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Defining dehumanization broadly does not mean including everything Trends Cogn. Sci. (IF 20.229) Pub Date : 2022-05-13 Nour S. Kteily, Alexander P. Landry
Abstract not available
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If everything is dehumanization, then nothing is Trends Cogn. Sci. (IF 20.229) Pub Date : 2022-05-13 Paul Bloom
Abstract not available
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How variability shapes learning and generalization Trends Cogn. Sci. (IF 20.229) Pub Date : 2022-05-13 Limor Raviv, Gary Lupyan, Shawn C. Green
Learning is using past experiences to inform new behaviors and actions. Because all experiences are unique, learning always requires some generalization. An effective way of improving generalization is to expose learners to more variable (and thus often more representative) input. More variability tends to make initial learning more challenging, but eventually leads to more general and robust performance
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Social cognition in insects Trends Cogn. Sci. (IF 20.229) Pub Date : 2022-05-12 Lars Chittka, Natacha Rossi
Insects feature some of the most complex societies in the animal kingdom, but a historic perception persists that such complexity emerges from interactions between individuals whose behaviours are largely guided by innate routines. Challenging this perception, recent work shows that insects feature many aspects of social intelligence found in vertebrate societies, such as individual recognition, learning
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Effortless training of attention and self-control: mechanisms and applications Trends Cogn. Sci. (IF 20.229) Pub Date : 2022-05-09 Yi-Yuan Tang, Rongxiang Tang, Michael I. Posner, James J. Gross
For the past 50 years, cognitive scientists have assumed that training attention and self-control must be effortful. However, growing evidence suggests promising effects of effortless training approaches such as nature exposure, flow experience, and effortless practice on attention and self-control. This opinion article focuses on effortless training of attention and self-control. We begin by introducing
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Ritalin as a causal perturbation Trends Cogn. Sci. (IF 20.229) Pub Date : 2022-04-29 Catrina M. Hacker, Nicole C. Rust
Causal perturbations provide the strongest tests of the relationships between brain mechanism and brain function. In cognitive neuroscience, persuasive causal perturbations are difficult to achieve. In a recent paper, Ni et al. cleverly use the neuropsychiatric drug methylphenidate (Ritalin) to causally test the brain mechanisms that support goal-directed attention.
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The role of the locus coeruleus in shaping adaptive cortical melodies Trends Cogn. Sci. (IF 20.229) Pub Date : 2022-04-22 Gabriel Wainstein, Eli J. Müller, Natasha Taylor, Brandon Munn, James M. Shine
Neural dynamics are shaped and constrained by the projections of a small nucleus in the pons: the noradrenergic locus coeruleus (LC). Much like a bow to the brain’s violin, activity in the LC lacks content specificity, but instead dynamically shapes the excitability and receptivity of neurons across the brain. In this review, we explain how the style of the bowing technique, which is analogous to different
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Abstract task representations for inference and control Trends Cogn. Sci. (IF 20.229) Pub Date : 2022-04-22 Avinash R. Vaidya, David Badre
Behavioral flexibility depends on our capacity to build and leverage abstract knowledge about tasks. Recently, two separate lines of research have implicated distinct brain networks in representing abstract task information: a frontoparietal cortical network, and a network involving the medial temporal lobe (MTL), medial prefrontal, and orbitofrontal cortex (OMPFC). These observations have mostly been
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Can sequencing explain the in–out effect? Trends Cogn. Sci. (IF 20.229) Pub Date : 2022-04-21 Moritz Ingendahl, Tobias Vogel, Sascha Topolinski
Abstract not available
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Interoceptive pathways to understand and treat mental health conditions Trends Cogn. Sci. (IF 20.229) Pub Date : 2022-04-21 Camilla L. Nord, Sarah N. Garfinkel
An increasing recognition that brain and body are dynamically coupled has enriched our scientific understanding of mental health conditions. Peripheral signals interact centrally to influence how we think and feel, generating our sense of the internal condition of the body, a process known as interoception. Disruptions to this interoceptive system may contribute to clinical conditions, including anxiety
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Memory leaks: information shared across memory systems Trends Cogn. Sci. (IF 20.229) Pub Date : 2022-04-21 Edwin M. Robertson
The brain is highly segregated. Multiple mechanisms ensure that different types of memories are processed independently. Nonetheless, information leaks out across these memory systems. Only recently has the diversity of these leaks been revealed. Different memory types (skills vs. facts) can interact in simple ways, either allowing or preventing their further processing, or in more complex ways, allowing
