Assessment of Social Cognition in Non-human Primates Using a Network of Computerized Automated Learning Device (ALDM) Test Systems

Fagot &#38; Paleressompoulle1 and Fagot &#38; Bonte2 have published an automated learning device (ALDM) for the study of cognitive abilities of monkeys ...

Aix-Marseille University

Effects of stimulus duration and inter-letter spacing were studied in a letter-in-string identification paradigm. Participants were shown strings of 5 random consonants (e.g., PGKDM) centered on fixation and were asked to identify the letter that had appeared at a post-cued location. Stimulus duration was manipulated in Experiment 1 (13 ms-91 ms), and inter-letter spacing manipulated in Experiment 2 (for a fixed stimulus duration of 26 ms). We contrasted performance to outer-letters (positions 1 and 5) with non-central inner letters (positions 2 and 4), the first-letter (position 1) with the final letter (position 5), and the central-letter (position 3) with the other inner letters (positions 2 and 4). The outer-letter advantage and the first-letter advantage were present throughout the entire range of exposure durations, whereas the central-letter advantage increased with longer exposures. On the other hand, increased spacing reduced both the outer-letter advantage and the first-letter advantage, whereas it led to a greater central-letter advantage. Changes in acuity and crowding as a function of stimulus exposure and inter-letter spacing, can account for this pattern of results.

Effects of stimulus duration and inter-letter spacing on letter-in-string identification.

An experiment combined exogenous spatial cueing with masked repetition priming. The task consisted of an alphabetic decision task (letter/pseudo-letter classification) with central targets and peripheral primes that were preceded by a valid or invalid spatial cue in the form of an exogenous abrupt onset. In an analysis including only participants who were not aware of prime stimuli, exogenous location cueing was found to reliably modulate the size of unconscious priming effects. These findings suggest that in early vision the exogenous cue boosts the signal at the location of the cue resulting in a higher gain for the subliminal prime. Our findings therefore suggest that exogenous cueing can affect the first feedforward sweep of information through the brain, a processing stream which is considered to be automatic and unconscious.

Exogenous spatial cueing modulates subliminal masked priming.

The present study combined exogenous spatial cueing with masked repetition priming to study attentional influences on the processing of subliminal stimuli. Participants performed an alphabetic decision task (letter versus pseudo-letter classification) with central targets and briefly presented peripherally located primes that were either cued or not cued by an abrupt onset. A relatively long delay between cue and prime was used to investigate the effect of inhibition of return (IOR) on the processing of subliminal masked primes. Primes presented to the left visual field showed standard effects of Cue Validity and no IOR (significant priming with valid cues only). Primes presented to the right visual field showed no priming from valid cues (an IOR effect), and priming with invalid cues that depended on hand of response to letter targets (right-hand in Experiment 1, left-hand in Experiment 2). The results are interpreted in terms of a differential speed of engagement and disengagement of attention to the right and left visual fields for alphabetic stimuli, coupled with a complex interaction that arises between Prime Relatedness and response-hand.

Inhibition of return in subliminal letter priming.

Three experiments examined the influence of briefly presented, pattern-masked prime stimuli on target word recognition at varying eccentricities. The prime was either the same word as the targets or a different word, and prime position varied horizontally from a central fixation point. The targets were either in the same location as the primes (Experiment 1A) or always centrally located (Experiments 1B and 2). In Experiment 1A, target word recognition showed a typical right visual field advantage, and priming effects diminished with increasing prime and target eccentricity. With centrally located targets, priming effects tended to be more constrained by prime location. After eye fixation location and prime visibility were controlled for (Experiment 2), a right visual field advantage for priming effects was also evident for central targets, suggesting an influence of endogenous attentional biases in masked repetition priming.

Effects of prime and target eccentricity on masked repetition priming.

