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Light through the fog: using precision fMRI data to disentangle the neural substrates of cognitive control Curr. Opin. Behav. Sci. (IF 3.99) Pub Date : 2021-01-14 Derek M Smith; Diana C Perez; Alexis Porter; Ally Dworetsky; Caterina Gratton
Cognitive control, the ability to engage in goal-related behavior, is linked to frontal, parietal, and cingulate brain regions. However, the underlying function(s) of these regions is still in question, with ongoing discussions about their specificity and/or multifunctionality. These brain regions are also among the most variable across individuals, which may confound multi-functionality with inter-individual
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Precision functional mapping of the subcortex and cerebellum Curr. Opin. Behav. Sci. (IF 3.99) Pub Date : 2021-01-09 Scott Marek; Deanna J Greene
Human functional brain networks can be reliably characterized within individuals using precision functional mapping. This approach entails the collection of large quantities of functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) data from each individual subject. Studies employing precision functional mapping in the cerebral cortex have found that individuals manifest unique representations of functional
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The promise of awake behaving infant fMRI as a deep measure of cognition Curr. Opin. Behav. Sci. (IF 3.99) Pub Date : 2020-12-24 Tristan S Yates; Cameron T Ellis; Nicholas B Turk-Browne
What are the contents of the infant mind? In the last decade, computational advances in fMRI have allowed researchers access to the internal representations of adults. Applied similarly in infants, fMRI stands to revolutionize our understanding of cognitive development. By measuring representations at their source, infant fMRI overcomes some of the limitations of behavioral measures. We discuss example
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Diving into the deep end: a personal reflection on the MyConnectome study Curr. Opin. Behav. Sci. (IF 3.99) Pub Date : 2020-11-25 Russell A Poldrack
In this reflection I discuss the factors that led me to undertake the MyConnectome study, in which I was scanned using MRI more than 100 times over the course of eighteen months along with many additional biological and psychological measurements. I describe the study from a personal standpoint, outline the major findings from the study, and discuss its implications for neuroimaging research.
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The role of executive function in shaping reinforcement learning Curr. Opin. Behav. Sci. (IF 3.99) Pub Date : 2020-11-14 Milena Rmus; Samuel D McDougle; Anne GE Collins
Reinforcement learning (RL) models have advanced our understanding of how animals learn and make decisions, and how the brain supports learning. However, the neural computations that are explained by RL algorithms fall short of explaining many sophisticated aspects of human learning and decision making, including the generalization of behavior to novel contexts, one-shot learning, and the synthesis
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Understanding subprocesses of working memory through the lens of model-based cognitive neuroscience Curr. Opin. Behav. Sci. (IF 3.99) Pub Date : 2020-11-10 Anne C Trutti; Sam Verschooren; Birte U Forstmann; Russell J Boag
Working memory (WM) refers to a set of processes that makes task-relevant information accessible to higher-level cognitive processes. Recent work suggests WM is supported by a variety of information gating, updating, and removal processes, which ensure only task-relevant information occupies WM. Current neurocomputational theory suggests WM gating is accomplished via ‘go/no-go’ signalling in basal
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Computational theory-driven studies of reinforcement learning and decision-making in addiction: what have we learned? Curr. Opin. Behav. Sci. (IF 3.99) Pub Date : 2020-11-08 Maëlle CM Gueguen; Emma M Schweitzer; Anna B Konova
Computational psychiatry provides a powerful new approach for linking the behavioral manifestations of addiction to their precise cognitive and neurobiological substrates. However, this emerging area of research is still limited in important ways. While research has identified features of reinforcement learning and decision-making in substance users that differ from health, less emphasis has been placed
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Balancing exploration and exploitation with information and randomization Curr. Opin. Behav. Sci. (IF 3.99) Pub Date : 2020-11-06 Robert C Wilson; Elizabeth Bonawitz; Vincent D Costa; R Becket Ebitz
Explore-exploit decisions require us to trade off the benefits of exploring unknown options to learn more about them, with exploiting known options, for immediate reward. Such decisions are ubiquitous in nature, but from a computational perspective, they are notoriously hard. There is therefore much interest in how humans and animals make these decisions and recently there has been an explosion of
