Ilanit Gordon | Bar-Ilan University (original) (raw)

Papers by Ilanit Gordon

Research Square (Research Square), Mar 7, 2022

Recent discoveries have highlighted the effects of oxytocin (OT) on social behavior and perceptio... more Recent discoveries have highlighted the effects of oxytocin (OT) on social behavior and perception among autistic individuals. However, a gap persists in the literature regarding the potential effects of OT and the neural temporal dynamics due to OT administration. We explored the effect of OT on autistic individuals using magnetoencephalography (MEG), focusing on M100, M170, and M250, social perception-related components that tend to show atypical patterns in autistic individuals. Twenty-five autistic adolescents participated in this randomized, double-blind MEG study. Autistic individuals arrived at the lab twice and received an acute dose of intranasal OT or placebo in each session. During the scans, participants were asked to identify pictures of social and non-social stimuli. Additionally, 23 typically developing (TD) adolescents performed the same task in the MEG as a benchmark that allowed us to better charachterize neural regions-of-interest and behavioral results for this age-group in this task. A source-model beamformer analysis revealed that OT enhanced neural activity for social stimuli in frontal regions during M170. Additionally, in each of the preselected time windows, OT increased activation in the left hemisphere, regardless of the content of the presented stimuli. We suggest that OT increased the processing of social stimuli through two separate mechanisms. First, OT increased neural activity in a nonspecific manner, allowing increased allocation of attention toward the stimuli. Second, OT enhanced M170 activity in frontal regions only in response to social stimuli. These results reveal the temporal dynamics of the effects of OT on early stages of social and non-social perception in autistic adolescents.

Psychophysiology

Improvisation is a natural occurring phenomenon that is central to social interaction. Yet, impro... more Improvisation is a natural occurring phenomenon that is central to social interaction. Yet, improvisation is an understudied area in group processes and intergroup relations. Here we build on theory and research about human herding to study the contributions of improvisation on group efficacy and its biobehavioral underpinnings. We employed a novel multimodal approach and integrative method when observing face‐to‐face interactions—51 triads (total N = 153) drummed together in spontaneous‐free improvisations as a group, while their electrodermal activity was monitored simultaneously with their second‐by‐second rhythmic coordination on a shared electronic drum machine. Our results show that three hypothesized factors of human herding—physiological synchrony, behavioral coordination, and emotional contagion—predict a sense of group efficacy in its group members. These findings are some of the first to show herding at three levels (physiological, behavioral, and mental) in a single stud...

Academy of Management Proceedings, 2021

Despite the continuing interest in leadership and team processes, there is a growing concern over... more Despite the continuing interest in leadership and team processes, there is a growing concern over both theoretical and methodological aspects of their conceptualization and measurement. In this sym...

Biology, Jan 25, 2023

This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative... more This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY

Biology

Compassion is a warm response of care and concern for those who are suffering, which drives indiv... more Compassion is a warm response of care and concern for those who are suffering, which drives individuals to devote their resources for the sake of others. A prominent neuroevolutionary framework grounds compassion in the neurobiology of the mammalian caregiving system. Accordingly, it has been suggested that the oxytocinergic system, which plays a central role in parental caregiving and bonding, provides the neurobiological foundation for compassion towards strangers. Yet, the specific role of oxytocin in compassion is far from clear. The current paper aims to target this gap and offer a theoretical framework that integrates the state-of-the-art literature on oxytocin with research on compassion. We suggest that oxytocin mediates compassion by enhancing the saliency of cues of pain and distress and discuss the plausible underlying neurobiological substrates. We further demonstrate how the proposed framework can account for individual differences in compassion, focusing on the effects...

Journal of Nonverbal Behavior

Journal of Autism and Developmental Disorders

Although there is substantial evidence to suggest that humans synchronize both their behavior and... more Although there is substantial evidence to suggest that humans synchronize both their behavior and some physiological when interacting face to face in real life, the effect has yet to be demonstrated in video teleconferencing platforms. Therefore, we will measure physiological, behavioral and psychological synchrony patterns in a face-to-face interaction compared to an interaction mediated by the "Zoom" platform. We will accomplish this by observing cohabitating dyads (either roommates or romantic partners), during a structured dyadic interaction task in the lab (including the following contexts: sharing a positive memory & a support conversation ), while simultaneously recording both partners' physiological responses [specifically, measures of Parasympathetic Nervous System (PSNS) and Sympathetic Nervous System (SNS) function: Heart Rate Variability (HRV), Galvanic Skin Response (GSR) and Cardiac Impedance]. We will simultaneously observe their psychological, behaviora...

