PLANTS HAVE MOUTHS!

Scientists discover mechanism plants use to control 'mouths'

Key breakthrough on how plants open and close stomata could enable new ways to guard crops against climate change, especially increasing levels of carbon dioxide

Peer-Reviewed Publication

NATIONAL SCIENCE FOUNDATION

 

IMAGE: A MAGNIFIED VIEW OF A STOMA ON THE LEAF OF A TRADESCANTIA ALBIFLORA ALBOVITTATA PLANT, COMMONLY KNOWN AS A GIANT WHITE INCH PLANT. view more 

CREDIT: DOUGLAS CLARK

Because breathing is generally involuntary, we sometimes forget how complicated it is. But biologists are gaining new insight into the intricate process in plants, with big implications for how to feed the world in the future.

Researchers at the University of California San Diego, funded by the U.S. National Science Foundation, along with collaborators in Estonia and Finland, have found an elusive molecular pathway that plants use to direct their "breathing" of carbon dioxide. The researchers hope that harnessing this mechanism could lead to future engineering of plant water use efficiency and carbon intake, critical as atmospheric carbon dioxide concentration continues to increase. In fact, the researchers have filed a patent and are examining ways to translate their findings into tools for crop breeders and farmers.

The research was published today in Science Advances.

Stomata, so what-a?

Plants take in carbon dioxide and water and then use light to turn these into the nutrients they need to grow. This process also emits oxygen, which humans and other animals then breathe. That's the basic summary of photosynthesis. But how exactly does it work?

The process becomes a bit clearer on the microscopic level. On the underside of leaves and elsewhere, depending on the plant, are tiny openings called stomata — thousands of them per leaf with variations by plant species. Like little castle gates, pairs of cells on the sides of the stomatal pore — known as guard cells — open their central pore to take in the carbon dioxide. However, when stomata are open, the inside of the plant is exposed to the elements and water from the plant is lost into the surrounding air, which can dry out the plant. Plants, therefore, must balance the intake of carbon dioxide with water vapor loss by controlling how long the stomata remain open.

"The response to changes is critical for plant growth and regulates how efficient the plant can be in using water, which is important as we see increased drought and rising temperatures," said Julian Schroeder, Torrey Mesa Research Institute chair in plant science at UC San Diego, who led the new research.

As the climate changes, both atmospheric carbon dioxide concentration and temperature increase, affecting the balance between carbon dioxide entry and water vapor loss through the stomata. If plants, especially crops like wheat, rice and corn, can't strike a new balance, they risk drying out, farmers risk losing valuable output, and more people across the world risk going hungry. Even with advances in agriculture, an NSF-funded study in published in 2021 found that global agricultural productivity over the past 60 years is still 21% lower than it could have been without climate change.

Scientists have long understood stomata and the balance between carbon dioxide intake and water loss. What they haven't known, until now, is how plants sense carbon dioxide to signal stomata to open and close in response to changing carbon dioxide levels. Knowing this will now enable researchers to edit those signals — so plants can strike the right balance between taking in carbon dioxide versus losing water — and allow scientists and plant breeders to produce crops robust enough for the environment of the future.

A magnified view of many plant stomata on the leaf of a Begonia rex cultorum plant. The width of each stoma is about 80 microns.

An animated GIF of a highly magnified view of a single stoma on the leaf of a boat lily (Tradescantia spathacea). The stoma is opening and closing in response to changing levels of carbon dioxide and humidity.

CREDIT

Douglas Clark

A video of a tiny plant stoma opening and closing. (VIDEO)

Calling the guards

The researchers identified a series of proteins that work like a chain of soldiers sensing the carbon dioxide level and calling out "CLOSE THE GATES!" to get the guard cells to relax and shut the stomata.

"Finding that the CO2 sensor in plants is made up of two proteins was enlightening and may be a reason the mechanism hadn’t been identified until now," Schroeder said. "NSF support over the last two decades was critical to locating this elusive pathway."

"This work is a wonderful example of curiosity-driven research that brings together several disciplines — from genetics to modeling to systems biology — and results in new knowledge with the ability to aid society, in this case by making more robust crops," said Matthew Buechner, a program director in NSF's Directorate for Biological Sciences.

In a low-carbon dioxide environment where the plant needs to keep the stomata open longer to get the amount it needs for photosynthesis, a protein known as HT1 activates an enzyme that forces the guard cells to swell up, keeping the stoma open.

