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| Open AccessFemale peer mentors early in college have lasting positive impacts on female engineering students that persist beyond graduation
The authors report findings from their study of female student participants interested in engineering at college entry who were randomly assigned to a female peer mentor, male mentor, or no mentor for their first year of college. The authors show that students assigned to a female peer mentor show benefits in psychological experiences in engineering, aspirations to pursue postgraduate engineering degrees, and emotional well-being, which persists up to one year after graduation.
- Deborah J. Wu
- , Kelsey C. Thiem
- & Nilanjana Dasgupta
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| Open AccessMultidimensional memory topography in the medial parietal cortex identified from neuroimaging of thousands of daily memory videos
Autobiographical memories are associated with activity in the hippocampus and the parietal cortex. Here the authors characterise the neural substrates for retrieving autobiographical memories from a large dataset, and identify a topography within the medial parietal cortex that reflects memory content, age, and memory strength.
- Wilma A. Bainbridge
- & Chris I. Baker
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| Open AccessInducing forgetting of unwanted memories through subliminal reactivation
Classical forgetting methods typically re-expose people to reminders of their unwanted memories. Here, the authors disrupt unpleasant memories by subliminally reactivating them as participants suppress retrieval of unrelated neutral memories, avoiding the need for conscious exposure.
- Zijian Zhu
- , Michael C. Anderson
- & Yingying Wang
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| Open AccessHuman cooperation in changing groups in a large-scale public goods game
Little is known about the dynamics of human cooperation in groups with changing compositions. Using data from a large-scale and long-term online public goods game, this study shows how group changes are associated with temporarily lower cooperation.
- Kasper Otten
- , Ulrich J. Frey
- & Naomi Ellemers
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| Open AccessV1-bypassing suppression leads to direction-specific microsaccade modulation in visual coding and perception
How microsaccades modulate visual coding and perception remains incompletely understood. Here, the authors identify an emerging suppression specific to microsaccade directions that alters responses in macaque V2 and impacts perceptual decisions.
- Yujie Wu
- , Tian Wang
- & Dajun Xing
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| Open AccessTranscriptome-wide and stratified genomic structural equation modeling identify neurobiological pathways shared across diverse cognitive traits
High genetic overlap across traits requires methods that can be used to disentangle shared and unique biological pathways. Here, the authors introduce TSEM, a multivariate method for examining tissue-specific gene expression, and apply it to identify genes associated with cognitive traits.
- Andrew D. Grotzinger
- , Javier de la Fuente
- & Elliot M. Tucker-Drob
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| Open AccessIncorporating social knowledge structures into computational models
People are remarkably good at learning about others’ personalities. Here, the authors develop computational models showing that this learning relies on a combination of prior beliefs and similarities between personality traits.
- Koen M. M. Frolichs
- , Gabriela Rosenblau
- & Christoph W. Korn
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| Open AccessPublic attitudes value interpretability but prioritize accuracy in Artificial Intelligence
For many AI systems, it is hard to interpret how they make decisions. Here, the authors show that non-experts value interpretability in AI, especially for decisions involving high stakes and scarce resources, but they sacrifice AI interpretability when it trades off against AI accuracy.
- Anne-Marie Nussberger
- , Lan Luo
- & M. J. Crockett
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| Open AccessLeveraging the science of stress to promote resilience and optimize mental health interventions during adolescence
Adolescence is marked by heightened stress exposure and psychopathology, but also vast potential for opportunity. We highlight how researchers can leverage both developmental and individual differences in stress responding and corticolimbic circuitry to optimize interventions during this unique developmental period.
- Dylan G. Gee
- , Lucinda M. Sisk
- & Nessa V. Bryce
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| Open AccessA neuro-computational account of procrastination behavior
Most humans procrastinate to some extent, despite adverse consequences. Here, the authors show that how much an individual procrastinates, both in the lab and at home, relates to brain signals that reflect temporal discounting of effort cost.
- Raphaël Le Bouc
- & Mathias Pessiglione
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| Open AccessSynthesizing theories of human language with Bayesian program induction
Humans can infer rules for building words in a new language from a handful of examples, and linguists also can infer language patterns across related languages. Here, the authors provide an algorithm which models these grammatical abilities by synthesizing human-understandable programs for building words.
- Kevin Ellis
- , Adam Albright
- & Timothy J. O’Donnell
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| Open AccessAmericans experience a false social reality by underestimating popular climate policy support by nearly half
A new study finds that Americans underestimate how many are concerned about climate change as well as support for major climate policies by nearly half, with climate policy supporters significantly outnumbering non-supporters.
