Research articles

Pedroni et al. show that risk preferences vary across behavioural elicitation methods, challenging the view that risk preferences can be consistently captured by a single method.

Interpreting complex scenes requires selective filtering of visual information. Using ‘meaning maps’, Henderson and Hayes demonstrate that meaning, rather than salience, primarily guides visual attention within a scene.

Using behavioural experiments and computational modelling, Navajas and colleagues provide a systematic characterization of individual differences in human confidence.

Using the 2014 New York Police Department slowdown as a natural experiment, the authors show that civilian complaints of major crime decreased during and after reductions in proactive policing, which challenges existing research on the topic.

A mega-analysis of whole-genome data from seven populations demonstrates substantial hidden heritability for educational attainment and reproductive behaviour, highlighting the importance of sample-specific gene–environment interaction in complex traits.

Brummitt et al. show how supply-chain disruptions can spread contagiously throughout an economy. Adaptations to frequent disruptions can lead to the emergence of a poverty trap. Implications for ‘big push’ economic development policies are discussed.

The study by Gómez et al. of frontline fighters and non-combatants shows that a willingness to fight and die in intergroup conflict is associated with the sacrifice of material concerns for sacred values, and the perceived spiritual strength of in-groups and adversaries.

There are striking similarities among creole languages. Blasi et al. show that these similarities can in fact be explained by the same processes as for non-creole languages, the difference being that creoles have more than one language in their ancestry.

Gächter et al. use experiments and simulations to show that low levels of cooperation (the ‘tragedy of the commons’) are systematically more likely in maintaining a public good than in providing a new one, even under identical incentives.

Momennejad et al. formulate and provide evidence for the successor representation, a computational learning mechanism intermediate between the two dominant models (a fast but inflexible ‘model-free’ system and a flexible but slow ‘model-based’ one).

Testolin et al. develop a computational model of letter perception based on deep learning and show that domain-general visual knowledge extracted from natural scenes is recycled for learning domain-specific cultural artefacts, such as printed letters.

Global groundwater resources are threatened by over-extraction. An agent-based model is presented, incorporating cooperative and collective action theory that reveals tipping points in social attitudes toward conservation in three at-risk regions.

Gervais et al. present evidence from 13 different countries that shows intuitive moral distrust of atheists is pervasive, even among atheists themselves.

In a model that varies the cost of deliberation, a range of cooperative strategies involving strategic ignorance and Bayesian learning can evolve, including dual-process defectors, who intuitively defect, but may choose to cooperate.

Using resting-state fMRI, Marquand et al. estimate striatal connection topographies in humans and find correspondence with those predicted from primate tracing studies. Individual variation in connectivity is predictive of several goal-directed behaviours.

How does the neurotransmitter dopamine and Parkinson’s disease (PD) affect decision-making under uncertainty? Vilares and Kording find that dopamine levels, which are affected by PD and the drugs used for its treatment, influence reliance on new versus prior information in decision-making.

Spitzer et al. investigate the neural and computational mechanisms involved in weighting, integrating and comparing numbers. They find systematic overweighting of larger numbers, which is reflected in stronger neural signals over the parietal cortex.

Hollands and colleagues classify possible interventions regarding the selection, purchase and consumption of food, alcohol and tobacco. The TIPPME framework enables systematic reporting and analysis of health-related behavioural change interventions.

Muthukrishna et al. experimentally model the cost, causes and cures for corruption, showing that anti-corruption strategies can occasionally backfire.

Research has shown that people dislike inequality. However, in a cross-cultural experiment, Zhou and colleagues show that, from a young age, people are unwilling to redistribute resources between individuals if this reverses an existing hierarchy.