When the plant senses increased levels of carbon dioxide, a second protein blocks the first one from keeping the stomata open, and the stomata shut. If the stomata close before the plant can get enough resources for photosynthesis, agricultural yield can be lower or non-existent.

"Determining how plants control their stomata under changing CO2 levels creates a different kind of opening — one to new avenues of research and possibilities for addressing societal challenges," said Richard Cyr, an NSF program director who studied plant cell biology prior to joining the agency.

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JOURNAL

Science Advances

DOI

10.1126/sciadv.abq6161 

METHOD OF RESEARCH

Experimental study

SUBJECT OF RESEARCH

Cells

ARTICLE TITLE

Stomatal CO2/bicarbonate Sensor Consists of Two Interacting Protein Kinases

ARTICLE PUBLICATION DATE

7-Dec-2022

Toddlers' first lies are probably spontaneous rather than deliberate, as toddlers who lie tend to be less able to resist temptation, according to researchers who asked 252 young kids not to peek at a toy

Peer-Reviewed Publication

PLOS

 

IMAGE: MODIFIED TEMPTATION RESISTANCE PARADIGM: FADING FIGURES OF A CHILD AND A RESEARCHER PRESENT THEIR POSITION BEFORE THE PROHIBITION TRIAL. view more 

CREDIT: BIAŁECKA-PIKUL ET AL., 2022, PLOS ONE, CC-BY 4.0 (HTTPS://CREATIVECOMMONS.ORG/LICENSES/BY/4.0/)

Toddlers' first lies are probably spontaneous rather than deliberate as toddlers who lie tend to be less able to resist temptation, with many falsely admitting to peeking even when they did not, according to researchers who asked 252 young kids not to peek at a toy

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Article URL:  https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0278099

Article Title: Peeking and lying in the temptation resistance paradigm in 2.5-year-olds: The role of inhibitory control

Author Countries: Poland, Canada

Funding: Funding: MBP 2015/19/B/HS6/01252 and 2011/01/B/HS6/00453 National Science Centre, Poland. Article Processing Charges were partially funded by a grant from the Strategic Program Excellence Initiative at the Jagiellonian University. The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript.

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JOURNAL

PLoS ONE

DOI

10.1371/journal.pone.0278099 

ARTICLE TITLE

Peeking and lying in the temptation resistance paradigm in 2.5-year-olds: The role of inhibitory control

ARTICLE PUBLICATION DATE

7-Dec-2022

Social media engagement style may be linked with perceived social connectedness

Experiment involving mock social media site identifies key differences between passive, reactive and interactive styles of usage

Peer-Reviewed Publication

PLOS

 

IMAGE: THE AUTHORS FOUND THAT INDIVIDUALS DISPLAYING MORE INTERACTIVE STYLES OF USAGE REPORTED STRONGER FEELINGS OF SOCIAL CONNECTEDNESS AND SOCIAL CAPITAL. view more 

CREDIT: GERD ALTMANN, PIXABAY, CC0 (HTTPS://CREATIVECOMMONS.ORG/PUBLICDOMAIN/ZERO/1.0/)

A new experimental task, involving a mock social networking site, can group people into three distinct styles of social media use—passive, reactive and interactive. Moreover, data from a large online sample suggests that these styles of social media use may be related to psychological well-being, with more interactive users reporting greater feelings of social connectedness than passive or reactive users, according to a new study published this week in the open-access journal PLOS ONE by Daniel Shaw of Aston University, UK, and colleagues.

Despite the wealth of research into the psychological impact of social networking site (SNS) usage, inconsistent findings have prevented any firm conclusions from being drawn. While some studies have concluded that social media usage is associated with increased social connectedness and reduced loneliness, other report detriments to loneliness and well-being with greater use of such platforms. 

In the new work, the researchers developed a computerized task to measure styles of usage on a mock SNS platform. They administered the SNS Behavior Task (SNSBT) online to 526 individuals, who also completed questionnaires on their levels of loneliness, sense of belonging, social connectedness, online social capital, and who answered questions about their Facebook usage and friend network.

The SNSBT grouped users into three discrete groups depending on how often they clicked “Next,” “Like,” or “Share” on 90 images presented to them on the mock SNS. On average, passive users, about 39% of those in the study, clicked “Next” most often, on 85% of images. Reactive users, 35.4% of the study, most often clicked either “Next,” 59% of the time, or “Like,” 36% of the time. Interactive users, 25.7% of participants, mostly clicked “Like,” 51% of the time, or “Share” 20% of the time.

