 95 probable bvFTD patients included in the study (total N = 128). Clinician-rated, self-reported tests and caregiver-reported symptoms were compared between phFTD and bvFTD on social cognition, behaviour, mood and activities of daily living (ADL). Scores were compared between groups, followed by multiple logistic regression analysis, adjusted for age and sex. Receiver operating characteristic curves were plotted to assess diagnostic value. RESULTS: Using clinician-rated and self-reported tests, phFTD patients performed better on facial emotion recognition and reported more depressive symptoms. Caregiver-reported behavioural symptoms indicated higher behavioural and ADL impairment in phFTD compared to bvFTD. Facial emotion recognition provided highest diagnostic accuracy for distinction of phFTD from bvFTD (area under the curve (AUC) 0.813 95% CI 0.735-0.892, P < 0.001, sensitivity 81%, specificity 74%) followed by depressive symptoms (AUC 0.769 95% 0.674-0.864, P < 0.001 sensitivity 81%, specificity of 63%). CONCLUSION: Social cognition tests are most suitable for distinction of phFTD from bvFTD. Caregiver-reported questionnaires and phFTD diagnosis seemed inversely correlated, showing more symptoms in phFTD. Further research is needed on phFTD aetiology and in caregivers taking into account disease burden to assess what explains this discrepancy between clinician-rated and caregiver-based tools.

How language affects social cognition and emotional competence in typical and atypical development: A systematic review.

BACKGROUND: The ability to understand the mental state of others (social cognition), as well as language, is crucial for children to have good social adaptation. Social cognition (SC) has been shown to be a hierarchical model of three factors (Cognitive, intermediate and affective SC) interrelated with linguistic processes. Children on the autism spectrum and children with developmental language disorder (DLD) or social communication disorder (SCD) manifest language and SC difficulties, albeit in different ways. AIMS: This systematic review aims to find how language and SC interact with each other and identify linguistic and socio-affective profiles in the target population. METHODS: About 1593 articles were systematically reviewed according to the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses guide in November 2022, obtaining, through inclusion/exclusion criteria, a total of 38 articles for qualitative assessment. The majority of them were on autism (26) or DLD (14) and to a lesser extent SCD (3). MAIN CONTRIBUTION: Although SC is related to all components of language, SC is strongly related to narrative and morphosyntax and partially related to lexicon. Pragmatics shows a complex relation with SC due to greater sensitivity to other factors such as age or task, and prosody appears to be more related to emotional processes. Besides, autistic, SCD and DLD children showed differences in their language and socio-affective performance. Mainstream DLD children have lower performance in general language, where autistic and SCD children have more linguistic variation and are lower in pragmatic and SC tasks, SCD children being more associated with language production difficulties and autistic children with both receptive and productive language. CONCLUSION: Each language component has a different interaction with SC. Likewise, different linguistic profiles are partially found for each disorder. These results are important for future lines of research focusing on specific components of interaction and socio-emotional processes, as well as for clinical and educational treatment. WHAT THIS PAPER ADDS: What is already known on the subject The hierarchical model of Schurz et al. (2021), divide social cognition into three brain constructs: cognitive social cognition (CSC), affective social cognition (ASC) and intermediate social cognition (ISC). They observe a large relationship between language and ISC, a fact that has been corroborated with some other studies. Studies have also found lower linguistic and socio-affective abilities in children with autism and language and communication disorders compared with children with neurotypical development, and large behavioural and neurocognitive overlaps between these disorders (Durrleman et al., 2019; Löytömäki et al., 2019). What this paper adds to existing knowledge This is the first review that relates all linguistic components (narrative, lexicon, morphosyntax, pragmatic and prosody) with the three constructs of social cognition (Cognitive, intermediate and affective). Moreover, it is the first review that studies the socio-linguistic factors comparing autism, developmental language disorder and social communication disorder with each other and with neurotypical development in children aged from 4 to 9 years. What are the potential or actual clinical implications of this work? Understanding how language and social cognition interact with each other in autism spectrum disorder, developmental language disorder and social communication disorder allows us to trace socio-linguistic profiles for each of the studied disorders, understand better children with these difficulties, and, with this, find specific potential intervention points to improve and prevent these difficulties.

More than just changeability: Specific factors are used to explain the changeability of personality traits.

Implicit theories and psychological essentialism are valuable frameworks used to model how changeable many traits are perceived to be. These frameworks, however, characterise changeability as a broad and generalised construct and do not fully capture the nuance and specificity involved in personality changeability. We therefore sought to deconstruct implicit theories about changeability into underlying more specific aspects of changeability. We measured how changeable people theorise personality traits to be according to three underlying specific factors: volitional control, context and age. We investigated how specific implicit theories about changeability vary across different personality traits. We show that two personality traits (agreeableness and conscientiousness) are linked to dissociable patterns of specific factors used to explain how changeable they are. These findings yield new insight into the way people explain why personality traits are changeable and demonstrate that different types of reasons are used to explain the changeability of agreeableness and conscientiousness.

Once and Again: Repeated Viewing Affects Judgments of Spontaneity and Preparation.