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Easy does it: sequencing explains the in-out effect Trends Cogn. Sci. (IF 20.229) Pub Date : 2022-04-21 Maryellen C. MacDonald, Daniel J. Weiss
Abstract not available
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Free will without consciousness? Trends Cogn. Sci. (IF 20.229) Pub Date : 2022-04-12 Liad Mudrik, Inbal Gur Arie, Yoni Amir, Yarden Shir, Pamela Hieronymi, Uri Maoz, Timothy O'Connor, Aaron Schurger, Manuel Vargas, Tillmann Vierkant, Walter Sinnott-Armstrong, Adina Roskies
Findings demonstrating decision-related neural activity preceding volitional actions have dominated the discussion about how science can inform the free will debate. These discussions have largely ignored studies suggesting that decisions might be influenced or biased by various unconscious processes. If these effects are indeed real, do they render subjects’ decisions less free or even unfree? Here
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Communicating uncertainty using words and numbers Trends Cogn. Sci. (IF 20.229) Pub Date : 2022-04-07 Mandeep K. Dhami, David R. Mandel
Life in an increasingly information-rich but highly uncertain world calls for an effective means of communicating uncertainty to a range of audiences. Senders prefer to convey uncertainty using verbal (e.g., likely) rather than numeric (e.g., 75% chance) probabilities, even in consequential domains, such as climate science. However, verbal probabilities can convey something other than uncertainty,
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A leaky evidence accumulation process for perceptual experience Trends Cogn. Sci. (IF 20.229) Pub Date : 2022-04-02 Michael Pereira, Denis Perrin, Nathan Faivre
The neural correlates supporting our perceptual experience of the world remain largely unknown. Recent studies have shown how stimulus detection and related confidence involve evidence accumulation (EA) processes similar to those involved in perceptual decision-making. Here, we propose that independently from any tasks, percepts are not static but fade in and out of consciousness according to the dynamics
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Computational ethics Trends Cogn. Sci. (IF 20.229) Pub Date : 2022-03-29 Edmond Awad, Sydney Levine, Michael Anderson, Susan Leigh Anderson, Vincent Conitzer, M.J. Crockett, Jim A.C. Everett, Theodoros Evgeniou, Alison Gopnik, Julian C. Jamison, Tae Wan Kim, S. Matthew Liao, Michelle N. Meyer, John Mikhail, Kweku Opoku-Agyemang, Jana Schaich Borg, Juliana Schroeder, Walter Sinnott-Armstrong, Josh B. Tenenbaum
Technological advances are enabling roles for machines that present novel ethical challenges. The study of 'AI ethics' has emerged to confront these challenges, and connects perspectives from philosophy, computer science, law, and economics. Less represented in these interdisciplinary efforts is the perspective of cognitive science. We propose a framework – computational ethics – that specifies how
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Undersociality: miscalibrated social cognition can inhibit social connection Trends Cogn. Sci. (IF 20.229) Pub Date : 2022-03-24 Nicholas Epley, Michael Kardas, Xuan Zhao, Stav Atir, Juliana Schroeder
A person’s well-being depends heavily on forming and maintaining positive relationships, but people can be reluctant to connect in ways that would create or strengthen relationships. Emerging research suggests that miscalibrated social cognition may create psychological barriers to connecting with others more often. Specifically, people may underestimate how positively others will respond to their
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The relationship between habits and motor skills in humans Trends Cogn. Sci. (IF 20.229) Pub Date : 2022-03-17 Yue Du, John W. Krakauer, Adrian M. Haith
How do habit and skill relate to one another? Among many traditions of habit research, we suggest that 'slip-of-action' habits are the type most likely to relate to motor skill. Habits are traditionally thought of as a property of behavior as a whole. We suggest, however, that habits are better understood at the level of intermediate computations and, at this level, habits can be considered to be equivalent
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Understanding the human brain: insights from comparative biology Trends Cogn. Sci. (IF 20.229) Pub Date : 2022-03-16 Alex R. DeCasien, Robert A. Barton, James P. Higham
Human brains are exceptionally large, support distinctive cognitive processes, and evolved by natural selection to mediate adaptive behavior. Comparative biology situates the human brain within an evolutionary context to illuminate how it has been shaped by selection and how its structure relates to evolutionary function, while identifying the developmental and molecular changes that were involved
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Seeing men everywhere, even in toast Trends Cogn. Sci. (IF 20.229) Pub Date : 2022-03-11 April H. Bailey
Women and men each represent about half the population, but people think of the concept person more as a man. Wardle et al. recently found that people also see face-like objects more as men than as women. This finding generates further questions on whether bias about concepts and faces might differ.
