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Philosophical Transactions Of The Royal Society Of London. Series B, Biological Sciences[JOURNAL]
Philosophical Transactions Of The Royal Society Of London. Series B, Biological Sciences[JOURNAL]
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200 papers
Anti-microbial resistance vaccines: communicating their true value.
Hausdorff WP
Philos Trans R Soc Lond B Biol Sci · 2026 Feb · PMID 41710959 · Publisher ↗
Vaccines are incredibly powerful public health tools, but their roles in helping to control anti-microbial resistance (AMR) have been both under- and over-estimated by the public and by the scientific community. Part of...
Vaccines are incredibly powerful public health tools, but their roles in helping to control anti-microbial resistance (AMR) have been both under- and over-estimated by the public and by the scientific community. Part of the explanation lies in the seeming 'disconnect' between the broad nature of AMR, which affects a wide range of pathogens, and the very focused, pathogen-specific design of most vaccines. With that in mind, the scientific and public health communities can do better in how we communicate the potential value of vaccines against AMR. Even if we do so, however, it is difficult to envision the introduction of new standalone vaccines targeting antimicrobial-resistant pathogens, especially if they require multiple additional doses, into immunization programmes already saturated with a large number of vaccines. To facilitate the introduction of these needed vaccines against AMR into national immunization programmes, the public health community can and should encourage the design and development of combination vaccine formulations. This article is part of the Royal Society Science+ meeting issue 'Vaccines and antimicrobial resistance: from science to policy'.
Leveraging vaccine policy and investments for the AMR challenge.
Jadeja N, Hasso-Agopsowicz M, Urrutxi Gallastegi M … +4 more , Malarski M, Jimenez M, Giersing B, Tufet M
Philos Trans R Soc Lond B Biol Sci · 2026 Feb · PMID 41710958 · Publisher ↗
In this commentary, we reflect on GAVI's experience incorporating an antimicrobial resistance (AMR) criterion into the Vaccine Investment Strategy to explore how global vaccine policy can more integrate AMR objectives, a...
In this commentary, we reflect on GAVI's experience incorporating an antimicrobial resistance (AMR) criterion into the Vaccine Investment Strategy to explore how global vaccine policy can more integrate AMR objectives, and identify priority actions for maximizing the AMR impact of vaccines. This article is part of the Royal Society Science+ meeting issue 'Vaccines and antimicrobial resistance: from science to policy'.
Animal vaccines and antimicrobial resistance: an underutilized tool.
Yugueros-Marcos J, Etienne F
Philos Trans R Soc Lond B Biol Sci · 2026 Feb · PMID 41710957 · Publisher ↗
Vaccination has been shown to be effective in the prevention, control and even eradication of animal diseases for more than a century. The use of vaccines in animals can also reduce, or totally prevent, the need to use a...
Vaccination has been shown to be effective in the prevention, control and even eradication of animal diseases for more than a century. The use of vaccines in animals can also reduce, or totally prevent, the need to use antibiotics or other antimicrobial agents such as antiparasitic or antivirals. Furthermore, vaccination in animals can also enhance public health, especially when used against zoonotic diseases. However, availability and access to animal vaccines are not always granted, owing to different challenges such as safety or efficacy issues, unfit ways of administration or logistic constraints, high regulatory restrictions in low-incentivized markets, etc. All these lead to a lack of trust, cumbersomeness in the regulatory approval process of vaccines and implementation of vaccination campaigns, and limited commercial interest. Research and development efforts in the field remain significantly underfunded, and the number of studies analysing the cost-effectiveness of vaccination in animals is scarce. In the context of the global and health threat posed by antimicrobial resistance, innovative and cross-sectoral collaborative actions are needed to change the current paradigm. These include the consideration of new financial models based on cost-benefit analysis across sectors, as well as the development of an environment that incentivizes public-private partnerships. This article is part of the Royal Society Science+ meeting issue 'Vaccines and antimicrobial resistance: from science to policy'.
Lessons from COVID-19: the 100 Days Mission and antimicrobial resistance.
Hatchett R, MacLennan CA
Philos Trans R Soc Lond B Biol Sci · 2026 Feb · PMID 41710956 · Publisher ↗
The COVID-19 pandemic demonstrated the capacity of the world to rapidly mobilize resources and political will when faced with an immediate, visible global threat. The accelerated development of effective vaccines inspire...
