Does culture shape our understanding of others' thoughts and emotions? An investigation across 12 countries

Idiosyncratic fixation patterns generalize across dynamic and static facial expression recognition

Facial expression recognition (FER) is crucial for understanding the emotional state of others during human social interactions. It has been assumed that humans share universal visual sampling strategies to achieve this task. However, recent studies in face identification have revealed striking idiosyncratic fixation patterns, questioning the universality of face processing. More importantly, very little is known about whether such idiosyncrasies extend to the biological relevant recognition of static and dynamic facial expressions of emotion (FEEs). To clarify this issue, we tracked observers' eye movements categorizing static and ecologically valid dynamic faces displaying the six basic FEEs, all normalized for time presentation (1 s), contrast and global luminance across exposure time. We then used robust data-driven analyses combining statistical fixation maps with hidden Markov Models to explore eye-movements across FEEs and stimulus modalities. Our data revealed three spatially and temporally distinct equally occurring face scanning strategies during FER. Crucially, such visual sampling strategies were mostly comparably effective in FER and highly consistent across FEEs and modalities. Our findings show that spatiotemporal idiosyncratic gaze strategies also occur for the biologically relevant recognition of FEEs, further questioning the universality of FER and, more generally, face processing.

Multidimensional assessment of social cognition using non-immersive virtual reality in dementia with Lewy bodies and Alzheimer's disease: an exploratory study

INTRODUCTION

Few studies have focused on social cognition in dementia with Lewy bodies (DLB), even though some brain structures being well known as underlying social cognitive processes are directly impacted in this disease. Furthermore, social cognition processes have been mostly studied independently using evaluations with poor ecological validity. We aimed at studying the ability of a new naturalistic and multidimensional social cognition task to reveal impairments in DLB patients. We chose to compare the profile of these patients with that of Alzheimer's disease (AD) patients, for which social cognition is better preserved.

METHOD

Fifteen patients (DLB: n = 7; AD: n = 8) and 28 healthy controls underwent the REALSoCog task. They encountered several social situations (e.g. control versus transgressions) in a non-immersive virtual city environment allowing the assessment of moral cognition, cognitive and affective theory of mind (ToM), emotional empathy and behavioral intentions.

RESULTS

The main results showed (i) a lower ability to detect transgressions in DLB patients, particularly conventional ones, whereas moral cognition seemed better preserved in AD patients; (ii) a cognitive ToM impairment in both DLB and AD patients, while affective ToM is impaired only in DLB patients; (iii) a decreased emotional empathy specifically observed in DLB patients; (iv) more inappropriate behavioral intentions, mainly in DLB patients, but also in some AD patients.

CONCLUSIONS

This study suggests the feasibility and potential interest of the REALSoCog task in revealing social cognition deficits, particularly for DLB patients by showing different social patterns as compared to AD patients. These results offer interesting clinical perspectives to develop more naturalistic tasks in such populations and for clinical differential diagnosis. Limitations and future perspectives are discussed.

Mini-SEA: Validity and Normative Data for the French-Quebec Population Aged 50 Years and Above

OBJECTIVE

The mini Social cognition & Emotional Assessment (mini-SEA) is a social cognition battery which assesses theory of mind and emotion recognition. Currently, no psychometrically validated measure of social cognition with adapted normative data exists for the middle-aged and elderly French-Quebec population. This project aims to determine the known-group discriminant validity of a cultural and linguistic adaptation of the mini-SEA between cognitively healthy people, those with mild cognitive impairment (MCI) or living with Alzheimer's Disease (AD). This study also aims to examine the stability of mini-SEA's performance over a 3-4-month time period, as well as to produce normative data for French-Quebec people aged 50 years. Normative data are derived for the full and an abbreviated version of the Faux Pas subtest.

METHOD

The sample included 211 French-speaking participants from Quebec (Canada) aged 50 to 89 years. Mini-SEA's performance between a sub-sample of cognitively healthy people (n = 20), those with MCI (n = 20) or with AD (n = 20) was compared. A sub-sample of cognitively healthy people (n = 30) performed the task twice to estimate test-retest reliability. Socio-demographic variables' effects on scores were examined to produce normative data in the form of regression equations or percentile ranks.