Analysis of the data revealed that interactive users had, on average, more Facebook friends, spent more time on Facebook, and reported greater feelings of social connectedness and social capital than passive or reactive SNS users. However, this study could not determine if any causative or directional link between these factors exists, and more work is needed to understand the effects of potential confounding factors on these relationships.

The authors conclude that the simple SNSBT tool they developed, now publicly available, can help researchers quantitatively differentiate between SNS usage styles, and overcome the limitations of self-report data, enhancing future research in the field of cyberpsychology.

Dr. Daniel Shaw adds: “This study introduces a new tool with which researchers can measure different styles of engagement on social networking platforms, and indicates that our style of engagement can be more important for our psychological wellbeing than the amount of time we spend on social media.”

Dr. Charlotte Pennington adds: “Individuals displaying more interactive styles of usage on our platform reported stronger feelings of social connectedness and social capital compared with those who showed more reactive or passive behavior. Our team has developed the first mock social networking site that can be used to measure natural styles of usage, free from the ethical concerns that arise when people log into their own phones.”

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In your coverage please use this URL to provide access to the freely available article in PLOS ONE: https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0276765

Citation: Shaw DJ, Kaye LK, Ngombe N, Kessler K, Pennington CR (2022) It’s not what you do, it’s the way that you do it: An experimental task delineates among passive, reactive and interactive styles of behaviour on social networking sites. PLoS ONE 17(12): e0276765. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0276765

Author Countries: UK, Germany, Ireland

Funding: This study was supported by an internal grant from Aston, awarded to DJS (PI), CP, KK and LK (Co-Is). The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript.

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JOURNAL

PLoS ONE

DOI

10.1371/journal.pone.0276765 

ARTICLE TITLE

It’s not what you do, it’s the way that you do it: An experimental task delineates among passive, reactive and interactive styles of behaviour on social networking sites

ARTICLE PUBLICATION DATE

7-Dec-2022

How behind-the-scenes sound mixing makes movie magic #ASA183

Capturing consistent room tones and ambience enhances dialogue and draws the audience in

Reports and Proceedings

ACOUSTICAL SOCIETY OF AMERICA

 

IMAGE: JEFFREY REED DEMONSTRATES THE BEHIND-THE-SCENES AUDIO ENGINEERING REQUIRED TO RECREATE THE ACOUSTICS OF A MOVIE SET. view more 

CREDIT: JEFFREY REED

NASHVILLE, Tenn., Dec. 7, 2022 – If you've ever watched a movie where the audio is out of sync, it quickly becomes obvious that smooth, consistent sound is critical for movie enjoyment, especially during dialogue. Even slight discrepancies in background noise can disrupt a moviegoer's experience.

At the upcoming meeting of the Acoustical Society of America, Jeffrey Reed of Taproot Audio Design will demonstrate the behind-the-scenes audio engineering required to re-create the acoustics of movie sets and locations. During the session, "Modern movie sound: reality and simulated reality," Reed will share short clips of film to compare the original recording to the studio mixed product. The presentation will take place Dec. 7 at 2 p.m. Eastern U.S. in the Summit A room at the Grand Hyatt Nashville Hotel, as part of ASA's 183rd meeting running Dec. 5-9.

"Nearly everything you hear in a film has been added later or enhanced for effect. Consistency in background noise has a major impact, especially on dialogue in a movie," said Reed. "Sometimes every single line of dialogue in a scene can have a different noise profile – the sound in the background varies and makes the sound choppy and disjointed. It's up to us to smooth that out."

Modern movie sound mixing uses techniques like impulse responses to reproduce dialogue and other sounds. These methods are crucial to align what moviegoers see and hear and keep them engaged in the story.

An impulse response is a short recording that allows audio engineers to re-create the acoustics of a room. Sonic qualities are recorded when a sound reverberates off the unique layout of a space. The impulse recording is then applied to the audio mix to digitally re-create the sound of that space and make the resulting scene of a film as believable as possible.

"There are a lot of moving parts to a film mix, from dialogue, effects, and the ever-important musical score," said Reed. "Each and every one is crucial to a film, and the joy of mixing is finding out what needs to be where at the right time. When it's all said done though, dialogue is king in a film mix and everything must carefully revolve around it."