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On second thoughts: changes of mind in decision-making Trends Cogn. Sci. (IF 20.229) Pub Date : 2022-03-09 Caleb Stone, Jason B. Mattingley, Dragan Rangelov
The ability to change initial decisions in the face of new or potentially conflicting information is fundamental to adaptive behavior. From perceptual tasks to multiple-choice tests, research has shown that changes of mind often improve task performance by correcting initial errors. Decision makers must, however, strike a balance between improvements that might arise from changes of mind and potential
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The complicated but solvable threat–politics relationship Trends Cogn. Sci. (IF 20.229) Pub Date : 2022-03-09 Mark J. Brandt, Bert N. Bakker
Popular models on the threat–politics association suggest that threats cause right-wing political preferences. Failed replications, crossnational variation, and examples of threats causing left-wing preferences suggest this relationship is more complicated. We introduce a model of the reciprocal threat–politics relationship that reconciles prior conflicting findings and raises new questions.
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Explaining semantic typology, forms and all Trends Cogn. Sci. (IF 20.229) Pub Date : 2022-03-02 Shane Steinert-Threlkeld
By modeling both meaning and form in terms of efficient communication, Mollica et al. advance the state of the art in explaining the restricted variation exhibited in the world’s languages. This opens an exciting path towards explanations of linguistic typology capturing the full richness of the form-meaning mappings in the world’s languages.
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Good-enough language production Trends Cogn. Sci. (IF 20.229) Pub Date : 2022-03-01 Adele E. Goldberg, Fernanda Ferreira
Our ability to comprehend and produce language is one of humans’ most impressive skills, but it is not flawless. We must convey and interpret messages via a noisy channel in ever-changing contexts and we sometimes fail to access an optimal combination of words and grammatical constructions. Here, we extend the notion of good-enough (GN) comprehension to GN production, which allows us to unify a wide
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Associative symmetry: a divide between humans and nonhumans? Trends Cogn. Sci. (IF 20.229) Pub Date : 2022-03-01 Thomas F. Chartier, Joël Fagot
Anthropocentrism can bias scientific conclusions. As a case study, we challenge the 40-year-old associative symmetry dogma, supposed to cognitively set apart humans from other species. Out of 37 human studies surveyed, only three truly demonstrate symmetry, of which only one (on five participants) suggests that symmetry is spontaneously formed.
