Semantic representations enable humans to identify stimuli. We illustrate that the organization of semantic representations is in part shaped by psychological needs: people who are averse to uncertainty have more-differentiated and separable semantic representations than individuals who are tolerant of uncertainty, and this separation predicts improved discrimination but poorer generalization.
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This is a summary of: Vives, M.-L., de Bruin, D., van Baar, J. M., FeldmanHall, O. & Bhandari, A. Uncertainty aversion predicts the neural expansion of semantic representations . Nat. Hum. Behav., https://doi.org/10.1038/s41562-023-01561-5 (2023).
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People who are averse to uncertainty exhibit expanded semantic representations. Nat Hum Behav 7, 676–677 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41562-023-01566-0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/s41562-023-01566-0