The COVID-19 pandemic demonstrated the capacity of the world to rapidly mobilize resources and political will when faced with an immediate, visible global threat. The accelerated development of effective vaccines inspired the Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations to promote the 100 Days Mission (100DM), an initiative to enable deployment of medical countermeasures within 100 days of identifying a pandemic threat. The success of the 100DM in uniting stakeholders highlights the power of framing challenges to inspire collective action. On the other hand, antimicrobial resistance (AMR) has had insufficient visibility and urgency to galvanize similar levels of political action. Framing AMR in a way that highlights the urgency, aligns incentives and builds multisectoral coalitions can help overcome some of these barriers. Ultimately, pandemic preparedness and AMR are both collective action problems, requiring sustained political will and systemic change. The AMR community must build systems that are agile and resilient and, by creating a unifying vision for AMR analogous to the 100DM, may promote global commitment to combating this slow-moving but devastating health crisis. This article is part of the Royal Society Science+ meeting issue 'Vaccines and antimicrobial resistance: from science to policy'.
Vaccines against antimicrobial resistance.
Anderson AS
Philos Trans R Soc Lond B Biol Sci · 2026 Feb · PMID 41710955 · Publisher ↗
Antimicrobial resistance (AMR) is a global clinical and economic threat due to the impact that it has on how potentially deadly infections can be treated. Without intervention, it is estimated that AMR will be responsibl...
Antimicrobial resistance (AMR) is a global clinical and economic threat due to the impact that it has on how potentially deadly infections can be treated. Without intervention, it is estimated that AMR will be responsible for 10 million deaths a year by 2050, with a cost of 100 trillion USD. Sustainable prevention strategies are urgently needed to control the spread of AMR in communities and healthcare settings. Vaccines play an important role, not only in protection against emerging drug-resistant pathogens, but also in reducing antibiotic consumption by preventing infections before antimicrobial intervention begins. This review provides an overview of several existing bacterial and viral vaccines that have demonstrated effectiveness in reducing this burden and discusses the importance of development of further vaccines to tackle AMR, with a particular focus on Clostridioides difficile and group B streptococcus, for which long-awaited vaccines may be on the horizon. This article is part of the Royal Society Science+ meeting issue 'Vaccines and antimicrobial resistance: from science to policy'.
Role of pneumococcal and typhoid conjugate vaccines in mitigating antimicrobial resistance: report of conference proceeding.
Qamar FN, Siddiqui S, Adegbola R
Philos Trans R Soc Lond B Biol Sci · 2026 Feb · PMID 41710954 · Publisher ↗
Antimicrobial resistance (AMR) is a growing global health crisis, threatening decades of progress in infectious disease control. Without urgent intervention, AMR could lead to 10 million deaths annually by 2050. Vaccinat...
Antimicrobial resistance (AMR) is a growing global health crisis, threatening decades of progress in infectious disease control. Without urgent intervention, AMR could lead to 10 million deaths annually by 2050. Vaccination is a powerful yet underutilized tool in the fight against AMR, as it prevents infections, reduces antibiotic use and slows the emergence and spread of resistant strains. Pneumococcal and typhoid conjugate vaccines (PCVs and TCVs) have demonstrated a significant impact by lowering disease burden and curbing the spread of resistant pathogens. However, despite their effectiveness, vaccines remain largely overlooked in AMR action plans. This manuscript highlights the critical role of PCVs and TCVs in mitigating AMR and underscores the need for greater global investment in vaccine-based strategies. Insights from the Royal Society meeting on Vaccines and antimicrobial resistance: from science to policy (29-30 April 2024, London, UK) emphasize the urgency of integrating vaccination into AMR policies. Coordinated global efforts are needed to prioritize vaccines as a sustainable intervention against AMR, ensuring their broader recognition and implementation in national and international health strategies. Strengthening vaccine coverage can help reduce reliance on antibiotics, limit resistant infections, and ultimately safeguard public health for future generations. This article is part of the Royal Society Science+ meeting issue 'Vaccines and antimicrobial resistance: from science to policy'.
Technologies to support vaccine development against antimicrobial-resistant bacteria.
