{"title":"Temporal foreknowledge: Anticipation and prospective correction of timing errors by diffusion.","authors":"Fuat Balcı, Tutku Öztel","doi":"10.1037/rev0000556","DOIUrl":"10.1037/rev0000556","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>A recent line of research has shown that humans and rodents can monitor errors in their timing behavior in individual trials. This ability is called temporal error monitoring (TEM). Electrophysiological studies showed that TEM-related neural signals of error are present before the timing behavior is manifested. These results have crucial implications for the function and modeling of TEM as they show that timing errors are <i>read</i> <i>out</i> rather than <i>detected</i> retrospectively. Such real-time error monitoring allows emergent timing error signals to improve the impending timing behavior in a prospective fashion (e.g., increasing the timing threshold when \"earlier-than-target\" errors are detected), enabling within-trial error corrections. In this article, we present a drift-diffusion model of real-time TEM with prospective (within-trial) behavioral modulation/refinement elements that are sensitive to task representations. Our model predicts the <i>read-out</i> of timing signals before the manifestation of the timing behavior and the translation of these signals into the improvement of timing accuracy within individual trials (thus improving overall precision) without violating the psychophysical and statistical features of the timing behavior. Finally, the task representation dependency of the decision element accounts for the widely reported reward-rate maximizing timing behavior. Our model introduces a new theoretical foundation for TEM with many testable behavioral and electrophysiological predictions. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2025 APA, all rights reserved).</p>","PeriodicalId":21016,"journal":{"name":"Psychological review","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":5.8,"publicationDate":"2025-04-07","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"143804194","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}
Psychological reviewPub Date : 2025-04-01Epub Date: 2024-02-15DOI: 10.1037/rev0000467
Clay B Holroyd
{"title":"The controllosphere: The neural origin of cognitive effort.","authors":"Clay B Holroyd","doi":"10.1037/rev0000467","DOIUrl":"10.1037/rev0000467","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>Why do some mental activities feel harder than others? The answer to this question is surprisingly controversial. Current theories propose that cognitive effort affords a computational benefit, such as instigating a switch from an activity with low reward value to a different activity with higher reward value. By contrast, in this article, I relate cognitive effort to the fact that brain neuroanatomy and neurophysiology render some neural states more energy-efficient than others. I introduce the concept of the \"controllosphere,\" an energy-inefficient region of neural state space associated with high control, which surrounds the better known \"intrinsic manifold,\" an energy-efficient subspace associated with low control. Integration of control-theoretic principles with classic neurocomputational models of cognitive control suggests that dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (DLPFC) implements a <i>controller</i> that can drive the system state into the controllosphere, anterior cingulate cortex (ACC) implements an <i>observer</i> that monitors changes of state of the controlled system, and cognitive effort reflects a mismatch between DLPFC and ACC energies for control and observation. On this account, cognitive effort scales with the energetic demands of the DLPFC control signal, especially when the consequences of the control are unobservable by ACC. Further, I propose that neural transitions through the controllosphere lead to a buildup of neural waste. Cognitive effort therefore prevents against neural damage by discouraging extended periods of high control. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2025 APA, all rights reserved).</p>","PeriodicalId":21016,"journal":{"name":"Psychological review","volume":" ","pages":"603-631"},"PeriodicalIF":5.8,"publicationDate":"2025-04-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"139736020","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":"g-Distance: On the comparison of model and human heterogeneity.","authors":"Lenard Dome,Andy J Wills","doi":"10.1037/rev0000550","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1037/rev0000550","url":null,"abstract":"Models are often evaluated when their behavior is at its closest to a single, sometimes averaged, set of empirical results, but this evaluation neglects the fact that both model and human behavior can be heterogeneous. Here, we develop a measure, g-distance, which considers model adequacy as the extent to which models exhibit a similar range of behaviors to the humans they model. We define g as the combination of two easily interpretable dimensions of model adequacy: accommodation and excess flexibility. We apply this measure to five models of an irrational learning effect, the inverse base-rate effect. g-Distance identifies two models, a neural network with rapid attentional shifts (NNRAS) and a dissimilarity-similarity generalized context model (DGCM18), which outperform the previously most supported exemplar-based attention to distinctive input model (EXIT). We show that this conclusion holds for a wide range of beliefs about the relative importance of excess flexibility and accommodation. We further show that a preexisting metric, the Bayesian information criterion, misidentifies a known-poor model of the inverse base-rate effect as the most adequate model. Along the way, we discover that some of the models accommodate human behavior in ways that seem unintuitive from an informal understanding of their operation, thus underlining the importance of formal expression of theories. We discuss the implications of our findings for model evaluation generally, and for models of the inverse base-rate effect in particular, and end by suggesting future avenues of research in computational modeling. