Lucy Foulkes

Individual Differences in Frequency and Saliency of Speech-Accompanying Gestures: The Role of Cognitive Abilities and Empathy

The present study concerns individual differences in gesture production. We used correlational and multiple regression analyses to examine the relationship between individuals’ cognitive abilities and empathy levels and their gesture frequency and saliency. We chose predictor variables according to experimental evidence of the functions of gesture in speech production and communication. We examined 3 types of gestures: representational gestures, conduit gestures, and palm-revealing gestures. Higher frequency of representational gestures was related to poorer visual and spatial working memory, spatial transformation ability, and conceptualization ability; higher frequency of conduit gestures was related to poorer visual working memory, conceptualization ability, and higher levels of empathy; and higher frequency of palm-revealing gestures was related to higher levels of empathy. The saliency of all gestures was positively related to level of empathy. These results demonstrate that cognitive abilities and empathy levels are related to individual differences in gesture frequency and saliency.

Inverted Social Reward: Associations between Psychopathic Traits and Self-Report and Experimental Measures of Social Reward

Individuals with high levels of psychopathic traits tend to undervalue long-term, affiliative relationships, but it remains unclear what motivates them to engage in social interactions at all. Their experience of social reward may provide an important clue. In Study 1 of this paper, a large sample of participants (N = 505) completed a measure of psychopathic traits (Self-Report Psychopathy Scale Short-Form) and a measure of social reward value (Social Reward Questionnaire) to explore what aspects of social reward are associated with psychopathic traits. In Study 2 (N = 110), the same measures were administered to a new group of participants along with two experimental tasks investigating monetary and social reward value. Psychopathic traits were found to be positively correlated with the enjoyment of callous treatment of others and negatively associated with the enjoyment of positive social interactions. This indicates a pattern of ‘inverted’ social reward in which being cruel is enjoyable and being kind is not. Interpersonal psychopathic traits were also positively associated with the difference between mean reaction times (RTs) in the monetary and social experimental reward tasks; individuals with high levels of these traits responded comparatively faster to social than monetary reward. We speculate that this may be because social approval/admiration has particular value for these individuals, who have a tendency to use and manipulate others. Together, these studies provide evidence that the self-serving and cruel social behaviour seen in psychopathy may in part be explained by what these individuals find rewarding.

Social Reward Questionnaire (SRQ): development and validation

Human beings seek out social interactions as a source of reward. To date, there have been limited attempts to identify different forms of social reward, and little is known about how the value of social rewards might vary between individuals. This study aimed to address both these issues by developing the Social Reward Questionnaire (SRQ), a measure of individual differences in the value of different social rewards. Exploratory factor analysis (EFA) was run on an initial set of 75 items (N = 305). Based on this analysis, confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) was then conducted on a second sample (N = 505) with a refined 23-item scale. This analysis was used to test a six-factor structure, which resulted in good model fit (CFI = 0.96, RSMEA = 0.07). The factors represent six subscales of social reward defined as follows: Admiration; Negative Social Potency; Passivity; Prosocial Interactions; Sexual Reward; and Sociability. All subscales demonstrated good test-retest reliability and internal consistency. Each subscale also showed a distinct pattern of associations with external correlates measuring personality traits, attitudes, and goals, thus demonstrating construct validity. Taken together, the findings suggest that the SRQ is a reliable, valid measure that can be used to assess individual differences in the value experienced from different social rewards.

Common and Distinct Impacts of Autistic Traits and Alexithymia on Social Reward

According to the social motivation hypothesis of autism, individuals with high levels of autistic traits experience reduced levels of reward from social interactions. However, empirical evidence to date has been mixed, with some studies reporting lower levels of social reward in individuals with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD), and others finding no difference when compared to typically developing controls. Alexithymia, a subclinical condition associated with the reduced ability to identify and describe one’s own emotions, has been found to account for other affective difficulties observed inconsistently in individuals with ASD. The current study used a nonclinical sample (N = 472) to explore the associations between autistic traits and the value of six types of social reward, as measured by the Social Reward Questionnaire. In addition, we measured alexithymia to assess if this accounted for associations between autistic traits and social reward. There were three main findings. Firstly, higher levels of autistic traits were associated with significantly less enjoyment of admiration and sociability, and adding alexithymia to these models did not account for any additional variance. Secondly, both autistic traits and alexithymia were uniquely associated with reduced levels of enjoyment of prosocial interactions and sexual relationships. Thirdly, autistic traits were associated with higher levels of enjoyment of passivity and negative social potency, but these associations were no longer significant once alexithymia was taken into account, suggesting that co-occurring alexithymia accounted for these apparent associations. Overall, the current findings provide a novel and more nuanced picture of the relationship between autistic traits and social reward.