RESULTS

Significant differences emerged between cognitively healthy people and those with MCI or AD. Moreover, scores were relatively stable over a period of 3 to 4 months. Finally, for the normative data, age, gender, and education were associated with performance on the mini-SEA or its subtests.

CONCLUSIONS

This study improves and standardizes social cognition's assessment among French-Quebec individuals, which will help characterize their cognitive profile.

Exploring cultural contributions to the neuropsychology of social cognition: the advanced clinical solutions

INTRODUCTION

Culture and social cognition are deeply intertwined, yet how this rich intersectionality is expressed neuropsychologically remains an important question.

METHOD

In a convenience sample of 128 young adults (mean age = 24.9 years) recruited from a majority-minority urban university, we examined performance-based neuropsychological measures of social cognition, the Advanced Clinical Solutions-Social Perception (ACS-SP), in relation to both cultural orientation, as assessed by the Individualism-Collectivism Scale (ICS) and spoken English language, as assessed by the oral word pronunciation measure of the Wide Range Achievement Test-4 (WRAT4).

RESULTS

Results indicated higher WRAT4 scores correlated with better performance across all ACS-SP measures of social cognition. Controlling for these associations in spoken English, partial correlations linked lower scores across both prosody interpretation and affect naming ACS-SP tasks with a propensity to view social relationships vertically, irrespective of individualistic or collectivistic orientations. Hierarchical regression results showed that cultural orientation and English-language familiarity each specifically and uniquely contributed to ACS-SP performance for matching prosody with facial expressions.

CONCLUSIONS

These findings underscore the importance of incorporating and prioritizing both language and cultural factors in neuropsychological studies of social cognition. They may be viewed as offering strong support for expanding the boundaries of the construct of social cognition beyond its current theoretical framework of one that privileges Western, educated, industralized, rich and democratic (WEIRD) values, customs, and epistemologies.

The role of mentalizing in psychological interventions in adults: Systematic review and recommendations for future research

Mentalizing is the human capacity to understand actions of others and one's own behavior in terms of intentional mental states, such as feelings, wishes, goals and desires. Mentalizing is a transtheoretical and transdiagnostic concept that has been applied to understanding vulnerability to psychopathology and has attracted considerable research attention over the past decades. This paper reports on a pre-registered systematic review of evidence concerning the role of mentalizing as a moderator and mediator in psychological interventions in adults. Studies in adults were reviewed that address the following questions: (a) does pre-treatment mentalizing predict treatment outcome; (b) do changes in mentalizing across treatment predict outcome; (c) does adherence to the principles or protocol of mentalization-based treatment predict outcome; and (d) does strengthening in-session mentalizing impact the therapeutic process via improved alliance, alleviated symptoms, or improved interpersonal functioning? Results suggest that mentalizing might be a mediator of change in psychotherapy and may moderate treatment outcome. However, the relatively small number of studies (n = 33 papers based on 29 studies, totaling 3124 participants) that could be included in this review, and the heterogeneity of studies in terms of design, measures used, disorders included, and treatment modalities, precluded a formal meta-analysis and limited the ability to draw strong conclusions. Therefore, theoretical and methodological recommendations for future research to improve the quality of existing research in this area are formulated.

Social Cognition and Mild Cognitive Impairment in Mid-Stage Parkinson's Disease

Mild cognitive impairment (MCI) is a relevant non-motor feature in Parkinson's disease (PD). Social cognition (SC) is a cognitive domain that refers to the ability to decode others' intentions and to guide behavior in social contexts. We aimed to compare SC performance in mid-stage PD patients compared to a healthy population and according to their cognitive state. Fifty-two PD patients were classified as being cognitively normal (PD-CN) or having mild cognitive impairment (PD-MCI) following the Movement Disorder Society (MDS) Level II criteria. SC assessment included facial emotion recognition (FER), affective and cognitive theory of mind (ToM), and self-monitoring (RSMS test). Twenty-seven age-matched healthy controls (HC) were enrolled. PD-MCI patients scored worse than HC on affective and cognitive ToM task scores. Only cognitive ToM scores were significantly lower when compared with the PD-MCI and PD-CN groups. We found no differences in FER or self-monitoring performance. There were significant correlations between cognitive ToM and executive functions, memory, language, and attention, whereas FER and affective ToM correlated with memory. Our findings indicates that SC is normal in cognitively unimpaired and non-depressed mid-stage PD patients, whereas a decline in affective and cognitive ToM is linked to the presence of MCI.

