Emotional valence,sense of agency and responsibility: A study using intentional binding

We investigated how the emotional valence of an action outcome influences the experience of control, in an intentional binding experiment. Voluntary actions were followed by emotionally positive or negative human vocalisations, or by neutral tones. We used mental chronometry to measure a retrospective component of sense of agency (SoA), triggered by the occurrence of the action outcome, and a prospective component, driven by the expectation that the outcome will occur. Positive outcomes enhanced the retrospective component of SoA, but only when both occurrence and the valence of the outcome were unexpected. When the valence of outcomes was blocked – and therefore predictable – we found a prospective component of SoA when neutral tones were expected but did not actually occur. This prospective binding was absent, and reversed, for positive and negative expected outcomes. Emotional expectation counteracts the prospective component of SoA, suggesting a distancing effect.     

Intentional action processing results from automatic bottom-up attention: An EEG-investigation into the Social Relevance Hypothesis using hypnosis

Social stimuli grab our attention. However, it has rarely been investigated how variations in attention affect the processing of social stimuli, although the answer could help us uncover details of social cognition processes such as action understanding. In the present study, we examined how changes to bottom-up attention affects neural EEG-responses associated with intentional action processing. We induced an increase in bottom-up attention by using hypnosis. We recorded the electroencephalographic μ-wave suppression of hypnotized participants when presented with intentional actions in first and third person perspective in a video-clip paradigm. Previous studies have shown that the μ-rhythm is selectively suppressed both when executing and observing goal-directed motor actions; hence it can be used as a neural signal for intentional action processing. Our results show that neutral hypnotic trance increases μ-suppression in highly suggestible participants when they observe intentional actions. This suggests that social action processing is enhanced when bottom-up attentional processes are predominant. Our findings support the Social Relevance Hypothesis, according to which social action processing is a bottom-up driven attentional process, and can thus be altered as a function of bottom-up processing devoted to a social stimulus.     

Studying sense of agency online: Can intentional binding be observed in uncontrolled online settings?

Intentional binding is often used as an implicit index of the sense of agency. However, intentional binding research has primarily been conducted in controlled lab environments. During the COVID-19 global pandemic, there has been a shift to implementing studies using online platforms and it is an open question whether the intentional binding effect can be found using an online experimental set-up and participant sample. Here, we address this question by asking online participants to complete the Libet clock version of the intentional binding task, which we make freely available to researchers as a jsPsych (De Leeuw, 2014) plugin. Intentional binding was observed in the form of later keypress estimates and earlier auditory tone estimates, when the auditory tone followed the keypress. These findings confirm that intentional binding can be assessed in online contexts. We discuss these findings in relation to the broader intentional binding literature.     

The effects of embedding social identities on perceived leadership outcomes and the intentional mobilization of group members

According to Identity Leadership, effective leaders make the group matter by embedding social identities in material reality. Across two studies, we explored the potential importance of embedding social identities on group members' perceptions of leader trust, influence, conflict and intentional mobilization. In Study 1, 74 competitive varsity athletes read a vignette describing a coach who was either embedding or not embedding social identities. Participants presented with a coach who was embedding social identities reported significantly greater leader trust, leader influence and intentional mobilization, and significantly lower leader conflict. In Study 2, four football teams each comprising six athletes were assigned to one of two quasi-experimental conditions where a coach either: (1) spent two weeks embedding social identities before spending two weeks not embedding them; or (2) spent two weeks not embedding social identities before spending two weeks embedding them. When a leader stopped embedding social identities after embedding them for two weeks, group members' trust in their leader significantly reduced. When a leader started embedding social identities after not embedding them for two weeks, group members' perceptions of leader trust, leader influence and intentional mobilization significantly increased. Taken together, findings provide preliminary evidence that embedding social identities is beneficial for leader outcomes and intentional mobilization compared to a non-embedding leadership approach.     

The Effects of Benefactor and Beneficiary Characteristics on Helping Behavior

Abstract

This study assessed the effects of perceived need and nearness of the beneficiary and the chronological maturity of the benefactor on helping behavior. The relationship between verbal and objective measures of helping behavior, and the relationship between available resources and helping behavior were also explored. Indian undergraduates (N = 80 men) composed the sample. The results showed that greater perceived need and nearness of the beneficiary, as well as lesser chronological maturity of the benefactor, led to extending greater help. Verbal and objective measures of help did not generally correspond; however, the relationship between verbal and objective measures was modified by the perceived need and nearness of the beneficiary. Resource availability did not have any direct bearing on helping behavior.     

