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Face masks facilitate discrimination of genuine and fake smiles – But people believe the opposite Journal of Experimental Social Psychology (IF 3.2) Pub Date : 2024-06-26 Haotian Zhou, Meiying Wang, Yu Yang, Elizabeth A. Majka
It seems a foregone conclusion that face mask-wearing hinders the interpretation of facial expressions, increasing the risk of interpersonal miscommunication. This research identifies a notable counter-case to this apparent truism. In multiple experiments, perceivers were more accurate distinguishing between genuine and fake smiles when the mouth region was concealed under a mask versus exposed. Masks
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Gossip, power, and advice: Gossipers are conferred less expert power Journal of Experimental Social Psychology (IF 3.2) Pub Date : 2024-06-26 Alexis D. Gordon, Maurice E. Schweitzer
Gossip harms power. Across 6 pre-registered primary studies and 7 pre-registered supplemental studies, we demonstrate that a reputation for engaging in negative gossip (sharing negatively-valanced information about an absent target) reduces expert power (power derived from being regarded as a superior source of expertise). A reputation for engaging in negative gossip harms expert power in two ways:
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Group-bounded indirect reciprocity and intergroup gossip Journal of Experimental Social Psychology (IF 3.2) Pub Date : 2024-06-25 Hirotaka Imada, Nobuhiro Mifune, Hannah Zibell
Gossip, the exchange of information about absent others, is ingrained in the system of indirect reciprocity, in which participating members selectively interact and cooperate with others with a good reputation. Previous psychological theorizing suggests that indirect reciprocity is perceived to be bounded by group membership. We aimed to examine whether the group-bounded indirect reciprocity perspective
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Whispered words and organizational dynamics: The nuanced evaluation of gossipers' personality and its effect on workplace advice seeking Journal of Experimental Social Psychology (IF 3.2) Pub Date : 2024-06-21 Lijun (Shirley) Zhang, Nahid Ibrahim, Shankha Basu
Prior research has extensively studied workplace group dynamics within the gossip triad (i.e., sender, receiver, and target). This research shifts the focus to third-party observers outside the gossip triad, examining how they evaluate gossipers and non-gossipers, and whom they turn to for advice. Across five pre-registered experiments ( = 1400), the present work builds on an integrative definition
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A trust inoculation to protect public support of governmentally mandated actions to mitigate climate change Journal of Experimental Social Psychology (IF 3.2) Pub Date : 2024-06-20 Tobia Spampatti, Tobias Brosch, Evelina Trutnevyte, Ulf J.J. Hahnel
In a world barreling down into a worsening climate crisis, negative persuasive attacks to necessary climate policies are major threats to the public's support of governmental mandates to mitigate climate change. To protect against such attacks, here we introduce and investigate the effect and the treatment heterogeneity of the trust inoculation, a psychological inoculation strategy designed around
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System justification makes income gaps appear smaller Journal of Experimental Social Psychology (IF 3.2) Pub Date : 2024-06-20 Daniela Goya-Tocchetto, Aaron C. Kay, B. Keith Payne
People tend to underestimate how much income inequality exists. Much research has attributed this widespread underestimation to differential access to information, variance in exposure to inequality, or motivated attention to different aspects of inequality. In our research, we suggest that the motivation to believe that the current socioeconomic system is fair and legitimate (i.e., system justification)
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What does decoding from the PFC reveal about consciousness? Trends Cogn. Sci. (IF 16.7) Pub Date : 2024-06-10 Ned Block
Disputes between rival theories of consciousness have often centered on whether perceptual contents can be decoded from the prefrontal cortex (PFC). Failures to decode from the PFC are taken to challenge ‘cognitive’ theories of consciousness such as the global workspace theory and higher-order monitoring theories, and decoding successes have been taken to confirm these theories. However, PFC decoding
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Multiracials' affective, behavioral and identity-specific responses to identity denial Journal of Experimental Social Psychology (IF 3.2) Pub Date : 2024-06-08 Payton A. Small
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Smartly following others: Majority influence depends on how the majority behavior is formed Journal of Experimental Social Psychology (IF 3.2) Pub Date : 2024-06-07 Jun Yin, Zikai Xu, Jing Lin, Wenying Zhou, Xiuyan Guo
Individuals tend to follow choices and behaviors that are common among others, indicating majority influence. Nevertheless, majority behaviors that appear to be consistent can be generated by different factors during the decision-making process; hence, the current study addressed whether people consider the source of majority behavior and follow the majority differently when that behavior is formed