Cardinali G, Nencini E, Gul C … +3 more , Rappuoli R, Sala C, Batani G
Philos Trans R Soc Lond B Biol Sci · 2026 Feb · PMID 41710953 · Publisher ↗
Antimicrobial resistance (AMR) represents one of the most critical global health challenges of the twenty-first century. The emergence and spread of microorganisms that no longer respond to the available antibiotics has...
Antimicrobial resistance (AMR) represents one of the most critical global health challenges of the twenty-first century. The emergence and spread of microorganisms that no longer respond to the available antibiotics has prompted the World Health Organization to call for renewed commitment and investments in the discovery and development of novel prophylactic and therapeutic strategies. In particular, vaccines can help reduce the incidence caused by antimicrobial-resistant pathogens, thereby decreasing the need for antibiotics and the risk of selecting resistant strains. Here we describe standard and innovative approaches to vaccine design starting from live-attenuated and killed whole-cell vaccines, going through the revolution represented by Reverse Vaccinology and recombinant DNA technologies, and finally ending with rational vaccine design allowed by monoclonal antibody discovery, structural biology, nanoparticles and mRNA biology. Overall, we expect that the recent major progress in vaccinology will enhance health protection and reduce the impact of the AMR phenomenon in high-income as well as in low- and middle-income countries. This article is part of the Royal Society Science+ meeting issue 'Vaccines and antimicrobial resistance: from science to policy'.
Economic impact of a maternal Klebsiella pneumoniae vaccine: estimates for 107 low- and middle-income countries.
Impalli I, Kalanxhi E, Street HR … +2 more , Kumar CK, Laxminarayan R
Philos Trans R Soc Lond B Biol Sci · 2026 Feb · PMID 41710952 · Publisher ↗
Sepsis is a leading cause of morbidity and mortality among newborns in low- and middle-income countries, and its treatment is further complicated by high rates of antimicrobial resistance to current antibiotics. We asses...
Sepsis is a leading cause of morbidity and mortality among newborns in low- and middle-income countries, and its treatment is further complicated by high rates of antimicrobial resistance to current antibiotics. We assessed the economic impact of a proposed maternal vaccine to protect neonates against sepsis caused by Klebsiella pneumoniae in 107 low- and middle-income countries. We estimated vaccine-avertable medical expenditures, vaccine-avertable productivity losses owing to caregiver absenteeism from work, and vaccine-avertable monetized disability-adjusted life-years using a country-specific value of statistical life-year estimate. Implementing a maternal K. pneumoniae vaccine could avert US$6.9 billion (95% CI 5.6-8.3) in monetized disability-adjusted life-years annually across 107 countries. Countries in the African region displayed the highest median vaccine-avertable medical costs and productivity losses per capita associated with resistance to first- and second-line treatments compared with other regions. Low-income countries were disproportionately impacted by the increased medical expenditures associated with antimicrobial resistance, with the median price of third-line antibiotic treatment in these countries being 23.9 days of income. Our estimates indicate that a maternal K. pneumoniae vaccine could significantly reduce the societal economic burden and catastrophic health expenditures for families affected by neonatal sepsis and antimicrobial resistance in low- and middle-income countries. This article is part of the Royal Society Science+ meeting issue 'Vaccines and antimicrobial resistance: from science to policy'.
Social contingency in embodied neural networks relies on co-constructed dynamical mechanisms.
Severino GJ, Winkler SL, Beer RD … +1 more , Barwich AS
Philos Trans R Soc Lond B Biol Sci · 2026 Feb · PMID 41641500 · Publisher ↗
What are the mechanisms that enable organisms to detect and respond to the actions of others? Social contingency, or the degree to which one's actions reliably elicit timely and relevant responses from another, underlies...