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Multi-step planning in the brain Curr. Opin. Behav. Sci. (IF 3.99) Pub Date : 2020-09-21 Kevin J Miller; Sarah Jo C Venditto
Decisions in the natural world are rarely made in isolation. Each action that an organism selects will affect the future situations in which it finds itself, and those situations will in turn affect the future actions that are available. Achieving real-world goals often requires successfully navigating a sequence of many actions. An efficient and flexible way to achieve such goals is to construct an
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The evolution of sensitive periods in development: insights from insects Curr. Opin. Behav. Sci. (IF 3.99) Pub Date : 2020-09-19 Sinead English, Antoine MG Barreaux
Recent models have identified evolutionary explanations for sensitive periods, when individuals are more responsive to experiences at certain stages of development, based on benefits and costs of attending to environmental cues. Empirical tests of these models face challenges, requiring complex, long-term experiments, and detailed understanding of physiology and ecology. Insect systems offer the opportunity
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Curiosity as the impulse to know: common behavioral and neural mechanisms underlying curiosity and impulsivity Curr. Opin. Behav. Sci. (IF 3.99) Pub Date : 2020-09-18 Caroline B Marvin, Ellen Tedeschi, Daphna Shohamy
Curiosity is critical to learning and generally seen as a highly desirable quality, while impulsivity is generally seen as maladaptive and is associated with deleterious outcomes. The differing views of these constructs present somewhat of a paradox, as curiosity and impulsivity share remarkable overlaps, both in terms of the way they are measured behaviorally and in terms of their underlying neural
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Cross-cultural research on child development and maternal mental health in low- and middle-income countries Curr. Opin. Behav. Sci. (IF 3.99) Pub Date : 2020-09-16 Helen O Pitchik, Esther O Chung, Lia CH Fernald
Of the more than 2 billion children worldwide, 90% live in low- or middle-income countries, and are particularly vulnerable to early life exposures and experiences. A wide range of factors contribute to maternal and child well-being, including maternal depression as well as larger social determinants such as poverty. In this review, we provide a framework for conceptualizing interventions that can
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Deprivation and discovery motives determine how it feels to be curious Curr. Opin. Behav. Sci. (IF 3.99) Pub Date : 2020-09-16 Marret K Noordewier, Eric van Dijk
Curiosity is evoked when people experience an information-gap between what they know and what they do not (yet) know. Curious people are motivated to find the information they are missing. This motivation has different components: People want to reduce the uncertainty of not knowing something (deprivation motive) and they want to discover new information to expand their knowledge (discovery motive)
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Sensitive periods in executive function development Curr. Opin. Behav. Sci. (IF 3.99) Pub Date : 2020-09-14 Abigail Thompson, Nikolaus Steinbeis
Executive functions (EFs) are cognitive processes that support flexible goal pursuit. Healthy development of EFs during childhood is critical for later life outcomes including health, wealth and educational attainment. As such it is crucial to understand how EFs can be supported and protected against insult. Here we examine whether there are sensitive periods in the development of EFs, by drawing on
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Curiosity, information demand and attentional priority Curr. Opin. Behav. Sci. (IF 3.99) Pub Date : 2020-09-12 Jacqueline Gottlieb, Michael Cohanpour, Yvonne Li, Nicholas Singletary, Erfan Zabeh
To make adaptive decisions in multi-dimensional environments, animals must infer the relevant features and afford them priority for the control of learning and actions. Prioritizing sources of information is the role of executive control and attention, but very little is known about the mechanisms by which the brain computes relevance or priority. We present a new decision-theoretic view of priority
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Cultivating an understanding of curiosity as a seed for creativity Curr. Opin. Behav. Sci. (IF 3.99) Pub Date : 2020-09-08 Madeleine E Gross, Claire M Zedelius, Jonathan W Schooler
Curiosity—the desire to know—is a powerful motivator for learning and behavior. Theoretical and anecdotal discussions have also linked curiosity to creativity and innovation, but there is little empirical evidence for this connection, aside from a handful of recent studies. We review the existing evidence and discuss potential mechanisms through which curiosity may facilitate the creative process.