- Gregg Sparkman
- , Nathan Geiger
- & Elke U. Weber
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| Open AccessEstimating effects of parents’ cognitive and non-cognitive skills on offspring education using polygenic scores
Understanding how parents’ cognitive and non-cognitive skills influence their children’s educational trajectories is important for educational, family and economic policy. Here, the authors investigate parental influence on children’s education using genetic approaches.
- Perline A. Demange
- , Jouke Jan Hottenga
- & Rosa Cheesman
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| Open AccessMapping effective connectivity of human amygdala subdivisions with intracranial stimulation
The amygdala is known to be engaged in emotional and autonomic function, yet the detailed functional connectivity of the human amygdala remains unclear. Here, the authors examine effective connectivity in the amygdala of patients with epilepsy using direct focal electrical stimulation.
- Masahiro Sawada
- , Ralph Adolphs
- & Hiroyuki Oya
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| Open AccessNeuronal congruency effects in macaque prefrontal cortex
Stimulus-induced conflicts impair behavior in conflict tasks resulting in a phenomenon known as the behavioral congruency effect. Here, the authors investigate the neural underpinnings of this phenomenon and report a neuronal congruency effect in macaque prefrontal cortex to explain this impairment.
- Tao Yao
- & Wim Vanduffel
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| Open AccessNarrative thinking lingers in spontaneous thought
Some experiences linger in our minds, while others quickly fade. Here, the authors show that the extent to which our recent experiences linger into subsequent thought increases as a function of processing depth.
- Buddhika Bellana
- , Abhijit Mahabal
- & Christopher J. Honey
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| Open AccessNeurocomputational mechanisms of confidence in self and others
Estimating confidence in the decision making ability of others is important for cooperative behaviour. Here the authors combine computational modelling and fMRI to investigate how the brain supports this process.
- Dan Bang
- , Rani Moran
- & Stephen M. Fleming
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| Open AccessPredicting memory from the network structure of naturalistic events
Naturalistic experiences often have complex structure, consisting of multiple inter-related events. Here, the authors show that the semantic and causal interconnectedness of events in narratives positively predicts memory performance and neural responses associated with memory encoding and recall.
- Hongmi Lee
- & Janice Chen
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Article
| Open AccessA macroscopic link between interhemispheric tract myelination and cortico-cortical interactions during action reprogramming
Myelination is a key regulator of brain function. Here the authors use MR-based myelin measures to examine if cortico-cortical interactions, as assessed by paired pulse transcranial magnetic stimulation, are affected by variations in myelin in the human brain.
- Alberto Lazari
- , Piergiorgio Salvan
- & Heidi Johansen-Berg
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| Open AccessPeople infer communicative action through an expectation for efficient communication
Humans can quickly infer when someone’s body movements are meant to be communicative. Here, the authors show that this capacity is underpinned by an expectation that communicative actions will efficiently reveal that they lack an external goal.
- Amanda Royka
- , Annie Chen
- & Julian Jara-Ettinger
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| Open AccessVisual timing-tuned responses in human association cortices and response dynamics in early visual cortex
Early visual cortical responses increase with event duration and frequency, while later timing-tuned responses quantify event timing. Here, the authors show timing tuning gradually emerges up the visual hierarchy, and separates temporal and spatial event features.
- Evi Hendrikx
- , Jacob M. Paul
- & Ben M. Harvey
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| Open AccessMnemonic construction and representation of temporal structure in the hippocampal formation
Activity patterns in the hippocampus resemble temporal relations of learned event sequences. Here, the authors show that these relational memories arise through mnemonic construction and are generalized to reflect the temporal event structure.
- Jacob L. S. Bellmund
- , Lorena Deuker
- & Christian F. Doeller
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| Open AccessFunctional but not obligatory link between microsaccades and neural modulation by covert spatial attention
Covert visual spatial attention modulates neural activity and biases the direction of small eye movements, known as microsaccades. Here, the authors show that these two markers co-vary, but that microsaccades are not necessary for neural modulation by attention to occur.
- Baiwei Liu
- , Anna C. Nobre
- & Freek van Ede
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| Open AccessLongitudinal evidence that Event Related Potential measures of self-regulation do not predict everyday goal pursuit
Self-regulation helps people to achieve their goals, and has been studied across modalities. Here, the authors present longitudinal evidence suggesting that common neural and behavioral measures of self-regulation derived from laboratory tasks do not predict everyday goal pursuit.
