{"title":"Semantic embeddings reveal and address taxonomic incommensurability in psychological measurement","authors":"Dirk U. Wulff, Rui Mata","doi":"10.1038/s41562-024-02089-y","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1038/s41562-024-02089-y","url":null,"abstract":"<p>Taxonomic incommensurability denotes the difficulty in comparing scientific theories due to different uses of concepts and operationalizations. To tackle this problem in psychology, here we use language models to obtain semantic embeddings representing psychometric items, scales and construct labels in a vector space. This approach allows us to analyse different datasets (for example, the International Personality Item Pool) spanning thousands of items and hundreds of scales and constructs and show that embeddings can be used to predict empirical relations between measures, automatically detect taxonomic fallacies and suggest more parsimonious taxonomies. These findings suggest that semantic embeddings constitute a powerful tool for tackling taxonomic incommensurability in the psychological sciences.</p>","PeriodicalId":19074,"journal":{"name":"Nature Human Behaviour","volume":"87 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":29.9,"publicationDate":"2025-03-11","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"143589838","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"心理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
N. B. Diamond, S. Simpson, D. Baena, B. Murray, S. Fogel, B. Levine
{"title":"Sleep selectively and durably enhances memory for the sequence of real-world experiences","authors":"N. B. Diamond, S. Simpson, D. Baena, B. Murray, S. Fogel, B. Levine","doi":"10.1038/s41562-025-02117-5","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1038/s41562-025-02117-5","url":null,"abstract":"<p>Sleep is thought to play a critical role in the retention of memory for past experiences (episodic memory), reducing the rate of forgetting compared with wakefulness. Yet it remains unclear whether and how sleep actively transforms the way we remember multidimensional real-world experiences, and how such memory transformation unfolds over the days, months and years that follow. In an exception to the law of forgetting, we show that sleep actively and selectively improves the accuracy of memory for a one-time, real-world experience (an art tour)—specifically boosting memory for the order of tour items (sequential associations) versus perceptual details from the tour (featural associations). This above-baseline boost in sequence memory was not evident after a matched period of wakefulness. Moreover, the preferential retention of sequence relative to featural memory observed after a night’s sleep grew over time up to 1 year post-encoding. Finally, overnight polysomnography showed that sleep-related memory enhancement was associated with the duration and neurophysiological hallmarks of slow-wave sleep previously linked to sequential neural replay, particularly spindle–slow wave coupling. These results suggest that sleep serves a crucial and selective role in enhancing sequential organization in our memory for past events at the expense of perceptual details, linking sleep-related neural mechanisms to the days-to-years-long transformation of memory for complex real-life experiences.</p>","PeriodicalId":19074,"journal":{"name":"Nature Human Behaviour","volume":"40 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":29.9,"publicationDate":"2025-03-11","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"143589841","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"心理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Yossi Zaidner, Marion Prévost, Ruth Shahack-Gross, Lior Weissbrod, Reuven Yeshurun, Naomi Porat, Gilles Guérin, Norbert Mercier, Asmodée Galy, Christophe Pécheyran, Gaëlle Barbotin, Chantal Tribolo, Hélène Valladas, Dustin White, Rhys Timms, Simon Blockley, Amos Frumkin, David Gaitero-Santos, Shimon Ilani, Sapir Ben-Haim, Antonella Pedergnana, Alyssa V. Pietraszek, Pedro García, Cristiano Nicosia, Susan Lagle, Oz Varoner, Chen Zeigen, Dafna Langgut, Onn Crouvi, Sarah Borgel, Rachel Sarig, Hila May, Israel Hershkovitz
{"title":"Evidence from Tinshemet Cave in Israel suggests behavioural uniformity across Homo groups in the Levantine mid-Middle Palaeolithic circa 130,000–80,000 years ago","authors":"Yossi Zaidner, Marion Prévost, Ruth Shahack-Gross, Lior Weissbrod, Reuven Yeshurun, Naomi Porat, Gilles Guérin, Norbert Mercier, Asmodée Galy, Christophe Pécheyran, Gaëlle Barbotin, Chantal Tribolo, Hélène Valladas, Dustin White, Rhys Timms, Simon Blockley, Amos Frumkin, David Gaitero-Santos, Shimon Ilani, Sapir Ben-Haim, Antonella Pedergnana, Alyssa V. Pietraszek, Pedro García, Cristiano Nicosia, Susan Lagle, Oz Varoner, Chen Zeigen, Dafna Langgut, Onn Crouvi, Sarah Borgel, Rachel Sarig, Hila May, Israel Hershkovitz","doi":"10.1038/s41562-025-02110-y","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1038/s41562-025-02110-y","url":null,"abstract":"<p>The south Levantine mid-Middle Palaeolithic (mid-MP; ~130–80 thousand years ago (ka)) is remarkable for its exceptional evidence of human morphological variability, with contemporaneous fossils of <i>Homo sapiens</i> and Neanderthal-like hominins. Yet, it remains unclear whether these hominins adhered to discrete behavioural sets or whether regional-scale intergroup interactions could have homogenized mid-MP behaviour. Here we report on our discoveries at Tinshemet Cave, Israel. The site yielded articulated <i>Homo</i> remains in association with rich assemblages of ochre, fauna and stone tools dated to ~100 ka. Viewed from the perspective of other key regional sites of this period, our findings indicate consolidation of a uniform behavioural set in the Levantine mid-MP, consisting of similar lithic technology, an increased reliance on large-game hunting and a range of socially elaborated behaviours, comprising intentional human burial and the use of ochre in burial contexts. We suggest that the development of this behavioural uniformity is due to intensified inter-population interactions and admixture between <i>Homo</i> groups ~130–80 ka.</p>","PeriodicalId":19074,"journal":{"name":"Nature Human Behaviour","volume":"14 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":29.9,"publicationDate":"2025-03-11","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"143589840","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"心理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Martin Seeber, Matthias Stangl, Mauricio Vallejo Martelo, Uros Topalovic, Sonja Hiller, Casey H. Halpern, Jean-Philippe Langevin, Vikram R. Rao, Itzhak Fried, Dawn Eliashiv, Nanthia Suthana
