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| Open AccessPrior context in audition informs binding and shapes simple features
Perception can be swayed by prior context. Here the authors report an auditory illusion in which sounds with ambiguous pitch shifts are perceived as shifting upward or downward based on the preceding contextual sounds, explore the neural correlates, and propose a probabilistic model based on temporal binding.
- Claire Chambers
- , Sahar Akram
- & Daniel Pressnitzer
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Article
| Open AccessWhite matter maturation is associated with the emergence of Theory of Mind in early childhood
At age 4, children start understanding other peoples' false beliefs, but the related neuroanatomical changes are unknown. Here, authors show that false belief understanding is associated with age-related changes in white matter structure, and that this effect is independent of other cognitive abilities.
- Charlotte Grosse Wiesmann
- , Jan Schreiber
- & Angela D. Friederici
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| Open AccessPupil-linked arousal is driven by decision uncertainty and alters serial choice bias
Decision uncertainty is often associated with higher order cognition and can impact choices. Here the authors show that post-decision pupil dilation scales with uncertainty and predicts a change in upcoming choice patterns.
- Anne E. Urai
- , Anke Braun
- & Tobias H. Donner
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| Open AccessQuantifying cerebral contributions to pain beyond nociception
Pain is affected by cerebral processes in addition to afferent nociceptive input. Here the authors develop an fMRI-based signature that predicts pain independent of the intensity of nociceptive signals and mediates the pain-modulating effects of several cognitive interventions.
- Choong-Wan Woo
- , Liane Schmidt
- & Tor D. Wager
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| Open AccessCardiac afferent activity modulates the expression of racial stereotypes
Black individuals are racially stereotyped as threatening but how bodily signals may affect these misperceptions is not known. Here Azevedo and colleagues show that these race-driven responses are affected by the cardiac cycle, being more biased when arterial baroreceptor activation is maximal.
- Ruben T. Azevedo
- , Sarah N. Garfinkel
- & Manos Tsakiris
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| Open AccessUniversal and uniquely human factors in spontaneous number perception
Perception of numerical quantities has been demonstrated in humans and animals; however, whether this is a natural ability is not clear. Here the authors show that human children and adults as well as monkeys spontaneously use number over surface area to categorize dot stimuli and this preference is enhanced with numerical literacy.
- Stephen Ferrigno
- , Julian Jara-Ettinger
- & Jessica F. Cantlon
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| Open AccessResilient cooperators stabilize long-run cooperation in the finitely repeated Prisoner’s Dilemma
Studying the dynamics of learning in repeated games of cooperation is complicated by the short duration of traditional experiments. Here the authors perform a virtual prisoner's dilemma game over twenty consecutive days, finding that a minority of resilient co-operators can sustain cooperation indefinitely.
- Andrew Mao
- , Lili Dworkin
- & Duncan J. Watts
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| Open AccessOrganization of high-level visual cortex in human infants
Adult visual cortex is organized into regions that respond to categories such as faces and scenes, but it is unclear if this depends on experience. Here, authors measured brain activity in 4–6 month old infants looking at faces and scenes and find that their visual cortex is organized similarly to adults.
- Ben Deen
- , Hilary Richardson
- & Rebecca Saxe
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| Open AccessThe nature of prosociality in chimpanzees
Chimpanzees appear helpful in some studies yet they do not usually share food, suggesting that they are prosocial when costs are low and goals are clear. Here, Tennie et al. show that chimpanzee helping behaviour might be a byproduct of task design and that these apes might not be as prosocial as supposed.
- Claudio Tennie
- , Keith Jensen
- & Josep Call
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| Open AccessGlobal gain modulation generates time-dependent urgency during perceptual choice in humans
Decision-making balances the benefits of additional information with the cost of time, but it is unclear whether humans adjust this balance within individual decisions. Here, authors show that we do make such adjustments to suit contextual demands and suggest that these are driven by modulation of neural gain.
- Peter R. Murphy
- , Evert Boonstra
- & Sander Nieuwenhuis
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| Open AccessFast ensemble representations for abstract visual impressions
Perceiving objects as lifelike is an inferential process but whether it occurs quickly and how it applies to groups of objects is not well understood. Here the authors show that observers’ percepts of crowd lifelikeness are fast and represent the average of the individual objects comprising that crowd.