What are the mechanisms that enable organisms to detect and respond to the actions of others? Social contingency, or the degree to which one's actions reliably elicit timely and relevant responses from another, underlies adaptive behaviour and social interaction across species. In order to investigate general principles underlying this phenomenon, we trained and analysed populations of embodied recurrent neural networks engaged in the perceptual crossing task, a minimal social interaction experiment in humans. Through extensive robustness and performance testing, we isolated a subset of 111 circuits. Analysis revealed several shared principles among the robust subset. First, despite uniform performance, we found four distinct behavioural strategies that agents would switch to depending on state history and the strategy of their partner. Next, we found that social contingency does not depend on a single feature of feedback but rather on a scaled relationship between feedback parameters. Finally, using dynamical systems analysis, we identified a shared mechanism for social contingency across all successful circuits. Specifically, it was necessary for the nervous system to couple a contingency cue, a specific temporal pattern in the sensor's activation that distinguishes social from non-social interactions, with a method of conditional stability, a way of structuring the nervous system such that interactions are stable only if the appropriate temporal cue is present. This article is part of the theme issue 'Mechanisms of learning from social interaction'.
Modelling children's grammar learning via caregiver feedback in natural conversations.
Nikolaus M, Fourtassi A
Philos Trans R Soc Lond B Biol Sci · 2026 Feb · PMID 41641499 · Publisher ↗
Many debates in the language acquisition literature have revolved around the role of negative evidence for the acquisition of grammar. The scientific study of this question has not been settled with traditional research...
Many debates in the language acquisition literature have revolved around the role of negative evidence for the acquisition of grammar. The scientific study of this question has not been settled with traditional research methods, given that it requires handling children's natural social interaction while controlling for the specific role of error-contingent feedback, independent of other types of input. Here, we leveraged computational modelling to test whether there are learning gains in grammar induced by caregivers' feedback above and beyond learning from input alone. More specifically, we compared language models trained on large corpora of child-directed language to the same models that were additionally fine-tuned through reinforcement learning using a reward model trained to provide caregiver-like feedback. Focusing on clarification requests, we found that fine-tuned models produced more grammatical utterances than baseline models. However, performance on challenging benchmarks of grammar knowledge evaluation did not improve. We showed that these benchmarks could, in principle, be improved through integration of other types of feedback. The broad impact of the current work is to introduce a methodological framework that enables scientists to test many types of feedback, including signals beyond the verbal modality, leading to a more comprehensive evaluation of caregiver feedback in language development. This article is part of the theme issue 'Mechanisms of learning from social interaction'.
Examining micro-level natural behaviour to improve generalizability in behavioural science: a case study of parent-child joint attention.
Yu C, Kaplan B, Schroer S … +1 more , Hayhoe M
Philos Trans R Soc Lond B Biol Sci · 2026 Feb · PMID 41641498 · Publisher ↗
One of the primary aims of cognitive and behavioural sciences is to generate empirical findings that are both reproducible and generalizable to real-world settings. The present study investigates the extent to which resu...
One of the primary aims of cognitive and behavioural sciences is to generate empirical findings that are both reproducible and generalizable to real-world settings. The present study investigates the extent to which results obtained from a structured laboratory task-parent-infant toy play-can be generalized to more naturalistic contexts and everyday activities. We focused on joint attention between parents and infants, a construct that has been extensively examined within developmental science. To characterize parent-infant joint attention during toy play, we recorded and analysed contingent gaze behaviour captured through dual head-mounted eye-tracking devices worn simultaneously by parents and their infants during spontaneous activities such as toy play and meal preparation. By continuously monitoring gaze locations and manual actions, we obtained fine-grained measures of how often dyads fixated on the same object concurrently and how their coordinated visual and manual behaviours contributed to the establishment and maintenance of joint attention. Our results suggest that laboratory findings can be both replicated and generalized when: (i) the study is designed to capture natural behaviours rather than to elicit specific, constrained responses, and (ii) the theoretical constructs are clearly defined and precisely measured through high-resolution behavioural data. This article is part of the theme issue 'Mechanisms of learning from social interaction'.
Opportunities and mechanisms for learning through social interactions: lessons from marmosets.
Phaniraj N, Brügger RK, Cerrito P … +1 more , Burkart JM
Philos Trans R Soc Lond B Biol Sci · 2026 Feb · PMID 41641497 · Publisher ↗
Social interactions are crucial for learning not only in humans but also in non-human animals. To date, comparative studies have typically focused on what is learned from others and on purely observational learning, whil...