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You are safer with me: Presence of the self lowers risk perception for others Journal of Experimental Social Psychology (IF 3.2) Pub Date : 2024-06-07 Haihong Li, Yimo Yang, Tengchuan Cui, Xiaofei Xie
In daily life, various activities are undertaken either alone or with companions, and some of these activities involve a degree of risk. Beyond our concern for our own safety, we also care about other's safety. The current research investigates the influence of self-presence on how we perceive risk for the other. Across six studies (including two preregistered studies), we consistently found that when
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Standing out: an atypical salience account of creativity Trends Cogn. Sci. (IF 16.7) Pub Date : 2024-06-06 Madeleine E. Gross, Jonathan W. Schooler
Creativity often entails gaining a novel perspective, yet it remains uncertain how this is accomplished. Atypical salience processing may foster creative thinking by prioritizing putatively irrelevant information, thereby broadening the material accessible for idea generation and inhibiting attentional fixedness; in essence, motivating creative individuals to incorporate information that others overlook
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Are conspiracy theory believers drawn to conspiratorial explanations, alternatives explanations, or both? Journal of Experimental Social Psychology (IF 3.2) Pub Date : 2024-06-05 Kenzo Nera, Paul Bertin, Mikey Biddlestone, Maude Tagand, Olivier Klein
Individuals differ in their general propensity to believe in conspiracy theories, often referred to as conspiracy mentality. Because prototypical conspiracy theories exhibit a conspiratorial content (i.e., they claim that a conspiracy occurred) and an alternative status (i.e., they are rejected by authorities), it is unclear if conspiracy mentality captures a general tendency to believe in conspiracies
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Corrigendum to “How pledges reduce dishonesty: The role of involvement and identification” [Journal of Experimental Social Psychology 113(2024) 104614] Journal of Experimental Social Psychology (IF 3.2) Pub Date : 2024-06-04 Eyal Peer, Nina Mazar, Yuval Feldman, Dan Ariely
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Weight stigma: Do we believe that everyone can enjoy healthy behaviors? Journal of Experimental Social Psychology (IF 3.2) Pub Date : 2024-06-04 Peggy J. Liu, Kelly L. Haws
Weight-based stigma is prevalent, increasing, and has many negative consequences. This research examines people's beliefs about what other people with heavy versus thin body types enjoy, in terms of food and activities. Predictions of others' enjoyment are important, as they can shape various downstream judgments, including beliefs about other people's likely goal pursuit success, and recommendations
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Susceptibility to misinformation about COVID-19 vaccines: A signal detection analysis Journal of Experimental Social Psychology (IF 3.2) Pub Date : 2024-05-27 Lea S. Nahon, Nyx L. Ng, Bertram Gawronski
An analysis drawing on Signal Detection Theory suggests that people may fall for misinformation because they are unable to discern true from false information () or because they tend to accept information with a particular slant regardless of whether it is true or false (). Three preregistered experiments with participants from the United States and the United Kingdom ( = 961) revealed that () truth
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Beyond first impressions: Investigating the influence of visual attention and cue availability in discriminatory behavior Journal of Experimental Social Psychology (IF 3.2) Pub Date : 2024-05-24 Eliane Roy, Y. Doug Dong, A. Ross Otto, Jordan Axt
In many contexts, the magnitude of discrimination in social judgment is determined by the level of sensitivity and bias in evaluation. However, little is known about factors that shape these processes. Using a mock admissions task, we investigated how variation in the time spent processing non-diagnostic social information (e.g., a face communicating attractiveness) versus decision-relevant information
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Endorsing both sides, pleasing neither: Ambivalent individuals face unexpected social costs in political conflicts Journal of Experimental Social Psychology (IF 3.2) Pub Date : 2024-05-23 Joseph J. Siev, Aviva Philipp-Muller, Geoffrey R.O. Durso, Duane T. Wegener
Reducing political polarization requires finding common ground among people with diverse opinions. The current research shows that people generally that expressing ambivalence about political issues—endorsing some considerations on both sides, for instance—can help them establish positive relations with others holding a wide variety of political views. However, across several policy topics—COVID-19
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Behavioral science should start by assuming people are reasonable Trends Cogn. Sci. (IF 16.7) Pub Date : 2024-05-18 Jens Koed Madsen, Lee de-Wit, Peter Ayton, Cameron Brick, Laura de-Moliere, Carla J. Groom
Should policymaking assume humans are irrational? Using empirical, theoretical, and philosophical arguments, we suggest a more useful frame is that human behavior is reasonable. Through identifying goals and systemic factors shaping behavior, we suggest that assuming people are reasonable enables behavioral science to be more effective in shaping public policy.