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Determining effects of adolescent stress exposure on risk for posttraumatic stress disorder in adulthood Curr. Opin. Behav. Sci. (IF 3.99) Pub Date : 2020-09-06 Lauren E Chaby, Heather C Lasseter, Charles Geier, Andreas Jeromin
Clinical evidence indicates that stressful experiences during adolescence can increase rates of posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) in adulthood, while prospective evidence from animal models shows that stress in adolescence can increase risk or resilience to the effects of subsequent stress exposure. We discuss recent evidence of lasting effects from adolescent stress in clinical and rodent studies
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Conceptual, empirical, and practical problems with the claim that intolerance, prejudice, and discrimination are equivalent on the political left and right Curr. Opin. Behav. Sci. (IF 3.99) Pub Date : 2020-08-29 Vivienne Badaan, John T Jost
Proponents of the ‘ideological symmetry thesis’ claim that liberals and conservatives are equally prejudiced — but against different groups. Whereas conservatives are said to be more prejudiced against ‘left-leaning’ groups (such as racial, religious, and sexual minorities), liberals are said to be prejudiced against ‘right-leaning’ groups (such as racial, religious, and sexual majorities). We identify
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Sensitive phases in the development of rodent social behavior Curr. Opin. Behav. Sci. (IF 3.99) Pub Date : 2020-08-26 Norbert Sachser, Tobias D Zimmermann, Michael B Hennessy, Sylvia Kaiser
Here, we summarize recent advances on how environmental influences during sensitive phases alter the social behavioral phenotype of rodents later in life. Current studies support the view that the prenatal, early postnatal and adolescent periods of life can be regarded as sensitive phases. Environmental cues acting on the organism during these phases have a wide variety of effects on adult social behavior
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Neural circuitry of information seeking Curr. Opin. Behav. Sci. (IF 3.99) Pub Date : 2020-08-25 Ethan S Bromberg-Martin, Ilya E Monosov
Humans and animals navigate uncertain environments by seeking information about the future. Remarkably, we often seek information even when it has no instrumental value for aiding our decisions — as if the information is a source of value in its own right. In recent years, there has been a flourishing of research into these non-instrumental information preferences and their implementation in the brain
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Nested sensitive periods: how plasticity across the microbiota-gut-brain axis interacts to affect the development of learning and memory. Curr. Opin. Behav. Sci. (IF 3.99) Pub Date : 2020-08-24 Bridget Callaghan
There is a growing appreciation for the range of sensitive periods which occur across the brain. These sensitive periods give rise to sensory outcomes, as well as complex higher-order cognitive functions like learning and memory. More recently, an understanding that sensitive periods of development occur outside of the central nervous system (e.g. in the gastrointestinal microbiota) has emerged. Less
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To know, to feel, to share? Exploring the motives that drive curiosity for negative content Curr. Opin. Behav. Sci. (IF 3.99) Pub Date : 2020-08-24 Esther Niehoff, Suzanne Oosterwijk
In recent years, empirical work has documented a curiosity for negative content – people deliberately view images detailing death, violence or harm or engage with other aversive stimuli. The question that emerges from this work is why people are curious about aversive information. Our central premise is that curiosity for negative content can be valuable – it may serve fundamental psychological functions
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A role for adaptive developmental plasticity in learning and decision making Curr. Opin. Behav. Sci. (IF 3.99) Pub Date : 2020-08-23 Wan Chen Lin, Kristen Delevich, Linda Wilbrecht
From both a medical and educational perspective, there is enormous value to understanding the environmental factors that sculpt learning and decision making. These questions are often approached from proximate levels of analysis, but may be further informed by the adaptive developmental plasticity framework used in evolutionary biology. The basic adaptive developmental plasticity framework posits that
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The dimensionality of neural representations for control. Curr. Opin. Behav. Sci. (IF 3.99) Pub Date : 2020-08-19 David Badre,Apoorva Bhandari,Haley Keglovits,Atsushi Kikumoto
Cognitive control allows us to think and behave flexibly based on our context and goals. At the heart of theories of cognitive control is a control representation that enables the same input to produce different outputs contingent on contextual factors. In this review, we focus on an important property of the control representation’s neural code: its representational dimensionality. Dimensionality
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Polarization in the contemporary political and media landscape Curr. Opin. Behav. Sci. (IF 3.99) Pub Date : 2020-08-18 Anne E Wilson, Victoria Parker, Matthew Feinberg
