Variation in personality can substitute for social feedback in coordinated animal movements.
Ontology highlight
ABSTRACT:
SUBMITTER: Planas-Sitja I
PROVIDER: S-EPMC8044162 | biostudies-literature |
REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature
Similar Datasets
Project description:Background-Borderline personality disorder (BPD) is characterized by maladaptive social functioning, and widespread negativity biases. The neural underpinnings of these impairments remain elusive. We thus tested whether BPD patients show atypical neural activity when processing social (compared to non-social) anticipation, feedback, and particularly, how they relate to each other.Methods-We acquired functional MRI data from 21 BPD women and 24 matched healthy controls (HCs) while they performed a task in which cues and feedbacks were either social (neutral faces for cues; happy or angry faces for positive and negative feedbacks, respectively) or non-social (dollar sign; winning or losing money for positive and negative feedbacks, respectively). This task allowed for the analysis of social anticipatory cues, performance-based feedback, and their interaction.Results-Compared to HCs, BPD patients expressed increased activation in the superior temporal sulcus during the processing of social cues, consistent with elevated salience associated with an upcoming social event. BPD patients also showed reduced activation in the amygdala while processing evaluative social feedback. Importantly, perigenual anterior cingulate cortex (pgACC) activity during the presentation of the social cue correlated with reduced amygdala activity during the presentation of the negative social feedback in the BPD patients.Conclusions-These neuroimaging results clarify how BPD patients express altered responses to different types of social stimuli (i.e. social anticipatory cues and evaluative feedback) and uncover an atypical relationship between frontolimbic regions (pgACC-amygdala) over the time span of a social interaction. These findings may help to explain why BPD patients suffer from pervasive difficulties adapting their behavior in the context of interpersonal relationships and should be considered while designing better-targeted interventions.
| S-EPMC6938803 | biostudies-literature
Project description:Latent personality traits underpinning observed behavioral variation have been studied in a great many species. However, a lack of standardized behavioral assays, coupled to a common reliance on inferring personality from a single, observed, behavioral trait makes it difficult to determine if, when, and how conclusions can be directly compared across taxa. Here, we estimate the among-individual (co)variance structure (ID) for a set of four behaviors expressed in an open field trial, putatively indicative of boldness, in seven species of small freshwater fish. We show that the ID matrices differ in terms of the total amount of variation present, and crucially the orientation, and as a consequence, biological interpretation of the first eigenvector. Specifically, loading of observed traits on the main axis of variation in ID matched a priori expectations for a shy-bold continuum in only three of the seven cases. Nonetheless, when the "shape" of the matrices was compared in higher dimensions, there was a high level of similarity among species, and weak evidence of phylogenetic signal. Our study highlights the present difficulty of trying to compare empirical inferences about specific personality traits across studies. However, it also shows how multivariate data collection and analysis allows the structure of behavioral variation to be quantitatively compared across populations or species without reliance on ambiguous verbal labels. This suggests that the field may have much to gain from greater uptake of phylogenetically informed comparative approaches when seeking to test evolutionary hypotheses about the origin and maintenance of personality variation.
| S-EPMC7083098 | biostudies-literature
Project description:Dominance hierarchies are group-level properties that emerge from the aggression of individuals. Although individuals can gain critical benefits from their position in a hierarchy, we do not understand how real-world hierarchies form. Nor do we understand what signals and decision-rules individuals use to construct and maintain hierarchies in the absence of simple cues such as size or spatial location. A study of conflict in two groups of captive monk parakeets (Myiopsitta monachus) found that a transition to large-scale order in aggression occurred in newly-formed groups after one week, with individuals thereafter preferring to direct aggression more frequently against those nearby in rank. We consider two cognitive mechanisms underlying the emergence of this order: inference based on overall levels of aggression, or on subsets of the aggression network. Both mechanisms were predictive of individual decisions to aggress, but observed patterns were better explained by rank inference through subsets of the aggression network. Based on these results, we present a new theory, of a feedback loop between knowledge of rank and consequent behavior. This loop explains the transition to strategic aggression and the formation and persistence of dominance hierarchies in groups capable of both social memory and inference.
| S-EPMC4565698 | biostudies-literature
Project description:Animal collective movements are a key example of a system that links two clearly defined levels of organization: the individual and the group. Most models investigating collective movements have generated coherent collective behaviours without the inclusion of individual variability. However, new individual-based models, together with emerging empirical information, emphasize that within-group heterogeneity may strongly influence collective movement behaviour. Here we (i) review the empirical evidence for individual variation in animal collective movements, (ii) explore how theoretical investigations have represented individual heterogeneity when modelling collective movements and (iii) present a model to show how within-group heterogeneity influences the collective properties of a group. Our review underscores the need to consider variability at the level of the individual to improve our understanding of how individual decision rules lead to emergent movement patterns, and also to yield better quantitative predictions of collective behaviour.This article is part of the theme issue 'Collective movement ecology'.
| S-EPMC5882978 | biostudies-literature
Project description:Personality variation has been proven to affect ecology, evolution and group behaviour in many ways. Nevertheless, how social context influences behavioural strategies and individual personality variation has rarely been addressed. This study sheds light on the relationship between social interactions, personality variation and plasticity in a collective context. For this purpose, we used a binary setup (i.e. an arena with two identical shelters) to study the aggregation process of cockroaches. We tested the same individuals in isolated and social (groups of 16 individuals) conditions. We show that even if social interactions reduce the observation of personality variation, the behaviour in a group is correlated to individual preferences displayed in isolation. Furthermore, our results suggest that individuals show different levels of plasticity according to their shelter occupancy; individuals with high occupancy rates show low levels of plasticity and are less affected by social amplification in social conditions.