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Signal switching may enhance processing power of the brain Trends Cogn. Sci. (IF 16.7) Pub Date : 2024-05-18 Jennifer M. Groh, Meredith N. Schmehl, Valeria C. Caruso, Surya T. Tokdar
Our ability to perceive multiple objects is mysterious. Sensory neurons are broadly tuned, producing potential overlap in the populations of neurons activated by each object in a scene. This overlap raises questions about how distinct information is retained about each item. We present a novel signal switching theory of neural representation, which posits that neural signals may interleave representations
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Beyond learnability: understanding human visual development with DNNs Trends Cogn. Sci. (IF 16.7) Pub Date : 2024-05-17 Lei Yuan
Recently, Orhan and Lake demonstrated the computational plausibility that children can acquire sophisticated visual representations from natural input data without inherent biases, challenging the need for innate constraints in human learning. The findings may also reveal crucial properties of early visual learning and inform theories of human visual development.
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Mindless furry test-tubes: Categorizing animals as lab-subjects leads to their mind denial Journal of Experimental Social Psychology (IF 3.2) Pub Date : 2024-05-17 Kevin Vezirian, Laurent Bègue, Brock Bastian
Despite caring for animals, most people use products tested on lab-animals daily, and rarely consider the implications of their choices for animal testing. We experimentally examined across four preregistered and high-powered online studies (total = 3405) whether categorizing animals as being lab-subjects, in a context where people are also reminded of the implications of their own consumer choices
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Salient distractor processing: inhibition following attentional capture Trends Cogn. Sci. (IF 16.7) Pub Date : 2024-05-14 Benchi Wang, Jan Theeuwes
Salient objects often capture attention in a purely exogenous way, followed by inhibition of their locations after a period. Yet, the neural circuits underlying the exogenous attention remain underspecified. explore this by uncovering large-scale cortical gradients associated with exogenous attention within the human cortex.
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Can adolescents be game changers for 21st-century societal challenges? Trends Cogn. Sci. (IF 16.7) Pub Date : 2024-05-13 Eveline A. Crone, Suzanne van de Groep, Lysanne W. te Brinke
Adolescents growing up in the 21st century face novel challenges that affect today’s adolescents differently compared with previous generations. Adolescents’ prosocial values and social engagement can contribute in unique ways to combatting societal challenges. Participatory research provides tools to transform adolescents’ prosocial motivations into drivers for societal change.
