third module

animals

psychopaths

theory of mind

old people

non human primates

dogs

goats

sharing

evidence for theory of mind

study of gorilla or thing who collects stones in morning when calm to throw later on when people come through and are aggravated
does not do this in off season

shows pre planning of a future mental state

chimpanzees when chased by human - go behind a tree to have something in between them and their oppressor

been domesticated living with humans for many years

puppies very young accept humans of same species

evidence for theory of mind

evidence against theory of mind

no strong language - need language for theory of mind

produces significant amount of cortisol in response to sound of baby crying

shows distress and empathy?

also showed similar cortisol for white noise

so further research was done to determine whether the baby crying was in response to empathy

dogs and infants have photos of angry sad and happy expressions

both look more at angry and happy rather than sad

dogs will follow gestures and eye gaze of humans to go towards food

call et al 2003 - study where told eat/don't eat and owner is in or out of the room

doesnt eat when told not to while owner stays in the room

however eats it when told not to if the owner leaves

so could this just be theory of behaviour of whether the owner is present or not

domesticated for different reasons

do domestic goats follow other goats gaze and do domestic goats follow human gaze

bonobos - sharers of food

chimpanzees eat alone, are more aggressive - occupied different side of river to bonobos over 1 million years ago

sex

chimps exchange meat for sex. males who are more sharing , more likely to get laid

do not point to objects to share attention

do not hold up objects for others to see and share

do not actively give or offer objects to other individuals

do not teach one another

engage in simple cooperation that does not require deep understanding of others

chimpanzees like 18 months human infants

eye gaze

important in friendly social relations

aggression and reconcillatory periods following aggresions

chimps more drawn to those who make direct eye contact

show anxiety in strange situation

demonstrate object permanence

pointing, bowing, nodding = easy,
head turning, glancing = harder

albuquerque et al 2016 have to facial and vocal expressions on both dogs and humans

dogs good at matching both dog and humans vocal and facial expressions

2/3 of goats used touching/tapping cue

1/3 use pointing cue

4/23 goats had experience with humans other than feeding

goats don't use gaze

hierarchy

clear dominance heierarchies are sensitive to recent interactions in shifting alliances

act in ways to facilitate alliances and gain favour

evidence against theory of mind

understand human expression but not necessarily the deeper feeling

may not clearly distinguish self vs other

again no good langauge so will never be able to make distinctions

show emotional contagion

false belief

ways to test false belief

siblings effect

ways to develop theory of mind

mum speaking own state of mind

mum uses words in different context - want

study with 7o, 9yo sibling, 9yo friend

structured - told to help, younger sibling still directs more to older sibling

unstructured - not told explicitly to help younger sibling build car. younger sibling still directs more to older sibling

advantage of having siblings in ToM

older siblings facilitate false belief through assistance, pretence, talk

give younger sibling someone to communicate with and imitate

disadvantage of having sib / advantage of only child

get sole attention of parents

witness more adult conversation

autism

timeline

around 18 months - get self recognition - understand me different from other beings (16 to 24 months)

around 1

social referencing - understanding emotions

pointing and following gaze

protoimperative - point wanting someone to grab and

protodeclarative - pointing with no apparent desire for an object

studies

bischof-kohler teddys arm falls of and experimenter cries for 2.5 minutes

11 are helpers = distressed but help

7 blocked = distressed and enlist mum or help after 2.5mins

10 confused - distressed but no help

8 unconcerned - not distressed and no help

ruffman, then, cheng show infants 2.5 yo +adults 4 videos of crying, laughing, babbling, white noise. rate participants maximum facial happiness and sadness

when adults look at crying more sad than happy

positive looking at white noise

onishi and bailargeon true belief sees goes in yellow thinks its in yellow and false belief doesnt see goes in yellow, thinks in green

round 2-3

desire - link happiness

child wants rabbit gets rabbit vs child wants dog gets rabbit. can identify which child would be more happy

know people act according to their desires

around 4

people act according to their beliefs

false belief transfer task

kid with chocolate put it in green cupboard mum moves it to the blue one. child has to know that the kid will think its still in the green

baka tribe - those under 5 failed

lying

theory of mind

self control

repeated behaviour

mirror self recognition

vocabulary and language acquisition

diagnosis

DSM

at least18

exhibit 3 or more of deceitfulness, failure to conform, impulsivity, irritable, disregard of safety, irresponsible, lack of remorse

PCL-R

prisons

make up 25-40% of prison populations

make up 1-4.5% of general population

reoffending

treatment not crafted for psychopaths

sexual assulaters who underwent training still 3% and 5% for violent higher than non psychotic sex offenders

have a 3% higher reoffending rate and a 4% higher violent reoffending rate

NZ study picked random 200 parole convicts - 34% were psychopathic scored higher than 18 on PCL

reoffend bc lack of fear for punishment, lack of empathy, more impulsive

ToM

worse at some theory of mind better at others

good at :

memory

could explain false belief of blue army example

bad at :

understanding others mental state

feeling emotion (guilt, sad)

need more than 16

no moral conventional distinction

brain of psychopaths deficits in:

amygdala = impaired emotional material

orbitofrontal cortex = reward and punishment centre

evidence of conduct disorder typically with onset before 15

anti-social personality disorder

heritability 38-69%

psychopathy more severe

sociopathy less severe

top 3 careers: CEO, lawyers, media people

need both behavioural impulsivity and affective empathy

43% were reimprisoned over 13 years

78% of that total violent reoffending

hare - measure galvanic skin response as indictor of fear, shock electrodes show numbers 1-12 and say shock will be inflicted on 8