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----------------------- MORE MEETING INFORMATION -----------------------

Main meeting website: https://acousticalsociety.org/asa-meetings/  
Technical program: https://eppro02.ativ.me/web/planner.php?id=ASAFALL22&proof=true

ASA PRESS ROOM

In the coming weeks, ASA's Press Room will be updated with newsworthy stories and the press conference schedule at https://acoustics.org/asa-press-room/. 

LAY LANGUAGE PAPERS

ASA will also share dozens of lay language papers about topics covered at the conference. Lay language papers are 300 to 500 word summaries of presentations written by scientists for a general audience. They will be accompanied by photos, audio, and video. Learn more at https://acoustics.org/lay-language-papers/.

PRESS REGISTRATION

ASA will grant free registration to credentialed and professional freelance journalists. If you are a reporter and would like to attend the meeting or virtual press conferences, contact AIP Media Services at media@aip.org. For urgent requests, AIP staff can also help with setting up interviews and obtaining images, sound clips, or background information.

ABOUT THE ACOUSTICAL SOCIETY OF AMERICA

The Acoustical Society of America (ASA) is the premier international scientific society in acoustics devoted to the science and technology of sound. Its 7,000 members worldwide represent a broad spectrum of the study of acoustics. ASA publications include The Journal of the Acoustical Society of America (the world's leading journal on acoustics), JASA Express Letters, Proceedings of Meetings on Acoustics, Acoustics Today magazine, books, and standards on acoustics. The society also holds two major scientific meetings each year. See https://acousticalsociety.org/.

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For 400 years, Indigenous tribes buffered climate's impact on wildfires in the American Southwest

Peer-Reviewed Publication

SOUTHERN METHODIST UNIVERSITY

 

IMAGE: A NEW STUDY LED BY SMU SUGGESTS "CULTURAL BURNING" COULD POTENTIALLY WEAKEN THE ROLE OF CLIMATE IN TRIGGERING TODAY’S WILDFIRES. view more 

CREDIT: CHRIS GUITERMAN

DALLAS (SMU) – Devastating megafires are becoming more common, in part, because the planet is warming. But a new study led by SMU suggests bringing “good fire” back to the U.S. and other wildfire fire-prone areas, as Native Americans once did, could potentially blunt the role of climate in triggering today’s wildfires.

The age-old Native American tradition of “cultural burning” appears to have previously weakened – though not entirely eliminated – the link between climate conditions and fire activity for roughly 400 years in the southwestern United States.

Studying a network of 4,824 fire-scarred trees in Arizona and New Mexico, where the Apache, Navajo and Jemez tribes lived, SMU fire anthropologist Christopher Roos and other researchers found that the typical climate-fire pattern from 1500 to 1900 reflected one to three years of above-average rainfall – allowing vegetation to grow – followed by a fire-fueling year of significant drought.

But the pattern was broken when Native American tribes performed traditional burning practices, according to the group’s study published in Science Advances.

“What’s remarkable is that this impact of Native American fire management was evident across hundreds of square kilometers,” said lead author Roos. “That is across entire mountain ranges.”

Roos said the findings suggest we can learn from Native Americans how to be less vulnerable to fires we’re facing now. Four of the co-authors of the study are tribal members, who aided with both the representation of the culture and history of their people and in the interpretation of the fire data.

“Native American or Indigenous fire practices have shown us how people living in fire-prone places can positively coexist with wildfire in sustainable ways by actively engaging with it,” he said.

For millennia, many Native American tribes living in the US Southwest held controlled burns of small trees, grasses and shrubs at regular intervals to clear out underbrush and encourage new plant growth.

Creating this patchwork of small, purposeful burns also removed much of the fuel that could burn in wildfires – which could explain the break in the climate-fire pattern, Roos said.

How this research was done

The Apache, Navajo and Jemez communities all practiced cultural burning, though at different times and in different ways. 

The researchers used a variety of methods to document how these tribes handled smoke and fire centuries ago, including interviewing tribal members in each community. The team also compared tree-ring fire records with paleoclimate records. 

Scientists rely on tree rings not only to calculate a tree's age, but also to determine wet and dry weather patterns of moisture and drought. Similarly, scientists' best evidence for fire activity is the scarring on tree rings that dates the occurrence of fires.

Roos and his team obtained their ancient tree-ring data from the International Multiproxy Paleofire Database, which was compiled by the North American Fire Network. The study focused on dry coniferous forests in New Mexico and Arizona.