| S-EPMC6310888 | biostudies-other
Project description:The movement of groups can be heavily influenced by 'leader' individuals who differ from the others in some way. A major source of differences between individuals is the repeatability and consistency of their behaviour, commonly considered as their 'personality', which can influence both position within a group as well as the tendency to lead. However, links between personality and behaviour may also depend upon the immediate social environment of the individual; individuals who behave consistently in one way when alone may not express the same behaviour socially, when they may be conforming with the behaviour of others. Experimental evidence shows that personality differences can be eroded in social situations, but there is currently a lack of theory to identify the conditions where we would expect personality to be suppressed. Here, we develop a simple individual-based framework considering a small group of individuals with differing tendencies to perform risky behaviours when travelling away from a safe home site towards a foraging site, and compare the group behaviours when the individuals follow differing rules for aggregation behaviour determining how much attention they pay to the actions of their fellow group-members. We find that if individuals pay attention to the other members of the group, the group will tend to remain at the safe site for longer, but then travel faster towards the foraging site. This demonstrates that simple social behaviours can result in the repression of consistent inter-individual differences in behaviour, giving the first theoretical consideration of the social mechanisms behind personality suppression.
| S-EPMC9980820 | biostudies-literature
Project description:Besides allowing us to perceive our surroundings, eye movements are also a window into our mind and a rich source of information on who we are, how we feel, and what we do. Here we show that eye movements during an everyday task predict aspects of our personality. We tracked eye movements of 42 participants while they ran an errand on a university campus and subsequently assessed their personality traits using well-established questionnaires. Using a state-of-the-art machine learning method and a rich set of features encoding different eye movement characteristics, we were able to reliably predict four of the Big Five personality traits (neuroticism, extraversion, agreeableness, conscientiousness) as well as perceptual curiosity only from eye movements. Further analysis revealed new relations between previously neglected eye movement characteristics and personality. Our findings demonstrate a considerable influence of personality on everyday eye movement control, thereby complementing earlier studies in laboratory settings. Improving automatic recognition and interpretation of human social signals is an important endeavor, enabling innovative design of human-computer systems capable of sensing spontaneous natural user behavior to facilitate efficient interaction and personalization.
| S-EPMC5912102 | biostudies-literature
Project description:For Emperor penguins (Aptenodytes forsteri), huddling is the key to survival during the Antarctic winter. Penguins in a huddle are packed so tightly that individual movements become impossible, reminiscent of a jamming transition in compacted colloids. It is crucial, however, that the huddle structure is continuously reorganized to give each penguin a chance to spend sufficient time inside the huddle, compared with time spent on the periphery. Here we show that Emperor penguins move collectively in a highly coordinated manner to ensure mobility while at the same time keeping the huddle packed. Every 30-60 seconds, all penguins make small steps that travel as a wave through the entire huddle. Over time, these small movements lead to large-scale reorganization of the huddle. Our data show that the dynamics of penguin huddling is governed by intermittency and approach to kinetic arrest in striking analogy with inert non-equilibrium systems, including soft glasses and colloids.
| S-EPMC3106014 | biostudies-literature
Project description:Matching arousal level to the motor activity of an animal is important for efficiently allocating cognitive resources and metabolic supply in response to behavioral demands, but how the brain coordinates changes in arousal and wakefulness in response to motor activity remains an unclear phenomenon. We hypothesized that the locus coeruleus (LC), as the primary source of cortical norepinephrine (NE) and promoter of cortical and sympathetic arousal, is well-positioned to mediate movement-arousal coupling. Here, using a combination of physiological recordings, fiber photometry, optogenetics, and behavioral tracking, we show that the LCNE activation is tightly coupled to the return of organized movements during waking from an anesthetized state. Moreover, in an awake animal, movement initiations are coupled to LCNE activation, while movement arrests, to LCNE deactivation. We also report that LCNE activity covaries with the depth of anesthesia and that LCNE photoactivation leads to sympathetic activation, consistent with its role in mediating increased arousal. Together, these studies reveal a more nuanced, modulatory role that LCNE plays in coordinating movement and arousal.
| S-EPMC11212988 | biostudies-literature
Project description:Individual animals frequently exhibit repeatable differences from other members of their population, differences now commonly referred to as 'animal personality'. Personality differences can arise, for example, from differences in permanent environmental effects--including parental and epigenetic contributors--and the effect of additive genetic variation. Although several studies have evaluated the heritability of behaviour, less is known about general patterns of heritability and additive genetic variation in animal personality. As overall variation in behaviour includes both the among-individual differences that reflect different personalities and temporary environmental effects, it is possible for personality to be largely genetically influenced even when heritability of behaviour per se is quite low. The relative contribution of additive genetic variation to personality variation can be estimated whenever both repeatability and heritability are estimated for the same data. Using published estimates to address this issue, we found that approximately 52% of animal personality variation was attributable to additive genetic variation. Thus, while the heritability of behaviour is often moderate or low, the heritability of personality is much higher. Our results therefore (i) demonstrate that genetic differences are likely to be a major contributor to variation in animal personality and (ii) support the phenotypic gambit: that evolutionary inferences drawn from repeatability estimates may often be justified.
| S-EPMC4262176 | biostudies-literature