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2025 APA, all rights reserved).","PeriodicalId":21016,"journal":{"name":"Psychological review","volume":"75 1","pages":"632-655"},"PeriodicalIF":5.4,"publicationDate":"2025-04-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"143822485","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}
Psychological reviewPub Date : 2025-04-01Epub Date: 2024-06-03DOI: 10.1037/rev0000468
Lucy A Livingston, Luca D Hargitai, Punit Shah
{"title":"The double empathy problem: A derivation chain analysis and cautionary note.","authors":"Lucy A Livingston, Luca D Hargitai, Punit Shah","doi":"10.1037/rev0000468","DOIUrl":"10.1037/rev0000468","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>Work on the \"double empathy problem\" (DEP) is rapidly growing in academic and applied settings (e.g., clinical practice). It is most popular in research on conditions, like autism, which are characterized by social cognitive difficulties. Drawing from this literature, we propose that, while research on the DEP has the potential to improve understanding of both typical and atypical social processes, it represents a striking example of a weak derivation chain in psychological science. The DEP is poorly conceptualized, and we find that it is being conflated with many other constructs (i.e., reflecting the \"jingle-jangle\" fallacy). We provide examples to show how this underlies serious problems with translating theoretical claims into empirical predictions and evidence. To start tackling these problems, we propose that DEP research needs reconsideration, particularly through a better synthesis with the cognitive neuroscience literature on social interaction. Overall, we argue for a strengthening of the derivation chain pertaining to the DEP, toward more robust research on (a)typical social cognition. Until then, we caution against the translation of DEP research into applied settings. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2025 APA, all rights reserved).</p>","PeriodicalId":21016,"journal":{"name":"Psychological review","volume":" ","pages":"744-757"},"PeriodicalIF":5.1,"publicationDate":"2025-04-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"141200698","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}
Psychological reviewPub Date : 2025-04-01Epub Date: 2024-02-26DOI: 10.1037/rev0000461
Joshua Snell
{"title":"PONG: A computational model of visual word recognition through bihemispheric activation.","authors":"Joshua Snell","doi":"10.1037/rev0000461","DOIUrl":"10.1037/rev0000461","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>Orthographic processing is an open problem. Decades of visual word recognition research have fueled the development of various theoretical frameworks. Although these frameworks have had good explanatory power, various recent results cannot be satisfactorily captured in any model. In order to account for old and new phenomena alike, here I present a new theory of how the brain computes letter positions. According to <i>PONG</i> (which describes the <i>Positional Ordering of N-Grams</i>), each hemisphere of the brain comprises a set of mono- and multigram detectors. The crux is that the detectors for a given N-gram are activated to different extents in their respective hemispheres, depending on where in the visual field the N-gram is located. This differential activity allows the brain to estimate the leftness or rightness of that N-gram, whereby word activation is a function of the N-gram's identity plus its laterality relative to that of other activated N-grams. Simulations with PONG suggest that the framework effectively accounts for classic phenomena, as well as newer phenomena and cross-linguistic differences that cannot be explained by other models. I also reflect on the neurophysiological plausibility of the model and avenues for future inquiry. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2025 APA, all rights reserved).</p>","PeriodicalId":21016,"journal":{"name":"Psychological review","volume":" ","pages":"505-527"},"PeriodicalIF":5.8,"publicationDate":"2025-04-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"139973304","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}
Psychological reviewPub Date : 2025-04-01Epub Date: 2024-05-09DOI: 10.1037/rev0000484
Claudia Escobar Vega, Jon Billsberry, John Molineux, Kevin B Lowe