Recognizing facial expressions of emotion amid noise: A dynamic advantage

Humans communicate internal states through complex facial movements shaped by biological and evolutionary constraints. Although real-life social interactions are flooded with dynamic signals, current knowledge on facial expression recognition mainly arises from studies using static face images. This experimental bias might stem from previous studies consistently reporting that young adults minimally benefit from the richer dynamic over static information, whereas children, the elderly, and clinical populations very strongly do (Richoz, Jack, Garrod, Schyns, & Caldara, 2015, Richoz, Jack, Garrod, Schyns, & Caldara, 2018b). These observations point to a near-optimal facial expression decoding system in young adults, almost insensitive to the advantage of dynamic over static cues. Surprisingly, no study has yet tested the idea that such evidence might be rooted in a ceiling effect. To this aim, we asked 70 healthy young adults to perform static and dynamic facial expression recognition of the six basic expressions while parametrically and randomly varying the low-level normalized phase and contrast signal (0%-100%) of the faces. As predicted, when 100% face signals were presented, static and dynamic expressions were recognized with equal efficiency with the exception of those with the most informative dynamics (i.e., happiness and surprise). However, when less signal was available, dynamic expressions were all better recognized than their static counterpart (peaking at ∼20%). Our data show that facial movements increase our ability to efficiently identify emotional states of others under the suboptimal visual conditions that can occur in everyday life. Dynamic signals are more effective and sensitive than static ones for decoding all facial expressions of emotion for all human observers.

Rationale and Design of the "DIagnostic and Prognostic Precision Algorithm for behavioral variant Frontotemporal Dementia" (DIPPA-FTD) Study: A Study Aiming to Distinguish Early Stage Sporadic FTD from Late-Onset Primary Psychiatric Disorders

BACKGROUND

The behavioral variant of frontotemporal dementia (bvFTD) is very heterogeneous in pathology, genetics, and disease course. Unlike Alzheimer's disease, reliable biomarkers are lacking and sporadic bvFTD is often misdiagnosed as a primary psychiatric disorder (PPD) due to overlapping clinical features. Current efforts to characterize and improve diagnostics are centered on the minority of genetic cases.

OBJECTIVE

The multi-center study DIPPA-FTD aims to develop diagnostic and prognostic algorithms to help distinguish sporadic bvFTD from late-onset PPD in its earliest stages.

METHODS

The prospective DIPPA-FTD study recruits participants with late-life behavioral changes, suspect for bvFTD or late-onset PPD diagnosis with a negative family history for FTD and/or amyotrophic lateral sclerosis. Subjects are invited to participate after diagnostic screening at participating memory clinics or recruited by referrals from psychiatric departments. At baseline visit, participants undergo neurological and psychiatric examination, questionnaires, neuropsychological tests, and brain imaging. Blood is obtained to investigate biomarkers. Patients are informed about brain donation programs. Follow-up takes place 10-14 months after baseline visit where all examinations are repeated. Results from the DIPPA-FTD study will be integrated in a data-driven approach to develop diagnostic and prognostic models.

CONCLUSIONS

DIPPA-FTD will make an important contribution to early sporadic bvFTD identification. By recruiting subjects with ambiguous or prodromal diagnoses, our research strategy will allow the characterization of early disease stages that are not covered in current sporadic FTD research. Results will hopefully increase the ability to diagnose sporadic bvFTD in the early stage and predict progression rate, which is pivotal for patient stratification and trial design.

Gaps in clinical research in frontotemporal dementia: A call for diversity and disparities-focused research

Frontotemporal dementia (FTD) is one of the leading causes of dementia before age 65 and often manifests as abnormal behavior (in behavioral variant FTD) or language impairment (in primary progressive aphasia). FTD's exact clinical presentation varies by culture, language, education, social norms, and other socioeconomic factors; current research and clinical practice, however, is mainly based on studies conducted in North America and Western Europe. Changes in diagnostic criteria and procedures as well as new or adapted cognitive tests are likely needed to take into consideration global diversity. This perspective paper by two professional interest areas of the Alzheimer's Association International Society to Advance Alzheimer's Research and Treatment examines how increasing global diversity impacts the clinical presentation, screening, assessment, and diagnosis of FTD and its treatment and care. It subsequently provides recommendations to address immediate needs to advance global FTD research and clinical practice.

