Effects of described demonstrator ability on brain and behavior when learning from others.

Observational learning enables us to make decisions by watching others' behaviors. The quality of such learning depends on the abilities of those we observe, but also on our beliefs about those abilities. We have previously demonstrated that observers learned better from demonstrators described as high vs.

Understanding frustration triggers and emotional responses in driving situations.

Frustration is a complex emotional phenomenon subject to various triggers and manifested through multifaceted behavioral and affective responses. This study investigates the relationship between distinct frustration-inducing situations encountered during driving and the corresponding affective responses, focusing on the mediating role of behavioral dimensions. A total of 2244 participants answered a questionnaire on driving behavior, the likelihood of experiencing frustration in various driving situations, and affective responses in frustrating situations.

The transfer of social threat learning to decision making is robust to extinction.

Through traditional mass media and online social media, we are almost constantly exposed to second-hand experiences of trauma and violence, providing ample opportunities for us to learn about threats through social means. This social threat learning can influence instrumental decision making through a social learning to decision-making transfer process, resembling the so-called Pavlovian to instrumental transfer effect, resulting in consequences that can be maladaptive. Here, we assessed if this influence could be diminished by extinction learning, a procedure where a previously threatening stimulus is learned to be safe, and thereby mitigate possible maladaptive consequences.

The expression of decision and learning variables in movement patterns related to decision actions.

Decisions are not necessarily easy to separate into a planning and an execution phase and the decision-making process can often be reflected in the movement associated with the decision. Here, we used formalized definitions of concepts relevant in decision-making and learning to explore if and how these concepts correlate with decision-related movement paths, both during and after a choice is made. To this end, we let 120 participants (46 males, mean age = 24.

Social learning and the adaptiveness of expressing and perceiving fearfulness.

The fearful ape hypothesis revolves around our ability to express and perceive fearfulness. Here, we address these abilities from a social learning perspective which casts fearfulness in a slightly different light. Our commentary argues that any theory that characterizes a (human) social signal as being adaptive, needs to address the role of social learning as an alternative candidate explanation.

Anxious behaviour in a demonstrator affects observational learning.

Humans can acquire fear through the observation of others' (learning models') threat responses. These responses can be direct responses to aversive stimuli, or anticipatory responses to threats. Most research focuses on learning from observation of direct responses only.

Beliefs about Others' Abilities Alter Learning from Observation.

Learning what is dangerous by observing others can be safer and more efficient than individual learning. The efficiency of observational learning depends on how observational information is used, something we propose depends on our beliefs' about others. Here, we investigated how described and actual abilities of another individual (a demonstrator) influenced performance and psychophysiology during learning of an observational avoidance task.

The role of a "common is moral" heuristic in the stability and change of moral norms.

Moral norms are fundamental for virtually all social interactions, including cooperation. Moral norms develop and change, but the mechanisms underlying when, and how, such changes occur are not well-described by theories of moral psychology. We tested, and confirmed, the hypothesis that the commonness of an observed behavior consistently influences its moral status, which we refer to as the common is moral (CIM) heuristic.

Assessment of social transmission of threats in humans using observational fear conditioning.

Across the human life span, fear is often acquired indirectly by observation of the emotional expressions of others. The observational fear conditioning protocol was previously developed as a laboratory model for investigating socially acquired threat responses. This protocol serves as a suitable alternative to the widely used Pavlovian fear conditioning, in which threat responses are acquired through direct experiences.

Co-Evolution of Social Learning and Evolutionary Preparedness in Dangerous Environments.

Danger is a fundamental aspect of the lives of most animals. Adaptive behavior therefore requires avoiding actions, objects, and environments associated with danger. Previous research has shown that humans and non-human animals can avoid such dangers through two types of behavioral adaptions, (i) genetic preparedness to avoid certain stimuli or actions, and (ii) social learning.

Neural signals of vicarious extinction learning.

Social transmission of both threat and safety is ubiquitous, but little is known about the neural circuitry underlying vicarious safety learning. This is surprising given that these processes are critical to flexibly adapt to a changeable environment. To address how the expression of previously learned fears can be modified by the transmission of social information, two conditioned stimuli (CS + s) were paired with shock and the third was not.

Spontaneous eye movements and trait empathy predict vicarious learning of fear.

Learning to predict dangerous outcomes is important to survival. In humans, this kind of learning is often transmitted through the observation of others' emotional responses. We analyzed eye movements during an observational/vicarious fear learning procedure, in which healthy participants (N=33) watched another individual ('learning model') receiving aversive treatment (shocks) paired with a predictive conditioned stimulus (CS+), but not a control stimulus (CS-).

Demonstrator skill modulates observational aversive learning.

Learning to avoid danger by observing others can be relatively safe, because it does not incur the potential costs of individual trial and error. However, information gained through social observation might be less reliable than information gained through individual experiences, underscoring the need to apply observational learning critically. In order for observational learning to be adaptive it should be modulated by the skill of the observed person, the demonstrator.

Racial bias shapes social reinforcement learning.

Both emotional facial expressions and markers of racial-group belonging are ubiquitous signals in social interaction, but little is known about how these signals together affect future behavior through learning. To address this issue, we investigated how emotional (threatening or friendly) in-group and out-group faces reinforced behavior in a reinforcement-learning task. We asked whether reinforcement learning would be modulated by intergroup attitudes (i.

Other people as means to a safe end: vicarious extinction blocks the return of learned fear.

Information about what is dangerous and safe in the environment is often transferred from other individuals through social forms of learning, such as observation. Past research has focused on the observational, or vicarious, acquisition of fears, but little is known about how social information can promote safety learning. To address this issue, we studied the effects of vicarious-extinction learning on the recovery of conditioned fear.