Political polarization is on the rise in America. Although social psychologists frequently study the intergroup underpinnings of polarization, they have traditionally had less to say about macro societal processes that contribute to its rise and fall. Recent cross-disciplinary work on the contemporary political and media landscape provides these complementary insights. In this paper, we consider the
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Pregnancy as an intergenerational conduit of adversity: how nutritional and psychosocial stressors reflect different historical timescales of maternal experience Curr. Opin. Behav. Sci. (IF 3.99) Pub Date : 2020-08-17 Christopher W Kuzawa
Macronutrients consumed by the pregnant mother enter her homeostatically regulated metabolism, which buffers the fetus against short-term increases or deficits in intake. In contrast, hormones that coordinate this homeostasis, including cortisol, respond acutely to stressors. Because maternal cortisol crosses the placenta to influence fetal tissues, transient stress activation during pregnancy can
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Causal investigations into orbitofrontal control of human decision making. Curr. Opin. Behav. Sci. (IF 3.99) Pub Date : 2020-08-17 James D Howard,Thorsten Kahnt
Although it is widely accepted that the orbitofrontal cortex (OFC) is important for decision making, its precise contribution to behavior remains a topic of debate. While many loss of function experiments have been conducted in animals, causal studies of human OFC function are relatively scarce. This review discusses recent causal investigations into the human OFC, with an emphasis on advances in network-based
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Learning sameness: object and relational similarity across species Curr. Opin. Behav. Sci. (IF 3.99) Pub Date : 2020-08-01 Stella Christie
Humans’ impressive cognitive abilities — map reading, understanding numerical structure, learning grammar rules — rest on the ability to abstract sameness of relations. How does this ability arise and why do animals not read maps or learn grammars like humans do? Here, I review evidence suggesting that object similarity — perceiving that two events look alike — is crucial for learning to perceive relational
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The same-different task as a tool to study unconscious processing Curr. Opin. Behav. Sci. (IF 3.99) Pub Date : 2020-07-30 Filip Van Opstal
The function of consciousness has often been investigated by looking at the cognitive processes that can (not) be performed without conscious awareness. The most important processes — historically and theoretically — in this context are semantic processing and information integration. Here, I will argue that a subliminal priming version of the same-different task is a perfect tool to investigate these
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Focusing the eyes and recognizing objects: evo-devo and the sensitive period Curr. Opin. Behav. Sci. (IF 3.99) Pub Date : 2020-07-30 Barbara L Finlay
The study of evolution and development together, ‘evo-devo’, is essential to understand sensitive periods. The combination of phylogenetic history, life history, the biophysics of developing physical substrates, as well as cognitive and neural mechanisms, can distinguish their accidental from essential features. Two examples of research programs concerning sensitive periods, the calibration of eye
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Systems neuroscience of curiosity Curr. Opin. Behav. Sci. (IF 3.99) Pub Date : 2020-07-25 Roberto Lopez Cervera, Maya Zhe Wang, Benjamin Y Hayden
Curiosity refers to a demand for information that has no instrumental benefit. Because of its critical role in development and in the regulation of learning, curiosity has long fascinated psychologists. However, it has been difficult to study curiosity from the perspective of the single neuron or the circuit – that is, at the systems level. Recent advances; however, have made doing so more feasible
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Inference as a fundamental process in behavior Curr. Opin. Behav. Sci. (IF 3.99) Pub Date : 2020-07-22 Ramon Bartolo, Bruno B Averbeck
In the real world, uncertainty is omnipresent due to incomplete or noisy information. This makes inferring the state-of-the-world difficult. Furthermore, the state-of-the-world often changes over time, though with some regularity. This makes learning and decision-making challenging. Organisms have evolved to take advantage of environmental regularities, that allow organisms to acquire a model of the
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Curiosity as end and means Curr. Opin. Behav. Sci. (IF 3.99) Pub Date : 2020-07-18 Ewa Szumowska, Arie W Kruglanski
In the current review, we propose to look at curiosity from the goal systemic perspective and differentiate between curiosity as a motive/goal, which engenders various activities (means) aimed at satisfying it, and information-seeking behaviors which can, but do not have to be, driven by the curiosity motivation as such. We thus assume that people can adopt various behaviors in order to satisfy their
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Epistemic curiosity and the region of proximal learning Curr. Opin. Behav. Sci. (IF 3.99) Pub Date : 2020-07-18 Janet Metcalfe, Bennett L Schwartz, Teal S Eich
