Oxytocin modulates human communication by enhancing cognitive exploration

• Published in: Psychoneuroendocrinology Vol. 86; pp. 64 - 72
• Main Authors: de Boer, Miriam, Kokal, Idil, Blokpoel, Mark, Liu, Rui, Stolk, Arjen, Roelofs, Karin, van Rooij, Iris, Toni, Ivan
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: England Elsevier Ltd 01-12-2017
• Subjects: Administration, Intranasal; Adult; Audience design; Cognition - drug effects; Communication; Cues; Double-Blind Method; Exploratory behavior; Human communication; Humans; Interpersonal Relations; Male; Nootropic Agents - metabolism; Oxytocin; Oxytocin - metabolism; Oxytocin - physiology; Placebos; Social Behavior; Social interaction; Young Adult; Oxytocin; Audience design; Social interaction; Exploratory behavior; Human communication
• ISSN: 0306-4530; 1873-3360
• DOI: 10.1016/j.psyneuen.2017.09.010

•Oxytocin is known to influence how humans share material resources.•This study shows that oxytocin influences how humans share knowledge.•Oxytocin drives individuals to generate signals that better disambiguate the many-to-many mappings between a signal’s form and meaning.•Communicators receiving oxytocin more rapidly adjust their signals to what the addressee understands.•Those effects suggest that oxytocin regulates exploration of cognitive models of the (social) environment.
Oxytocin is a neuropeptide known to influence how humans share material resources. Here we explore whether oxytocin influences how we share knowledge. We focus on two distinguishing features of human communication, namely the ability to select communicative signals that disambiguate the many-to-many mappings that exist between a signal’s form and meaning, and adjustments of those signals to the presumed cognitive characteristics of the addressee (“audience design”). Fifty-five males participated in a randomized, double-blind, placebo controlled experiment involving the intranasal administration of oxytocin. The participants produced novel non-verbal communicative signals towards two different addressees, an adult or a child, in an experimentally-controlled live interactive setting. We found that oxytocin administration drives participants to generate signals of higher referential quality, i.e. signals that disambiguate more communicative problems; and to rapidly adjust those communicative signals to what the addressee understands. The combined effects of oxytocin on referential quality and audience design fit with the notion that oxytocin administration leads participants to explore more pervasively behaviors that can convey their intention, and diverse models of the addressees. These findings suggest that, besides affecting prosocial drive and salience of social cues, oxytocin influences how we share knowledge by promoting cognitive exploration.