Social interactions are crucial for learning not only in humans but also in non-human animals. To date, comparative studies have typically focused on what is learned from others and on purely observational learning, while paying less attention on how social interactions facilitate learning. Here, we present how computational approaches can be leveraged to examine the role of contingency in learning through social interactions, focusing on callitrichid monkeys. They are the only primates besides humans in which group members other than the mother contribute significantly to infant care (i.e. cooperative breeding), resulting in more and richer opportunities for social interactions and learning, in both immatures and adults. We first review how contingency, turn-taking and social timing fundamentally shape learning and inter-individual coordination. We then zoom in on turn-taking in vigilance and vocal accommodation, illustrating how mathematical modelling can offer unique insights into the underlying mechanisms. We also highlight the potential of hybrid approaches that combine machine learning's pattern detection strengths with the interpretability and explanatory power of mathematical models. Overall, we find that contingency is key to learning through social interactions not only in humans but also in non-human primates, and perhaps particularly so in the cooperatively breeding callitrichids. This article is part of the theme issue 'Mechanisms of learning from social interaction'.
The social origins of vocal sequences in songbirds and human infants.
Elmlinger SL, Carouso-Peck S, Albert RR … +2 more , Wilk A, Goldstein MH
Philos Trans R Soc Lond B Biol Sci · 2026 Feb · PMID 41641496 · Publisher ↗
From birdsong to human language, acoustic communication by vocal learners involves the concatenation of sounds into sequences. Sequences are more efficient for the producer and more accommodating to the capacities of rec...
From birdsong to human language, acoustic communication by vocal learners involves the concatenation of sounds into sequences. Sequences are more efficient for the producer and more accommodating to the capacities of receivers. Over development, the compression of syllables into rapid sequences (in terms of more syllables per second) may reflect both social learning and motor maturation. We tested whether sequence compression could be predicted uniquely by exogenous (i.e. social) and endogenous (i.e. motor) sources. In human infants, we found that (i) vocal sequences strongly engage adults, (ii) from 5 to 10 months, sequences compress, (iii) social feedback to 5-month-olds' sequences predicted sequence compression over development, and (iv) sequence compression over development predicted infants' vocabulary development. We next examined the extent to which compression develops in a paradigm in which we could separate social feedback from motor practice. In zebra finch (Taeniopygia guttata), we found that (i) motor development predicted sequence compression, but (ii) compression only predicted song maturity (similarity to tutor) when birds received contingent social feedback to their immature vocalizing. In addition, (iii) social feedback predicted finches' sequence compression. These findings demonstrate the potency of social feedback across two vocal learning species in the emergence of vocal efficiency. This article is part of the theme issue 'Mechanisms of learning from social interaction'.
Acculturation of maternal responses to infant distress among three groups of immigrant families to the United States.
Cote LR, Menjivar N, Bornstein MH
Philos Trans R Soc Lond B Biol Sci · 2026 Feb · PMID 41641495 · Publisher ↗
Human infants express vocal distress to signal needs to be met by a caregiver. Maternal responses to infant distress are influenced by biological constraints and shaped by cultural practices. This study used a culture le...
Human infants express vocal distress to signal needs to be met by a caregiver. Maternal responses to infant distress are influenced by biological constraints and shaped by cultural practices. This study used a culture learning perspective to investigate the ways immigrant mothers' responsiveness to their infants' vocal distress is modified by acculturation. Methodologically, group-level acculturation was assessed by comparing immigrant Japanese, South Korean and South American dyads with nonmigrant dyads in their respective cultures of origin (Japan, South Korea and Argentina) and destination (United States); immigrant mothers were also compared with each other. Altogether, 408 mothers and their 5½-month-old infants were videorecorded in the naturalistic setting of the home. The frequencies and odds ratios for five maternal responses to infant distress (distract, hold, nurture, speak, affection) were computed using sequential analysis and then compared. Patterns of acculturation at the group level proved to be specific to each cultural group. Comparisons among the immigrant samples revealed differences for most responses. These results support the specificity principle in acculturation for maternal responsiveness to infant distress. This article is part of the theme issue 'Mechanisms of learning from social interaction'.
Pathways from social contingency to infant language learning.
Suarez-Rivera C, Tamis-LeMonda CS
Philos Trans R Soc Lond B Biol Sci · 2026 Feb · PMID 41641494 · Publisher ↗
Social contingencies-the timely responses that follow infant action-facilitate learning in the moment and over developmental time. Although links between social contingencies and infant learning are well documented, the...