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Face perception: computational insights from phylogeny Trends Cogn. Sci. (IF 20.229) Pub Date : 2022-02-26 Marlene Behrmann, Galia Avidan
Studies of face perception in primates elucidate the psychological and neural mechanisms that support this critical and complex ability. Recent progress in characterizing face perception across species, for example in insects and reptiles, has highlighted the ubiquity over phylogeny of this key ability for social interactions and survival. Here, we review the competence in face perception across species
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What kind of network is the brain? Trends Cogn. Sci. (IF 20.229) Pub Date : 2022-02-22 John D. Mollon, Chie Takahashi, Marina V. Danilova
The different areas of the cerebral cortex are linked by a network of white matter, comprising the myelinated axons of pyramidal cells. Is this network a neural net, in the sense that representations of the world are embodied in the structure of the net, its pattern of nodes, and connections? Or is it a communications network, where the same physical substrate carries different information from moment
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Closed-loop neuromodulation for studying spontaneous activity and causality Trends Cogn. Sci. (IF 20.229) Pub Date : 2022-02-21 Michal Ramot, Alex Martin
Having established that spontaneous brain activity follows meaningful coactivation patterns and correlates with behavior, researchers have turned their attention to understanding its function and behavioral significance. We suggest closed-loop neuromodulation as a neural perturbation tool uniquely well suited for this task. Closed-loop neuromodulation has primarily been viewed as an interventionist
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Cluttered memory representations shape cognition in old age Trends Cogn. Sci. (IF 20.229) Pub Date : 2022-02-11 Tarek Amer, Jordana S. Wynn, Lynn Hasher
Declines in episodic memory in older adults are typically attributed to differences in encoding strategies and/or retrieval processes. These views omit a critical factor in age-related memory differences: the nature of the representations that are formed. Here, we review evidence that older adults create more cluttered (or richer) representations of events than do younger adults. These cluttered representations
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Can’t wait or won’t wait? The two barriers to patient decisions Trends Cogn. Sci. (IF 20.229) Pub Date : 2022-02-08 Annabelle R. Roberts, Ayelet Fishbach
Impatience results from the belief that waiting is either too hard or not worth it. Distinguishing between these barriers informs which intervention will increase patience. Making waiting easier increases patience when people are unable to wait. Increasing the value of waiting increases patience when they lack the desire to wait.
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Comparing wolves and dogs: current status and implications for human ‘self-domestication’ Trends Cogn. Sci. (IF 20.229) Pub Date : 2022-02-07 Friederike Range, Sarah Marshall-Pescini
Based on claims that dogs are less aggressive and show more sophisticated socio-cognitive skills compared with wolves, dog domestication has been invoked to support the idea that humans underwent a similar ‘self-domestication’ process. Here, we review studies on wolf–dog differences and conclude that results do not support such claims: dogs do not show increased socio-cognitive skills and they are
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Mapping the social landscape: tracking patterns of interpersonal relationships Trends Cogn. Sci. (IF 20.229) Pub Date : 2022-02-03 Ruby Basyouni, Carolyn Parkinson
It is widely believed that the demands of living in large, complexly bonded social groups played a key role in the evolution of human cognition. This review focuses on a critical but understudied skillset in the social-living toolkit: the ability to acquire, maintain, and use knowledge of the interpersonal relationships among the people around oneself. We provide a multidisciplinary synthesis of a
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The importance of an exaggerated attention bottleneck for understanding psychopathy Trends Cogn. Sci. (IF 20.229) Pub Date : 2022-02-01 Arielle Baskin-Sommers, Inti A. Brazil
The psychopath has long captured the imagination. A name such as Ted Bundy evokes a morbid curiosity. The crimes committed by Bundy are so cruel that it is hard to imagine how someone could do such things. In this review we discuss evidence that exaggeration in an attention bottleneck is one mechanism that makes it possible for psychopathic individuals to be adept at focusing on a single stimulus feature
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Semantic tiles or hub-and-spokes? Trends Cogn. Sci. (IF 20.229) Pub Date : 2022-01-25 Timothy T. Rogers, Matthew A. Lambon Ralph
New results from Popham et al. generate ‘semantic maps’ from spoken narratives and movies that appear remarkably aligned near visual cortex. We consider whether such findings are consistent with the hub-and-spokes view of semantic representation or whether they require a rethinking of the cortical knowledge system.
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Mind-wandering: mechanistic insights from lesion, tDCS, and iEEG Trends Cogn. Sci. (IF 20.229) Pub Date : 2022-01-24 Julia W.Y. Kam, Matthias Mittner, Robert T. Knight
Cognitive neuroscience has witnessed a surge of interest in investigating the neural correlates of the mind when it drifts away from an ongoing task and the external environment. To that end, functional neuroimaging research has consistently implicated the default mode network (DMN) and frontoparietal control network (FPCN) in mind-wandering. Yet, it remains unknown which subregions within these networks
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When do sensitive periods emerge later in development? Trends Cogn. Sci. (IF 20.229) Pub Date : 2021-12-18 Dylan G. Gee
Although plasticity is often heightened early in life, innovative modeling from Walasek and colleagues demonstrates that sensitive periods may emerge later in development when the reliability of environmental cues increases across ontogeny. In doing so they provide novel mechanistic insight into empirical observations of heightened environmental influences during adolescence.