{"title":"The development of implicit leadership theories during childhood: A reconceptualization through the lens of overlapping waves theory.","authors":"Claudia Escobar Vega, Jon Billsberry, John Molineux, Kevin B Lowe","doi":"10.1037/rev0000484","DOIUrl":"10.1037/rev0000484","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>Implicit leadership theories (ILTs) are people's lay theories, definitions, or conceptualizations of leadership. In adults, they determine what actions we perceive as leadership, influence to whom we grant leadership status, and shape our own behaviors when we want to be seen as leader. Naturally, there has been an enduring interest in how these ILTs develop in children. Current theorizing on the development of leadership conceptualizations in children aligns with a stepwise progression mirroring Piaget's stage-based approach to cognitive development. However, contemporary approaches to cognitive development, such as Siegler's overlapping waves theory (OWT), acknowledge that children's development is linked to cognitive success and failure. This article integrates the findings from empirical studies into children's leadership conceptualizations and reinterprets them against OWT. This reinterpretation resolves findings that align poorly with a stepwise approach and demonstrates a strong fit with OWT. As such, children's leadership conceptualizations develop by generating and testing cognitive approaches-physical-spatiotemporal, functional, socioemotional, and humanitarian-and instead of progressing through these in order and according to age, they display variation and selection, that with experience and exposure, lay down selective combinations, which often engage multiple dimensions simultaneously. Consequently, the development of children's understanding of leaders is nonlinear, can be multidimensional, and is based on trial and error largely in response to their experiences. The article concludes with a discussion of the implications for future research and practice. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2025 APA, all rights reserved).</p>","PeriodicalId":21016,"journal":{"name":"Psychological review","volume":" ","pages":"719-743"},"PeriodicalIF":5.8,"publicationDate":"2025-04-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"140896272","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}
Psychological reviewPub Date : 2025-04-01Epub Date: 2024-04-15DOI: 10.1037/rev0000474
Pieter Verbeke, Tom Verguts
{"title":"Humans adaptively select different computational strategies in different learning environments.","authors":"Pieter Verbeke, Tom Verguts","doi":"10.1037/rev0000474","DOIUrl":"10.1037/rev0000474","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>The Rescorla-Wagner rule remains the most popular tool to describe human behavior in reinforcement learning tasks. Nevertheless, it cannot fit human learning in complex environments. Previous work proposed several hierarchical extensions of this learning rule. However, it remains unclear when a flat (nonhierarchical) versus a hierarchical strategy is adaptive, or when it is implemented by humans. To address this question, current work applies a nested modeling approach to evaluate multiple models in multiple reinforcement learning environments both computationally (which approach performs best) and empirically (which approach fits human data best). We consider 10 empirical data sets (<i>N</i> = 407) divided over three reinforcement learning environments. Our results demonstrate that different environments are best solved with different learning strategies; and that humans adaptively select the learning strategy that allows best performance. Specifically, while flat learning fitted best in less complex stable learning environments, humans employed more hierarchically complex models in more complex environments. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2025 APA, all rights reserved).</p>","PeriodicalId":21016,"journal":{"name":"Psychological review","volume":" ","pages":"581-602"},"PeriodicalIF":5.8,"publicationDate":"2025-04-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"140864238","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}
Psychological reviewPub Date : 2025-04-01Epub Date: 2025-02-27DOI: 10.1037/rev0000526
Rasmus Bruckner, Matthew R Nassar, Shu-Chen Li, Ben Eppinger
{"title":"Differences in learning across the lifespan emerge via resource-rational computations.","authors":"Rasmus Bruckner, Matthew R Nassar, Shu-Chen Li, Ben Eppinger","doi":"10.1037/rev0000526","DOIUrl":"10.1037/rev0000526","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>Learning accurate beliefs about the world is computationally demanding but critical for adaptive behavior across the lifespan. Here, we build on an established framework formalizing learning as predictive inference and examine the possibility that age differences in learning emerge from efficient computations that consider available cognitive resources differing across the lifespan. In our resource-rational model, beliefs are updated through a sampling process that stops after reaching a criterion level of accuracy. The sampling process navigates a trade-off between belief accuracy and computational cost, with more samples favoring belief accuracy and fewer samples minimizing costs. When cognitive resources are limited or costly, a maximization of the accuracy-cost ratio requires a more frugal sampling policy, which leads to systematically biased beliefs. Data from two lifespan studies (<i>N</i> = 129 and <i>N</i> = 90) and one study in younger adults (<i>N</i> = 94) show that children and older adults display biases characteristic of a more frugal sampling policy. This is reflected in (a) more frequent perseveration when participants are required to update from previous beliefs and (b) a stronger anchoring bias when updating beliefs from an externally generated value. These results are qualitatively consistent with simulated predictions of our resource-rational model, corroborating the assumption that the identified biases originate from sampling. Our model and results provide a unifying perspective on perseverative and anchoring biases, show that they can jointly emerge from efficient belief-updating computations, and suggest that resource-rational adjustments of sampling computations can explain age-related changes in adaptive learning. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2025 APA, all rights reserved).</p>","PeriodicalId":21016,"journal":{"name":"Psychological review","volume":" ","pages":"556-580"},"PeriodicalIF":5.1,"publicationDate":"2025-04-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"143524198","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}
Psychological reviewPub Date : 2025-04-01Epub Date: 2024-09-19DOI: 10.1037/rev0000500
Peter D Kvam, Konstantina Sokratous, Anderson K Fitch
{"title":"Decisions among shifting choice alternatives reveal option-general representations of evidence.","authors":"Peter D Kvam, Konstantina Sokratous, Anderson K Fitch","doi":"10.1037/rev0000500","DOIUrl":"10.1037/rev0000500","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>Dynamic models of choice typically describe the decision-making process in terms of the degree or balance of support for available response options. However, these alternative-specific representations of support are liable to fail when the available options change during the course of a decision. We suggest that people may use alternative-general representations, where stimulus feature information-rather than option-specific support-is accumulated over time and mapped onto support for available options as they appear. We tested alternative-specific and alternative-general models of choice in two perceptual experiments where the available options could change during a trial. In the first study, we showed that changing the choice options partway through a trial resulted in no substantial difference in performance relative to a condition where the final options were always onscreen. This was supported by a quantitative model comparison that strongly favored an alternative-general (geometric) model over two alternative-specific models (diffusion and racing accumulator models). In the second study, the stimulus primed specific unavailable responses to test whether irrelevant support for unavailable options was integrated into the decision process. This study elicited a pattern of accuracy that could not have occurred unless participants accumulated support for options that were not yet available. Together, these experiments and modeling results indicate that the majority of participants rely on alternative-general representations of evidence during dynamic decisions among options that can change over time. Future work on decision behavior and its neural antecedents should explore the predictions of these alternative-general theories of choice. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2025 APA, all rights reserved).</p>","PeriodicalId":21016,"journal":{"name":"Psychological review","volume":" ","pages":"528-555"},"PeriodicalIF":5.1,"publicationDate":"2025-04-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"142294108","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":"The enchronic envelope.","authors":"N J Enfield","doi":"10.1037/rev0000553","DOIUrl":"10.1037/rev0000553","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>This article argues that the diverse causal domains underpinning human language converge and interface at a single privileged locus, a ∼2½-s opportunity for action, called the enchronic envelope. Evidence is given for the existence and nature of the envelope as a universally primary frame for the selection, deployment, and evolution of linguistic structure. The first key argument is that language is a form of action and will therefore be structured similarly to physical actions. The second is that because linguistic actions exploit principles of communication, they are subject to a legibility constraint, which requires speaker-recipient calibration, thus importing strong constraints on the design of linguistic structures from the interpersonal alignment of the dyad in the enchronic time frame of social interaction. The case is made that this envelope is the site at which processes at diverse timescales must be realized. We examine how this applies to individual-level language learning. The account has implications for our developing understanding of languages as complex adaptive systems. It seeks to advance the complex-systems idea for language by showing that highly diverse linguistic networks and processes are moored to a single, central interface, where language is processed, learned, transmitted, and conventionalized. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2025 APA, all rights reserved).</p>","PeriodicalId":21016,"journal":{"name":"Psychological review","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":5.1,"publicationDate":"2025-03-31","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"143754317","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}