Social contingencies-the timely responses that follow infant action-facilitate learning in the moment and over developmental time. Although links between social contingencies and infant learning are well documented, the mechanisms of influence remain underspecified. We draw on a growing body of research to propose several pathways that lead from infant action to social contingency to infant learning, with a focus on early word learning as a model system. Specifically, we contend that social contingency: (i) builds on infant attention, (ii) creates multisensory experiences, (iii) spurs a self-sustaining feedback loop that engenders continued engagement by the infant, (iv) facilitates connections among events in memory, and (v) supports infants' learning of the pragmatics of human communication. We conclude with consideration of the role of social contingency beyond infancy, across domains, and across nested timescales. This article is part of the theme issue 'Mechanisms of learning from social interaction'.
The relation between children's shyness and their contingent dialogical actions when reacting to a social robot's instructions.
Tykhonenko V, Tolksdorf NF, Rohlfing KJ
Philos Trans R Soc Lond B Biol Sci · 2026 Feb · PMID 41641493 · Publisher ↗
Dialogical actions are contingent in humans and also need to be contingent when implemented on intelligent systems such as social robots in order to ease human-robot interaction. Whereas current studies suggest that soci...
Dialogical actions are contingent in humans and also need to be contingent when implemented on intelligent systems such as social robots in order to ease human-robot interaction. Whereas current studies suggest that social robots can support children in different contexts, little is known about individual differences in the way children react to their instructions within an interaction. One dimension of individual differences is temperamental shyness-a tendency to be reluctant in novel social situations. The literature suggests that shyness might influence contingency patterns, and effective robots would need to adapt to this. This study aims to analyse the patterns of dialogical actions in preschoolers (N = 28) in a long-term interaction as a function of their shyness level. In two consecutive sessions in which a robot taught the children novel words, we investigated latencies between the robot's prompt and the child's corresponding action. Results showed that higher levels of shyness were associated with increased action latencies, particularly in the first session. However, this effect diminished over time, because latencies decreased from the first to the second session. The discussion focuses on the findings on the role of shyness in interactions with increasing familiarity, and their implications for a robot's partner modelling. This article is part of the theme issue 'Mechanisms of learning from social interaction'.
The integrative biology of marmoset monkey vocal learning.
Ghazanfar AA, Biazzi RB, Zhang YS
Philos Trans R Soc Lond B Biol Sci · 2026 Feb · PMID 41641492 · Publisher ↗
Primates exhibit a range of vocal behaviours. This range arises from species-specific developmental processes which, in turn, are shaped by evolutionary pressures. We must therefore consider that all primate species do n...
Primates exhibit a range of vocal behaviours. This range arises from species-specific developmental processes which, in turn, are shaped by evolutionary pressures. We must therefore consider that all primate species do not follow the same developmental path to their vocal behaviours. We will use marmoset monkeys as a case study for the integrative biology of vocal learning. As we will show, marmoset contact call development exhibits a pattern of socially guided vocal production learning that is like the pattern exhibited by prelinguistic human infants and the juvenile zebra finch, a songbird. This socially guided contact call development and other vocal behaviours emerge in a landscape of anatomical changes that is modulated by a large-scale neural system. Comparing their vocal developmental strategies with humans, we will then consider the possibility that the marmoset monkey's potential for infant vocal production learning may be the result of similar (convergent) evolutionary changes to their developmental timing and life history strategy. Overall, we hope that the example of marmoset monkeys presented here reveals how species differences in vocal behaviours-vocal learning, in this instance-can unfold across the different timescales of evolution, development and behaviour. This article is part of the theme issue 'Mechanisms of learning from social interaction'.
Gaze crossing: a new paradigm to assess social contingency and word learning during real-time infant-adult interactions.
Lu Y, Ishikawa M, Gohlke M … +4 more , Zapata-Fonseca L, Isomura T, Froese T, Tsuji S
Philos Trans R Soc Lond B Biol Sci · 2026 Feb · PMID 41641491 · Publisher ↗
Children's social interactions with caregivers play a crucial role in their development. One strong cue to an ongoing social interaction is the mutual dependency of interaction partners' behaviours, a feature we refer to...