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Data assimilation in dynamical cognitive science Trends Cogn. Sci. (IF 20.229) Pub Date : 2021-12-28 Ralf Engbert, Maximilian M. Rabe, Lisa Schwetlick, Stefan A. Seelig, Sebastian Reich, Shravan Vasishth
Dynamical models make specific assumptions about cognitive processes that generate human behavior. In data assimilation, these models are tested against time-ordered data. Recent progress on Bayesian data assimilation demonstrates that this approach combines the strengths of statistical modeling of individual differences with the those of dynamical cognitive models.
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Three cortical scene systems and their development Trends Cogn. Sci. (IF 20.229) Pub Date : 2021-11-29 Daniel D. Dilks, Frederik S. Kamps, Andrew S. Persichetti
Since the discovery of three scene-selective regions in the human brain, a central assumption has been that all three regions directly support navigation. We propose instead that cortical scene processing regions support three distinct computational goals (and one not for navigation at all): (i) The parahippocampal place area supports scene categorization, which involves recognizing the kind of place
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Perception in real-time: predicting the present, reconstructing the past Trends Cogn. Sci. (IF 20.229) Pub Date : 2021-12-29 Hinze Hogendoorn
We feel that we perceive events in the environment as they unfold in real-time. However, this intuitive view of perception is impossible to implement in the nervous system due to biological constraints such as neural transmission delays. I propose a new way of thinking about real-time perception: at any given moment, instead of representing a single timepoint, perceptual mechanisms represent an entire
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Path integration in normal aging and Alzheimer’s disease Trends Cogn. Sci. (IF 20.229) Pub Date : 2021-12-03 Vladislava Segen, Johnson Ying, Erik Morgan, Mark Brandon, Thomas Wolbers
In this review we discuss converging evidence from human and rodent research demonstrating how path integration (PI) is impaired in healthy aging and Alzheimer’s disease (AD), and point to the neural mechanisms that underlie these deficits. Importantly, we highlight that (i) the grid cell network in the entorhinal cortex is crucial for PI in both humans and rodents, (ii) PI deficits are present in
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Intrinsic neural timescales: temporal integration and segregation Trends Cogn. Sci. (IF 20.229) Pub Date : 2022-01-03 Annemarie Wolff, Nareg Berberian, Mehrshad Golesorkhi, Javier Gomez-Pilar, Federico Zilio, Georg Northoff
We are continuously bombarded by external inputs of various timescales from the environment. How does the brain process this multitude of timescales? Recent resting state studies show a hierarchy of intrinsic neural timescales (INT) with a shorter duration in unimodal regions (e.g., visual cortex and auditory cortex) and a longer duration in transmodal regions (e.g., default mode network). This unimodal–transmodal
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Next-generation deep learning based on simulators and synthetic data Trends Cogn. Sci. (IF 20.229) Pub Date : 2021-12-23 Celso M. de Melo, Antonio Torralba, Leonidas Guibas, James DiCarlo, Rama Chellappa, Jessica Hodgins
Deep learning (DL) is being successfully applied across multiple domains, yet these models learn in a most artificial way: they require large quantities of labeled data to grasp even simple concepts. Thus, the main bottleneck is often access to supervised data. Here, we highlight a trend in a potential solution to this challenge: synthetic data. Synthetic data are becoming accessible due to progress
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Dehumanization: trends, insights, and challenges Trends Cogn. Sci. (IF 20.229) Pub Date : 2022-01-15 Nour S. Kteily, Alexander P. Landry
Despite our many differences, one superordinate category we all belong to is ‘humans’. To strip away or overlook others’ humanity, then, is to mark them as ‘other’ and, typically, ‘less than’. We review growing evidence revealing how and why we subtly disregard the humanity of those around us. We then highlight new research suggesting that we continue to blatantly dehumanize certain groups, overtly
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Exercise types and working memory components during development Trends Cogn. Sci. (IF 20.229) Pub Date : 2022-01-11 Sebastian Ludyga, Markus Gerber, Keita Kamijo