We propose a framework for understanding epistemic curiosity as a metacognitive feeling state that is related to the individual's Region of Proximal Learning (RPL), an adaptive mental space where we feel we are on the verge of knowing or understanding. First, we review several historical views, contrasting the RPL perspective with alternative views of curiosity. Second, we detail the processes, conditions
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Issues in the comparative cognition of same/different abstract-concept learning Curr. Opin. Behav. Sci. (IF 3.99) Pub Date : 2020-07-17 Jeffrey S Katz, Anthony A Wright
Same/different abstract-concept learning provides a basis for higher order learning. We present criteria (e.g. the use of novel items, how to reinforce responding, achieving full concept learning) for evaluating evidence of abstract-concept learning. We discuss how revealing functional relationships also are critical for understanding how abstract concepts are learned. To illustrate our points, data
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Understanding how early life effects evolve: progress, gaps, and future directions Curr. Opin. Behav. Sci. (IF 3.99) Pub Date : 2020-07-17 Amanda J Lea, Stacy Rosebaum
Early life experiences have profound effects on later life health and on Darwinian fitness in many mammalian species, including humans. However, while it is clear that early life adversity often leads to compromised health, reproduction, and survival in adulthood, it is less clear why these links have evolved. Here, we review hypotheses from the evolutionary biology literature that have been proposed
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Latent learning, cognitive maps, and curiosity Curr. Opin. Behav. Sci. (IF 3.99) Pub Date : 2020-07-17 Maya Zhe Wang, Benjamin Y Hayden
Curiosity is a desire for information that is not motivated by strategic concerns. Latent learning is not driven by standard reinforcement processes. We propose that curiosity serves the purpose of motivating latent learning. While latent learning is often treated as a passive or incidental process, it normally reflects a strong evolved pressure to actively seek large amounts of information. That information
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Mechanisms of same–different conceptualization: entropy happens! Curr. Opin. Behav. Sci. (IF 3.99) Pub Date : 2020-07-16 Edward A Wasserman, Michael E Young, Leyre Castro
Can nonhuman animals learn abstract concepts? This intriguing question has been extensively studied over the past several decades with many different species and experimental methods. Here, we review evidence showing that pigeons can acquire a same–different concept: they readily learn to discriminate between arrays of same and different items as well as robustly transfer their discrimination to novel
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A dissociative framework for understanding same-different conceptualization Curr. Opin. Behav. Sci. (IF 3.99) Pub Date : 2020-07-15 J David Smith, Barbara A Church
Cognitive, comparative, and developmental psychologists have long been interested in humans’ and animals’ ability to respond to abstract relations. Cross-species research has used relational matching-to-sample (RMTS) tasks in which participants try to find stimulus pairs that ‘match’ because they express the same abstract relation (same or different). Researchers seek to understand the cognitive processes
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Infant-inspired intrinsically motivated curious robots Curr. Opin. Behav. Sci. (IF 3.99) Pub Date : 2020-07-14 Goren Gordon
Infants are highly curious and show remarkable self-driven learning capabilities. Inspired by developmental psychology and recent advances in neuroscience, computational models of curiosity have been implemented in robots. These models are based on the paradigm that learning progress generates intrinsic rewards, which in turn determine action selection. With the rise of deep learning, robots’ perceptual
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The Neuroscience of Socioeconomic Inequality. Curr. Opin. Behav. Sci. (IF 3.99) Pub Date : 2020-07-13 Kimberly G Noble,Melissa A Giebler
A burgeoning literature has recently begun investigating the links between socioeconomic inequality and the developing brain. This work suggests widespread disparities in both brain structure and function that begin as early as the first year of life. Here, we review disparities in neural structure that have been reported in both cortical and subcortical gray matter, as well as in white matter. Disparities
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Sameness may be a natural concept that does not require learning Curr. Opin. Behav. Sci. (IF 3.99) Pub Date : 2020-07-10 Thomas R Zentall
Same/different abstract concept learning in pigeons is typically assessed by training subjects with one set of stimuli and demonstrating that they can transfer that learning to new stimuli. Converging evidence suggests that under a variety of conditions, pigeons do show evidence of conceptual same/difference learning that goes beyond the if-then chains proposed by Skinner (1950). The fact that transfer
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A gene-maturation-environment model for understanding sensitive period effects in musical training Curr. Opin. Behav. Sci. (IF 3.99) Pub Date : 2020-07-10 Virginia B Penhune