- Blair Saunders
- , Marina Milyavskaya
- & Michael Inzlicht
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| Open AccessProsocial correlates of transformative experiences at secular multi-day mass gatherings
Mass gatherings may elicit experiences of profound personal change. Here the authors show across six field sites that reporting of transformative experiences at mass gatherings are common, increase over time, and predict lasting increases in participants’ circle of moral regard.
- Daniel A. Yudkin
- , Annayah M. B. Prosser
- & M. J. Crockett
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Article
| Open AccessMothers with higher twinning propensity had lower fertility in pre-industrial Europe
The question of whether women who produce twins are more fertile than other women has been debated. Here, the authors analyze a large dataset of pre-industrial birth outcomes and find evidence against the idea of higher fertility and instead that more births lead to more twinning opportunities.
- Ian J. Rickard
- , Colin Vullioud
- & Alexandre Courtiol
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| Open AccessModulation of biological motion perception in humans by gravity
Utilizing spaceflight and its ground-based analog, the authors show how the Earth’s gravity sustains the human brain’s orientation-dependent sensitivity to biological motion signals based on neural computations of visual and vestibular gravitational cues.
- Ying Wang
- , Xue Zhang
- & Yi Jiang
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| Open AccessAccuracy prompts are a replicable and generalizable approach for reducing the spread of misinformation
Prompting people to consider accuracy can improve the quality of news they share online. Here, using an internal meta-analysis, the authors show that this effect is replicable and generalizes across headlines, types of accuracy prompt, and various participant characteristics.
- Gordon Pennycook
- & David G. Rand
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| Open AccessAn energizing role for motivation in information-seeking during the early phase of the COVID-19 pandemic
Information-seeking behavior in humans is often viewed as irrational rather than utility maximizing. Here the authors describe data obtained in Spring 2020 showing that participants’ concern about COVID-19 was related not only to their drive to seek information about the virus, but also to their curiosity about other more general topics.
- Yaniv Abir
- , Caroline B. Marvin
- & Daphna Shohamy
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| Open AccessA computational theory of the subjective experience of flow
Flow is a desired but elusive state characterized by the subjective experience of immersion and engagement in an activity. Here, the authors develop and empirically validate a formal model that specifies variables and computations involved in the subjective experience of flow.
- David E. Melnikoff
- , Ryan W. Carlson
- & Paul E. Stillman
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| Open AccessElectrocorticographic evidence of a common neurocognitive sequence for mentalizing about the self and others
The individual roles of default network regions in social thinking remain unclear. Using electrocorticography, the authors show a spatiotemporal hierarchy of neurocognitive specialization across temporoparietal and prefrontal default network regions.
- Kevin M. Tan
- , Amy L. Daitch
- & Matthew D. Lieberman
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| Open AccessAdverse biobehavioral effects in infants resulting from pregnant rhesus macaques’ exposure to wildfire smoke
Little is known about the consequences of prenatal exposure to wildfire smoke on biobehavioural outcomes. Here, the authors show that infant rhesus monkeys exposed early in gestation to wildfire smoke from the 2018 Camp Fire in California show more inflammation, blunted cortisol and altered behaviour outcomes compared to non-exposed animals.
- John P. Capitanio
- , Laura A. Del Rosso
- & Bill L. Lasley
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| Open AccessA probabilistic map of emotional experiences during competitive social interactions
Emotions motivate decision-making but are difficult to measure. Here the authors use a data driven, machine learning approach to reveal that social choices are linked to a diverse array of emotions, including disappointment and sadness.
- Joseph Heffner
- & Oriel FeldmanHall
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| Open AccessCumulative lifetime stressor exposure assessed by the STRAIN predicts economic ambiguity aversion
Uncertainty is a factor in most decisions. Here the authors quantify tolerance for two forms of economic uncertainty—risk and ambiguity—and show that greater lifetime stressor exposure (as assessed by a comprehensive lifetime stressor exposure inventory) was associated with higher aversion to decisions involving ambiguity, but not risk.
- Candace M. Raio
- , Benjamin B. Lu
- & Paul Glimcher
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| Open AccessWindows of developmental sensitivity to social media
The relationship between social media use and well-being might change across adolescent development. Here, the authors use cross sectional and longitudinal data to show that distinct developmental windows of sensitivity to social media emerge in adolescence, dependent on age and sex.
- Amy Orben
- , Andrew K. Przybylski
- & Rogier A. Kievit
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| Open AccessIn-degree centrality in a social network is linked to coordinated neural activity
Convergent processing of external stimuli may contribute to social connectedness. Here the authors show that people with high in-degree centrality in a social network have similar neural responses to their peers and to each other and that less-central individuals have idiosyncratic responses.
