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Studies of social cognition examine how organisms process and act on the presence, intentions, actions, and behavioural outcomes of others in social contexts. Many real-life social interactions unfold during direct face-to-face contact and rely on immediate, time-continuous feedback about mutual behaviour and changes in the shared environment. Yet, essential aspects of these naturalistic conditions are often lacking in experimental laboratory settings for direct dyadic interactions, i.e., interactions between two people. Here, we describe a novel experimental setting, the Dyadic Interaction Platform (DIP), designed to investigate the behavioural and neural mechanisms of real-time social interactions. Based on a transparent, touch-sensitive, bi-directional visual display, this design allows two participants to observe visual stimuli and each other simultaneously, allowing face-to-face interaction in a shared vertical workspace. Different implementations of the DIP facilitate interactions between two human adults, adults and children, two children, nonhuman primates and in mixed nonhuman-human dyads. The platforms allow for diverse manipulations of interactive contexts and synchronized recordings of both participants’ behavioural, physiological, and neural measures. This approach enables us to integrate economic game theory with time-continuous sensorimotor and perceptual decision-making, social signalling and learning, in an intuitive and socially salient setting that affords precise control over stimuli, task timing, and behavioural responses. We demonstrate the applications and advantages of DIPs in several classes of transparent interactions, ranging from value-based strategic coordination games and dyadic foraging to social cue integration, information seeking, and social learning.

Facial width-to-height ratio (fWHR) is an extensively studied morphological measure, which was presumably shaped by sexual selection and has been linked to a wide range of perceptual and physiological traits. Underpinning these associations is the premise that fWHR is larger in men, which empirically exhibits a mixed and equivocal pattern in the literature due to variation in measurement, large sample sizes revealing small but significant differences, and a lack of control of body size. In Study 1, in a sample of 1949 faces, we used a Bayesian hierarchical model that incorporates prior information to simultaneously estimate sexual dimorphism in fWHR, adjusted for body size, across five measurement types. While we found larger fWHR in women, comparing this effect to variability in fWHR due to image capture settings revealed no robust evidence of sex differences in fWHR. In Study 2, we investigated sex differences in facial width specifically (also adjusted for body size), again incorporating prior information, and confirmed men have greater face width than women. Advances in this area can be made by shifting focus away from arbitrary ratios like fWHR to direct measures like facial width – as well as carefully considering prior evidence of existing associations.

Cognitive Bias Modification – Interpretation (CBM-I) aims to alter maladaptive interpretations in social anxiety, yet effects are often small and outcome measures are diverse. Although CBM-I has shown promise, its underlying mechanisms remain unclear and integration with psychophysiological and neural measures has been limited. In this double-blind, randomized controlled trial, eighty-eight participants with high levels of social anxiety completed two lab sessions, an online training in between, and online follow-up. Participants filled out questionnaires, completed interpretation bias tasks, and underwent neuro-psychophysiological assessments. Active CBM-I trained positive resolutions of ambiguous social scenarios, while the sham version used neutral scenarios. The primary outcome, i.e., scores on the Liebowitz Social Anxiety Scale (LSAS), decreased across time in both groups, without group differences. The Brief Fear of Negative Evaluation decreased only in the active group. Interpretation bias shifted more strongly toward positive outcomes in the active group. Autonomic measures confirmed sensitivity to stress induction but did not differentiate between conditions. Electrophysiological results paralleled subjective ratings, as participants exhibited ambivalent responses to socially relevant stimuli but clearly differentiated responses toward neutral stimuli. Baseline correlations indicated strong convergence across self-report and interpretation tasks. Mediation analyses showed that reductions in negative interpretations mediated the effect of the training group on LSAS scores at follow-up. These findings identify interpretation bias as a modifiable mechanism underlying social anxiety and underscore its role as a transdiagnostic marker. Targeting interpretation bias through easily accessible and applicable online interventions may strengthen preventive and therapeutic approaches for social anxiety and related disorders.

Cognitive Bias Modification for Interpretation (CBM-I) is designed to alter interpretation biases (IBs) and may have potential for reducing stress reactivity in individuals with social anxiety. However, evidence for such transfer effects remains inconsistent and largely restricted to specific cognitive or self-report outcomes. Physiological responses, such as heart rate, heart rate variability, and salivary cortisol, have received disproportionately limited attention in CBM-I research, despite their relevance to the social anxiety symptom spectrum. Moreover, previous studies have rarely employed comprehensive experimental designs that directly compare positive, negative, and control training conditions. To address these gaps, the present study compared the effects of three CBM-I training conditions (positive, negative, neutral) on changes in IBs and on self-reported and physiological responses to a standardized laboratory stressor (anagram task). The sample included N = 87 individuals with moderate levels of social anxiety. Results showed that CBM-I successfully modified IB in a condition-congruent direction. However, stress-related outcomes changed similarly over time across all conditions. Self-reported stress and heart rate increased, whereas heart rate variability decreased. Cortisol levels remained unchanged. These findings suggest that although CBM-I can modify IB, such changes may not readily translate into reduced acute stress reactivity. Factors such as training intensity, alignment between training and stressor, and the sensitivity of stress markers may moderate this transfer. Future research should refine CBM-I protocols and measurement approaches to better elucidate the mechanisms linking cognitive change with stress physiology.