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Fragility and forgiveness: Masculinity concerns affect men's willingness to forgive Journal of Experimental Social Psychology (IF 3.2) Pub Date : 2024-05-11 Michael P. Haselhuhn, Margaret E. Ormiston
Research has identified forgiveness as one of the most productive forms of resolution following an interpersonal transgression. Despite the benefits of forgiveness, some individuals are more forgiving than are others. Although past work has examined gender differences in forgiveness, less is known about how within-sex individual differences may affect the willingness to forgive. In this paper, we study
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The pattern theory of compassion Trends Cogn. Sci. (IF 16.7) Pub Date : 2024-05-10 Shaun Gallagher, Antonino Raffone, Salvatore M. Aglioti
Concepts of empathy, sympathy and compassion are often confused in a variety of literatures. This article proposes a pattern-theoretic approach to distinguishing compassion from empathy and sympathy. Drawing on psychology, Western philosophy, affective neuroscience, and contemplative science, we clarify the nature of compassion as a specific pattern of dynamically related factors that include physiological
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Corrigendum to “US cisgender women's psychological responses to physical femininity threats: Increased anxiety, reduced self-esteem” [Journal of Experimental Social Psychology 110(2024) 104547] Journal of Experimental Social Psychology (IF 3.2) Pub Date : 2024-05-10 Natalie M. Wittlin, Marianne LaFrance, John F. Dovidio, Jennifer A. Richeson
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If not me then we: Goal tradeoffs in decision-making for the self, ingroup, and outgroup Journal of Experimental Social Psychology (IF 3.2) Pub Date : 2024-05-08 Suraiya Allidina, William A. Cunningham
Navigating the social world requires individuals to balance multiple goals, including the drives to improve one's own outcomes, aid ingroup members, and help or hurt outgroup members. While self-interest and intergroup bias are both well-established motivational phenomena, less is known about how these goals may interact. Here we examine the nature of goal tradeoffs in intergroup decision-making using
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Practicing cooperative skills shapes brain-wide networks Trends Cogn. Sci. (IF 16.7) Pub Date : 2024-05-04 Haozhou Jiang, Julia Sliwa
Humans and other primates skillfully navigate the complex cognitive interplay of cooperative behaviors. However, the neural resources we rely on to do so are poorly understood. found that neuronal activity in a visual-frontal domain general cortical network is shaped during the training of a cooperative behavior to highlight relevant sensory inputs.
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In the pursuit of happiness: Attaining a greater number of high-status positions increases well-being but only in select groups Journal of Experimental Social Psychology (IF 3.2) Pub Date : 2024-05-03 John Angus D. Hildreth
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The effect of financial stress on inhibitory control and economic decisions Journal of Experimental Social Psychology (IF 3.2) Pub Date : 2024-05-02 Bradley T. Hughes, Rita M. Ludwig, Kelly E. Robles, Elliot T. Berkman
Financial scarcity, both real and imagined, is associated with impaired executive functions and present-focused economic decisions. What is the mechanism that connects the lack of financial resources to these cognitive and behavioral effects? The present work will test the hypothesis that the experience of financial stress contributes to these deficits by reducing executive functions related to self-control
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The Thermodynamics of Mind Trends Cogn. Sci. (IF 16.7) Pub Date : 2024-04-26 Morten L. Kringelbach, Yonatan Sanz Perl, Gustavo Deco
To not only survive, but also thrive, the brain must efficiently orchestrate distributed computation across space and time. This requires hierarchical organisation facilitating fast information transfer and processing at the lowest possible metabolic cost. Quantifying brain hierarchy is difficult but can be estimated from the asymmetry of information flow. Thermodynamics has successfully characterised
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The spillover effect of mimicry: Being mimicked by one person increases prosocial behavior toward another person Journal of Experimental Social Psychology (IF 3.2) Pub Date : 2024-04-26 Paweł Muniak, Oliver Genschow, Dariusz Dolinski, Tomasz Grzyb, Wojciech Kulesza
People have the automatic tendency to mimic their interaction partners. Mimicry theories propose that such mimicking behavior is beneficial for the mimicker as mimicked persons tend to like, trust and help the mimicker more. Yet an open question remains as to whether prosocial effects translate to parties other than the mimicker. To test for the presence of such a spillover effect, we ran two field
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What rhythm production can tell us about culture Trends Cogn. Sci. (IF 16.7) Pub Date : 2024-04-24 Erin Hannon, Joel Snyder
used an iterative rhythm reproduction paradigm with listeners from around the world to provide evidence for both rhythm universals (simple-integer ratios 1:1 and 2:1) and cross-cultural variation for specific rhythmic categories that can be linked to local music traditions in different regions of the world.