Adult ability in complex cognitive domains, including music performance, is commonly thought of as the product of gene-environment interactions, where genetic predispositions influence and are modulated by experience resulting in the final phenotypic expression. Recently, however, the important contribution of maturation to gene-environment interactions has become better understood. Thus the timing
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The seductive lure of curiosity: information as a motivationally salient reward Curr. Opin. Behav. Sci. (IF 3.99) Pub Date : 2020-07-09 Lily FitzGibbon, Johnny King L Lau, Kou Murayama
Humans are known to seek non-instrumental information, sometimes expending considerable effort or taking risks to receive it, for example, ‘curiosity killed the cat’. This suggests that information is highly motivationally salient. In the current article, we first review recent empirical studies that demonstrated the strong motivational lure of curiosity – people will pay and risk electric shocks for
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Learning of sameness/difference relationships by honey bees: performance, strategies and ecological context Curr. Opin. Behav. Sci. (IF 3.99) Pub Date : 2020-07-08 Martin Giurfa
Humans and non-human primates learn conceptual relationships such as ‘same’ and ‘different, which have to be encoded independently of the physical nature of objects linked by the relation. Consequently, concepts are associated with high-level cognition and are not expected in an insect brain. Yet, various works have shown that the miniature brain of honey bees also learns the conceptual relationships
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The merciless mind in a dog-eat-dog society: neoliberalism and the indifference to social inequality Curr. Opin. Behav. Sci. (IF 3.99) Pub Date : 2020-07-08 Karim Bettache, Chi-yue Chiu, Peter Beattie
Neoliberalism asserts that to preserve individual liberty, an effective competitive market must be established to allow individuals to freely choose their economic activities and to reward individuals according to their merits. This ideology has been criticized for condoning social inequality by attributing the presence of social hierarchy to innate or learned personal qualities. We review existing
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Explanation-seeking curiosity in childhood Curr. Opin. Behav. Sci. (IF 3.99) Pub Date : 2020-07-07 Emily G Liquin, Tania Lombrozo
Children are known for asking ‘why?’ — a query motivated by their desire for explanations. Research suggests that explanation-seeking curiosity (ESC) is triggered by first-person cues (such as novelty or surprise), third-person cues (such as a knowledgeable adults’ surprise or question), and future-oriented cues (such as expectations about information gain or future value). Once triggered, ESC is satisfied
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Supporting curiosity in schools and classrooms Curr. Opin. Behav. Sci. (IF 3.99) Pub Date : 2020-07-03 Emily Grossnickle Peterson
Curiosity is associated with increased learning, and developing curious individuals is an educational goal in its own right. This review uses Bioecological Systems Theory to examine how students’ curiosity can be supported in educational contexts. Understanding the nature of curiosity as a biopsychosocial characteristic that can change over time and its relation to other characteristics such as knowledge
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Looking up at the curious personality: individual differences in curiosity and openness to experience Curr. Opin. Behav. Sci. (IF 3.99) Pub Date : 2020-07-02 Paul J Silvia, Alexander P Christensen
The study of trait curiosity — individual differences in curious thoughts, feelings, and actions — sorts into two approaches. One looks downward by unpacking and differentiating trait curiosity, with an emphasis on curiosity’s facets, kinds, and parts. Another looks upward by locating trait curiosity within the larger structure of global personality traits. This article reviews research that looks
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Development of face processing: are there critical or sensitive periods? Curr. Opin. Behav. Sci. (IF 3.99) Pub Date : 2020-06-29 Olivier Pascalis, Mathilde Fort, Paul C Quinn
The existence of critical or sensitive periods has been argued for cognitive functions such as language, which allows for communication with conspecifics. Faces also play a crucial role in establishing social communication. Here we discuss if critical or sensitive period concepts apply to face processing. We describe how experience shapes face processing during development. While there is not clear
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Is there evidence for sensitive periods in emotional development? Curr. Opin. Behav. Sci. (IF 3.99) Pub Date : 2020-06-23 Kristina Woodard,Seth D Pollak
During sensitive periods an individual’s development is especially receptive to information from the environment in ways that it is not at earlier and later developmental stages. Here, we describe challenges in applying the concept of sensitive periods to the domain of socio-emotional development, review what applications of this approach have accomplished, and point to promising future directions
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Towards a dual process model of foreign policy ideology Curr. Opin. Behav. Sci. (IF 3.99) Pub Date : 2020-06-20 Brian Rathbun