Speech as a Graph: Developmental Perspectives on the Organization of Spoken Language

Language has been used as a privileged window to investigate mental processes. More recently, descriptions of psychopathological symptoms have been analyzed with the help of natural language processing tools. An example is the study of speech organization using graph theoretical approaches that began approximately 10 years ago. After its application in different areas, there is a need to better characterize what aspects can be associated with typical and atypical behavior throughout the lifespan, given the variables related to aging as well as biological and social contexts. The precise quantification of mental processes assessed through language may allow us to disentangle biological/social markers by looking at naturalistic protocols in different contexts. In this review, we discuss 10 years of studies in which word recurrence graphs were adopted to characterize the chain of thoughts expressed by individuals while producing discourse. Initially developed to understand formal thought disorder in the context of psychotic syndromes, this line of research has been expanded to understand the atypical development in different stages of psychosis and differential diagnosis (such as dementia) as well as the typical development of thought organization in school-age children/teenagers in naturalistic and school-based protocols. We comment on the effects of environmental factors, such as education and reading habits (in monolingual and bilingual contexts), in clinical and nonclinical populations at different developmental stages (from childhood to older adulthood, considering aging effects on cognition). Looking toward the future, there is an opportunity to use word recurrence graphs to address complex questions that consider biological/social factors within a developmental perspective in typical and atypical contexts.

Examining individual learning patterns using generalised linear mixed models

Everyone learns differently, but individual performance is often ignored in favour of a group-level analysis. Using data from four different experiments, we show that generalised linear mixed models (GLMMs) and extensions can be used to examine individual learning patterns. Producing ellipsoids and cluster analyses based on predicted random effects, individual learning patterns can be identified, clustered and used for comparisons across various experimental conditions or groups. This analysis can handle a range of datasets including discrete, continuous, censored and non-censored, as well as different experimental conditions, sample sizes and trial numbers. Using this approach, we show that learning a face-named paired associative task produced individuals that can learn quickly, with the performance of some remaining high, but with a drop-off in others, whereas other individuals show poor performance throughout the learning period. We see this more clearly in a virtual navigation spatial learning task (NavWell). Two prominent clusters of learning emerged, one showing individuals who produced a rapid learning and another showing a slow and gradual learning pattern. Using data from another spatial learning task (Sea Hero Quest), we show that individuals' performance generally reflects their age category, but not always. Overall, using this analytical approach may help practitioners in education and medicine to identify those individuals who might need extra help and attention. In addition, identifying learning patterns may enable further investigation of the underlying neural, biological, environmental and other factors associated with these individuals.

Allostatic-interoceptive anticipation of social rejection

Anticipating social stress evokes strong reactions in the organism, including interoceptive modulations. However, evidence for this claim comes from behavioral studies, often with inconsistent results, and relates almost solely to the reactive and recovery phase of social stress exposure. Here, we adopted an allostatic-interoceptive predictive coding framework to study interoceptive and exteroceptive anticipatory brain responses using a social rejection task. We analyzed the heart-evoked potential (HEP) and task-related oscillatory activity of 58 adolescents via scalp EEG, and 385 human intracranial recordings of three patients with intractable epilepsy. We found that anticipatory interoceptive signals increased in the face of unexpected social outcomes, reflected in larger negative HEP modulations. Such signals emerged from key brain allostatic-interoceptive network hubs, as shown by intracranial recordings. Exteroceptive signals were characterized by early activity between 1-15 Hz across conditions, and modulated by the probabilistic anticipation of reward-related outcomes, observed over distributed brain regions. Our findings suggest that the anticipation of a social outcome is characterized by allostatic-interoceptive modulations that prepare the organism for possible rejection. These results inform our understanding of interoceptive processing and constrain neurobiological models of social stress.

