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Simple Summary: Virtual fencing is an alternative to the ubiquitously used physical fences. It uses GPS to determine the location of livestock relative to a virtual line. The system deters livestock from leaving the enclosure by using an auditory warning followed by an electric impulse during approach and crossing of the fence line. This paper assessed the social effects on learning between cattle with and without prior experience with virtual fencing through three case studies: one with a gradual and two with an instant introduction method. These were applied to assess if improvements in associative learning could be made. Due to the non-standardised experiments, it was not possible to analyse the effect across the case studies and therefore to conclude whether the number of experienced cattle or the different introduction methods influenced the inexperienced cattle. Agricultural industries rely on physical fences to manage livestock. However, these present practical, financial, and ecological challenges, which may be solved using virtual fencing. This study aimed to identify how experienced cattle through social facilitation and the introduction method influence inexperienced cattle. Based on three stocks held in Fanø, Denmark, containing 12, 17 and 13 Angus (Bos taurus), we examined the virtual fence learning in three case studies using one gradual introduction with zero experienced cattle (A) and two different instant introductions with one (B) and ten (C) experienced cattle. Gradual introduction had the virtual fence moved 20 m every other day for eleven days, and in the two instant introductions, the physical fence was removed in one day. Warnings and impulses were recorded during an 11-day learning period and a 26-day post-learning period, using the impulses per warning to quantify if the cattle adapted. Case studies A and B showed a significant reduction in the warnings and impulses, but only A showed a significant reduction in the impulses per warning when comparing the learning period to the post-learning period. Due to the non-standardised experiments, it was not possible to conclude if the number of experienced cattle or the introduction method had an effect on the results. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Observation and replication of observed behavior are two key components to organisms surviving and flourishing. In a corresponding manner, people observe the behavior of others in organizations, replicating adaptive while avoiding detrimental behaviors. Learning by observation allows workers to develop repertoires in which adaptive behaviors are reinforced while maladaptive behaviors undergo extinction or are socially and financially punished. Moreover, observers often improve their own performance when monitoring and recording the behavior of others. However, observers also might replicate inappropriate behavior. Imitation, observational learning, observational performance, and rule-governed behavior are discussed in these contexts. Finally, being viewed by others frequently enhances worker responding and accomplishments. These behaviors occur at the individual, group, and organizational levels, allowing some workers, teams, and organizations to flourish. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This brief commentary adds to the recent study by paper by Yokomitsu, Kono and Takada (2022). Their study examined social presence in gambling by experimentally investigating the effects of the presence of other people on risky betting among high-risk gamblers. This commentary argues that the paper by Yokomitsu et al. provided a highly selective review on available studies and omitted many of the key studies in the area of social presence and social facilitation in which their findings could have been compared. The commentary also briefly outlines a number of studies that have I co-authored in this area over the past three decades using a variety of different methodologies (e.g., non-participant observation studies, experiments, data mining of account-based tracking data), none of which were mentioned by Yokomitsu et al. despite their clear relevance to this area. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Aims and Design: Individuals' food intake may vary depending on their situation and with whom they are having their meal. Thus this systematic review aimed to compare the effect of social facilitation between eating alone and eating with others, and evaluate the social modeling effect when eating with familiar or unfamiliar others, on food intake. Data Sources: Articles were screened and reviewed based on titles, abstracts and keywords. Inclusion criteria included experimental design, English language, open-accessed, and published from 1980 until the review was conducted in 2018. Review Methods: Using the PRISMA method, potential studies were identified on Science Direct, ProQuest, PubMed, Scopus, and BASE databases using two different keywords combinations. Results: Seventeen studies were included. For social facilitation, seven studies found that food intake increases when eating alone while five others stated it would increase when eating with others. One study suggested that it increases in both situations. For social modeling of food intake, two studies found that it commonly occurs when an individual eats in the presence of unfamiliar others, while one study reported that it happens more often with familiar others. Two other studies observed that social modeling occurs in both situations. Conclusion and Impact: Food intake tends to increase when eating alone than eating with others while the presence of familiar or unfamiliar others may either increase or limit an individual's food consumption to socially match their co-eaters' intake. Thus, good self-control is crucial for setting a dietary limit regardless of whether ones are eating alone or with familiar or unfamiliar others. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

According to Zajonc's (1965) motivation based theory, the presence of a conspecific should increase motivation and the effect of an increase in motivation should depend on the nature of the target behavior. If the target behavior is already in the animals repertoire, the presence of a conspecific should increase the target behavior. If, however, the target behavior needs to be acquired, it should retard its acquisition. There is evidence that pigeons will choose suboptimally when given a choice between a 20% chance of signaled reinforcement and a 50% chance of unsignaled reinforcement. Under these conditions, once a preference is found, Zajonc's theory suggests that the presence of a conspecific should increase suboptimal choice. However, there is also evidence that social experience by pigeons outside the experimental context reduces suboptimal choice. In the present experiment, pigeons performed this task either in the presence of a conspecific or without a conspecific present. Inconsistent with Zajonc's theory, the results indicated that pigeons that performed the task in the presence of a conspecific chose suboptimally less often than pigeons that performed the task on their own. The results suggest that the presence of a conspecific may provide an alternative source of reinforcement, thus replacing some of the effect of the conditioned stimulus provided by the signal for reinforcement. Further testing with increased experimental sample size is recommended to confirm these preliminary findings. