Humans possess a remarkable ability to make decisions within real-world environments that are expansive, complex, and multidimensional. Human cognitive computational neuroscience has sought to exploit reinforcement learning (RL) as a framework within which to explain human decision-making, often focusing on constrained, artificial experimental tasks. In this article, we review recent efforts that use

Many people report a form of internal language known as inner speech (IS). This review examines recent growth of research interest in the phenomenon, which has broadly supported a theoretical model in which IS is a functional language process that can confer benefits for cognition in a range of domains. A key insight to have emerged in recent years is that IS is an embodied experience characterized

Despite the physiological complexity of the hypothalamus, its role is typically restricted to initiation or cessation of innate behaviors. For example, theories of lateral hypothalamus argue that it is a switch to turn feeding ‘on’ and ‘off’ as dictated by higher-order structures that render when feeding is appropriate. However, recent data demonstrate that the lateral hypothalamus is critical for

Abstract not available

Adolescents are often portrayed as reckless risk-takers because of their immature brains. Recent research has cast doubt on this portrayal, identifying the environment as a moderator of risk-taking. However, the key features of environments that drive risk-taking behaviors are often underspecified. We call for greater attention to the environment by drawing on research showing that its statistical

Abstract not available

Antisocial behaviour (ASB) incurs substantial costs to the individual and society. Cognitive neuroscience has the potential to shed light on developmental risk for ASB, but it cannot achieve this potential in an ‘essentialist’ framework that focuses on the brain and cognition isolated from the environment. Here, we present the case for studying the social transactional and iterative unfolding of brain

Abstract not available

Humans have developed a unique ability to think about hypothetical events (imagined, fictional, improbable events) and to distinguish them from real events (directly experienced, factual, certain events). We examined how people mentally construe events that are more and less hypothetical. In six pre-registered studies (N = 1605) participants completed the Behavioral Identification Form, in which they

Not getting vaccinated or an annual physical examination are examples of passive risk-taking. The present research investigates whether people choose differently for themselves or for others in passive risk-taking for health and safety. The results of seven studies (N = 2304, including two preregistered studies) provided reliable evidence that, compared with personal decision-makers, advisors were

Governments and organizations often offer cash payments for vaccination. How effective are such payments? A literature review shows that incentives usually increase vaccination, especially for nonhesitant populations and when using guaranteed payments. Concerns about negative unintended consequences are unsupported. We also discuss open questions and avenues for future research.

Network neuroscience has emphasized the connectional properties of neural elements – cells, populations, and regions. This has come at the expense of the anatomical and functional connections that link these elements to one another. A new perspective – namely one that emphasizes 'edges' – may prove fruitful in addressing outstanding questions in network neuroscience. We highlight one recently proposed

Prediction is often regarded as an integral aspect of incremental language comprehension, but little is known about the cognitive architectures and mechanisms that support it. We review studies showing that listeners and readers use all manner of contextual information to generate multifaceted predictions about upcoming input. The nature of these predictions may vary between individuals owing to differences

Abstract not available

People often keep relevant information secret from others. For example, an employee might keep a coworker's plan to quit without giving notice secret from their manager, or someone might keep a friend's affair secret from their friend's spouse. In this article, we identify a critical but overlooked factor that determines whether an actor will disclose secret information they know about another person:

A growing literature demonstrates reluctant giving: Many people who voluntarily give to charity no longer do so when they have an excuse not to give. The mechanisms of reluctance, however, remain unclear. Consistent with this literature, we found that injecting attributional ambiguity into a real charitable decision significantly reduces donations. Participants in our studies (N = 2147) faced a binary

How do team leaders and followers synchronize their behaviors and brains to effectively manage intergroup conflicts? Zhang and colleagues offered a collective neurobehavioral narrative that delves into the intricacies of intergroup conflict. Their results underscore the importance of leaders’ group-oriented actions, along with leader–follower synchronization, in intergroup conflict resolution.

Davis and Bainbridge reveal a consistent memorability signal for artworks, both online and in a museum setting, which is predicted by the intrinsic visual attributes of the paintings. The fusion of artificial intelligence (AI) with artistic intuition emerges as a promising avenue to deepen our understanding of what makes images memorable.

People increasingly read text displayed on digital devices, including computers, handheld e-readers, and smartphones. Given this, there is rapidly growing interest in understanding how the cognitive processes that support the reading of static text (e.g., books, magazines, or newspapers) might be adapted to reading digital texts. Evidence from recent experiments suggests a complex interplay of visual

Goals play a central role in human cognition. However, computational theories of learning and decision-making often take goals as given. Here, we review key empirical findings showing that goals shape the representations of inputs, responses, and outcomes, such that setting a goal crucially influences the central aspects of any learning process: states, actions, and rewards. We thus argue that studying

Stigmatized versus non-stigmatized people advocating on behalf of the stigmatized group are perceived as more biased, suggesting that they might be less effective advocates. Yet, research testing whether stigmatized or non-stigmatized advocates are more persuasive has yielded mixed results. The current work builds on previous research to clarify that this occurs because stigmatized advocates are also