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Beta: bursts of cognition Trends Cogn. Sci. (IF 16.7) Pub Date : 2024-04-23 Mikael Lundqvist, Earl K. Miller, Jonatan Nordmark, Johan Liljefors, Pawel Herman
Beta oscillations are linked to the control of goal-directed processing of sensory information and the timing of motor output. Recent evidence demonstrates they are not sustained but organized into intermittent high-power bursts mediating timely functional inhibition. This implies there is a considerable moment-to-moment variation in the neural dynamics supporting cognition. Beta bursts thus offer
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Detecting deception with artificial intelligence: promises and perils Trends Cogn. Sci. (IF 16.7) Pub Date : 2024-04-21 Kristina Suchotzki, Matthias Gamer
Rapid advancements in artificial intelligence (AI) have driven interest in its potential application for lie detection. Unfortunately, the current approaches have primarily focused on technical aspects at the expense of a solid methodological and theoretical foundation. We discuss the implications thereof and offer recommendations for the development and regulation of AI-based deception detection.
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Religiosity predicts the delegation of decisions between moral and self-serving immoral outcomes Journal of Experimental Social Psychology (IF 3.2) Pub Date : 2024-04-21 Alexa Weiss, Matthias Forstmann
Studies support an association between religious belief and prosocial behavior. Such has been attributed to fear of supernatural punishment and enhanced concern for a prosocial reputation and self-image. Hence, religious individuals may be more prone to pursue their self-interest indirectly, thereby averting personal responsibility. We conducted 12 studies ( = 4468) to examine whether religiosity predicts
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Uncertainty, expertise, and persuasion: A replication and extension of Journal of Experimental Social Psychology (IF 3.2) Pub Date : 2024-04-18 Erik Løhre, Subramanya Prasad Chandrashekar, Lewend Mayiwar, Thorvald Hærem
If you are trying to persuade someone, expressing your opinion with certainty intuitively seems like a good strategy to maximize your influence. However, Karmarkar and Tormala (2010) found that the effectiveness of this tactic depends on expertise. In three experiments, Karmarkar and Tormala found support for an incongruity hypothesis, whereby non-expert sources can gain interest and influence by expressing
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Information density as a predictor of communication dynamics Trends Cogn. Sci. (IF 16.7) Pub Date : 2024-04-16 Gary Lupyan, Pablo Contreras Kallens, Rick Dale
In a recent paper, computed information and semantic density measures for hundreds of languages, and showed that these measures predict the pace and breadth of ideas in communication. Here, we summarize their key findings and situate them in a broader debate about the adaptive nature of language.
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Abstract social interaction representations along the lateral pathway Trends Cogn. Sci. (IF 16.7) Pub Date : 2024-04-16 Emalie McMahon, Leyla Isik
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What is abstract about seeing social interactions? Trends Cogn. Sci. (IF 16.7) Pub Date : 2024-04-16 Liuba Papeo
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Revisiting the bounded generalized reciprocity model: Ingroup favoritism and concerns about negative evaluation Journal of Experimental Social Psychology (IF 3.2) Pub Date : 2024-04-15 Yutaka Horita, Shun Hamada
The bounded generalized reciprocity (BGR) model, grounded in reputation management, predicts that the motivation underlying ingroup favoritism (favoring one's own group over other groups) is driven by avoiding a negative reputation within one's own group. This research conducted two economic games with minimal groups in which reputational concerns (partners' knowledge of participants' group membership)
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In praise of folly: flexible goals and human cognition Trends Cogn. Sci. (IF 16.7) Pub Date : 2024-04-13 Junyi Chu, Joshua B. Tenenbaum, Laura E. Schulz