Affective bias and current, past and future adolescent depression: A familial high risk study

BACKGROUND Affective bias is a common feature of depressive disorder. However, a lack of longitudinal studies means that the temporal relationship between affective bias and depression is not well understood. One group where studies of affective bias may be particularly warranted is the adolescent offspring of depressed parents, given observations of high rates of depression and a severe and impairing course of disorder in this group. METHODS A two wave panel design was used in which adolescent offspring of parents with recurrent depression completed a behavioural task assessing affective bias (The Affective Go/No Go Task) and a psychiatric interview. The affective processing of adolescents with current, prior and future depressive disorder was compared to that of adolescents free from disorder. RESULTS Adolescents with current depression and those who developed depression at follow-up made more commission errors for sad than happy targets compared to adolescents free from disorder. There was no effect of prior depression on later affective processing. LIMITATIONS Small cell sizes meant we were unable to separately compare those with new onset and recurrent depressive disorder. CONCLUSIONS Valence-specific errors in behavioural inhibition index future vulnerability to depression in adolescents already at increased risk and may represent a measure of affective control. Currently depressed adolescents show a similar pattern of affective bias or deficits in affective control.

Is there heightened sensitivity to social reward in adolescence

During adolescence, individuals are particularly susceptible to social influence. One explanation for this is that social stimuli have a heightened reward value at this age. To date, most evidence for heightened social reward in adolescence is found in the animal literature. Human adolescents show increased activation in fronto-striatal brain regions to rewarding social stimuli, but also to negative social stimuli, suggesting that adolescence may be a period of hypersensitivity to all social stimuli. Additional evidence from humans and animals suggest that the presence of others may heighten the value of non-social rewards; these findings should be incorporated into theories of social reward in adolescence.

Studying individual differences in human adolescent brain development

Adolescence is a period of social, psychological and biological development. During adolescence, relationships with others become more complex, peer relationships are paramount and social cognition develops substantially. These psychosocial changes are paralleled by structural and functional changes in the brain. Existing research in adolescent neurocognitive development has focused largely on averages, but this obscures meaningful individual variation in development. In this Perspective, we propose that the field should now move toward studying individual differences. We start by discussing individual variation in structural and functional brain development. To illustrate the importance of considering individual differences in development, we consider three sources of variation that contribute to neurocognitive processing: socioeconomic status, culture and peer environment. To assess individual differences in neurodevelopmental trajectories, large-scale longitudinal datasets are required. Future developmental neuroimaging studies should attempt to characterize individual differences to move toward a more nuanced understanding of neurocognitive changes during adolescence.Research in adolescent neurocognitive development has focussed largely on averages, but there is substantial individual variation in development. This Perspective proposes that the field should move towards studying individual differences.

Anticipation of guilt for everyday moral transgressions: The role of the anterior insula and the influence of interpersonal psychopathic traits

Psychopathy is a personality disorder characterised by atypical moral behaviour likely rooted in atypical affective/motivational processing, as opposed to an inability to judge the wrongness of an action. Guilt is a moral emotion believed to play a crucial role in adherence to moral and social norms, but the mechanisms by which guilt (or lack thereof) may influence behaviour in individuals with high levels of psychopathic traits are unclear. We measured neural responses during the anticipation of guilt about committing potential everyday moral transgressions, and tested the extent to which these varied with psychopathic traits. We found a significant interaction between the degree to which anticipated guilt was modulated in the anterior insula and interpersonal psychopathic traits: anterior insula modulation of anticipated guilt was weaker in individuals with higher levels of these traits. Data from a second sample confirmed that this pattern of findings was specific to the modulation of anticipated guilt and not related to the perceived wrongness of the transgression. These results suggest a central role for the anterior insula in coding the anticipation of guilt regarding potential moral transgressions and advance our understanding of the neurocognitive mechanisms that may underlie propensity to antisocial behaviour.

