New study finds preference for children to cradle dolls on left is indicator of social cognitive abilities

June 27, 2018 by George Wigmore, City University London

Credit: FamVeld/Shutterstock.com

Children who cradle dolls on the left show higher social cognitive abilities than those who do not, according to new research from City, University of London.

The new findings, which also show deeply inbuilt facial recognition skills which enable children to interpret even simple approximations as human faces, suggest the children's cradling preference could help to indicate some social developmental disorders.
The study builds on previous knowledge of a 'left-cradling bias' – the phenomenon that humans will typically cradle a baby on their left side, enabling both parent and child to keep the other in their left visual field – which is unrelated to dominance of the use of right or left hand. Information from the left visual field is processed by the right hemisphere of the brain, which is associated with emotion and the perception of facial expression.
Further investigation could enable researchers to make important predictions about the trajectory of children's development based on their cradling responses, in association with social and communication abilities.
The research – led by Dr. Gillian Forrester of Birkbeck, University of London and Dr. Brenda Todd of City, University of London – was conducted with 98 typically developing children (54 girls and 44 boys) in reception or year 1 at a mainstream reception school in South London, who were given a human infant doll to cradle.
They were observed to hold the doll markedly more often in a left-cradling position, and those who showed this bias had a significantly higher social ability score compared with those who held the doll on the right.
The social ability traits tested including likeliness to follow rules, willingness to share with others and wanting to please their teachers.
As part of the study the children were also given a pillow to cradle, with three dots marked on to suggest a face. They were more likely to cradle this object on the left, which researchers say indicates the depth of the evolutionary bias, as even a hint of a face will trigger the response.
By contrast, when given a plain pillow, without a suggestion of a face, the children demonstrated neither a left nor right cradling bias.
Birkbeck's Dr. Forrester said: "Even babies recognise the simple design of three dots surrounded by a circle as a face. And faces receive special attention from our left visual field (connected to the right hemisphere), which is faster and more accurate at identifying individuals and their emotional expressions than the right visual field for the majority of the population. This left-visual-field bias is a natural ability, thought to have originated from a need to identify predators in the environment. In modern humans we believe that the left visual field bias for recognising faces and expressions supports our sophisticated social and emotional abilities.

"In our study, children held a plain pillow randomly in either arm, but adding a 'three-dot-face' resulted in a preference to hold in the left arm, mirroring the left-side cradling bias shown by mothers holding babies. The phenomenon, known as the 'left cradling bias', is not just present in humans—it is pervasive across the animal kingdom and found in species as different as gorillas and flying foxes. Keeping a baby in the carer's left visual field allows for more efficiently monitoring of the baby's wellbeing.
"Not surprisingly, the left cradling bias was also seen when children held a human baby doll, indicating that this behaviour is present early in development and you do not need to have had experience of holding babies to express this preference. What was interesting was that children who held the baby doll with a preference for the left arm scored higher on social ability tests, compared with children who held with a right-side preference, indicating that using the visual field linked to the dominant hemisphere for processing social stimuli gives the individual a real-life advantage."
The cradling bias was once thought to be associated with the prevalence of the of the right-handed population but is now known to result from a preference for using the left visual field to view faces – it is quicker and more accurate at identifying individuals and their expressions. Cross cultural studies indicate that approximately 80% of mothers naturally cradle on the left.
City's Dr. Brenda Todd said:
"I have previously studied mothers holding their own babies, finding that the left cradling is strongest in the first 12 weeks after the birth, when the babies are most vulnerable. It is very interesting to see that a similar bias is shown when young children hold a doll which depicts a young infant, indicating that this behavioural preference is apparent so early in our development."

The peer-reviewed study is published in Cortex. 

More information: G.S. Forrester et al. The left cradling bias: An evolutionary facilitator of social cognition?, Cortex (2018). DOI: 10.1016/j.cortex.2018.05.011

Journal reference: Cortex
Provided by: City University London


Source: https://medicalxpress.com/ (28/06/2018)

Happy employees contribute to better profits, says global report

Happy employees contribute to better profits, says global report

HRK News Bureau | New Delhi | Wednesday, 27 June 2018

The financial returns are higher for companies taking care of their employees, reveals a report by Globoforce WorkHuman and IBM Smarter Workforce.

Companies that score high on employee experience have better financial results as well. This reiterates the fact that employee happiness is a must for organisational success.

The newly published report, The Financial Impact of a Positive Employee Experience, by IBM Smarter Workforce Institute and the Globoforce WorkHuman establishes that employee experience is positively associated with employee work performance, discretionary effort, and turnover intention.

