Letters in 2019

How similar are the behavioural profiles of people with obesity, uncontrolled eating, and addiction? In a meta-analysis of facet-based phenotype profiles, Vainik et al. find that uncontrolled eating and addiction have more similarities than obesity and addiction.

Hardwick et al. show that habits in human behaviour consist of automatic preparation of an action in response to a trigger. Even though we can learn to control habits to perform different action responses, under time pressure, habitual responses resurface.

Over two experiments and a replication, Molleman and colleagues show that, in cooperative interactions, people prefer to sanction their free-riding peers jointly with others rather than individually.

Using intracranial recordings, Kam et al. find that connectivity between the default network and a recently identified subsystem of the frontoparietal control network plays a role in attending to our own thoughts rather than the outside world.

Wahl et al. present palaeoenvironmental, epigraphic and archaeological evidence that suggests that the Maya engaged in tactics akin to total warfare earlier and more frequently than previously thought.

Would you rather lose your job to a robot or a human? Granulo et al. show that people’s preference for humans to take on the jobs of humans reverses when they consider their own jobs: when it comes to themselves, humans prefer being replaced by robots.

Why are people so often overconfident? Schwardmann and van der Weele show that people self-deceive into higher confidence if they have the opportunity to persuade others for profit and that higher confidence aides persuasion.

Using data from a cross-cultural study of 11 populations, Scelza et al. demonstrate the facultative nature of jealous response, driven in part by the extent of paternal investment in a particular population.

Young children switched to a preference for an aversive conditioned stimulus if acquisition occurred in the presence of their parent. Results suggest that early learning systems are constructed to permit modification by parental presence.

Does holding a rose in mind make you see the world through rose-tinted glasses? Combining working memory and perceptual decision-making tasks in three studies, Teng and Kravitz show that internal representations can affect perception of the environment.

Porfiri et al. show that firearm acquisitions in the United States increase with mass shootings, and this growth may be driven by anticipation of stricter regulations as media coverage about gun control increases with shooting events.

What aspect of faces do we use to recognize familiar people? Zhan et al. model the three-dimensional information contents that represent faces in the memory of their colleagues. This information is relevant for recognition across viewpoints, age and sex.

Risi et al. apply machine learning prediction models to nearly two million US Department of State cables from the 1970s to show that, although it is possible to develop ‘artificial archivists’, historical significance is extremely difficult to predict.

Using misconduct data on 35,000 officers and staff from London’s Metropolitan Police Service, researchers demonstrate that earlier misconduct among peers causes an increase in an officer’s own current misconduct.

Does the transition from foraging to farming result in people working harder? Dyble et al. show that among traditional foragers from the Philippines, greater engagement in agriculture is associated with more time spent working and less leisure time.

Fung et al. show that participants’ trait anxiety is associated with earlier escape decisions when facing slowly approaching threats. Anxiety correlates with task-driven blood-oxygen-level-dependent activity in the cognitive fear circuits.

Attention and working memory both fluctuate over time. Here deBettencourt et al. demonstrate that fluctuations in attention and memory in distinct tasks are synchronous, providing additional evidence for the tight integration of these cognitive processes.

By analysing data from more than 4,500 9- to 10-year-olds, Dick et al. found no evidence that bilingual children have an advantage in executive functions, the cognitive abilities that are central to the voluntary control of thoughts and behaviours.

Using data from Michigan, Harding et al. find no evidence that prison sentences have an effect on arrests or convictions for violent crimes after release. Imprisonment modestly reduced violence if the analysis included imprisonment’s incapacitation effects.

By analysing data from the Growing Up Today Studies 1 and 2, Chen et al. show that positive parenting is associated with greater emotional well-being and lower risk of mental illness, eating disorders, obesity and marijuana use.