The data was combined to create what’s known as a superposed epoch analysis. Essentially, the researchers were looking to find significant deviations from normal climate patterns before and during fire years. Deviations from the pattern would suggest that climate was not the main driver for fire activity.

“We found that during periods of intensive use [of controlled burns], most of the discrete stands of trees we looked at don’t have any significant fire-climate patterns,” Roos said. “So, in this case, the absence of significant climate patterns when Native Americans were managing fire is taken as strong evidence that Native American fire management itself is creating that lack of fire-climate patterns, since all other places and time periods show those significant climate associations.”

Roos encourages other scientists to work with Indigenous communities to develop new approaches to reconstruct traditional practices, like those seen in this study. 

Cultural burning was vital to many indigenous tribes

Fire was integral to the Apache, Navajo and Jemez tribes. 

The Apache tribe spanned the area from central Arizona to Texas, but the researchers focused on the residents who lived in southeastern Arizona between the 1500s and 1900. The Apache people used fire to gather, garden and hunt primarily – sometimes setting fires to lure deer and elk to particular places.

On the northern border between Arizona and New Mexico, the Navajo people lived in small, family-based communities focused on raising sheep, hunting, gathering and gardening. Research shows that Navajo pastoralism reduced fire activity in pine forests, although burning practices may have also kept fires burning frequently in heavily-traveled areas.  

The Jemez people were farmers and hunters who lived in the Jemez Mountains of northern New Mexico. They purposefully burned small patches of the forest around their community, previous research has found, limiting fire spread and improving forest resilience to climate variability.

In addition to Roos, team members include Nicholas Laluk, an anthropologist from the University of California, Berkeley and a member of the White Mountain Apache Tribe; Kerry Thompson, an anthropologist at Northern Arizona University and a member of the Navajo Nation: Chris Toya, a Tribal Historic Preservation Officer and a member of the Pueblo of Jemez; and Lionel Whitehair, a forest ecologist at Northern Arizona University and a member of the Navajo Nation.

The team also included scientists from the University of Colorado Boulder, NOAA’s National Centers for Environmental Information, U.S. Geological Survey, the University of Arizona, Rocky Mountain Research Station, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and the National Park Service.    

 

About SMU

SMU is the nationally ranked global research university in the dynamic city of Dallas. SMU’s alumni, faculty and over 12,000 students in eight degree-granting schools demonstrate an entrepreneurial spirit as they lead change in their professions, communities and the world.

 

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JOURNAL

Science Advances

DOI

10.1126/sciadv.abq3221 

METHOD OF RESEARCH

Data/statistical analysis

SUBJECT OF RESEARCH

People

ARTICLE TITLE

Indigenous fire management and cross-scale fire-climate relationships in the Southwest US from 1500-1900 CE

ARTICLE PUBLICATION DATE

7-Dec-2022

Dinosaurs were on the up before asteroid downfall, study finds

Dinosaurs dominated the world right up until a deadly asteroid hit the earth, leading to their mass extinction, some 66 million years ago, a landmark study reveals

Peer-Reviewed Publication

UNIVERSITY OF EDINBURGH

 

IMAGE: TRICERATOPS PRORSUS MUNCHING ON CYCADS DISTURBS PRIMITIVE COUSINS OF PLACENTAL (LEFT) AND MARSUPIAL (RIGHT) MAMMALS IN THE UNDERBRUSH- WHILE A SOFTSHELL TURTLE CLIMBS UP ON A LOG, UNAWARE THAT ITS FRESHWATER ECOLOGY WILL SHELTER IT FROM THE IMPENDING DOOM FROM SPACE. view more 

CREDIT: HENRY SHARPE

The findings provide the strongest evidence yet that the dinosaurs were struck down in their prime and were not in decline, at the time the asteroid hit.

Scientists have long debated why non-bird dinosaurs, including Tyrannosaurus rex and Triceratops, became extinct – whereas mammals and other species such as turtles and crocodiles survived.

The study, led by an international team of palaeontologists and ecologists, analysed 1,600 fossil records from North America. Researchers modelled the food chains and ecological habitats of land-living and freshwater animals during the last several million years of the Cretaceous, and the first few million years of the Paleogene period, after the asteroid hit.