{"title":"Human neural dynamics of real-world and imagined navigation","authors":"Martin Seeber, Matthias Stangl, Mauricio Vallejo Martelo, Uros Topalovic, Sonja Hiller, Casey H. Halpern, Jean-Philippe Langevin, Vikram R. Rao, Itzhak Fried, Dawn Eliashiv, Nanthia Suthana","doi":"10.1038/s41562-025-02119-3","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1038/s41562-025-02119-3","url":null,"abstract":"<p>The ability to form episodic memories and later imagine them is integral to the human experience, influencing our recollection of the past and envisioning of the future. While rodent studies suggest the medial temporal lobe, especially the hippocampus, is involved in these functions, its role in human imagination remains uncertain. In human participants, imaginations can be explicitly instructed and reported. Here we investigate hippocampal theta oscillations during real-world and imagined navigation using motion capture and intracranial electroencephalographic recordings from individuals with chronically implanted medial temporal lobe electrodes. Our results revealed intermittent theta dynamics, particularly within the hippocampus, encoding spatial information and partitioning navigational routes into linear segments during real-world navigation. During imagined navigation, theta dynamics exhibited similar patterns despite the absence of external cues. A statistical model successfully reconstructed real-world and imagined positions, providing insights into the neural mechanisms underlying human navigation and imagination, with implications for understanding memory in real-world settings.</p>","PeriodicalId":19074,"journal":{"name":"Nature Human Behaviour","volume":"49 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":29.9,"publicationDate":"2025-03-10","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"143589601","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"心理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Brain waves in both actual and imagined navigation show structured oscillations","authors":"","doi":"10.1038/s41562-025-02120-w","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1038/s41562-025-02120-w","url":null,"abstract":"Our study investigated brain waves in freely moving humans who learned to navigate, remember and then imagine walking specific routes. Brain waves in the medial temporal lobe during real-world and imagined navigation are similarly structured, which underpins the parallels between physical and mental wayfinding.","PeriodicalId":19074,"journal":{"name":"Nature Human Behaviour","volume":"56 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":29.9,"publicationDate":"2025-03-10","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"143589839","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"心理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Timothy Dörr, Trisha Nagpal, Duncan Watts, Chris Bail
{"title":"A research agenda for encouraging prosocial behaviour on social media","authors":"Timothy Dörr, Trisha Nagpal, Duncan Watts, Chris Bail","doi":"10.1038/s41562-025-02102-y","DOIUrl":"10.1038/s41562-025-02102-y","url":null,"abstract":"Many studies examine antisocial behaviours on social media—such as sharing misinformation or producing hate speech—but far fewer examine how platforms can incentivize more prosocial behaviour. We identify several ways in which social media platforms currently enable such behaviour, including (1) connecting new communities, (2) enabling collective problem-solving and (3) expanding the boundaries of philanthropy. However, we also discuss how some of the factors that enable prosocial behaviour can also empower malicious actors—as well as the challenge of creating prosocial behaviour that is sustainable and impactful offline. We then propose a research agenda to help scholars, policymakers and corporate leaders to identify the causal factors that shape prosocial behaviour on social media. This agenda focuses on (1) the size and shape of social networks, (2) platform affordances, (3) social norms and (4) how prosocial behaviour can be embedded within existing and future business models of social media. Dörr et al. argue that research on social media has mainly focused on antisocial behaviours and call for more research on the ways in which social media platforms can empower prosocial behaviour.","PeriodicalId":19074,"journal":{"name":"Nature Human Behaviour","volume":"9 3","pages":"441-449"},"PeriodicalIF":21.4,"publicationDate":"2025-03-10","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"143582916","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"心理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Leslie Berntsen, Emma Courtney, Colette Delawalla, JP Flores, Samantha Goldstein, Charlotte Payne