Research Review: The effects of mindfulness-based interventions on cognition and mental health in children and adolescents - a meta-analysis of randomized controlled trials.

Background Mindfulness based interventions (MBIs) are an increasingly popular way of attempting to improve the behavioural, cognitive and mental health outcomes of children and adolescents, though there is a suggestion that enthusiasm has moved ahead of the evidence base. Most evaluations of MBIs are either uncontrolled or nonrandomized trials. This meta‐analysis aims to establish the efficacy of MBIs for children and adolescents in studies that have adopted a randomized, controlled trial (RCT) design. Methods A systematic literature search of RCTs of MBIs was conducted up to October 2017. Thirty‐three independent studies including 3,666 children and adolescents were included in random effects meta‐analyses with outcome measures categorized into cognitive, behavioural and emotional factors. Separate random effects meta‐analyses were completed for the seventeen studies (n = 1,762) that used an RCT design with an active control condition. Results Across all RCTs we found significant positive effects of MBIs, relative to controls, for the outcome categories of Mindfulness, Executive Functioning, Attention, Depression, Anxiety/Stress and Negative Behaviours, with small effect sizes (Cohens d), ranging from .16 to .30. However, when considering only those RCTs with active control groups, significant benefits of an MBI were restricted to the outcomes of Mindfulness (d = .42), Depression (d = .47) and Anxiety/Stress (d = .18) only. Conclusions This meta‐analysis reinforces the efficacy of using MBIs for improving the mental health and wellbeing of youth as assessed using the gold standard RCT methodology. Future RCT evaluations should incorporate scaled‐up definitive trial designs to further evaluate the robustness of MBIs in youth, with an embedded focus on mechanisms of action.

Age differences in social preference

Starting with puberty and ending with adult independence, adolescence is a time of significant biological and social change that is characterised by dynamic brain development and interactions with the social environment [1]. Adolescence has been proposed as a period of hyper sensitivity to the social environment [2] and a sensitive period for the onset of mental health problems [3]. Evidence has shown that adolescents are particularly sensitive to their social surroundings. It is therefore surprising to find a paucity of data reporting whether or not typically developing adolescents have a preference for social stimuli over non-social stimuli, such as objects and landscapes. We developed an experiment to test the hypothesis that adolescents would be more likely to spend more time than adults choosing to look at social (vs. non-social) stimuli, in preference to an academic diligence task. Participants were adolescents (aged 11-16) and adults (23-30), recruited from the greater London area. Individuals were ineligible if currently taking any psychoactive medication or with a history of neurological or psychiatric disorder. Demographic, social reward and autism quotient questionnaires were administered, followed by the Academic Diligence Task; ADT. In the ADT, participants are given the option to engage in a basic and boring maths task for up to 10 minutes. Participants are told that practicing basic maths skills makes you a better problem solver. Participants are told that at any point they can stop doing maths and switch over to a less boring task – looking at pleasant and rewarding photographs. There were two conditions: social (the photographs were of people interacting) or non-social (the photographs were of landscapes). The order of conditions was counterbalanced between participants. The dependent variable was the ratio of time participants spent doing boring maths versus looking at rewarding photographs, and the design was a 2x2 factorial, with age group (adolescents vs adults) as the between subjects factor and condition (social vs non-social) as the within subjects factor. A repeated measures mixed model ANOVA (age group; condition) was conducted on the data. We predicted a significant interaction between age group and condition, with adolescents spending less time engaging with maths (than adults) when given the option to look at social stimuli, whilst both adolescents and adults would spend an equal amount of time playing maths when given the option to look at non-social stimuli. We also tested the prediction that individuals who report higher levels of autistic traits would show less preference towards the social stimuli and would be spend more time than individuals with low levels of autistic traits engaging with the maths task. We made the prediction that adolescents would spend less time on the maths task when given the option to look at social stimuli (compared to non-social stimuli) because this period of development represents a time of heightened sensitivity to peer evaluation [4] and sociocultural processing [5], thus orientating adolescence to social stimuli.