Marzouki, Grainger, and Theeuwes [Marzouki, Y., Grainger, J., and Theeuwes, J. 2007. Exogenous spatial cueing modulates subliminal priming. Acta Psychol. 126, 34-45.] demonstrated that masked repetition priming of letter identification is affected by the allocation of spatial attention to the prime location by an exogenous cue. Behavioral priming effects were obtained only when the exogenous cue was valid (prime at the same location as the cue). The present ERP study provides a further investigation of such exogenous influences on masked priming. Results showed a significant modulation of the amplitude of the P3 ERP component generated by centrally located target letters as a function of repetition priming and cue validity. The amplitude difference between repetition and unrelated primes was found to be enhanced in the presence of a valid exogenous cue. The electrophysiological data therefore confirm the influence of exogenous cues on the processing of subliminally presented prime stimuli, and show that such effects can be obtained in the absence of eye movements. The results further point to a relatively late influence of prime stimuli on target processing when these stimuli occupy distinct locations.

An ERP investigation of the modulation of subliminal priming by exogenous cues.

In two masked repetition priming experiments with letter stimuli, the positions of prime and target stimuli were varied horizontally from fixation. Priming effects did not interact with position when prime and target location covaried (Experiment 1A) but diminished with increasing prime eccentricity when targets were always centrally located (Experiment 1B). Two accounts of this pattern of priming effects were proposed that postulate two different mechanisms over and above effects of visual acuity. The integration account postulates degree of separation of prime and target stimuli as the critical factor, and the attentional account postulates spatial attention as the critical factor. The results of Experiment 2, in which prime and target positions were manipulated orthogonally, were in favor of the attentional account. Repetition priming did not vary as a function of whether or not primes and targets appeared at the same location, but target processing was facilitated independently of priming when targets appeared at the same location as primes, especially in the right visual field.

Effects of prime-target spatial separation and attentional deployment on masked repetition priming.

The influence of Facebook in social life keeps constantly growing. Recently, the communication of information has been vital to the success of the Tunisian revolution, and Facebook was its main "catalyst." This study examines the key reasons that explain Facebook's contribution to this historical event, as perceived by Tunisian Internet users. To do so, we launched this study 5 days after the fall of the regime using an online questionnaire in which participants (N=333) first rated the importance of Facebook in the Tunisian revolution and then explained the reasons for their ratings. A cluster analysis based on the Euclidean distance between the most frequent words in the participants' text corpus (6,640 words), revealed three main clusters that we interpret as follows: 1: Facebook political function, 2: Facebook informational function, and 3: Facebook media platform function. It is likely that these factors reflect the dynamic of Tunisian cyberspace and the Tunisian Internet users' collective consciousness during the revolution.

The contribution of Facebook to the 2011 Tunisian revolution: a cyberpsychological insight.

Earlier studies have suggested that information from a prime stimulus can be integrated with target information even when the two stimuli appear at different spatial locations. Here, we examined such location invariance in a masked repetition priming paradigm with single letter and word stimuli. In order to neutralize effects of acuity and spatial attention on prime processing, subliminal prime stimuli always appeared on fixation. Target location varied randomly from trial to trial along the horizontal meridian at one of seven possible locations for letter stimuli (-7° to +7°) and three positions for word stimuli (-4°, 0°, +4°). Speed of responding to letter and word targets was affected by target location, and by priming, but the size of repetition priming effects did not vary as a function of target location. These results suggest that masked repetition priming is mediated by representations that integrate information about object identity independently of object location.

Location invariance in masked repetition priming of letters and words.

Two experiments examined the effect of subliminal affective priming on compliance using the foot-in-the-door (FITD) paradigm. Prior to the target request, participants were exposed to subliminal emotional expressions. FITD (presence vs. absence of initial request) was crossed with Priming (positive, negative, neutral, and absence of prime-blank screen) in a between-subjects design. 180 students volunteered as participants (M=22 years). 20 participants (10 females) were assigned to each of eight experimental conditions plus the control condition that neither involved the initial request nor the priming experiment. Participants were asked to judge whether target sentences were relevant or not for road safety instruction. In Experiment 1, emotional valence of prime stimuli affected both endorsement rate and time devoted to the target request but not participants' attitude. Affective priming effects did not interact significantly with the FITD effect. In experiment 2, in 180 more students, the attitude measure was replaced by an implicit recognition task. Results showed that regardless of priming condition, in the absence of FITD, participants recognized target sentences better than in the presence of FITD. Conversely, in the presence of the FITD, participants recognized more accurately previously seen sentences that were primed by positive emotions relative to other priming conditions. The latter result suggests that the presence of the FITD involves a significant amount of cognitive resources so that only stimuli emotionally relevant to the task's goal (i.e., positive) tend to be processed. Together, these results could explain how, contrary to helping behavior, compliant behavior that has no direct association with the prime stimuli was not easily influenced by the affective subliminal priming.