Paleontologists have known for some time that many small mammals lived alongside the dinosaurs. But this research reveals that these mammals were diversifying their diets, adapting to their environments and becoming more important components of ecosystems as the Cretaceous unfolded. Meanwhile, the dinosaurs were entrenched in stable niches to which they were supremely well adapted.

Mammals didn’t just take advantage of the dinosaurs dying, experts say. They were creating their own advantages through diversifying – by occupying new ecological niches, evolving more varied diets and behaviours and enduring small shifts in climate, by rapidly adapting. These behaviours probably helped them to survive, as they were better able than the dinosaurs to cope with the radical and abrupt destruction caused by the asteroid.

First author, Jorge García-Girón, Geography Research Unit, University of Oulu, Finland and Department of Biodiversity and Environmental Management, University of León, Spain, said: “Our study provides a compelling picture of the ecological structure, food webs, and niches of the last dinosaur-dominated ecosystems of the Cretaceous period and the first mammal-dominated ecosystems after the asteroid hit. This helps us to understand one of the age-old mysteries of palaeontology: why all the non-bird dinosaurs died, but birds and mammals endured.”

Co-lead author, Alfio Alessandro Chiarenza, Department of Ecology and Animal Biology, University of Vigo, Spain, said: “It seems that the stable ecology of the last dinosaurs actually hindered their survival in the wake of the asteroid impact, which abruptly changed the ecological rules of the time. Conversely, some birds, mammals, crocodilians, and turtles had previously been better adapted to unstable and rapid shifts in their environments, which might have made them better able to survive when things suddenly went bad when the asteroid hit.”

Senior author, Professor Steve Brusatte, Personal Chair of Palaeontology and Evolution, School of GeoSciences, University of Edinburgh, said: “Dinosaurs were going strong, with stable ecosystems, right until the asteroid suddenly killed them off. Meanwhile, mammals were diversifying their diets, ecologies and behaviours while dinosaurs were still alive. So it wasn’t simply that mammals took advantage of the dinosaurs dying, but they were making their own advantages, which ecologically preadapted them to survive the extinction and move into niches left vacant by the dead dinosaurs.”

The research is published in the journal Science Advances. It was funded by National Science Foundation (USA), Academy of Finland, European Union Next Generation European Research Council (ERC) Starting Grant, European Union’s Horizon 2020 Research and Innovation Programme, Juan de la Cierva Formación 2020 Fellowship funded by the Ministry of Science and Innovation from the European Union Next Generation.

For further information please contact: Rhona Crawford, Press and PR Office, 0131 650 2246, rhona.crawford@ed.ac.uk
For further information from the research team please contact: Stephen.Brusatte@ed.ac.uk; 
jogarg@unileon.es; Jorge.Garcia-Giron@oulu.fi; a.chiarenza15@gmail.com

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JOURNAL

Science Advances

METHOD OF RESEARCH

Computational simulation/modeling

SUBJECT OF RESEARCH

Not applicable

ARTICLE TITLE

Shifts in food webs and niche stability shaped survivorship and extinction at the end-Cretaceous

ARTICLE PUBLICATION DATE

7-Dec-2022

Disclaimer: AAAS an

Reading the room: Humans struggle to identify aggression in dogs, other humans

Peer-Reviewed Publication

MAX PLANCK INSTITUTE OF GEOANTHROPOLOGY

 

IMAGE: HUMANS ARE GENERALLY GOOD AT ASSESSING SOCIAL SITUATIONS IN DOGS, BUT WE UNDERESTIMATE AGGRESSION view more 

CREDIT: IMAGE BY KATRIN B. FROM PIXABAY

As a species, humans are constantly interpreting signals to assess social situations and make predictions about what could happen next. Being able to tell if someone else, whether human or animal, is happy with us, about to get aggressive, or even paying attention, can have major evolutionary advantages.

Now, a new article in PLOS ONE led by the DogStudies research group at the Max Planck Institute of Geoanthropology, together with colleagues from Friedrich Schiller University of Jena, the Max Planck Institute for Human Development, Berlin and the University of Leipzig, reveals that while humans are better than chance at assessing interactions between humans, dogs, and monkeys, we struggle to predict aggressive behaviors in both dogs and humans. 

To determine how good people are at assessing social situations, researchers showed 92 participants 27 video clips, each showing a non-verbal interaction between a pair of human children, a pair of dogs, or a pair of macaques. The participants were split into two groups, with one group categorizing the interactions as playful, neutral or aggressive, and the other predicting the outcome of each interaction.