Objectivity norms can act as a source of mistrust of marginalized voices within organizations. In this paper, we study White evaluators' perceptions of Black applicants' objectivity and hireability in a field where objectivity is considered imperative: journalism. We predicted that Black journalists will be viewed as less objective and as having more ingroup bias regarding racial issues coverage compared

Many people, and American Christians in particular, view God as a benevolent protector. Those who believe in God may therefore expect that they can safely engage in potentially risky activities, secure in the knowledge that God will look out for their best interests and ensure good outcomes. Initial experiments supported this hypothesis, but recent attempts to replicate them failed. This unreliable

Research on gender differences in (self-)disclosure has produced mixed results, and, where differences have emerged, they may be an artifact of the measures employed. The present paper explores whether gender – defined as self-identified membership in one's sociocultural group – can indeed account for differences in the desire and propensity to divulge information to others. We additionally identify

Attention has been regarded as the ‘gatekeeper’ controlling what information gets selected into working memory. However, a new perspective has emerged with the discovery of attribute amnesia, a phenomenon revealing that people are frequently unable to report information they have just attended to moments ago. This report failure is thought to stem from a lack of consolidating the attended information

The contemporary political domain is characterized by widespread negativity. Much of this negativity is thought to be generated by strong partisans, who overall express more anger, animosity, and bias than weaker partisans. The present research proposes, however, that self-categorized political independents hold preferences based more in negativity than partisans do, making them more likely to frame

The action observation network (AON) has traditionally been thought to be dedicated to recognizing animate actions. A recent study by Karakose-Akbiyik et al. invites rethinking this assumption by demonstrating that the AON contains a shared neural code for general events, regardless of whether those events involve animate or inanimate entities.

Past research has demonstrated members of marginalized groups employ increased attentional bias to ingroup threats following situational exposure to ingroup prejudice (e.g., women's attention bias to sexism when anticipating sexism). Yet, prejudices towards similarly stigmatized groups are perceived to co-occur, such that racism imbues anticipated sexism for White women. The present research examined

Large language models (LLMs) show intriguing emergent behaviors, yet they receive around four or five orders of magnitude more language data than human children. What accounts for this vast difference in sample efficiency? Candidate explanations include children’s pre-existing conceptual knowledge, their use of multimodal grounding, and the interactive, social nature of their input.

Do large language models (LLMs) constitute a computational account of how humans process language? And if so, what is the role of (psycho)linguistic theory in understanding the relationship between artificial and biological minds? The answer depends on choosing among several, fundamentally distinct ways of interpreting these models as hypotheses about humans.

Previous research has examined lay conceptualizations of intentionality and negligence. This work has shown that intentionality is attributed when several key mental states are perceived as simultaneously present (i.e., knowledge, desire, awareness, and intent), suggesting an actor was trying to bring about an outcome by acting in a particular way. Following this, research has shown that attributions

Individuals who reject sacrificial harm to maximize overall outcomes, consistent with deontological (vs. utilitarian) ethics, appear warmer, more moral, and more trustworthy. Yet, deontological judgments may not only convey emotional reactions, but also strict adherence to moral rules. We therefore hypothesized that people view deontologists as more morally absolutist and hence self-righteous—as perceiving

COVID-19 is associated with a range of neurological, cognitive, and mental health symptoms both acutely and chronically that can persist for many months after infection in people with long-COVID syndrome. Investigations of cognitive function and neuroimaging have begun to elucidate the nature of some of these symptoms. They reveal that, although cognitive deficits may be related to brain imaging abnormalities

The general process model of threat and defense (Jonas et al., 2014) states that a common affective-motivational mechanism underlies threat-related solution strategies and threat-unrelated palliative responses to solvable and unsolvable (i.e., existential) threats. In a series of three studies (Ntotal = 683), we systematically tested the assumption that threat induces anxiety proximally (that is, immediately

Due to the Covid-19 pandemic, many employees have spent a considerable amount of time being forced to work from home (WFH). We draw on the Job Demands-Resources (JD-R) model and self-affirmation theory to study how the anticipation of returning to the physical workplace affects work engagement and burnout. We assumed that employees are conflicted about returning to work (RTW). Whereas they may look

Semantic cognition and numerical cognition are dissociable faculties with separable neural mechanisms. However, recent advances in the cortical topography of the temporal and parietal lobes have revealed a common organisational principle for the neural representations of semantics and numbers. We discuss their convergence and divergence through the prism of topography.

Abstract not available

Abstract not available

The classical notion of a ‘language of thought’ (LoT), advanced prominently by the philosopher Jerry Fodor, is an influential position in cognitive science whereby the mental representations underpinning thought are considered to be compositional and productive, enabling the construction of new complex thoughts from more primitive symbolic concepts. LoT theory has been challenged because a neural implementation

People seem to have stronger disapproving reactions when they have unfairly suffered from bias than when they have unfairly benefited from it (i.e., they seem less concerned when they have experienced positive bias). Is this because people do not care about the consequences of bias if it has positively affected them, or is it because they fail to notice positive bias? We argue that it is the latter

When faced with the potential threat of an extreme weather event, such as a hurricane, people must make important decisions about how much, if it all, they will prepare for that event. Many factors may influence people's decisions to prepare or not prepare – including social factors. In three studies among predominately White, female, and affluent online samples (total N = 784), we tested whether social

In an updated meta-analysis of 90 prospective studies with over two million adults, Wang et al. found that social isolation and loneliness were linked to a substantial increase in all-cause mortality in the general population. They also discovered a higher mortality risk in isolated individuals with cardiovascular disease (CVD) or cancer.

