Mental life is filled with thoughts about the social world and one’s place in it. Mentalizing, or ascribing mental content (e.g., preferences, beliefs, visuospatial perspectives) to others and oneself, often requires considering self-representations and target representations in relation to each other. We propose a model of mentalizing wherein simulation, which, minimally, involves activating a self-representation

A long-standing question in cognitive sciences concerns the specific contribution of linguistic and sensorimotor experience in shaping conceptual knowledge. A new study by Xu et al. shows that large language models (LLMs) represent a powerful tool to advance this debate, helping to disentangle the relative contribution of different experiential modalities.

Blindsight patients lack conscious visual perception yet perform visual tasks effectively, suggesting many animals may similarly rely on non-conscious vision. Here, we discuss how to investigate visual consciousness in miniature brains, using bees as a case study. This new endeavor can reveal the minimal neural requirements for visual awareness.

The self-interest bias, judging morally questionable actions as less wrong when they benefit us, is prevalent, yet the cognitive mechanisms behind this bias remain unclear. Across six preregistered studies (N = 1680), we investigated whether the strength of the self-interest bias in moral judgments depends on available cognitive resources. Specifically, we manipulated cognitive resources using time

Rapid progress in artificial intelligence (AI) capabilities has drawn fresh attention to the prospect of consciousness in AI. There is an urgent need for rigorous methods to assess AI systems for consciousness, but significant uncertainty about relevant issues in consciousness science. We present a method for assessing AI systems for consciousness that involves exploring what follows from existing

Electrophysiological markers of spontaneous thought are well established, yet less is known regarding the timescales of two core dimensions: task relatedness and thought orientation. In a recent study, Hua and colleagues reported dissociable timescales in the behavioral and neural correlates of these thought dimensions, offering insights into their distinct temporal dynamics.

There is conflicting evidence for the extent to which spontaneous evaluations of outgroup members are influenced by social categorization. Contemporary models of evaluation like the APE model (Gawronski & Bodenhausen, 2006) imply that spontaneous evaluations are a function of the evaluative implications of the stereotypic associations of a target object and the context in which it is encountered. In

Targets of ostracism are motivated to reconnect with others socially. One strategy to reconnect with others could be to adopt prevailing opinions in a group. Yet, as opinions held by groups are often perceived as more extreme than opinions held by individuals, targets of ostracism could over-adjust, resulting in opinion extremization. Here, we aim to investigate whether ostracism increases opinion

Awe is typically elicited in response to perceptually vast stimuli and is often characterized by a reduced focus on the self and feeling small and insignificant. One key effect of awe is that it induces “self-transcendent experiences” (STEs), which involve two components: connectedness and self-loss. It is, however, not clear yet what determines whether the connectedness or self-loss component of STEs

Offering forgiveness can confer benefits to victims in terms of enhanced sense of self. In the present research, we argue that refusing to forgive may also promote psychological benefits. Across three studies, a recall design (N = 300), an experiment (N = 327), and its pre-registered replication (N = 296), we examined the potential psychological benefits of refusing forgiveness and offering forgiveness

In recent years, scientific interest in sensory processing sensitivity (SPS), a personality trait reflecting increased sensitivity, reactivity, and deeper processing of stimuli, has grown exponentially. Building on this momentum, we synthesise recent SPS literature to discuss several central themes, including SPS assessment, relations to other personality traits and diverse positive and negative outcomes

Despite decades of progress, gender inequalities in workplace authority and compensation persist. This review reveals recent advances in understanding how gendered careers emerge through three psychological mechanisms prevalent in organizations: (i) intrapersonal gender biases, (ii) interpersonal power dynamics, and (iii) intergroup gender relations. Because power is perceived as masculine, women in

Episodic memories are highly dynamic and change in nonlinear ways over time. This dynamism is not captured by existing systems consolidation theories that predict a unidirectional process where memories are first supported by the hippocampus and then the neocortex. Here, I propose a 3D state space for episodic memories. The first two dimensions relate to whether episodic retrieval is driven by the

The arts are widely recognized for their profound psychological and social benefits. Although historically viewed as a uniquely human pursuit, art is increasingly created with artificial intelligence (AI). In the current work, we explore whether AI-generated art evokes the same emotional reactions and inspires the same interpersonal benefits as human-created art. Integrating appraisal theories of emotion

In this research we explore why people have dualist beliefs about certain psychological phenomena (associating them with the soul or spirit rather than the brain), and the consequences of those beliefs for people's lay conceptions of what science can and cannot explain about how the mind works. We also explore whether dualist beliefs are intuitive and corrected upon reflection or rather held explicitly

Communication errors are typically viewed as detrimental, yet they can benefit collective foraging in social insects. Temnothorax ants provide a powerful model for studying how such errors arise during tandem running and how they might improve group performance under certain environmental conditions.

People naturally seek group memberships that support their need for belonging and desire to interact with like-minded others (e.g., those with similar affiliations, such as political parties, preferred sports teams, or academic disciplines). However, we theorize and show that people may be more willing to forgo such homophily in the face of competition. We propose this pattern arises because of the

Major contemporary religions tend to emphasize self-control and moral purity in their believers. Such belief systems may have implications for moral judgments and social predictions. One topic that has received attention—with mixed results—is the relative punitiveness of religious believers. In the present research, we examine whether religiosity predicts punitive attitudes and propose a novel mechanism:

Dehumanization, the perception of others as less than fully human, is widely invoked in discourse on ethnopolitical conflict. Yet its validity as a psychological construct has come under growing scrutiny. Critics have questioned its divergent validity, arguing it may merely reflect interpersonal and intergroup bias, and its convergent validity, given the proliferation of diverse and potentially unrelated

Exposure to violence has been identified as a risk factor for openness to violent activism (VA) or the support of groups and/or movements that use violence to further social or political goals. It is important to understand how psychological and social factors influence this association to inform public health models of prevention. The present study examined the role of psychological and social factors

We conduct tests of a hybrid-similarity exemplar model on its ability to account for the context-dependent memorability of items embedded in high-dimensional category spaces. According to the model, recognition judgments are based on the summed similarity of test items to studied exemplars. The model allows for the idea that "self-similarity" among objects differs due to matching on highly salient

Categories are fundamental to cognition. By age 2, infants form categories-animals, foods, and so on-and leverage them to learn new words. What enables them to do so? Prior work has focused on mechanisms internal to infants (e.g., core concepts and biases) and perceptual features of stimuli that facilitate learning (e.g., shape). Here we test the hypothesis that a key property of language input itself-the

Research on 'cognitive listening' has grown exponentially in recent years. Lacking, however, is a conceptual framework to organize the abundance of data from the hearing, cognitive, and linguistic sciences. We offer the data-resource-language (DRL) framework that draws from the notions of data-limited and resource-limited processes to provide a roadmap for understanding the interaction between auditory