- Allison Yamanashi Leib
- , Anna Kosovicheva
- & David Whitney
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| Open AccessAltruistic punishment does not increase with the severity of norm violations in the field
Lab experiments have shown that people will punish violators of social norms, with the severity of punishment increasing with the degree of violation. Here, Balafoutas et al. show that, outside of the lab, larger violations are not punished more severely and are associated with a greater risk of reprisal.
- Loukas Balafoutas
- , Nikos Nikiforakis
- & Bettina Rockenbach
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| Open AccessSocial learning strategies modify the effect of network structure on group performance
Previous studies have disagreed over whether efficient or inefficient network structures should be more effective in promoting group performance. Here, Barkoczi and Galesic demonstrate that which structure is superior depends on the social learning strategy used by individuals in the network.
- Daniel Barkoczi
- & Mirta Galesic
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| Open AccessStriatal prediction errors support dynamic control of declarative memory decisions
The human brain can efficiently retrieve information from long-term memory and use it to guide action but how the brain selects the most useful information in each case is unclear. Here the authors show that reinforcement learning mechanisms, based on expected value and prediction error fMRI signals in striatum, play a role in memory control processes guiding behavior.
- Jason M. Scimeca
- , Perri L. Katzman
- & David Badre
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| Open AccessMotor cortex activity predicts response alternation during sensorimotor decisions
The motor cortex executes responses based on sensory choices, but it is unknown whether it also impacts response selection. Here, Pape and Siegel show that motor cortex activity present before decision making predicts responses and that this activity is influenced by previous button-presses.
- Anna-Antonia Pape
- & Markus Siegel
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| Open AccessAgeing increases reliance on sensorimotor prediction through structural and functional differences in frontostriatal circuits
Decline in sensorimotor skills with age may be due to an overreliance on the prediction of the sensory consequences of one’s actions. Here the authors show that sensorimotor attenuation increases with age, and that this is associated with structural and functional changes in frontostriatal circuits.
- Noham Wolpe
- , James N. Ingram
- & James B. Rowe
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| Open AccessSpontaneous perception of numerosity in humans
Humans as well as many other species have the ability to perceive the number of items, numerosity, but the mechanism by which this is achieved is unclear. Here the authors provide strong evidence in support of a spontaneous perception of numerosity without reliance on density and area estimation.
- Guido Marco Cicchini
- , Giovanni Anobile
- & David C. Burr
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| Open AccessPredictive decision making driven by multiple time-linked reward representations in the anterior cingulate cortex
Past experiences and future predictions both shape our decisions. Here, the authors trained participants in a foraging task in which reward rates varied systematically over time and find the dACC tracks both recent and past reward rates, leading to opposing effects on decisions about whether to stay or leave a reward environment.
- Marco K. Wittmann
- , Nils Kolling
- & Matthew F. S. Rushworth
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| Open AccessCooperation is related to dispersal patterns in Sino-Tibetan populations
Dispersal is key to establishing patterns of cooperation. Here, the authors show that social organization is associated with levels of cooperation in Sino-Tibetan populations with strikingly different dispersal patterns.
- Jia-Jia Wu
- , Ting Ji
- & Ruth Mace
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A causal role of the right inferior frontal cortex in implementing strategies for multi-component behaviour
Complex behaviours, such as driving a car, require the organization and processing of several individual actions. Here, the authors use transcranial magnetic stimulation to demonstrate that the right inferior frontal gyrus determines the strategy used to sequence actions during complex behaviours.
- Gabriel Dippel
- & Christian Beste
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Reputation can enhance or suppress cooperation through positive feedback
When individuals differ in their cooperative behaviour, it pays to take a partner’s reputation into account when deciding one's own levels of cooperation. Here the authors use game theory to analyse how this feeds back to change levels of cooperation as individuals change their reputation so as to change the behaviour of future partners.
- John M. McNamara
- & Polly Doodson
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Prefrontal cortex reactivity underlies trait vulnerability to chronic social defeat stress
Connectivity between the prefrontal cortex (PFC) and the amygdala (AMY) is implicated in responses to stress and regulation of affect. Here, the authors show that stress is regulated by changes in PFC–AMY coherence, PFC oscillatory activity and AMY oscillatory activity across the 2–7 Hz frequency band.
- Sunil Kumar
- , Rainbo Hultman
- & Kafui Dzirasa