Recent work by Pang et al. enriches our understanding of how the anatomy of the human brain constrains its function by demonstrating that brain geometry plays a crucial role in predicting neuronal dynamics. We highlight some key findings from this work while also addressing some points of confusion that could potentially cause public misunderstanding.

How does the human brain develop stable emotion representations? According to recent work by Camacho et al., neural representations of contextualized emotional cues are distinct and fairly stable by mid-to-late childhood and activation patterns become increasingly similar between individuals during adolescence. Here, I propose a framework for investigating contextualized emotion processing.

While research has studied the consequences of being ambivalent about a single attitude object, we know little about how dispositionally ambivalent and non-ambivalent targets are perceived. Across six experiments we examined how people perceive and mentally represent dispositionally ambivalent and non-ambivalent others, and how people expect to interact with dispositionally ambivalent and non-ambivalent

People need to accurately understand and predict others' emotions in order to build and maintain meaningful social connections. However, when they encounter new social partners, people often do not have enough information about them to make accurate inferences. Rather, they often resort to an egocentric heuristic, and make predictions about a target by using their own self-knowledge as a proxy. Is

Contemplative practices are a staple of modern life and have historically been intertwined with morality. However, do these practices in fact improve our morality? The answer remains unclear because the science of contemplative practices has focused on unidimensional aspects of morality, which do not align with the type of interdependent moral functioning these practices aspire to cultivate. Here,

Abstract not available

Vicarious reward plays a pivotal role in shaping altruism and prosociality. However, neural circuit mechanisms underlying the distinction between vicarious reward and experienced reward are poorly understood. Putnam et al. recently demonstrated that the two types of reward are represented by distinct coordination frequencies within the same cingulate–amygdala pathway.

Abstract not available

The current work tested whether perceivers believe that women, relative to men, are likely to exaggerate versus downplay pain, an effect we refer to as the gender-pain exaggeration bias. The gender-pain exaggeration bias was operationalized as the extent to which perceivers believe women, relative to men, claim more pain than they feel. Across four experiments, we found that women were expected to

Modifiable risk and protective factors for boosting brain and cognitive development and preventing neurodegeneration and cognitive decline are embraced in neuroimaging studies. We call for sobriety regarding the timing and quantity of such influences on brain and cognition. Individual differences in the level of brain and cognition, many of which present already at birth and early in development, appear

People often have some degree of choice over the stimuli they sample and learn more about. These sampling decisions can play an important role in evaluative learning, with recent work showing that sampling a stimulus more frequently predicts a positive shift in its evaluation (Hütter, Niese, & Ihmels, 2022). The current work suggests sampling does not merely have a direct effect of positivity on evaluations

Human social learning is increasingly occurring on online social platforms, such as Twitter, Facebook, and TikTok. On these platforms, algorithms exploit existing social-learning biases (i.e., towards prestigious, ingroup, moral, and emotional information, or ‘PRIME’ information) to sustain users’ attention and maximize engagement. Here, we synthesize emerging insights into ‘algorithm-mediated social

Individuals typically want what they expect to like, often based on memories of previous positive experiences. However, in some situations desire can decouple completely from memories and from learned predictions of outcome value. The potential for desire to separate from prediction arises from independent operating rules that control motivational incentive salience. Incentive salience, or 'wanting'

Theory of mind research has traditionally focused on the ascription of mental states to a single individual. Here, we introduce a theory of collective mind: the ascription of a unified mental state to a group of agents with convergent experiences. Rather than differentiation between one’s personal perspective and that of another agent, a theory of collective mind requires perspectival unification across

Individuals often engage in brokering behaviors intended to influence other people's interactions and relationships. An open research question in the nascent literature on brokering as a social process concerns its situational antecedents. We introduce and test the novel hypothesis that employees' construal of the structure of work organizations as a hierarchy versus a network shapes the extent to

Patch foraging is a near-ubiquitous behaviour across the animal kingdom and characterises many decision-making domains encountered by humans. We review how a disposition to explore in adolescence may reflect the evolutionary conditions under which hunter-gatherers foraged for resources. We propose that neurocomputational mechanisms responsible for reward processing, learning, and cognitive control

Does expertise mostly stem from pattern recognition or look-ahead search? van Opheusden et al. contribute to this important debate in cognitive psychology and artificial intelligence (AI) with a multi-method, multi-experiment study and a new model. Using a novel, relatively simple board game, they show that players increase depth of search when improving their skill.

Research on face perception has established that faces surrounded by threatening contexts are perceived as less trustworthy. Moreover, recent studies revealed that such a face-context integration effect is moderated by the nature of the relational qualifier connecting the face and the context: presenting a face as belonging to either the perpetrator or the victim of the threatening context changes