Reality is fleeting, and any moment can only be experienced once. Rewatching a video, however, allows people to repeatedly observe the exact same moment. We propose that people may fail to fully distinguish between merely observing behavior again (through replay) from that behavior being performed again in the exact same way. Using an assortment of stimuli that included auditions, commercials, and potential trial evidence, we demonstrated through nine experiments (N = 10,412 adults in the United States) that rewatching makes a recorded behavior appear more rehearsed and less spontaneous, as if the actors were simply precisely repeating their actions. These findings contribute to an emerging literature showing that incidental video features, like perspective or slow motion, can meaningfully change evaluations. Replay may inadvertently shape judgments in both mundane and consequential contexts. To understand how a video will influence its viewer, one will need to consider not only its content, but also how often it is viewed.

The breakdown of social looking.

Individual differences in social looking are commonly believed to reflect one single heritable dimension tightly linked to autism. Yet, recent data suggest that in human infants, looking to eyes (rather than mouth) and preference for faces (versus non-social objects) reflect distinct genetic influences, and neither appear to have a clear-cut relation to autism.

Forming Evaluations of Moral Character: How Are Multiple Pieces of Information Prioritized and Integrated?

Evaluating other people's moral character is a crucial social cognitive task. However, the cognitive processes by which people seek out, prioritize, and integrate multiple pieces of character-relevant information have not been studied empirically. The first aim of this research was to examine which character traits are considered most important when forming an impression of a person's overall moral character. The second aim was to understand how differing levels of trait expression affect overall character judgments. Four preregistered studies and one supplemental study (total N = 720), using five different measures of importance and sampling undergraduates, online workers, and community members, found that our participants placed the most importance on the traits honest, helpful, compassionate, loyal, and responsible. Also, when integrating the information that they have learned, our participants seemed to engage in a simple averaging process in which all available, relevant information is combined in a linear fashion to form an overall evaluation of moral character. This research provides new insights into the cognitive processes by which evaluations of moral character are formed.

Infants' use of the index finger for social and non-social purposes during the first two years of life: A cross-cultural study.

The emergence of the pointing gesture is a major developmental milestone in human infancy. Pointing fosters preverbal communication and is key for language and theory of mind development. Little is known about its ontogenetic origins and whether its pathway is similar across different cultures. The goal of this study was to examine the theoretical proposal that social pointing is preceded by a non-social use of the index finger and later becomes a social-communicative gesture. Moreover, the study investigated to which extent the emergence of social pointing differs cross-culturally. We assessed non-social index-finger use and social pointing in 647 infants aged 3- to 24 months from 4 different countries (China, Germany, Japan, and Türkiye). Non-social index-finger use and social pointing increased with infants' age, such that social pointing became more dominant than non-social index-finger use with age. Whereas social pointing was reported across countries, its reported frequency differed between cultures with significantly greater social pointing frequency in infants from Türkiye, China, and Germany compared to Japanese infants. Our study supports theoretical proposals of the dominance of non-social index-finger use during early infancy with social pointing becoming more prominent as infants get older. These findings contribute to our understanding of infants' use of their index finger for social and non-social purposes during the first two years of life.

Electrophysiological correlates of (mis)judging social information.

Social information can be used to optimize decision-making. However, the simultaneous presentation of multiple sources of advice can lead to a distinction bias in judging the validity of the information. While the involvement of event-related potential (ERP) components in social information processing has been studied, how they are modulated by (mis)judging an advisor's information validity remains unknown. In two experiments participants performed a decision-making task with highly accurate or inaccurate cues. Each experiment consisted of an initial, learning, and test phase. During the learning phase, three advice cues were simultaneously presented and the validity of them had to be assessed. The effect of different cue constellations on ERPs was investigated. In the subsequent test phase, the willingness to follow or oppose an advice cue was tested. Results demonstrated the distinction bias with participants over or underestimating the accuracy of the most uncertain cues. The P2 amplitude was significantly increased during cue presentation when advisors were in disagreement as compared to when all were in agreement, regardless of cue validity. Further, a larger P3 amplitude during outcome presentation was found when advisors were in disagreement and increased with more informative cues. As such, the most uncertain cues were related to the smallest P3 amplitude. The findings hint at the possible role of P3 in judging and learning the predictability of social cues. This study provides novel insights into the role of P2 and P3 components during the judgment of social information validity.

Systematic Review of the Link Between Social Cognition and Suicidal Ideation and Behavior in People With Serious Mental Illness.

Background and Hypothesis: People with serious mental illness (SMI; psychotic and affective disorders with psychosis) are at an increased risk of suicide, yet there is limited research on the correlates of suicide in SMI. Social cognitive impairments are common among people with SMI and several studies have examined social cognition and suicidal ideation (SI) and behavior. This systematic review aims to evaluate the links between various domains of social cognition, SI, and suicidal behavior in SMI. Study Design: Electronic databases (PubMed and PsycInfo) were searched through June 2023. Records obtained through this search (N = 618) were screened by 2 independent reviewers according to inclusion criteria. Relevant data were extracted, and study quality was assessed. Study Results: Studies (N = 16) from 12 independent samples were included in the systematic review (N = 2631, sample sizes ranged from N = 20 to N = 593). Assessments of social cognition and SI and behavior varied widely between studies. Broadly, effects were mixed. Better emotion recognition of negative affect was linked to SI and a history of suicide attempts, though there is little consistent evidence for the relationship of emotion recognition and SI or behavior. On the other hand, better theory of mind ability was linked to SI and a history of suicide attempts. Furthermore, negative attributional bias was linked to current SI, but not a history of SI or attempt. Conclusions: This review suggests mixed associations between social cognition, SI, and behavior in SMI. Future research should evaluate additional mediators and moderators of social cognition and suicide, employing prospective designs.