Working memory is crucial to learning and academic success. Exercise has been found to benefit working memory in late life, but its effects during cognitive development are less clear. Building on findings that working memory is supported by the motor system, we highlight the sensitivity of different working memory components to acute and long-term exercise in children and adolescents. We also consider
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Distortion of mental body representations Trends Cogn. Sci. (IF 20.229) Pub Date : 2021-12-21 Matthew R. Longo
Our body is central to our sense of self, and distorted body representations are found in several serious medical conditions. This paper reviews evidence that distortions of body representations are also common in healthy individuals, and occur in domains including tactile spatial perception, proprioception, and the conscious body image. Across domains, there is a general tendency for body width to
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Extreme environments for understanding brain and cognition Trends Cogn. Sci. (IF 20.229) Pub Date : 2021-10-26 Alexander C. Stahn, Simone Kühn
Can life in extreme environments foster our understanding of the limits and adaptability of cognition and brain plasticity? We review characteristics of spaceflight and spaceflight analogues, such as bed rest, dry immersion, parabolic flights, and isolated and controlled confinement, and discuss the potential of utilizing these research settings to advance cognitive neuroscience.
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Value representation in the monkey hippocampus Trends Cogn. Sci. (IF 20.229) Pub Date : 2021-10-27 Sofia M. Landi, Elizabeth A. Buffalo
The hippocampus is thought to form cognitive maps across different domains of experience, including space and time. Recent work by Knudsen and Wallis identifies a map of abstract value space in the monkey hippocampus. We consider how these abstract variables might contribute to a comprehensive hippocampal representation of ongoing experience.
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Lay people’s beliefs about creativity: evidence for an insight bias Trends Cogn. Sci. (IF 20.229) Pub Date : 2021-10-16 Brian J. Lucas, Loran F. Nordgren
Research finds that creative ideas are generated by two cognitive pathways: insight and persistence. However, emerging research suggests people’s lay beliefs may not adequately reflect both routes. We propose that people exhibit an insight bias, such that they undervalue persistence and overvalue insight in the creative process.
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The articulatory in-out effect: replicable, but inexplicable Trends Cogn. Sci. (IF 20.229) Pub Date : 2021-10-30 Moritz Ingendahl, Tobias Vogel, Sascha Topolinski
People prefer inward over outward articulation dynamics, a phenomenon referred to as the articulatory in-out effect. It is empirically robust and generalizes across languages, settings, and stimuli. However, the theoretical explanation of the effect is still a matter of lively debate and in need of novel research directions.
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The role of neural tuning in quantity perception Trends Cogn. Sci. (IF 20.229) Pub Date : 2021-10-23 Andromachi Tsouli, Ben M. Harvey, Shir Hofstetter, Yuxuan Cai, Maarten J. van der Smagt, Susan F. te Pas, Serge O. Dumoulin
Perception of quantities, such as numerosity, timing, and size, is essential for behavior and cognition. Accumulating evidence demonstrates neurons processing quantities are tuned, that is, have a preferred quantity amount, not only for numerosity, but also other quantity dimensions and sensory modalities. We argue that quantity-tuned neurons are fundamental to understanding quantity perception. We
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Is there such a thing as a ‘good statistical learner’? Trends Cogn. Sci. (IF 20.229) Pub Date : 2021-11-19 Louisa Bogaerts, Noam Siegelman, Morten H. Christiansen, Ram Frost
A growing body of research investigates individual differences in the learning of statistical structure, tying them to variability in cognitive (dis)abilities. This approach views statistical learning (SL) as a general individual ability that underlies performance across a range of cognitive domains. But is there a general SL capacity that can sort individuals from ‘bad’ to ‘good’ statistical learners
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Noradrenergic modulation of rhythmic neural activity shapes selective attention Trends Cogn. Sci. (IF 20.229) Pub Date : 2021-11-16 Martin J. Dahl, Mara Mather, Markus Werkle-Bergner
During moments involving selective attention, the thalamus orchestrates the preferential processing of prioritized information by coordinating rhythmic neural activity within a distributed frontoparietal network. The timed release of neuromodulators from subcortical structures dynamically sculpts neural synchronization in thalamocortical networks to meet current attentional demands. In particular,