Research on foreign policy ideology indicates a two-dimensional structure with clear parallels to numerous dual-process psychological frameworks. In foreign affairs, as in domestic affairs, individual differ in their underlying motivation to both provide and protect, captured by the constructs of cooperative internationalism (CI) and militant internationalism (MI), respectively. Recent studies indicate
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System justification in France: liberté, égalité, fraternité Curr. Opin. Behav. Sci. (IF 3.99) Pub Date : 2020-06-16 Melanie Langer, Pavlos Vasilopoulos, Haley McAvay, John T Jost
Because of the legacy of the French Revolution and the post-World War II consensus on providing social welfare, France provides an intriguing context in which to investigate political ideology and system justification. We summarize the results of a large, nationally representative survey of French voters, which revealed that general system justification was associated—not with rightist ideology, as
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Neuroscientific approaches to the study of system justification Curr. Opin. Behav. Sci. (IF 3.99) Pub Date : 2020-06-16 Hyun Hannah Nam
Recent advances in the study of political attitudes and behavior have incorporated neurobiological methods to elucidate the basic affective and cognitive processes that support political decisions. This review integrates perspectives in political neuroscience research and focuses on the neurobiological bases of system justification — the motivation to regard the existing social system as legitimate
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Ideology and predictive processing: coordination, bias, and polarization in socially constrained error minimization Curr. Opin. Behav. Sci. (IF 3.99) Pub Date : 2020-06-14 Nathan E Wheeler, Suraiya Allidina, Elizabeth U Long, Stephen P Schneider, Ingrid J Haas, William A Cunningham
Recent models of cognition suggest that the brain may implement predictive processing, in which top-down expectations constrain incoming sensory data. In this perspective, expectations are updated (error minimization) only if sensory data sufficiently deviate from these expectations (prediction error). Although originally applied to perception, predictive processing is thought to generally characterize
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The prime psychological suspects of toxic political polarization Curr. Opin. Behav. Sci. (IF 3.99) Pub Date : 2020-06-13 Samantha L Moore-Berg, Boaz Hameiri, Emile Bruneau
Democracies welcome dissent, but when disagreements turn divisive, they can imperil social cohesion and become toxic to democracy. We review research on the psychological processes associated with toxic polarization. Prior work has generally focused on polarization as a consequence of ideological differences or affective evaluations. We assess recent research on these dimensions, and extend the scope
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Not quite over the rainbow: the unrelenting and insidious nature of heteronormative ideology Curr. Opin. Behav. Sci. (IF 3.99) Pub Date : 2020-05-12 Jojanneke van der Toorn, Ruthie Pliskin, Thekla Morgenroth
Heteronormative ideology refers to the belief that there are two separate and opposing genders with associated natural roles that match their assigned sex, and that heterosexuality is a given. It is pervasive and persistent, carrying negative consequences. Because it is embedded in societal institutions and propagated through socialization and other widely held ideologies, it is prevalent among both
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Sleep’s role in memory reconsolidation Curr. Opin. Behav. Sci. (IF 3.99) Pub Date : 2020-05-12 Katharine C Simon, Rebecca L Gómez, Lynn Nadel
Processes occurring during sleep contribute critically to the stabilization of new learning for long-term retention. Previously consolidated memory traces can be reactivated rendering memories labile again, and vulnerable to disruption or alteration. Across the phases of reactivation, modification, and re-consolidation, processing during sleep may play an essential role in restabilizing the transformed
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Co-evolution of sleep spindles, learning and memory in children Curr. Opin. Behav. Sci. (IF 3.99) Pub Date : 2020-05-11 Kerstin Hoedlmoser
Research unravelling the facilitating role of sleep for cognitive processes is nowadays mainly performed in adults. Neural activity patterns during NREM sleep like sleep spindles and slow oscillations have been shown to guide and time the reactivation, transformation and stabilization of memories. Whether and how sleep — especially sleep spindles — similarly plays a role in the development of learning
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Neural networks as a critical level of description for cognitive neuroscience Curr. Opin. Behav. Sci. (IF 3.99) Pub Date : 2020-05-11 Timothy T Rogers
With the success of artificial neural network models in machine learning has come a renewed interest in the possibility that neural networks can be used as scientific models for understanding the function of real neural systems. When similar questions initially arose in the 1980’s and ‘90’s, the many discrepancies between artificial and natural neural systems contributed to the widespread view that
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