1-8 change in GSR greater for low Pd group

8-12 no difference between groups

psychopathic individuals react later and to a lesser degree to impending punishment than non-psychopaths

don't learn but can if rewarded with money

violence inhibition mechanism

distress cues activate the violence inhibition mechanism

leads to withdrawal/inhibition of behavior

arousal cognitively interpreted as guilt, remorse

basis of real empathy and sympathy

VIM important for moral behaviour

camras - kids changes behaviour when faced with other childs sad expression

fallons own brain

gene monamine oxidase enzyme linked to increase violence

ventromedial prefrontal cortex = impaired impulse control

corpus callosum = connectivity

hippocampus = retrieval of emotional memories

superior temporal gyrus = impaired processing of abstract material, lack of perspective awareness and empathy

compared to williams syndrome

ToM

family

characteristics

triad features

non-triad features

only 20% of autistic kids passed a false belief task

hypo-or-hyper reactivity response to sounds, smells

williams kids more emotive, descriptive

lack of central coherence

advantage when need to see things as individual

better at triangle task

meaningless sounds

disadvantage when need to see things as a whole

disambiguation of homographs

social-emotional reciprocity - holding convo

savant ability about 1 in 10 and usually, music, calculation, drawing

more likely if family member is autisitc

twins

incidence higher in MZ than DZ

if one isn't autistic they have atypical social behaviour and language anyway

more likely that their grandad was an engineer

father performs faster at blocking tasks

non-verbal communication - eye contact, facial expressions

relationships

insistence on sameness (inflexible routines)

restricted interests

stereotyped behaviour (repeated movements)

spiky IQ profile - excel on some tasks

parts of brain that fade

studies

causes of autism

genetic component

more common in males

50x more common in siblings of person with autism

100 genes thought to be involved with different mutations potentially in similar autistic behaviours

brain shtuff

brain areas involved

limbic system

amygdala

hippocampus

low birth weight babies with enlarged ventricles = reduced white matter

cerebellum

frontal overgrowth of neurons: irregular connectivity - brain too big, too many cells

higher rates of social and communication deficits and stereotyped behaviours found in relatives

autstic people = 64% havea first degree relative with a major depressive disorder 39% with social phobia

dont see illusions

she has a pink bow vs. he took a deep bow

pattern rac, pit, rac, pit or random rat, pic, pic = normal kids better at pattern, no difference with random

gray matter starts declining at age 20 and white matter in 40s/50s

young and old adults had to match emotional and non-emotional tings

young adults better at matching of emotional

no difference for the non-emotional

behaviour

looks at eyes just as much as young adults

9 images and one different - happy, sad, angry

easier to point out angry than sad or happy

old adults more difficult labelling but respond quicker

volume reduction in frontal and temporal areas

old adults with normal vision, intact and crityalised IQ but young adults showed better recognition of emotion in videos and photos

basal ganglia

orbitofrontal cortex

amygdala

anterior cingulate cortex

worse recognition of face anger sad

disgust recognition

anger recognition

sadness anger recognition

amygdala, superior temporal sulcus and orbitofrontal cortex control eye gaze

because of decline in these areas, might not receive information from eyes

detecting a faux pas

study of detecting faux pas in david brent

young differentiate faux pas and non faux pas better than old

verbosity and emotion recognition

are old more verbose because they can't detect emotion cues in others

young males, females and old females emotion recognition and verbosity not related

older males had correlation

unconcious route for anger detection

conscious route for anger detection

declines

amygdala through visual cortex, anterior cingulate cortex and orbitofrontal cortex

intact

amygdala through sueprior colliculus and pulvinar nucleus of thalamus

half adults given oxytocin or placebo intra-nasally

older mens emotion recognition significantly better in oxytocin group vs. placebo

social brain hypothesis

older adults worse recognising emotions

amygdala, orbitofrontal cortex, cingulate cortex

older adults impaired in recognising threat in faces

amygdala, orbitofrontal cortex

older adults do not look longer at eyes than mouth as do young adults

amygdala, orbitofrontal cortex, superior temporal sulcus

difficulting recognising boredom cues or faux pas

orbitofrontal cortex

difficulties recognising emotion

decline in neurotransmitters

processing of emotion through sub-cortical route intact

fronto-temporal dementia where these brains areas atrophy and persons emotions blunted and impulsive

factors to resist old age decline

estrogen

social networks

diet

exercise

limit alcohol

cognitive stimulation

blood pressure

hormone replacement could result in less cogntive decline

integration with family/community

keep mind active - learn new things

mediterrainian diet

cognitive level is inversely proportional to their blood pressure

reduces cognitive decline increasing lifespan by 7-10 years

neurotransmitters

propranolol reduces activation in amygdala

serotonin, noradrenaline, dopamine in emotion processing areas

babies dont show empathy, show happy when hear laughing but not too much else