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Looking for the neural basis of memory Trends Cogn. Sci. (IF 20.229) Pub Date : 2021-11-23 James E. Kragel, Joel L. Voss
Memory neuroscientists often measure neural activity during task trials designed to recruit specific memory processes. Behavior is championed as crucial for deciphering brain–memory linkages but is impoverished in typical experiments that rely on summary judgments. We criticize this approach as being blind to the multiple cognitive, neural, and behavioral processes that occur rapidly within a trial
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Magnitude-sensitivity: rethinking decision-making Trends Cogn. Sci. (IF 20.229) Pub Date : 2021-11-05 Angelo Pirrone, Andreagiovanni Reina, Tom Stafford, James A.R. Marshall, Fernand Gobet
Magnitude-sensitivity refers to the result that performance in decision-making, across domains and organisms, is affected by the total value of the possible alternatives. This simple result offers a window into fundamental issues in decision-making and has led to a reconsideration of ecological decision-making, prominent computational models of decision-making, and optimal decision-making. Moreover
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Visuospatial coding as ubiquitous scaffolding for human cognition Trends Cogn. Sci. (IF 20.229) Pub Date : 2021-11-16 Iris I.A. Groen, Tessa M. Dekker, Tomas Knapen, Edward H. Silson
For more than 100 years we have known that the visual field is mapped onto the surface of visual cortex, imposing an inherently spatial reference frame on visual information processing. Recent studies highlight visuospatial coding not only throughout visual cortex, but also brain areas not typically considered visual. Such widespread access to visuospatial coding raises important questions about its
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Solving the causal inference problem Trends Cogn. Sci. (IF 20.229) Pub Date : 2021-09-21 Uta Noppeney
Perception requires the brain to infer whether signals arise from common causes and should hence be integrated or else be treated independently. Rideaux et al. show that a feedforward network can perform causal inference in visuovestibular motion estimation by reading out activity from neurons tuned to congruent and opposite directions.
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Convergent developmental principles between Caenorhabditis elegans and human connectomes Trends Cogn. Sci. (IF 20.229) Pub Date : 2021-10-14 Jinbo Zhang, Longzhou Xu, Zaixu Cui
A recent study by Witvliet et al. reconstructed the entire brain connectome for eight Caenorhabditis elegans spanning from birth to adulthood and described how synapse changes shape the connectome topology during development. Their data suggest some convergent developmental principles in connectome maturation between C. elegans and humans.
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Does facial attractiveness really signal immunocompetence? Trends Cogn. Sci. (IF 20.229) Pub Date : 2021-10-05 Benedict C. Jones, Iris J. Holzleitner, Victor Shiramizu
The dominant theory of facial attractiveness judgments is that they evolved to identify healthy individuals with strong immune systems. Here, we summarize results of recent tests of this hypothesis, concluding that it has little compelling empirical support. We then propose an alternative perspective that emphasizes the effects of lifestyle health.
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Is it time to put rest to rest? Trends Cogn. Sci. (IF 20.229) Pub Date : 2021-10-05 Emily S. Finn
The so-called resting state, in which participants lie quietly with no particular inputs or outputs, represented a paradigm shift from conventional task-based studies in human neuroimaging. Our foray into rest was fruitful from both a scientific and methodological perspective, but at this point, how much more can we learn from rest on its own? While rest still dominates in many subfields, data from
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An oscillatory pipelining mechanism supporting previewing during visual exploration and reading Trends Cogn. Sci. (IF 20.229) Pub Date : 2021-09-17 Ole Jensen, Yali Pan, Steven Frisson, Lin Wang
Humans have a remarkable ability to efficiently explore visual scenes and text using eye movements. Humans typically make eye movements (saccades) every ~250 ms. Since saccade initiation and execution take 100 ms, this leaves only ~150 ms to recognize the fixated object (or word) while simultaneously previewing candidates for the next saccade goal. We propose a pipelining mechanism where serial processing