- Elisa C. Baek
- , Ryan Hyon
- & Carolyn Parkinson
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| Open AccessModeling assortative mating and genetic similarities between partners, siblings, and in-laws
Assortative mating could violate the assumption of random mating used in many genetic studies. Here, the authors study more than 25,000 Norwegian families to find genetic similarity between partners, siblings, and in-laws in genetic factors related to educational attainment, height, and depression.
- Fartein Ask Torvik
- , Espen Moen Eilertsen
- & Eivind Ystrom
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| Open AccessWhite matter myelination during early infancy is linked to spatial gradients and myelin content at birth
Myelination in early infancy develops at different rates. Here the authors describe this process whereby the back and top of the brain, as well as sections that are least mature at birth develop the fastest.
- Mareike Grotheer
- , Mona Rosenke
- & Kalanit Grill-Spector
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| Open AccessUsing language in social media posts to study the network dynamics of depression longitudinally
Depression network connectivity is a risk factor for developing depression. Here the authors show personalised networks of depression-related linguistic features were linked to network connectivity within a self-reported depressive episode.
- Sean W. Kelley
- & Claire M. Gillan
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| Open AccessEvent boundaries shape temporal organization of memory by resetting temporal context
Our memory is temporally organized, but our internal clock can be distorted. The authors demonstrate how environmental changes (termed event boundaries) affect memory for event order, and provide a computational model to explain these effects.
- Yi Pu
- , Xiang-Zhen Kong
- & Lucia Melloni
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Matters Arising
| Open AccessReply to: No specific relationship between hypnotic suggestibility and the rubber hand illusion
- P. Lush
- & A. K. Seth
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Matters Arising
| Open AccessNo specific relationship between hypnotic suggestibility and the rubber hand illusion
- H. Henrik Ehrsson
- , Aikaterini Fotopoulou
- & Manos Tsakiris
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Article
| Open AccessNational identity predicts public health support during a global pandemic
Understanding collective behaviour is an important aspect of managing the pandemic response. Here the authors show in a large global study that participants that reported identifying more strongly with their nation reported greater engagement in public health behaviours and support for public health policies in the context of the pandemic.
- Jay J. Van Bavel
- , Aleksandra Cichocka
- & Paulo S. Boggio
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| Open AccessPremature commitment to uncertain decisions during human NMDA receptor hypofunction
In uncertain conditions, people make accurate decisions by considering multiple pieces of information. Here, the authors show that pharmacological n-methyl-d-aspartate (NMDA) receptor hypofunction is associated with elevated uncertainty and premature decisions based on unreliable evidence.
- Alexandre Salvador
- , Luc H. Arnal
- & Valentin Wyart
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Article
| Open AccessDynamic targeting enables domain-general inhibitory control over action and thought by the prefrontal cortex
The authors use fMRI to show that the ability to stop unwanted actions and thoughts arises from a common stopping mechanism that flexibly inhibits activity in diverse, content-specific brain areas.
- Dace Apšvalka
- , Catarina S. Ferreira
- & Michael C. Anderson
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Article
| Open AccessSources of confidence in value-based choice
The authors show that metacognitive awareness of choice certainty is closely linked to endogenous attentional states that guide decision behaviour.
- Jeroen Brus
- , Helena Aebersold
- & Rafael Polania
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Article
| Open AccessDeep neural network models reveal interplay of peripheral coding and stimulus statistics in pitch perception
The neural and computational mechanisms underpinning pitch perception remain unclear. Here, the authors trained deep neural networks to estimate the fundamental frequency of sounds and found that human pitch perception depends on precise spike timing in the auditory nerve, but is also adapted to the statistical tendencies of natural sounds.
- Mark R. Saddler
- , Ray Gonzalez
- & Josh H. McDermott
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| Open AccessComputational mechanisms of distributed value representations and mixed learning strategies
Real-world learning is particularly challenging because reward can be associated to many features of choice options. Here, the authors show that humans can learn complex learning strategies and reveal their underlying computational and neural mechanisms.
- Shiva Farashahi
- & Alireza Soltani
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Article
| Open AccessBrain network coupling associated with cognitive performance varies as a function of a child’s environment in the ABCD study
Previous research suggests that, for children and adults, there is an association between better performance on cognitive tests and less functional connectivity between two brain networks. Here, the authors find that this association does not hold in a sample of children from households in poverty, highlighting the need for more diverse samples to incorporate a range of childhood environments in developmental cognitive neuroscience.
- Monica E. Ellwood-Lowe
- , Susan Whitfield-Gabrieli
- & Silvia A. Bunge