Infants infer intentions from prosody

Two studies were conducted to examine infants’ ability to discern intentions from lexical and prosodic cues. Two groups of 14-18-month-olds participated in these studies. In both studies, infants watched an adult perform a sequence of two-step actions on novel toys that produced an end-result. In the first study actions were marked intentionally with both lexical and prosodic cues. In the second study, the lexical markers of intention were presented in Greek, thus providing infants with prosodic but not lexical cues. In both studies, infants reproduced more intentional than accidental actions, suggesting that infants can infer intentions from prosodic cues.     

Production of spontaneous and posed facial expressions in patients with Huntington's disease: Impaired communication of disgust

Several studies have reported impairment in the recognition of facial expressions of disgust in patients with Huntington's disease (HD) and preclinical carriers of the HD gene. The aim of this study was to establish whether impairment for disgust in HD patients extended to include the ability to express the emotion on their own faces. Eleven patients with HD, and 11 age and education matched healthy controls participated in three tasks concerned with the expression of emotions. One task assessed the spontaneous production of disgust-like facial expressions during the smelling of offensive odorants. A second assessed the production of posed facial expressions during deliberate attempts to communicate emotion. The third task evaluated HD patients’ ability to imitate the specific facial configurations associated with each emotion. Foul odours induced fewer disgust-like facial reactions in HD patients than in controls, and patients’ posed facial expressions of disgust were less accurate than the posed disgust expressions of controls. The effect was selective to disgust; patients had no difficulty posing expressions of other emotions. These impairments were not explained by compromised muscle control: HD patients had no difficulty imitating the facial movements required to display disgust. Viewed together with evidence of difficulty in other aspects of disgust in HD, the findings suggest that a common substrate might participate in both the processing and the expression of this emotion.     

Mirror neurons and their function in cognitively understood empathy

The current renewal of interest in empathy is closely connected to the recent neurobiological discovery of mirror neurons. Although the concept of empathy has been widely deployed, we shall focus upon one main psychological function it serves: enabling us to understand other peoples’ intentions. In this essay we will draw on neuroscientific, psychological, and philosophical literature in order to investigate the relationships between mirror neurons and empathy as to intention understanding. Firstly, it will be explored whether mirror neurons are the neural basis of our empathic capacities: a vast array of empirical results appears to confirm this hypothesis. Secondly, the higher level capacity of reenactive empathy will be examined and the question will be addressed whether philosophical analysis alone is able to provide a foundation for this more abstract level of empathy. The conclusion will be drawn that both empirical evidence and philosophical analysis can jointly contribute to the clarification of the concept of empathy.     

Do infants provide evidence that the mirror system is involved in action understanding?

The mirror neuron theory of action understanding makes predictions concerning how the limited motor repertoire of young infants should impact on their ability to interpret others’ actions. In line with this theory, an increasing body of research has identified a correlation between infants’ abilities to perform an action, and their ability to interpret that action as goal-directed when performed by others. In this paper, I will argue that the infant data does by no means unequivocally support the mirror neuron theory of action understanding and that alternative interpretations of the data should be considered. Furthermore, some of this data can be better interpreted in terms of an alternative view, which holds that the role of the motor system in action perception is more likely to be one of enabling the observer to predict, after a goal has been identified, how that goal will be attained.     

The Impact of Abuse and Learning Difficulties on Emotion Understanding in Late Childhood and Early Adolescence

Children's affective experiences and cognitive abilities have an impact on emotion understanding. However, their relative contribution, as well as the possibility of an interaction between them, has rarely been examined. The aim of the present study was to evaluate the influence of severe abuse and learning difficulties on simple and complex components of emotion understanding in late childhood and early adolescence. A total of 28 older children and young adolescents were selected for the study. Half of the participants had suffered from severe abuse, and half of these abused children additionally had learning disabilities. The remaining half of the sample had no history of abuse but were matched with the abused children on learning difficulties, age and gender. The participants’ emotion understanding was assessed with the Test of Emotion Comprehension (TEC). Results showed that (a) learning difficulties but not abuse had an impact on emotion understanding, (b) there was no interaction effect of abuse and learning difficulties on emotion understanding, and (b) the observed effects of learning difficulties were most apparent for the understanding of relatively complex components of emotion and not for simple components. The results are discussed in terms of their theoretical and practical implications.