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Fifty years ago, Zajonc, Heingartner, and Herman (1969) conducted a famous experiment on social enhancement and inhibition of performance in cockroaches. A moderating effect of task difficulty on the effect of the presence of an audience, as revealed by impaired performance in complex tasks and enhanced performance in simple tasks, was presented as the major conclusion of this research. However, the researchers did not test this interaction statistically. We conducted a preregistered direct replication using a 2 (audience: present vs. absent) × 2 (task difficulty: runway vs. maze) between-subjects design. Results revealed main effects for task difficulty, with faster running times in the runway than the maze, and for audience, with slower running times when the audience was present than when it was absent. There was no interaction between the presence of an audience and task difficulty. Although we replicated the social-inhibition effect, there was no evidence for a social-facilitation effect. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The amount of meat consumed is having a negative impact on both health and the environment. This study investigated the probability of eating meat and the amount eaten at a meal within different social, temporal and situational contexts. Dietary intake data from 4-day diet diaries of adults (19 years and above) taken from the UK National Diet and Nutrition Survey (2008/9-2013/14) were used for the analysis. Individual eating occasions were identified and the effects of where the food was eaten, with whom, day of the week, age and gender on the probability of eating meat and amount of meat eaten were modelled using general linear mixed models. Each factor showed distinctive effects on the probability of eating meat and the amount consumed. The amount of meat eaten was greater when eating with family members compared to when alone or with other companions. Both the probability and amount of meat eaten in a single eating occasion were higher on Sundays compared to the rest of the week. Eating out (e.g. restaurants/cafes) increased the probability of consuming meat and the amount compared to other situations (e.g. home, work). When considering the factors influencing meat consumption, attention must be paid to the effects of social, temporal, and situational factors as they all work to shape consumption behaviour. This information should be used in the design of interventions and development of policies for the most effective way to reduce meat consumption. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Highlights • The mere presence of a conspecific lowered the performance accuracy of rats. • The mere presence of a conspecific accelerated the speed of motor performance. • Such changes in motor performance in rats were similar to those seen in humans. Abstract Many studies on humans and animals have shown that the mere presence of another individual or individuals accelerates the motor performance speed of the subject individual. However, it has not been well investigated whether the mere presence of another individual affects the accuracy of motor performance in animals. In this study, we developed a novel task (run-and-pull task) to simultaneously investigate both the speed and accuracy of motor performance in rats and examined the effect of the mere presence of another rat on the task performance of the subject rat. Rats were first trained in isolation to run a runway and then pull a lever on the terminal end of the runway. After training, the subject rats were required to perform the task in isolation (Single) or in front of a non-competitive confederate rat without direct interaction (Pair). The results showed that the latency to start running and to pull the lever were shorter and the accuracy of the lever-pull movement was lower in the Pair condition than in the Single condition. These findings suggest that the mere presence of another individual increased the speed and decreased the accuracy of the motor performance of rats. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Highlights • We examined equine social learning in a detour task with the group leader as the demonstrator. • We refined previous studies by using non observer and social facilitation controls. • Our results show a significant role of social facilitation unrelated to learning. • We found no evidence for higher level learning processes. • Simple mechanisms could account for much complex social behaviour in horses. Abstract Learning through the observation of others allows the transfer of information without the costs incurred during individual trial and error learning. Horses (Equus caballus) are a highly social species, which might be expected to be capable of learning from others, but experimental findings are inconsistent, and potentially confounded by social facilitation effects not related directly to the learning of the task. We refined the methods used in previous equine social learning studies, to examine and distinguish specific social influences on learning of a task: we used predefined group leaders rather than agonistically dominant individuals to demonstrate a detour task to familiar conspecific observers; in addition we had two control groups: a non-observer (true control) and a group with the demonstrator simply present at the goal (social facilitation control). 44 socially kept horses were allocated to one of the three test conditions and took part in five trials each. Success rate, latency and detour direction were recorded. There was no significant difference between the three groups in the likelihood of them succeeding in the task nor latency to succeed; however there was a significant difference in the route chosen by the groups, with the true control choosing the side with the entrance gate significantly more than either the observer group or social facilitation group. Both of the latter two groups chose to go in the same direction relative to themselves, regardless of which side the gate was. Seven out of nine horses in the observer group chose the same direction as their demonstrator every time. Our results show a significant role of social facilitation on detour behaviour and highlight the importance of including adequate controls for simpler cognitive influences on behaviour before claims can be made about the specific learning of motor actions or goal directed behaviour. Social cues may be important to horses if the task is sufficiently challenging and motivationally important, so future work should consider more demanding, but ecologically relevant situations, in order to maximise the potential revelation of social learning effects which do not depend on simple local or stimulus enhancement effects. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Objective: The purpose of the present study was to examine the effects of an independent coactor on vigilance task performance. It was hypothesized that the presence of an independent coactor would improve performance in terms of the proportion of false alarms while also increasing perceived workload and stress.Background: Vigilance, or the ability to maintain attention for extended periods, is of great interest to human factors psychologists. Substantial work has focused on improving vigilance task performance, typically through motivational interventions. Of interest to vigilance researchers is the application of social facilitation as a means of enhancing vigilance. Social facilitation seeks to explain how social presence may improve performance.Method: A total of 100 participants completed a 24-min vigil either alone or in the presence of an independent (confederate) coactor. Participants completed measures of perceived workload and stress.Results: The results indicated that performance (i.e., proportion of false alarms) was improved for those who completed the vigil in the presence of an independent coactor. Interestingly, perceived workload was actually lower for those who completed the vigil in the presence of an independent coactor, although perceived stress was not affected by the manipulation.Conclusion: Authors of future research should extend these findings to other forms of social facilitation and examine vigilance task performance in social contexts in order to determine the utility of social presence for improving vigilance.Application: The use of coactors may be an avenue for organizations to consider utilizing to improve performance because of its relative cost-effectiveness and easy implementation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