Humans often pursue idiosyncratic goals that appear remote from functional ends, including information gain. We suggest that this is valuable because goals (even prima facie foolish or unachievable ones) contain structured information that scaffolds thinking and planning. By evaluating hypotheses and plans with respect to their goals, humans can discover new ideas that go beyond prior knowledge and
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Rude or just blunt? Honor, dignity, and spontaneous trait inferences from potentially offensive behaviors Journal of Experimental Social Psychology (IF 3.2) Pub Date : 2024-04-10 Ceren Günsoy, Irmak Olcaysoy Okten, A. Demaske
To restore their reputation, people from honor cultures (e.g., U.S. South) are more likely than people from dignity cultures (e.g., U.S. North) to retaliate against conflict partners who insult them. If a conflict partner does not insult them, however, they are more polite than dignity culture individuals, so that they don't provoke the person unnecessarily. Previous research has not examined the implicit
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To beckon or not to beckon: Testing a causal-evaluative modelling approach to moral judgment: A registered report Journal of Experimental Social Psychology (IF 3.2) Pub Date : 2024-04-08 Cillian McHugh, Kathryn B. Francis, Jim A.C. Everett, Shane Timmons
Moral judgments are increasingly being understood as showing context dependent variability. A growing literature has identified a range of specific contextual factors (e.g., emotions, intentions) that can influence moral judgments in predictable ways. Integrating these diverse influences into a unified approach to understanding moral judgments remains a challenge. Recent work by Railton (2017) attempted
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Brain states as wave-like motifs Trends Cogn. Sci. (IF 16.7) Pub Date : 2024-04-05 Maya Foster, Dustin Scheinost
There is ample evidence of wave-like activity in the brain at multiple scales and levels. This emerging literature supports the broader adoption of a wave perspective of brain activity. Specifically, a brain state can be described as a set of recurring, sequential patterns of propagating brain activity, namely a wave. We examine a collective body of experimental work investigating wave-like properties
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Response to Fittipaldi etal. (2024) Trends Cogn. Sci. (IF 16.7) Pub Date : 2024-04-05 Nicholas J. Fendinger, Pia Dietze, Eric D. Knowles
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The computational foundations of dynamic coding in working memory Trends Cogn. Sci. (IF 16.7) Pub Date : 2024-04-04 Jake P. Stroud, John Duncan, Máté Lengyel
Working memory (WM) is a fundamental aspect of cognition. WM maintenance is classically thought to rely on stable patterns of neural activities. However, recent evidence shows that neural population activities during WM maintenance undergo dynamic variations before settling into a stable pattern. Although this has been difficult to explain theoretically, neural network models optimized for WM typically
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When liars are considered honest Trends Cogn. Sci. (IF 16.7) Pub Date : 2024-04-04 Stephan Lewandowsky, David Garcia, Almog Simchon, Fabio Carrella
This article introduces a theoretical model of truth and honesty from a psychological perspective. We examine its application in political discourse and discuss empirical findings distinguishing between conceptions of honesty and their influence on public perception, misinformation dissemination, and the integrity of democracy.
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Arousal and performance: revisiting the famous inverted-U-shaped curve Trends Cogn. Sci. (IF 16.7) Pub Date : 2024-04-03 Sander Nieuwenhuis
Arousal level is thought to be a key determinant of variability in cognitive performance. In a recent study, show that peak performance in decision-making tasks is reached at moderate levels of arousal. They also propose a neurobiologically informed computational model that can explain the inverted-U-shaped relationship.
