Volume 4 Issue 9, September 2020

COVID-19 has not affected all scientists equally. A survey of principal investigators indicates that female scientists, those in the ‘bench sciences’ and, especially, scientists with young children experienced a substantial decline in time devoted to research. This could have important short- and longer-term effects on their careers, which institution leaders and funders need to address carefully.

Prereg posters are conference posters that present planned scientific projects. We provide preliminary evidence for their value in receiving constructive feedback, promoting open science and supporting early-career researchers.

Human culture is unique. Or is it? A new study reveals unexpected cultural diversity in the fine-grained details of chimpanzee termite fishing behaviour. These novel findings shed light on the richness of chimpanzee cultural diversity and reveal a narrower gap between the cultures of humans and other apes.

Brauer et al. show that communication about peers’ pro-diversity attitudes and inclusive behaviours increases positive attitudes toward outgroups among university students and improves sense of belonging and better grades among marginalized students.

What role do interest groups play in environmental policy? Orach et al. find that coalition-building among interest groups in response to a perceived crisis can delay or prevent resource collapses, even when competing interest coalitions have unequal resources.

A new study shows that chimpanzees possess a highly diverse culture of termite fishing that differs strongly among groups. Individuals copy group-specific techniques, and their combinations, with high conformity to maintain a unique group culture.

Camerer et al. use standardized experiments across thousands of students to demonstrate empirical regularities in two-person bargaining and trading in markets. Bargaining outcomes lean toward equal sharing, and markets rapidly create prices that match supply and demand.

Leckey et al. show that toddlers approach difficult decisions by accumulating evidence slowly and seeking additional information.

Xie et al. combine evidence from behavioural data, computational modelling and intracranial electroencephalogram methods to show that the human brain prioritizes certain information to facilitate associative memory retrieval.

Maier, Raja Beharelle et al. provide a computational model of the decision process that quantifies the temporal dynamics of weighing different attributes. Their time-varying drift diffusion model reveals latent individual differences in decision-making.

An agent-based model of SARS-CoV-2 transmission shows that testing, contact tracing and household quarantine could keep new COVID-19 waves under control while allowing the reopening of the economy with minimal social-distancing interventions.

How We Feel is a web and mobile-phone application for collecting de-identified self-reported COVID-19-related data. These data are used to map a diverse set of symptomatic, demographic, exposure and behavioural factors relevant to the ongoing pandemic.