For many species, learning is an essential mechanism for dealing with the environment correctly and efficiently. Animals that quickly learn important information, and learn at a young age, can gain a competitive advantage in exploiting resources. Moreover, animals that learn indirectly through social observations can avoid the fitness costs of directly learning about potential dangers. Here we tested such learning capabilities in ringed salamanders, Ambystoma annulatum , a species where adults are primarily solitary and do not provide parental care. Adults lay eggs in ponds where embryos have the opportunity to learn from chemical cues in their environment before hatching, whereupon the high density of larvae provides an opportunity to learn from social information. In this study, we found that these salamanders can learn an attraction to novel food stimuli as embryos and that naïve observer larvae can learn from conspecifics that show attraction to stimuli. Embryonic exposure to a novel food stimulus (shrimp odour) caused attraction to that stimulus posthatching, and this response appeared to be generalized to another potential prey stimulus (mussel odour) but not to a novel plant stimulus. In a test of social learning, only observers that were paired with models corralled near a novel food stimulus were subsequently attracted to the stimulus. This study is the first to report embryonic learning of food or social learning by salamanders, providing more evidence for generalized learning by embryos and social learning by species lacking more complex social behaviours. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Participants' performance differs when conducting a task in the presence of a secondary individual, moreover the opinion the participant has of this individual also plays a role. Using EEG, we investigated how previous interactions with, and evaluations of, an avatar in virtual reality subsequently influenced attentional allocation to the face of that avatar. We focused on changes in the alpha activity as an index of attentional allocation. We found that the onset of an avatar's face whom the participant had developed a rapport with induced greater alpha suppression. This suggests greater attentional resources are allocated to the interacted-with avatars. The evaluative ratings of the avatar induced a U-shaped change in alpha suppression, such that participants paid most attention when the avatar was rated as average. These results suggest that attentional allocation is an important element of how behaviour is altered in the presence of a secondary individual and is modulated by our opinion of that individual. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Individuals behave differently in the presence of others. Some scholars argue the mere presence of others has the capacity to improve task performance, while other researchers demonstrate individuals become “social loafers,” exerting less effort in group tasks unless they perceive potential for evaluation. I investigate these claims in the context of evaluating poll‐worker performance using two randomized field experiments conducted in New York City during a special election that took place in February 2009 and during the presidential primary conducted in April 2016. The results suggest that manipulating the presence of observers, or even poll workers’ perceptions of the potential for evaluation, likely enhances their performance overall, resulting, especially, in greater efficiency and potentially strengthening voters’ confidence that their ballots were accurately counted and diminishing perceptions of electoral fraud. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Throughout our lives wemust perform tasks while being observed by others. Previous studies have shown that the presence of an audience can cause increases in an individual's performance as compared to when they are not being observed-a phenomenon called 'social facilitation'. However, the neural mechanisms underlying this effect, in the context of skilled-task performance for monetary incentives, are not well understood. We used functional magnetic resonance imaging to monitor brain activity while healthy human participants performed a skilled-task during conditions in which they were paid based on their performance and observed and not observed by an audience. We found that during social facilitation, social signals represented in the dorsomedial prefrontal cortex (dmPFC) enhanced reward value computations in ventromedial prefrontal cortex (vmPFC).We also found that functional connectivity between dmPFC and ventral striatumwas enhanced when participants exhibited social facilitation effects, indicative of a means by which social signals serve tomodulate brain regions involved in regulating behavioral motivation. These findings illustrate how neural processing of social judgments gives rise to the enhanced motivational state that results in social facilitation of incentive-based performance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Food tastes better and people eat more of it when eaten with company than alone. Although several explanations have been proposed for this social facilitation of eating, they share the basic assumption that this phenomenon is achieved by the existence of co-eating others. Here, we demonstrate a similar “social” facilitation of eating in the absence of other individuals. Elderly participants tasted a piece of popcorn alone while in front of a mirror (which reflects the participant themselves eating popcorn) or in front of a wall-reflecting monitor, and were found to eat more popcorn and rate it better tasting in the self-reflecting condition than in the monitor condition. Similar results were found for younger adults. The results suggest that the social facilitation of eating does not necessarily require the presence of another individual. Furthermore, we observed a similar “social” facilitation of eating even when participants ate a piece of popcorn in front of a static picture of themselves eating, suggesting that static visual information of “someone” eating food is sufficient to produce the “social” facilitation of eating. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The aim of this study was to examine the variation within and between individuals in concentrate consumption rate and the effect of social facilitation. Eight pregnant ewes (four primiparous and four multiparous), were fed a low amount, 250 g, of concentrate twice a day with ad libitum access to forage hay. The ewes ate their ration of concentrate individually to examine the variation in consumption rate (Experiment 1) and in pairs to look at the effect of social facilitation (Experiment 2); both experiments had eating bouts limited to 60 s. On average, the eight ewes had a concentrate consumption rate 172.0 ± 10.5 g/min (mean ± SD) when fed individually and 183.0 ± 8.9 g/min (mean ± SD) when fed pairwise. The coefficient of variation (CV) of consumption rate within and between ewes fed singly averaged 6.0% and 5.6%, respectively. When fed in pairs, the CV within individual ewes decreased to 4.9% and the CV between ewes increased to 9.4%. In conclusion, the overall CV for consumption rate was small, and when ewes are kept in groups under commercial conditions and fed concentrates in a long trough each ewe will consume approximately the targeted amount of concentrates. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Working together feels easier with some people than with others. We asked participants to perform a visual search task either alone or with a partner while simultaneously measuring each participant's EEG. Local phase synchronization and inter-brain phase synchronization were generally higher when subjects jointly attended to a visual search task than when they attended to the same task individually. Some participants searched the visual display more efficiently and made faster decisions when working as a team, whereas other dyads did not benefit from working together. These inter-team differences in behavioral performance gain in the visual search task were reliably associated with inter-team differences in local and inter-brain phase synchronization. Our results suggest that phase synchronization constitutes a neural correlate of social facilitation, and may help to explain why some teams perform better than others. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