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Most people do not “value the struggle”: Tempted agents are judged as less virtuous than those who were never tempted Journal of Experimental Social Psychology (IF 3.2) Pub Date : 2024-03-29 Ryan M. McManus, Helen Padilla Fong, Max Kleiman-Weiner, Liane Young
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Computational role of structure in neural activity and connectivity Trends Cogn. Sci. (IF 16.7) Pub Date : 2024-03-28 Srdjan Ostojic, Stefano Fusi
One major challenge of neuroscience is identifying structure in seemingly disorganized neural activity. Different types of structure have different computational implications that can help neuroscientists understand the functional role of a particular brain area. Here, we outline a unified approach to characterize structure by inspecting the representational geometry and the modularity properties of
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Aphantasia and hyperphantasia: exploring imagery vividness extremes Trends Cogn. Sci. (IF 16.7) Pub Date : 2024-03-27 Adam Zeman
The vividness of imagery varies between individuals. However, the existence of people in whom conscious, wakeful imagery is markedly reduced, or absent entirely, was neglected by psychology until the recent coinage of 'aphantasia' to describe this phenomenon. 'Hyperphantasia' denotes the converse – imagery whose vividness rivals perceptual experience. Around 1% and 3% of the population experience extreme
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Infants and markers: reply to Taylor and Bremner Trends Cogn. Sci. (IF 16.7) Pub Date : 2024-03-22 Tim Bayne, Joel Frohlich, Rhodri Cusack, Julia Moser, Lorina Naci
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Cluster kinds and the developmental origins of consciousness Trends Cogn. Sci. (IF 16.7) Pub Date : 2024-03-22 Henry Taylor, Andrew J. Bremner
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Failures to launch preclude response inhibition Trends Cogn. Sci. (IF 16.7) Pub Date : 2024-03-21 Corey G. Wadsley, Ian Greenhouse
Neural analyses of response inhibition rely on separating trials with and without a behavioral response. Can researchers be sure the absence of a behavioral outcome equates to the presence of inhibitory control? We emphasize advancing response inhibition research by utilizing peripheral measures of response progress to define behavioral stopping contrasts.
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The sensitivity and criterion of sense of agency Trends Cogn. Sci. (IF 16.7) Pub Date : 2024-03-20 Wen Wen, Acer Yu-Chan Chang, Hiroshi Imamizu
The sense of agency, which refers to the subjective feeling of control, is an essential aspect of self-consciousness. We argue that distinguishing between the sensitivity and criterion of this feeling is important for discussing individual differences in the sense of agency and its connections with other cognitive functions.
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Dissociating language and thought in large language models Trends Cogn. Sci. (IF 16.7) Pub Date : 2024-03-19 Kyle Mahowald, Anna A. Ivanova, Idan A. Blank, Nancy Kanwisher, Joshua B. Tenenbaum, Evelina Fedorenko
Large language models (LLMs) have come closest among all models to date to mastering human language, yet opinions about their linguistic and cognitive capabilities remain split. Here, we evaluate LLMs using a distinction between formal linguistic competence (knowledge of linguistic rules and patterns) and functional linguistic competence (understanding and using language in the world). We ground this
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A cognitive-computational account of mood swings in adolescence Trends Cogn. Sci. (IF 16.7) Pub Date : 2024-03-18 Klára Gregorová, Eran Eldar, Lorenz Deserno, Andrea M.F. Reiter
Teenagers have a reputation for being fickle, in both their choices and their moods. This variability may help adolescents as they begin to independently navigate novel environments. Recently, however, adolescent moodiness has also been linked to psychopathology. Here, we consider adolescents’ mood swings from a novel computational perspective, grounded in reinforcement learning (RL). This model proposes
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Judging the guilt of the un-guilty: The roles of “false positive” guilt and empathy in moral character perception Journal of Experimental Social Psychology (IF 3.2) Pub Date : 2024-03-15 Danielle E. Wahlers, William Hart, Joshua T. Lambert
When people accidentally harm others, some theory anticipates that expressing normatively unexpected (“false positive”) guilt is socially functional because it signals a positive moral character and likability. Although previous evidence shows anticipated effects of false positive guilt on these outcomes, it is possible these effects result from perceiving aspects specific to empathy (vs. guilt). We
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Tests for consciousness in humans and beyond Trends Cogn. Sci. (IF 16.7) Pub Date : 2024-03-13 Tim Bayne, Anil K. Seth, Marcello Massimini, Joshua Shepherd, Axel Cleeremans, Stephen M. Fleming, Rafael Malach, Jason B. Mattingley, David K. Menon, Adrian M. Owen, Megan A.K. Peters, Adeel Razi, Liad Mudrik
Which systems/organisms are conscious? New tests for consciousness (‘C-tests’) are urgently needed. There is persisting uncertainty about when consciousness arises in human development, when it is lost due to neurological disorders and brain injury, and how it is distributed in nonhuman species. This need is amplified by recent and rapid developments in artificial intelligence (AI), neural organoids