Children's social interactions with caregivers play a crucial role in their development. One strong cue to an ongoing social interaction is the mutual dependency of interaction partners' behaviours, a feature we refer to as social contingency. Socially contingent interactions have been shown to support learning, but it remains underexplored whether social contingency alone, even in the absence of other social cues, can drive developmental advantages. Addressing this question requires faithfully representing bi-directional contingency in infant-adult interactions while isolating it from other social cues. Building on the perceptual crossing paradigm, we designed an innovative setup where infants and adults interact in real time using eye gaze, with all interactions mediated through a non-social, screen-based display. Extending beyond the one-way responsiveness in previous studies, this setup captures bi-directional contingency through dependencies in gaze movement upon mutual detection. Our findings demonstrate that social contingency modifies infant behaviour even in such a streamlined context. To extend the paradigm's applicability, we integrated it with word learning, a task sensitive to the concurrent effect of social interaction. Preliminary evidence suggests that contingency facilitates word learning, underscoring the potential of the gaze-crossing paradigm to further elucidate the role of contingency in child development. This article is part of the theme issue 'Mechanisms of learning from social interaction'.
Completing the loop with BabyX: harnessing a novel interactive experimental tool to uncover how infants' communicative signals shape caregivers' interactive responsiveness.
Henderson AME, Bednarski FM, Taumoepeau M … +3 more , Sagar M, Knott A, Takac M
Philos Trans R Soc Lond B Biol Sci · 2026 Feb · PMID 41641490 · Publisher ↗
A limitation of social contingency research with infants is that scientists can only instruct the caregivers to modulate their interactive behaviour with the infant. This approach results in a one-sided perspective on so...
A limitation of social contingency research with infants is that scientists can only instruct the caregivers to modulate their interactive behaviour with the infant. This approach results in a one-sided perspective on social contingency where the infant is a passive recipient merely reacting to changing circumstances. Thus, with this approach it is not possible to investigate how infants actively shape social contingency. We propose the use of a novel realistic interactive digital model of a human child (named by its developers as 'BabyX') as an innovative social contingency research tool. This simulated digital child is autonomously animated by a cognitive architecture that can interact in real time with a social partner in human-like ways. Critically, researchers can manipulate the digital child's responsiveness to social contingency. In this article, we present three examples to illustrate the limits of current methodological approaches in social contingency research. Second, we introduce the digital child and highlight its usability to investigate social contingency. Third, we argue that studies with the digital child are key to closing the loop in social contingency research. It is our opinion that infants' communicative signals are key to shaping caregiver responsiveness. By employing BabyX we are in the unique position of being able to investigate not only how caregivers respond to infants' social contingency, but how infants actively shape social interactions. This article is part of the theme issue 'Mechanisms of learning from social interaction'.
Does playful teasing help great apes learn about social relationships?
Winkler SL, Cartmill EA
Philos Trans R Soc Lond B Biol Sci · 2026 Feb · PMID 41641489 · Publisher ↗
Understanding social relationships is critical to succeeding in primate societies. In species with complex social networks (including humans), correctly predicting the strength of one's social relationships or bonds help...
Understanding social relationships is critical to succeeding in primate societies. In species with complex social networks (including humans), correctly predicting the strength of one's social relationships or bonds helps individuals better navigate future interactions. Social contingency-behaviour that depends on and directly responds to another's actions-is a key feature of interaction that provides opportunities to learn about these relationships. We propose that playful teasing in great apes represents a specialized form of social contingency that enables relationship assessment in a relatively safe context. Playful teasing involves one individual pestering, harassing or provoking another in a playful manner. An ape can learn about their bond by observing how a social partner responds to mild provocation-seeing how far they can push the other before receiving an explicitly negative response. Since responses range from mild aversion to benign tolerance to reciprocal play, the teaser can gain valuable information about relationship quality through monitoring the socially contingent responses to teasing actions. This form of learning through contingency may have evolved as a relatively low-risk method to assess social relationships through direct feedback, though several alternative explanations exist. We examine multiple evolutionary hypotheses for playful teasing and offer suggestions for future empirical testing. This article is part of the theme issue 'Mechanisms of learning from social interaction'.
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