Participants performed above chance level at categorizing interactions among all species and predicted accurate outcomes in 50-80% of interactions. However, the accuracy of categorizations and predictions depended on both the species and the social context of the interaction.

Intriguingly, and contrary to the experimenters’ hypotheses, participants were not better at assessing human interactions than those of other species. In addition, they performed especially poorly with aggressive interactions in dogs and in humans.

Given that identifying aggression in dogs and humans could help people avoid injury and even death, researchers expected participants to be best at assessing aggressive situations, but the current study reveals that such assessments are more difficult for people than anticipated.

“It is possible that we are biased to assume good intentions from other humans and from ‘man’s best friend’,” says Theresa Epperlein, first author of the new study. “Perhaps this bias prevents us from recognizing aggressive situations in these species.”  

“Our results underscore the fact that social interactions can often be ambiguous,” adds senior author Juliane Bräuer, “and suggest that accurately predicting outcomes may be more advantageous than categorizing emotional contexts.”

While the current study reveals much about how well humans interpret social situations, it raises the question of how exactly we form our assessments and if our skills can improve with training – although previous research has shown that experience doesn’t always lead to better outcomes. To answer these questions, further studies are needed to determine which cues humans rely on while observing interactions, such as vocalizations, facial expressions, or body language, and how those cues are deployed by different species.

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JOURNAL

PLoS ONE

DOI

10.1371/journal.pone.0277783 

METHOD OF RESEARCH

Experimental study

SUBJECT OF RESEARCH

People

ARTICLE TITLE

Context and prediction matter for the interpretation of social interactions across species

ARTICLE PUBLICATION DATE

7-Dec-2022

Humans are poor at identifying aggressive behavior in videos of dogs and humans

Participants accurately identified playful interactions of human and dog pairs in video clips, but performed no better than chance at assessing aggression

Peer-Reviewed Publication

PLOS

While humans can generally identify the nature of social interactions between children, dogs and monkeys from facial expressions and body language, we are poor at identifying aggressive behavior in dogs and humans, according to a study by Juliane Bräuer at the Max Planck Institute for Geoanthropology in Germany and colleagues, publishing December 7 in the open-access journal PLOS ONE.

Interpreting social interactions and anticipating the outcome are important skills that allow us to react appropriately, particularly when those interactions are aggressive. To investigate how well people can assess social interactions, the researchers showed 92 adults a series of short video clips showing the start of a non-verbal interaction between either two human children, two domestic dogs, or two Barbary macaques (Macaca sylvanus).

The video clips included clues about the nature of the interaction, such as body postures and facial expressions, but stopped just before the interaction took place. Half of the participants were asked to categorize the interaction as aggressive, neutral, or playful, while the other half were asked to predict the outcome from three possible options.

The researchers found that participants performed better than expected by chance at both tasks, except for assessing aggressive interactions in dogs and humans. People were most accurate in categorizing playful interactions, which they correctly identified 70% of the time. They performed particularly poorly at predicting the outcome of aggressive interactions in dogs. Individuals who were good at predicting outcomes for one species also performed better than average for the other species.

Humans may be biased to assume good intentions from other humans and dogs, which may prevent us from accurately recognizing aggressive interactions, the authors say. To reduce the occurrence of dog biting incidents, new dog owners could benefit from improved education about dog behavior and how to identify aggressive interactions.

The authors add: “It is important to be able to make predictions about others’ future actions in order to react optimally. Humans are quite good at categorizing and predicting social situations with other humans, dogs, and monkeys, but it depends on the context. Surprisingly, humans underestimate aggression in dogs.”

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In your coverage please use this URL to provide access to the freely available article in PLOS ONE: https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0277783

Citation: Epperlein T, Kovacs G, Oña LS, Amici F, Bräuer J (2022) Context and prediction matter for the interpretation of social interactions across species. PLoS ONE 17(12): e0277783. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0277783

Author Countries: Germany

Funding: JB was supported by the DFG grant BR 3601/7-1 (Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft: https://www.dfg.de/). The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript. There was no additional external funding received for this study.

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JOURNAL

PLoS ONE

DOI

10.1371/journal.pone.0277783 

METHOD OF RESEARCH

Experimental study

SUBJECT OF RESEARCH

People

ARTICLE TITLE

Context and prediction matter for the interpretation of social interactions across species

ARTICLE PUBLICATION DATE

7-Dec-2022