{"title":"Why we organized ‘Stand Up For Science’","authors":"Leslie Berntsen, Emma Courtney, Colette Delawalla, JP Flores, Samantha Goldstein, Charlotte Payne","doi":"10.1038/s41562-025-02146-0","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1038/s41562-025-02146-0","url":null,"abstract":"In the USA, the Trump administration has signed executive orders that impose censorship on key areas of scientific research, strip government scientists of their jobs and reduce federal funding for science. Five co-organizers of the nationwide Stand Up For Science movement explain the need for collective action at this time.","PeriodicalId":19074,"journal":{"name":"Nature Human Behaviour","volume":"31 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":29.9,"publicationDate":"2025-03-10","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"143582915","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"心理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
František Bartoš, Alexandra Sarafoglou, Balazs Aczel, Suzanne Hoogeveen, Christopher D. Chambers, Eric-Jan Wagenmakers
{"title":"Introducing synchronous robustness reports","authors":"František Bartoš, Alexandra Sarafoglou, Balazs Aczel, Suzanne Hoogeveen, Christopher D. Chambers, Eric-Jan Wagenmakers","doi":"10.1038/s41562-025-02129-1","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1038/s41562-025-02129-1","url":null,"abstract":"Most empirical research articles feature a single primary analysis that is conducted by the authors. However, different analysis teams usually adopt different analytical approaches and frequently reach varied conclusions. We propose synchronous robustness reports — brief reports that summarize the results of alternative analyses by independent experts — to strengthen the credibility of science.","PeriodicalId":19074,"journal":{"name":"Nature Human Behaviour","volume":"18 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":29.9,"publicationDate":"2025-03-07","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"143569774","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"心理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Ariel Goldstein, Haocheng Wang, Leonard Niekerken, Mariano Schain, Zaid Zada, Bobbi Aubrey, Tom Sheffer, Samuel A. Nastase, Harshvardhan Gazula, Aditi Singh, Aditi Rao, Gina Choe, Catherine Kim, Werner Doyle, Daniel Friedman, Sasha Devore, Patricia Dugan, Avinatan Hassidim, Michael Brenner, Yossi Matias, Orrin Devinsky, Adeen Flinker, Uri Hasson
{"title":"A unified acoustic-to-speech-to-language embedding space captures the neural basis of natural language processing in everyday conversations","authors":"Ariel Goldstein, Haocheng Wang, Leonard Niekerken, Mariano Schain, Zaid Zada, Bobbi Aubrey, Tom Sheffer, Samuel A. Nastase, Harshvardhan Gazula, Aditi Singh, Aditi Rao, Gina Choe, Catherine Kim, Werner Doyle, Daniel Friedman, Sasha Devore, Patricia Dugan, Avinatan Hassidim, Michael Brenner, Yossi Matias, Orrin Devinsky, Adeen Flinker, Uri Hasson","doi":"10.1038/s41562-025-02105-9","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1038/s41562-025-02105-9","url":null,"abstract":"<p>This study introduces a unified computational framework connecting acoustic, speech and word-level linguistic structures to study the neural basis of everyday conversations in the human brain. We used electrocorticography to record neural signals across 100 h of speech production and comprehension as participants engaged in open-ended real-life conversations. We extracted low-level acoustic, mid-level speech and contextual word embeddings from a multimodal speech-to-text model (Whisper). We developed encoding models that linearly map these embeddings onto brain activity during speech production and comprehension. Remarkably, this model accurately predicts neural activity at each level of the language processing hierarchy across hours of new conversations not used in training the model. The internal processing hierarchy in the model is aligned with the cortical hierarchy for speech and language processing, where sensory and motor regions better align with the model’s speech embeddings, and higher-level language areas better align with the model’s language embeddings. The Whisper model captures the temporal sequence of language-to-speech encoding before word articulation (speech production) and speech-to-language encoding post articulation (speech comprehension). The embeddings learned by this model outperform symbolic models in capturing neural activity supporting natural speech and language. These findings support a paradigm shift towards unified computational models that capture the entire processing hierarchy for speech comprehension and production in real-world conversations.</p>","PeriodicalId":19074,"journal":{"name":"Nature Human Behaviour","volume":"85 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":29.9,"publicationDate":"2025-03-07","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"143569776","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"心理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Charles A. Emogor, Mark A. Burgman, Natalie Cash, Asha de Vos, Amayaa Wijesinghe, William J. Sutherland
{"title":"Crediting non-author contributors in scientific publishing","authors":"Charles A. Emogor, Mark A. Burgman, Natalie Cash, Asha de Vos, Amayaa Wijesinghe, William J. Sutherland","doi":"10.1038/s41562-025-02123-7","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1038/s41562-025-02123-7","url":null,"abstract":"Scientific publications often benefit from diverse contributions that go uncredited owing to a lack of guidelines for recognizing non-author contributors. We propose ‘extended research credits’ — a standardized, tiered system (modelled after the attribution style of the film industry) to highlight hidden labour in research.","PeriodicalId":19074,"journal":{"name":"Nature Human Behaviour","volume":"191 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":29.9,"publicationDate":"2025-03-07","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"143569775","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"心理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}