Encyclopedia of Autism Spectrum Disorders, 2021

Development of brain mechanisms for processing affective

American Psychologist, 2021

During the COVID-19 pandemic, we have seen that people can adapt quickly to ensure that their soc... more During the COVID-19 pandemic, we have seen that people can adapt quickly to ensure that their social needs are met after being forced to isolate and socially distance. Many individuals turned immediately to music, as evidenced by people singing from balconies, watching live concerts on social media, and group singing online. In this article, we show how these musical adaptations can be understood through the latest advances in the social neuroscience of music-an area that, to date, has been largely overlooked. By streamlining and synthesizing prior theory and research, we introduce a model of the brain that sheds light on the social functions and brain mechanisms that underlie the musical adaptations used for human connection. We highlight the role of oxytocin and the neurocircuitry associated with reward, stress, and the immune system. We show that the social brain networks implicated in music production (in contrast to music listening) overlap with the networks in the brain implicated in the social processes of human cognition-mentalization, empathy, and synchrony-all of which are components of herding; moreover, these components have evolved for social affiliation and connectedness. We conclude that the COVID-19 pandemic could be a starting point for an improved understanding of the relationship between music and the social brain, and we outline goals for future research in the social neuroscience of music. In a time when people across the globe have been unable to meet in person, they have found a way to meet in the music. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2021 APA, all rights reserved).

Journal of Autism and Developmental Disorders, 2021

Individuals with Autism spectrum disorder (ASD) show altered behavioral synchrony and empathic be... more Individuals with Autism spectrum disorder (ASD) show altered behavioral synchrony and empathic behavior. Yet, an ecologically valid examination of these in adolescents is still required. We employed a social interaction sequence comprising a friendly conversation with a confederate, an expression of distress by her, and a return to friendly conversation. 44 male adolescents (22 with ASD) participated. Socio-emotional behaviors, coded by blind raters and through automated analyses of motion, were analyzed. Results indicated reduced synchrony in the ASD group. Moreover, whereas controls displayed a decrease in synchrony when facing another's distress, adolescents with ASD showed no such change. No group differences were found on empathic behavior. Findings imply gaps between verbal and non-verbal responses of adolescents with ASD to a distressed interaction partner.

Scientific Reports

Molecular Autism

Background In the last decade, accumulative evidence has shown that oxytocin can modulate social ... more Background In the last decade, accumulative evidence has shown that oxytocin can modulate social perception in typically developed individuals and individuals diagnosed with autism. While several studies show that oxytocin (OT) modulates neural activation in social-related neural regions, the mechanism that underlies OT effects in ASD is not fully known yet. Despite evidence from animal studies on connections between the oxytocinergic system and excitation/inhibition neural balance, the influence of OT on oscillatory responses among individuals with ASD has been rarely examined. To bridge these gaps in knowledge, we investigated the effects of OT on both social and non-social stimuli while focusing on its specific influence on the neural connectivity between three socially related neural regions—the left and right fusiform and the medial frontal cortex. Methods Twenty-five adolescents with ASD participated in a wall-established social task during a randomized, double-blind placebo-c...

Academy of Management Proceedings

Journal of Nervous & Mental Disease

The current study longitudinally examined the moderating effects of consuming different types of ... more The current study longitudinally examined the moderating effects of consuming different types of media (i.e., formal [news] and informal [social media, WhatsApp]) in the association among COVID-19-related worries, intolerance of uncertainty (IU), and posttraumatic stress symptoms (PTSSs). Data were collected at two time points during July and September 2020, with approximately 60 days between measurements. Results showed that both COVID-19-related worries and IU were found to be positively associated with PTSSs. An interaction with formal media consumption was found, so that when one's formal media consumption was high, he or she were most vulnerable to the aforementioned effects on the development of PTSSs. Our findings point to the interactive effects of both COVID-19 worries and IU with media consumption on the development of PTSSs. Although media consumption might provide information during uncertainty, it may also intensify PTSSs during times of crisis. Implications and limitations are discussed.

Organizational Psychology Review, 2022

Rivalry, a relational competition, is known to increase motivation and performance. However, a sy... more Rivalry, a relational competition, is known to increase motivation and performance. However, a systematic review and meta-analysis that examines the effect sizes is lacking. Further, most research on this topic has not considered the type of rivalry (individual versus collective) and the research field as potential moderators. We conducted a wide-scale search, looking for rivalry and performance studies, which yielded 22 papers (k = 35) with 27,771 observations that were systematically reviewed. Eighteen papers (k = 28) were eligible for a further meta-analysis, including a total of 26,215 observations. The systematic review indicated that rivalry is usually positively related to performance. Results of the meta-analysis revealed that this effect is significant and that the relationship between rivalry and performance is more robust for individual rivalry compared to group rivalry. Further analyses indicated that for group rivalry, correlations are positive and significant only in t...