Social determinants of eyeblinks in adult male macaques

Ballesta, Sébastien; Mosher, Clayton P.; Szép, J.; Fischl, Kate D.; Gothard, Katalin M.

doi:10.1038/srep38686

Cited by 20 publications

(21 citation statements)

References 33 publications

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“…These dynamics may be different during faceto-face interactions with social partners and even when watching videos, where the social stimulus behaves more naturally (Gothard et al, 2018). The effect of OT on blinking should also be quantified, as blinking is an integral component of a gaze-mediated social interactions (Ballesta & Duhamel, 2015; Ballesta, Mosher, Szep, Fischl, & Gothard, 2016; Cummins, 2012). The more socially engaging the partners in a dyadic interaction, the more likely it is that they coordinate their blinks—that is, the more likely they blink within 500 ms after the partner blinks (Ballesta et al, 2016; Cummins, 2012).…”

Section: Studies Of Oxytocin In Non-human Primatesmentioning

confidence: 99%

Bridging the gap between rodents and humans: The role of non‐human primates in oxytocin research

Putnam

Young²,

Gothard

2018

American J Primatol

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Oxytocin (OT), a neuropeptide that acts in the brain as a neuromodulator, has been long known to shape maternal physiology and behavior in mammals, however its role in regulating social cognition and behavior in primates has come to the forefront only in the recent decade. Many of the current perspectives on the role of OT in modulating social behavior emerged first from studies in rodents, where invasive techniques with a high degree of precision have permitted the mechanistic dissection of OT-related behaviors, as well as their underlying neural circuits in exquisite detail. In parallel, behavioral and imaging studies in humans have suggested that brain OT may similarly influence human social behavior and neural activity. These studies in rodents and humans have spurred interest in the therapeutic potential of targeting the OT system to remedy deficits in social cognition and behavior that are present across numerous psychiatric disorders. Yet there remains a tremendous gap in our mechanistic understanding of the influence of brain OT on social neural circuitry between rodents and man. In fact, very little is known regarding the neural mechanisms by which exogenous or endogenous OT influences human social cognition, limiting its therapeutic potential. Here we discuss how non-human primates (NHPs) are uniquely positioned to now bridge the gaps in knowledge provided by the precise circuit-level approaches widely used in rodent models and the behavioral, imaging, and clinical studies in humans. This review provides a perspective on what has been achieved, and what can be expected from exploring the role of OT in shaping social behaviors in NHPs in the coming years.

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Section: Studies Of Oxytocin In Non-human Primatesmentioning

confidence: 99%

Bridging the gap between rodents and humans: The role of non‐human primates in oxytocin research

Putnam

Young²,

Gothard

2018

American J Primatol

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“…Viewer monkeys often blink within 500 milliseconds after they see the monkeys in the videos blink. 48 The more the viewer monkey looked at the eyes of monkey in the videos, the stronger the observed eyeblink entrainment. Eyeblink entrainment in humans is considered a form of social coordination.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

New perspectives on the neurophysiology of primate amygdala emerging from the study of naturalistic social behaviors

Gothard

Mosher

Zimmerman

et al. 2017

WIRES Cognitive Science

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A major challenge of primate neurophysiology, particularly in the domain of social neuroscience, is to adopt more natural behaviors without compromising the ability to relate patterns of neural activity to specific actions or sensory inputs. Traditional approaches have identified neural activity patterns in the amygdala in response to simplified versions of social stimuli such as static images of faces. As a departure from this reduced approach, single images of faces were replaced with arrays of images or videos of conspecifics. These stimuli elicited more natural behaviors and new types of neural responses: (1) attention-gated responses to faces, (2) selective responses to eye contact, and (3) selective responses to touch and somatosensory feedback during the production of facial expressions. An additional advance toward more natural social behaviors in the laboratory was the implementation of dyadic social interactions. Under these conditions, neurons encoded similarly rewards that monkeys delivered to self and to their social partner. These findings reinforce the value of bringing natural, ethologically valid, behavioral tasks under neurophysiological scrutiny.

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“…Several studies by independent research groups have also investigated the relationship between eye-blinking and cognitive processes, demonstrating that: (1) eye-blinking decreases during the presentation of task-relevant stimuli in both visual and auditory domains 34,35 ; (2) eye-blinking predicts how strongly movie scenes will be remembered (with moments of decreased blinking-i.e., increased engagement-coinciding with content that is more strongly remembered, evidence of a remarkably direct link to learning) 36 ; (3) eye-blinking increases during moments when the probability of missing important visual information is low (i.e., during less engaging moments) 19 ; and (4) eye-blinking is similarly decreased at times of increased vigilance and alertness in multiple non-human species 37,38 . While these studies used varying terminology to describe the cognitive processes that influence eye-blinking, the constructs invoked share key features of engagement (engrossment or investment in features of the environment 3,4,39 ), providing additional support for the notion that eye-blinking provides a marker of engagement in both human and non-human species.…”

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confidence: 99%

Blink Rate Patterns Provide a Reliable Measure of Individual Engagement with Scene Content

Ranti

Jones

Klin

et al. 2020

Sci Rep

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eye-blinking has emerged as a promising means of measuring viewer engagement with visual content. this method capitalizes on the fact that although we remain largely unaware of our eyeblinking in everyday situations, eye-blinks are inhibited at precise moments in time so as to minimize the loss of visual information that occurs during a blink. Probabilistically, the more important the visual information is to the viewer, the more likely he or she will be to inhibit blinking. In the present study, viewer engagement was experimentally manipulated in order to: (1) replicate past studies suggesting that a group of viewers will blink less often when watching content that they perceive as more important or relevant; (2) test the reliability of the measure by investigating constraints on the timescale over which blink rate patterns can be used to accurately quantify viewer engagement; and (3) examine whether blink rate patterns can be used to quantify what an individual-as opposed to a group of viewers-perceives as engaging. Results demonstrate that blink rate patterns can be used to measure changes in individual and group engagement that unfold over relatively short (1 second) and long (60 second) timescales. However, for individuals with lower blink rates, blink rate patterns may provide less optimal measures when engagement shifts rapidly (at intervals of 1 second or less). Findings support the use of eye-blink measures in future studies investigating a person's subjective perception of how engaging a stimulus is.

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Social determinants of eyeblinks in adult male macaques

Cited by 20 publications

References 33 publications

Bridging the gap between rodents and humans: The role of non‐human primates in oxytocin research

Bridging the gap between rodents and humans: The role of non‐human primates in oxytocin research

New perspectives on the neurophysiology of primate amygdala emerging from the study of naturalistic social behaviors

Blink Rate Patterns Provide a Reliable Measure of Individual Engagement with Scene Content

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