Heterogeneous factors influence social cognition across diverse settings in brain health and age-related diseases

Aging may diminish social cognition, which is crucial for interaction with others, and significant changes in this capacity can indicate pathological processes like dementia. However, the extent to which non-specific factors explain variability in social cognition performance, especially among older adults and in global settings, remains unknown. A computational approach assessed combined heterogeneous contributors to social cognition in a diverse sample of 1063 older adults from 9 countries. Support vector regressions predicted the performance in emotion recognition, mentalizing, and a total social cognition score from a combination of disparate factors, including clinical diagnosis (healthy controls, subjective cognitive complaints, mild cognitive impairment, Alzheimer's disease, behavioral variant frontotemporal dementia), demographics (sex, age, education, and country income as a proxy of socioeconomic status), cognition (cognitive and executive functions), structural brain reserve, and in-scanner motion artifacts. Cognitive and executive functions and educational level consistently emerged among the top predictors of social cognition across models. Such non-specific factors showed more substantial influence than diagnosis (dementia or cognitive decline) and brain reserve. Notably, age did not make a significant contribution when considering all predictors. While fMRI brain networks did not show predictive value, head movements significantly contributed to emotion recognition. Models explained between 28-44% of the variance in social cognition performance. Results challenge traditional interpretations of age-related decline, patient-control differences, and brain signatures of social cognition, emphasizing the role of heterogeneous factors. Findings advance our understanding of social cognition in brain health and disease, with implications for predictive models, assessments, and interventions.

The illusion of the mind-body divide is attenuated in males

A large literature suggests that people are intuitive Dualists-they tend to perceive the mind as ethereal, distinct from the body. Here, we ask whether Dualism emanates from within the human psyche, guided, in part, by theory of mind (ToM). Past research has shown that males are poorer mind-readers than females. If ToM begets Dualism, then males should exhibit weaker Dualism, and instead, lean towards Physicalism (i.e., they should view bodies and minds alike). Experiments 1-2 show that males indeed perceive the psyche as more embodied-as more likely to emerge in a replica of one's body, and less likely to persist in its absence (after life). Experiment 3 further shows that males are less inclined towards Empiricism-a putative byproduct of Dualism. A final analysis confirms that males' ToM scores are lower, and ToM scores further correlate with embodiment intuitions (in Experiments 1-2). These observations (from Western participants) cannot establish universality, but the association of Dualism with ToM suggests its roots are psychological. Thus, the illusory mind-body divide may arise from the very workings of the human mind.

Advancing a cross-cultural understanding of teacher perceptions of school climate: A latent class analysis using 2018 TALIS data

In recent years, school climate has increasingly received research attention. Most studies have focused only on student perceptions of school climate, whereas little is known regarding teachers’ views, and cross-country comparisons are scarce. To advance cross-country understanding of teacher perceptions of school climate, this study used data from the 2018 Teaching and Learning International Study (TALIS) to explore latent classes of teacher perceptions and compared differences between American, Finnish, and Chinese teachers. Latent class analysis revealed that a four-class solution was the most appropriate for each teacher subsample: positive participation and teacher-student relation, positive teacher-student relation, moderate, and low participation for the U.S. and China datasets, while positive teacher-student relation, moderate, negative discipline, and low participation for the Finland dataset. However, measurement invariance across countries was violated. We further investigated the impact of predictors on latent classes of teacher perceptions of school climate. The results revealed varied patterns of cross-cultural differences across countries. Our findings implied that a more reliable and valid scale of teacher perceptions of school climate for cross-country comparison is needed. Tailored interventions are necessary as more than half of teachers perceived moderate and less desired school climate, and educators should consider cultural differences when drawing on experiences from other countries.

Development of Three Psychology Sub-Disciplines Over the Past 30 Years: A Citation Analysis

At the end of the last century, there was a debate about whether cognitive psychology had superseded behavioral psychology and psychoanalysis, and the question was raised of whether the latter two might even be dead. The aim of this study was to investigate how these sub-disciplines have developed since then. The citation count, Journal Impact Factor (JIF), and Immediacy Index of four leading journals from each sub-discipline were abstracted for the years 1998, 2008, and 2018. Trends were analyzed using joinpoint regression analysis. The average number of times each sub-discipline’s journals were cited increased between 1988 and 2018. The cognitive journals’ JIF increased slightly, the behavioral journals’ doubled, and the psychoanalytic journals’ remained at the same level. The average annual percentage change for citations to the International Journal of Psychoanalysis showed that the number of citations statistically significantly increased over the years. This was also the case for the Journal of Applied Behavior Analysis. Its JIF trend changed at one point: it decreased up through 2006, after which it increased. Citations to Cognitive Psychology also increased over time, while there was no evidence that its JIF changed. This shows that all three sub-disciplines are still alive and relevant.