People eat more when they eat in groups. Various explanations have been offered for this "social facilitation" of eating. We consider these explanations and find most of them wanting, especially insofar as they do not take into account the increased per capita provision of food when people eat together. We suggest that people often prefer to eat in groups precisely because it offers them an opportunity to overindulge. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The present study examined whether the tendency to commit traffic violations differed when drivers were with and without the presence of other persons in the car. One thousand and eight drivers were observed by the road side. The data registered by the observers included estimated age of the driver and the passengers, sex of the driver and number of passengers. Four dependent variables were registered for each driver, which are, wearing seatbelt, signaling, using hand-held cellular phone and keeping the distance from the vehicle in front. It has been found that for both males and females, old and young, a greater proportion of drivers who were alone committed traffic violations as compared to drivers who were not alone. These results are discussed in relation to social influences on drivers and allow insight into how the presence of passengers has an impact on driver behavior and traffic safety. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The presence of another person can influence task performance. What is, however, still unclear is whether performance also depends on what this other person is doing. In two experiments, two participants (A and B) jointly performed a Simon task, and we selectively manipulated the difficulty of the task for participant A only. This was achieved by presenting A with 90% congruent trials (creating an easy task requiring low effort investment) or 10% congruent trials (creating a difficult task requiring high effort investment). Although this manipulation is irrelevant for the task of participant B, we nevertheless observed that B exerted more mental effort when participant A performed the difficult version of the task, compared to the easy version. Crucially, in Experiment 2 this was found to be the case even when participants could not see each other's stimuli. These results provide a first compelling demonstration that the exertion of effort is contagious. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A robust finding in social psychology research is that performance is modulated by the social nature of a given context, promoting social inhibition or facilitation effects. In the present experiment, we examined if and how social presence impacts holistic face perception processes by asking participants, in the presence of others and alone, to perform the composite face task. Results suggest that completing the task in the presence of others (i.e., mere co-action) is associated with better performance in face recognition (less bias and higher discrimination between presented and non-presented targets) and with a reduction in the composite face effect. These results make clear that social presence impact on the composite face effect does not occur because presence increases reliance on holistic processing as a “dominant” well-learned response, but instead, because it increases monitoring of the interference produced by automatic response. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Social learning refers to individuals learning from others, including information gained through indirect social influences, such as the results of others’ actions and changes in the physical environment. One method to determine the relative influence of these varieties of information is the ‘ghost display’, in which no model is involved, but subjects can watch the results that a model would produce. Previous research has shown mixed success by chimpanzees ( Pan troglodytes ) learning from ghost displays, with some studies suggesting learning only in relatively simple tasks. To explore whether the failure of chimpanzees to learn from a ghost display may be due to neophobia when tested singly or a requirement for more detailed information for complex tasks, we presented ghost displays of a tool-use task to chimpanzees in their home social groups. Previous tests have revealed that chimpanzees are unable to easily solve this tool-use task asocially, or learn from ghost displays when tested singly, but can learn after observing conspecifics in a group setting. In the present study, despite being tested in a group situation, chimpanzees still showed no success in solving the task via trial-and-error learning, in a baseline condition, nor in learning the task from the ghost display. Simply being in the presence of their group mates and being shown the affordances of the task was not sufficient to encourage learning. Following this, in an escalating series of tests, we examined the chimpanzees’ ability to learn from a demonstration by models with agency: (1) a human; (2) video footage of a chimpanzee; (3) a live chimpanzee model. In the first two of these ‘social’ conditions, subjects showed limited success. By the end of the final open diffusion phase, which was run to determine whether this new behavior would be transmitted among the group after seeing a successful chimpanzee use the task, 83% of chimpanzees were now successful. This confirmed a marked overall effect of observing animate conspecific modeling, in contrast to the ghost condition. This article is part of a Special Issue entitled: insert SI title. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The social facilitation of eating (i.e., people eating more in groups than when alone) has been studied for about three decades now. In this paper, we review the empirical research (diary studies, observational studies, and experimental studies) of social facilitation, attending to factors that increase or decrease socially facilitated eating. We also review the various explanations (e.g., “time extension”) that have been offered for the effect and offer our own speculations as to the underlying mechanisms. Further, we discuss promising directions for future research on the social facilitation of eating. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In group-living animals, aggression can have consequences that spread beyond the initial opponents. In this study, we observed a social group of mandrills, Mandrillus sphinx , focusing on the behaviour of uninvolved bystanders, i.e. those individuals that witnessed aggression without being directly involved. In the aftermath of aggression, uninvolved bystanders directed both increased affiliation and increased aggression to other bystanders. They also showed increased scratching, a behavioural indicator of anxiety. Bystanders affiliated preferentially with the kin of the original aggressor when they were related to the victim. Contrary to predictions, affiliating with another bystander had no effect on either the probability of aggression or the rate of scratching. The increase in postconflict aggression between bystanders may be explained by social facilitation. The increase in affiliation may represent a form of indirect reconciliation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Social foraging provides animals with opportunities to gain knowledge about available food. Studies indicate that animals are influenced by social context during exploration and are able to learn