A key finding of this report is that organisations that score in the top 25 per cent of ‘employee experience’, report nearly triple the return on assets and more than twice the return on sales when compared to companies in the bottom quartile.

For this report, psychologists and experts in HR consulting from Globoforce and IBM surveyed 22,000 employees from across the globe, belonging to a cross-section of industries in thousands of organisations.
The investigation also resulted in the creation of the Employee Experience Index (EEI), which measures employee satisfaction under five headings— belonging, purpose, achievement, happiness and vigour.


Companies, which managed to score highly on EEI, reported returns that significantly outpace those of companies that didn’t perform well. The report is quick to stress that cashing in on this fiscal boost does not need to be a costly affair. It highlighted that improving employee experience is not resource-intensive but really more about making some key changes that will create a more ‘human’ workplace.

Globoforce and IBM stated that a human workplace is one characterised by allowing work–life balance, providing opportunities for feedback and growth, fostering positive co-worker relationships, enabling meaningful work, and empowering workers so that they feel they have a voice.
The study suggests that senior leadership and managers play crucial roles in creating many of those opportunities and ultimately ensure a positive and supportive work environment.

However, the study reveals that a majority - more than 70 per cent – of HR practitioners think that senior leadership could be doing more to improve employees’ experiences at work.

Organisation also need to improve on on two key parameters - work-life balance and better recognition for employees. According to the report, less than a quarter (22 percent) of hr practitioners say that  say their organisations do enough to provide opportunities to recharge, and less than half (49 percent) say there is sufficient recognition of the good work that employees do.

The report also stresses on recognising the humanity of employees and treating them as such.

Previously, this report released the rankings of international countries in which employees reported the highest levels of employee experience.
In the current report, this index has been married with analyses of some of the key metrics of fiscal success for a company.

Return on assets (ROA) and return on sales (ROS) are two of the most commonly used measures of profitability. ROA is the ratio of net income to assets and is used to determine how profitable a company is relative to its total assets. A high ROA indicates that a company is earning more money on less investment, which is obviously ideal.

Source: (27/06/2018).

Uranium ‘widespread’ in India’s groundwater

Uranium ‘widespread’ in India’s groundwater

Groundwater is used to re-supply dried-up wells Copyright: Jeremy Horner/Panos

Speed read

• Excessive groundwater extraction releasing uranium in aquifers
• Chemical traces in water linked to chronic kidney disease
• Routine groundwater testing needs to cover uranium aside from arsenic, fluoride

By: M. Sreelata

[NEW DELHI] Excessive withdrawal of groundwater across India is not only lowering the water table, it is also contaminating water with uranium.

According to a study published in Environmental Science & Technology Letters, uranium contamination is “an emerging and widespread phenomenon”. It analysed aquifers in 16 of India’s 29 states, focusing on western Rajasthan and Gujarat where uranium concentrations are higher than the WHO’s safe limit of 30 micrograms per litre.

Avner Vengosh, professor of geochemistry and water quality at Duke University in North Carolina, United States, who is the lead author of the study, tells SciDev.Net that “the decline in groundwater levels accelerates uranium mobilisation to groundwater”. Uranium build-up may also be linked to nitrate pollutants released from chemical fertilisers, which make uranium more soluble (as it is insoluble in its natural form).

“The urgent next step is to see if we can identify areas of high prevalence of kidney disease that could be associated with high uranium levels in drinking water”

- Avner Vengosh, Duke University

India is the world’s largest user of groundwater pumped up through borewells. The World Bank reports that more than 60 per cent of irrigated agriculture and 85 per cent of drinking water depend on the resource.

Vengosh suggests that India’s water agencies make groundwater management a priority to protect people from the harmful effects of exposure to uranium, which include a higher risk of chronic kidney disease (CKD). “The urgent next step is to see if we can identify areas of high prevalence of kidney disease that could be associated with high uranium levels in drinking water,” he says.

Sunderrajan Krishnan, executive director of the Inren Foundation, a non-profit water research body based in Gujarat state, says a key finding in the study was the link between water table fluctuations and the presence of uranium. He points out that this is especially noticeable when the water level depletes to the point where uranium-bearing rocks in the aquifers are exposed to oxidation.

“Half a century ago, water levels never reached that low,” Krishnan tells SciDev.Net.

The link between CKD and uranium in India was first made by the state-run Bhabha Atomic Research Centre in Mumbai, says Krishnan. The disease is prevalent in coastal parts of Andhra Pradesh state.

In light of the study’s findings, authorities should urgently make testing for uranium a routine part of groundwater quality monitoring, says Vengosh. Current tests in India include those for arsenic and fluoride, which are among the more serious contaminants that pose risks to human health.


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