Effects of subliminal affective priming on helping behavior using the foot-in-the-door technique.

Recent studies of monkeys and apes have shown that these animals can solve relational-matching-to-sample (RMTS) problems, suggesting basic abilities for analogical reasoning. However, doubts remain as to the actual cognitive strategies adopted by nonhuman primates in this task. Here, we used dual-task paradigms to test 10 baboons in the RMTS problem under three conditions of memory load. Our three test conditions allowed different predictions, depending on the strategy (i.e., flat memorization of the percept, reencoding of the percept, or relational processing) that they might use to solve RMTS problems. Results support the idea that the baboons process both the items and the abstract (same and different) relations in this task.

Contribution of working memory processes to relational matching-to-sample performance in baboons (Papio papio).

This article is the result of an international research between law and ethics scholars from Universities in France and Switzerland, who have been closely collaborating with technical experts on the design and use of information and communication technologies in the fields of human health and security. The interdisciplinary approach is a unique feature and guarantees important new insights in the social, ethical and legal implications of these technologies for the individual and society as a whole. Its aim is to shed light on the tension between secrecy and transparency in the digital era. A special focus is put from the perspectives of psychology, medical ethics and European law on the contradiction between individuals' motivations for consented processing of personal data and their fears about unknown disclosure, transferal and sharing of personal data via information and communication technologies (named the "privacy paradox"). Potential benefits and harms for the individual and society resulting from the use of computers, mobile phones, the Internet and social media are being discussed. Furthermore, the authors point out the ethical and legal limitations inherent to the processing of personal data in a democratic society governed by the rule of law. Finally, they seek to demonstrate that the impact of information and communication technology use on the individuals' well-being, the latter being closely correlated with a high level of fundamental rights protection in Europe, is a promising feature of the socalled "e-democracy" as a new way to collectively attribute meaning to large-scale online actions, motivations and ideas.

Protecting human health and security in digital Europe: how to deal with the "privacy paradox"?

The affect-as-information hypothesis (e.g., Schwarz & Clore, 2003), predicts that the positive or negative valence of our mood differentially affects our processing of the details of the environment. However, this hypothesis has only been tested with mood induction procedures and fairly complex cognitive tasks in humans. Here, six baboons (Papio papio) living in a social group had free access to a computerized visual search task on which they were over-trained. Trials that immediately followed a spontaneously expressed emotional behavior were analyzed, ruling out possible biases due to induction procedures. RTs following negatively valenced behaviors are slower than those following neutral and positively valenced behaviors, respectively. Thus, moods affect the performance of nonhuman primates tested in highly automatized tasks, as it does in humans during tasks with much higher cognitive demands. These findings reveal a presumably universal and adaptive mechanism by which moods influence performance in various ecological contexts.

Yousri Marzouki

CNRS,
Federation 3C,
and Laboratory of Cognitive Psychology,
CNRS, Federation 3C, and Laboratory of Cognitive Psychology

Aix-Marseille University

Assessment of Social Cognition in Non-human Primates Using a Network of Computerized Automated Learning Device (ALDM) Test Systems

Yousri Marzouki

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Aix-Marseille University

Assessment of Social Cognition in Non-human Primates Using a Network of Computerized Automated Learning Device (ALDM) Test Systems

CNRS,
Federation 3C,
and Laboratory of Cognitive Psychology,
CNRS, Federation 3C, and Laboratory of Cognitive Psychology