socially. Carrion and hooded crows, which are opportunistic generalists with flexible social systems, have so far received little focus in this area. We combined observational and experimental approaches to investigate social interactions during foraging and social influences on crow behaviour within a free-ranging population at Vienna Zoo, which included 115 individually marked crows. We expected the crows to be tolerant of conspecifics during foraging due to high food abundance. We predicted that social context would enhance familiar object exploration, as well as a specific foraging strategy: predation by crows on other species. We found that crows were highly tolerant of one another, as reflected by their high rates of cofeeding - where they fed directly beside conspecific(s) - relative to affiliative or agonistic interactions. Evidence for social facilitation - when the observer's behaviour is affected by the mere presence of a model - was found in both object exploration and predation behaviour. Specifically, crows touched the objects more frequently when others were present (whilst only approaching the objects when alone), and conspecifics were present more frequently during predation events involving the high-risk target species. Evidence for enhancement during object exploration - where the observer's attention is drawn to a place or object by a model's actions - was not confirmed in this context. Our results highlight the role played by the presence of conspecifics across different contexts: natural foraging behaviour, familiar object exploration and a specific foraging strategy. To our knowledge, this is one of the first corvid studies aimed at teasing apart specific social influence and learning mechanisms in the field. These crows therefore make promising candidates for studying social learning and its consequences under naturalistic conditions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Highlights: [•] We tested the food preferences and choices of six zoo-housed chimpanzees. [•] The chimpanzees’ preferences were tested in two conditions: individual and social. [•] The subjects had individual preferences but universally disregarded the same food. [•] In the social condition, chimpanzees consumed more of this least-preferred food. [•] The chimpanzees’ choices were context-dependent. [•] When with peers, their choices appeared to be influenced by social facilitation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Tactile stimuli provide animals with important information about the environment, including physical features such as obstacles, and biologically relevant cues related to food, mates, hosts and predators. The antennae, the principal sensory organs of insects, house an array of sensory receptors for olfaction, gustation, audition, nociception, balance, stability, graviception, static electric fields, and thermo-, hygro- and mechanoreception. The antennae, being the anteriormost sensory appendages, play a prominent role in social interactions with conspecifics that involve primarily chemosensory and tactile stimuli. In the German cockroach (Blattella germanica) antennal contact during social interactions modulates brain-regulated juvenile hormone production, ultimately accelerating the reproductive rate in females. The primary sensory modality mediating this social facilitation of reproduction is antennal mechanoreception. We investigated the key elements, or stimulus features, of antennal contact that socially facilitate reproduction in B. germanica females. Using motor-driven antenna mimics, we assessed the physiological responses of females to artificial tactile stimulation. Our results indicate that tactile stimulation with artificial materials, some deviating significantly from the native antennal morphology, can facilitate female reproduction. However, none of the artificial stimuli matched the effects of social interactions with a conspecific female. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The ability of animals to disperse towards their original home range following displacement has been demonstrated in a number of species. However, little is known about the homing ability of three-spine sticklebacks (Gasterosteus aculeatus), an important model species in behavioural ecology. In addition, few studies have examined the role of social facilitation in relation to homing behaviour in fishes. We examined homing behaviour of sticklebacks displaced over distances of between 80 m and 160 m in land-drains with directional water flow. Fish were translocated from their original capture site, tagged and then released either in groups or solitarily. We performed recapture transects either one or two days later. Data provided by recaptured sticklebacks show that the fish dispersed in the direction of their original capture site. Although fish translocated downstream typically moved further than those translocated upstream, both dispersed towards their original capture site. There was no difference between fish released solitarily or in groups in their homing ability and indeed there was little evidence that fish translocated in groups remained together following their release. The homing ability of the fish was demonstrated by the finding that up to 80% of fish returned to their home ranges within two days of release over a distance equivalent to approximately 5000 body lengths of these small fish. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Highlights: [•] Autism severity scores: important starting point for treatment studies in rodents. [•] Scent marking behaviour: an ethologically valid measure for rodent communication. [•] Social facilitation, observational learning, and empathy: new behavioural endpoints. [•] Generation of rat knockout models: several advantages for behavioural phenotyping. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Observational learning is presumed to have occurred when an organism copies an improbable action or action outcome that it has observed and the matching behavior cannot be explained by an alternative mechanism. Psychologists have been particularly interested in the form of observational learning known as imitation and in how to distinguish imitation from other processes. To successfully make this distinction, one must disentangle the degree to which behavioral similarity results from (a) predisposed behavior, (b) increased motivation resulting from the presence of another animal, (c) attention drawn to a place or object, (d) learning about the way the environment works, as distinguished from what we think of as (e) imitation (the copying of the demonstrated behavior). Several of the processes that may be involved in observational learning are reviewed, including social facilitation, stimulus enhancement, several kinds of emulation, and various forms of imitation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Some animal species increase resource acceptance rates in the presence of conspecifics. Such responses may be adaptive if the presence of conspecifics is a reliable indicator of resource quality. Similarly, these responses could represent an adaptive reduction in choosiness under high levels of scramble competition. Although high resource quality and high levels of scramble competition should both favor increased resource acceptance, the contexts in which the increase occurs should differ. In this paper, we tested the effect of social environment on egg-laying and aggressive behavior in the walnut fly, Rhagoletis juglandis, in multiple contexts to determine whether increased resource acceptance in the presence of conspecifics was better viewed as a response to increased host quality or increased competition. We found that grouped females oviposit more readily than isolated females when provided small (low-quality) artificial hosts but not when provided large (high-quality) artificial hosts, indicating that conspecific presence reduces choosiness. Increased resource acceptance was observed even when exposure to conspecifics was temporally or spatially separate from exposure to the resource. Finally, we found that individuals showed reduced aggression after being housed in groups, as expected under high levels of scramble competition. These results indicate that the pattern of resource acceptance in the presence of conspecifics may be better viewed as a response to increased scramble competition rather than as a response to public information about resource quality. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Being touched by another person influences our readiness to empathize with and support that person. We asked whether this influence arises from somatosensory experience, the proximity to the person and/or an attribution of the somatosensory experience to the person. Moreover, we were interested in whether and how touch affects the processing of ensuing events. To this end, we presented neutral and negative pictures with or without gentle pressure to the participants' forearm. In Experiment 1, pressure was applied by a friend, applied by a tactile device and attributed to the friend, or applied by a tactile device and attributed to a computer. Across these conditions, touch enhanced event-related potential (ERP) correlates of picture processing. Pictures elicited a larger posterior N100 and a late positivity discriminated more strongly between pictures of neutral and negative content when participants were touched. Experiment 2 replicated these findings while controlling for the predictive quality of touch. Experiment 3 replaced tactile contact with a tone, which failed to enhance N100 amplitude and emotion discrimination reflected by the late positivity. This indicates that touch sensitizes ongoing cognitive and emotional processes and that this sensitization is mediated by bottom-up somatosensory processing. Moreover, touch seems to be a special sensory signal that influences recipients in the absence of conscious reflection and that promotes prosocial behavior. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Social loafing and social facilitation are stable behavioral effects that describe increased or decreased motivation, as well as effort and cooperation in teamwork as opposed to individual working situations. Recent twin studies demonstrate the heritability of cooperative behavior. Brain imaging studies have shown that reciprocity, cooperativeness, and social rewards activate reward processing areas with strong dopaminergic input, such as the ventral striatum. Thus, candidate genes for social behavior are hypothesized to affect dopaminergic neurotransmission. In the present study, we investigated the dopaminergic genetic contribution to social cooperation, especially to social loafing and social facilitation. N = 106 healthy, Caucasian subjects participated in the study and were genotyped for three polymorphisms relevant to the dopaminergic system (COMTval158met, DRD2 c957t, DRD2 rs#2283265). In addition to a main effect indicating an increased performance in teamwork situations, we found a significant interaction between a haplotype block covering both DRD2 single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) (rs#6277 and rs#2283265), henceforth referred to as the DRD2-haplotype block, and the COMT val158met polymorphism (rs#4680) with social facilitation. Carriers of the DRD2 CT-haplotype block and at least one Val-allele showed a greater increase in performance in teamwork settings when compared with carriers of the CT-haplotype block and the Met/Met-genotype. Our results suggest that epistasis between COMTval158met and the two DRD2 SNPs contributes to individual differences in cooperativeness in teamwork settings. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

To date, there has been relatively little research on Internet gambling. Furthermore, there have been few studies comparing the behaviour of Internet gamblers versus non-Internet gamblers. Using the game of roulette, this study experimentally examined (a) the differences in gambling behaviour between online and offline gamblers, and (b) the role social facilitation in gambling behaviour between online and offline gamblers. A total of 38 participants played online and offline roulette either alone or alongside another gambling participant, and the players' chip placement and amount bet was recorded. The study found that those who gambled in online roulette placed more chips per bet and made riskier bets than those who gambled on roulette offline. The study also found that those who gambled alongside another gambler placed more chips and made riskier bets than those who gambled alone. Those who gambled online and in the presence of others, placed the highest number of chips per bet and made the riskiest bets. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: The Computers As Social Actors (CASA) research paradigm has examined how individuals respond to computers programmed to interact in various ways. In the current research, we extend the principles of CASA to determine whether computer icons can be used to produce social facilitation effects. Varying task difficulty and the presence or absence of a computer icon (i.e., Microsoft word’s Clip), performance on a typing task is considered. Overall, results provide some support for the contention that the mere presence of a computer icon may influence task performance. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

In their natural environment, capuchins select certain plants, containing secondary compounds with bactericide, insecticide or fungicide properties, to rub their pelage energetically (i.e. fur rubbing). Fur rubbing can be performed in solitary, or collectively in subgroups of variable size and composition, and most of the time fur rubbing happens in synchrony with other group members. The aim of this study is to understand the underlying mechanisms of this phenomenon, and, more particularly, to determine the processes involved in its synchronization. For this purpose, we designed a set of experiments where white-faced capuchins (Cebus capucinus) were presented with onions (Allium cepa) that they use to fur rub. We conducted a detailed kinetic study of fur rubbing behavior to determine if its synchronization is the consequence of simultaneous responses of different individuals to the same stimulus or if, on the contrary, there is a real collective phenomenon where individuals respond to conspecific behavior. Our results reveal that fur rubbing is a collective behavior with a mimetic underlying mechanism. If fur rubbing with onions (a plant with antifungal and repellent properties) allows capuchins to treat their fur against parasites or pathogens, its synchronization would optimize the treatment by acting as a group barrier to ectoparasite propagation. Am. J. Primatol. 70:161–168, 2008. © 2007 Wiley-Liss, Inc. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Wild brown capuchins (Cebus apella) in Raleighvallen, Suriname forage on larvae hidden inside bamboo stalks via searching and extractive behaviours. We found that developing proficiency at obtaining larvae from bamboo stalks extends through several years of juvenescence. Older juveniles pass through a transition from a juvenile pattern to an adult pattern of foraging efficiency and diet selection. Whereas most studies have investigated the contribution of direct interactions between a naïve individual and a competent forager on the acquisition of foraging expertise, we focused on indirect social influence through foraging artefacts left in the habitat by conspecifics. Young individuals foraged at bamboo stalks more often shortly after than shortly before encountering bamboo segments previously opened by foragers to extract larvae. We discuss this result in terms of stimulus enhancement and social facilitation. In capuchins, learning how to forage on difficult foods does not necessarily occur in the presence of other group members, and social influences can be delayed in time and separate in space from others. This study provides an original view on how the gradual acquisition of foraging competence in brown capuchins is aided jointly by physical maturation and indirect social input that provides opportunities to practice appropriate foraging actions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Preliminary observations were conducted to identify conspicuous body postures and movements of males and hermaphrodites in the mangrove killifish Kryptolebias marmoratus. These behaviours were used quantitatively to examine the social interactions for experimental pairings of K. marmoratus of different sexual states ( i.e. simultaneous hermaphrodite and male) in an aquarium with an open-water area and simulated crab burrows. This allowed observation of behaviours that could not be observed in the field. Kryptolebias marmoratus, regardless of sexual state and experimental treatment, spent 40% of the time in the burrow. Hermaphrodites exhibited a preference for associating with males rather than other hermaphrodites. The observed complexity of displayed behaviours and interactions between paired conspecifics indicate that K. marmoratus has a rich repertoire of social behaviour not predicted for a strictly selfing species. Also, land crab burrows play an important role in their social interactions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Social facilitation theory is one of the most paradigmatic examples of social psychology, understood as an experimental science. However, in this paper we intend to demonstrate that the research that allegedly supports it suffers from a number of defects. It uses biased population samples, and the tasks it sets its experimental subjects are limited to the practical or productive, ignoring the broader range of everyday activities such as conversing or, indeed, urinating. Social facilitation theory, far from being objective, is a microcosm of American social psychology ideology insofar as it ignores basic human functions, and fails to include stigmatized communities such as stutterers and people with bladder problems. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Social facilitation of learning to associate acoustic signals with food was studied in the common carp Cyprinus carpio (L.). Fish were trained to associate a 400-Hz pure pulsed sound with food, by classical conditioning, in the presence or absence of trained fish ('teachers'). In the first experiment, the response to the acoustic signal of 20 naive fish, trained by themselves was compared with that of 15 naïve fish trained together with five teachers in 18 training sessions. When an acoustic signal was generated, naïve fish trained with teachers approached the feeding trays earlier than those trained by themselves. The difference between the two types was highly significant on the first 2 days, diminished during the following days and became non-significant on the last 2 days. Qualitative observations revealed that during the first training sessions the teachers swam from the school to the feeding trays and back, thus stimulating the naïve fish to follow them to the feeder. In the second experiment, naïve fish were trained for 2 days in the presence or absence of teachers. The five teachers or five naïve fish were then removed from their respective groups and the remaining fish continued to be trained for 5 days. The responses of the naïve fish in the two group types were similar, probably because of handling stress and/or insufficient time for learning-consolidation. This study demonstrated the occurrence of social facilitation of training to acoustic signals. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Objective:To examine the nutritional implications of the interactions taking place between patients and care providers during mealtimes in hospital settings. Specifically, we tested research propositions that the amount and nature of interpersonal behaviours exchanged between patients and providers impact patients' food intake. These propositions were derived from prior evidence of social influences on eating behaviour and a well-established framework that identifies two fundamental modalities of human interaction: striving for mastery and power (agency) and efforts to promote union with others (communion).Design:In a within-subject naturalistic study, participants were observed on multiple meals (n=1477, 46.2 meals/participant on average), during which participants' and providers' agency- and communion-related behaviours and patients' protein and energy intake were recorded. Meal-level frequency and complementarity of patients' and providers' behaviours were computed to test research propositions.Setting:Dining room of a geriatric rehabilitation unit.Subjects:Thirty-two elderly patients (21 females, mean age:78.8, 95% CI: 76.4, 81.1).Results:Meal-level frequency of patient–provider exchanges (P=0.016) and patients' agency-related behaviours (P=0.029), as well as mutual reciprocation of patients' and providers' communion-related behaviours (P=0.015) on a given meal were positively linked to protein intake. Higher energy intake was found during meals where patients expressed more agency-related behaviours (P=0.029).Conclusion:Results present evidence that the amount and nature of patient–provider interpersonal exchanges on a given meal influence the nutritional quality of food intake in hospitalized elderly. They provide insights into how to improve the design and delivery of routine care to this malnutrition-prone population.Sponsorship:This study was supported by the Canadian Institutes of Health Research (Operating grant to Laurette Dubé, Doctoral Fellowship to Catherine Paquet) the Fonds de la Recherche en santé du Québec and by the Danone Institute (Doctoral fellowship to Danielle St-Arnaud McKenzie).European Journal of Clinical Nutrition (2007) 61, 664–672. doi:10.1038/sj.ejcn.1602559; published online 29 November 2006 [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: An experiment examined the impact of indirect social monitoring on memory distortions found in ‘egoistic self-enhancers’, that is, individuals prone to self-reporting enhanced traits related to social status and dominance (). One-hundred-and-sixty-six students from a large urban university (117 women and 49 men, mean age=23.0years) were randomly assigned to two conditions. Those in the ‘Video-Camera’ condition completed a bogus personality feedback task designed to index self-enhancing memory biases () in presence of a video-camera aimed in their direction, while participants in the ‘Control’ condition completed the same task, but without the video-camera. The results show that high egoists in the ‘Video-Camera’ condition experienced significantly less positive memory distortion than high egoists in the ‘Control’ condition, suggesting that indirect social monitoring can interfere with early information processing biases found in egoistic self-enhancers. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Many of our actions are influenced by the social context. Traditional approach attributes the influence of the social context to arousal state changes in a socially promotive way. The ideomotor approach, which postulates common coding between perceived events and intended actions, uses a conceptual scheme of ideomotor compatibility to explain self–other interaction. In this study, we recorded reaction times (RTs) and event-related potentials in a Go/NoGo task with stimulus–response (S–R) compatibility arrangement to examine how the social context affects self–other interaction. Although the social facilitation theory predicted that RTs would be faster when acting together with audience rather than acting alone, the ideomotor theory predicted S–R compatibility effects only for the joint condition. The results revealed S–R compatibility on the RTs, lateralized readiness potential of the Go trials, and P3 of the NoGo trials in the joint condition, which were in line with the predictions of the ideomotor theory. Owing to the anticipation of other’s actions, self and other’s actions are internally and unintentionally coded at the representational level and their functional equivalency can be realized through a common coding framework between perception and action systems. Social facilitation theory was not supported, because we found no significant data differences depending on the setting. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: This experiment examined the ‘time extension’ explanation for the social facilitation effect, which is that people eat more as the number of co-eaters increases. Seventy male and 62 female participants ate a lunch consisting of pizza, cookies, and bottled water, alone or in (same-gender) groups of two or four and were given either 12 or 36min in which to do so. The independent variables were gender, group size, and meal duration. The main dependent variable was amount consumed in the meal. The results showed that male participants ate more than did females, and participants eating the longer meal ate more than did those eating the shorter meal. However, the effect of group size was not significant. It was also the case that the amounts consumed by participants eating in two-person groups resembled one another to a greater extent than did of pairs of participants who ate alone or by participants in four-person groups. It was concluded that the results of the present paper provide strong support for the idea that the effect of group size on intake seen in previous studies is mediated by meal duration. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Third party observers have been found to significantly impair neuropsychological test performance on measures of attention, verbal memory, verbal fluency, and cognitive symptom validity. One measure of the importance of a research-based finding for clinical practice is effect size. Effect sizes were calculated for selected social facilitation literature and empirical studies of the impact of a third party observer on formal neuropsychological measures. The average effect size estimate found for the social facilitation research was large. Effect size estimates associated with findings from the third party observer research were, on average, medium for memory measures and small for motor and attention/executive measures. These findings indicate that the presence of an observer during a neuropsychological evaluation should be expected to have a clinically meaningful impact on an examinee's test performance, with memory measures particularly vulnerable. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Following a brief discussion of the emergence of third party observation as an issue in neuropsychology, this article reviews the social psychological theory of social facilitation. Social facilitation refers to the impact of another person, whether as an observer or a performer of the same activity, on an individual's performance. Both performance enhancements and impairments can be caused by this phenomenon. The article concludes with a review of the empirical studies that have demonstrated that a third party observer significantly impacts an individual's performance on some neuropsychological tests. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The effect of a third party observer on neuropsychological test performance was examined within the framework of social facilitation. Social facilitation refers to the influence of an observer's presence on human behavior. Previous studies of social facilitation have demonstrated that an observer improves performance on easy or well-learned tasks and diminishes performance on complex or novel tasks. To examine social facilitation effects on neuropsychological testing, the Trail Making Test, Verbal Paired Associates subtest from the Wechsler Memory Scale-Revised (WMS-R), Finger Tapping Test, Grip Strength, and the Grooved Pegboard were administered to 60 individuals with a self-reported history of mild to severe closed head injury. Half of the participants received a standard test administration, and the other half were tested in the presence of a third party observer. A statistically significant difference between groups was found on the Verbal Paired Associates delayed recall from the WMS-R with the observed group recalling fewer word pairs than the unobserved group. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Social facilitation of eating familiar foods might serve to synchronize eating activities within groups. We aimed to assess whether capuchins (Cebus apella) are prompted to eat when observing other conspecifics eating a familiar food. Subjects were 8 male captive-born tufted capuchins. One pair of capuchins acted as demonstrators for the other 6 observer subjects. In the Experimental condition, the demonstrator pair was given fresh chow in addition to having access to the leftover food and ate continuously. In the Control condition, the demonstrator pair had access to food leftover from the morning feed and ate very little. The initiation of feeding by the demonstrator pair prompted the initiation of feeding behavior in the observers, and the latter ate significantly more of their leftovers in the Experimental than in the Control condition. Thetempoofthe social facilitation of eating familiar foods in capuchins supportisomorphic coordination, a process that occurs when one individual’s activity focuses the attention of another individual to the same activity, thereby increasing behavioral similarity in a group. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Self-focused attention has been found to facilitate task performance in some instances and inhibit it in others. Among chronically anxious individuals it appears to consistently hinder performance. Less is known about the impact of self-focus on the performance of normal individuals. The present study examines the role of task difficulty, task self-relevance, and presence of evaluation anxiety in the performance effects of self-focus among normal individuals. Participants performed a simple reaction time (RT) and a lexical decision task, in Experiments 1 and 2, respectively, with or without self-focus. Self-focus and evaluation anxiety resulted in faster responding in simple RT, but there was no significant effect of self-focus on performance in the more difficult lexical decision task. Participants' heart rate (HR) was monitored and indicated that orienting was associated with slower RT in both experiments, and less orienting was found during self-focus and evaluation conditions. Results are interpreted in light of several self-focus theories. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Laboratory experiments were conducted with Pacific halibut Hippoglossus stenolepis to test the hypothesis that responsiveness to food cues is density- and size- dependent. Tanks holding one, two and four fish were video-taped continuously before and after introduction of an olfactory cue and whole baits (squid). Pre-cue indices of activity did not vary with fish density. After olfactory stimulation, per capita activity was directly related to density, with no significant increase in activity by single fish. Numbers of baits located, attacked and consumed were directly related to fish density, and average times to first attack varied from 12 s in groups of four fish to >15 min in single fish. The latency period between location and attack decreased significantly with fish density. When large (43–55 cm, total length, LT) and small (31–38 cm LT) Pacific halibut were tested together in pairs and groups of four fish, small individuals located baits first in 61% of the trials. Large fish, however, consumed all of the baits (except one) in trials where both large and small fish responded. Social facilitation in Pacific halibut feeding will result in a non-linear relationship between catch per unit effort and population density, and the size composition of fish captured may be influenced by interference competition. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]