Stanislas Dehaene, Mathias Sablé-Meyer, Lorenzo Ciccione
{"title":"Origins of numbers: a shared language-of-thought for arithmetic and geometry?","authors":"Stanislas Dehaene, Mathias Sablé-Meyer, Lorenzo Ciccione","doi":"10.1016/j.tics.2025.03.001","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.tics.2025.03.001","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>Concepts of exact number are often thought to originate from counting and the successor function, or from a refinement of the approximate number system (ANS). We argue here for a third origin: a shared language-of-thought (LoT) for geometry and arithmetic that involves primitives of repetition, concatenation, and recursive embedding. Applied to sets, those primitives engender concepts of exact integers through recursive applications of additions and multiplications. Links between geometry and arithmetic also explain the emergence of higher-level notions (squares, primes, etc.). Under our hypothesis, understanding a number means having one or several mental expressions for it, and their minimal description length (MDL) determines how easily they can be mentally manipulated. Several historical, developmental, linguistic, and brain imaging phenomena provide preliminary support for our proposal.</p>","PeriodicalId":49417,"journal":{"name":"Trends in Cognitive Sciences","volume":" ","pages":"526-540"},"PeriodicalIF":16.7,"publicationDate":"2025-06-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"144051477","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":"Beyond binding: from modular to natural vision.","authors":"H Steven Scholte, Edward H F de Haan","doi":"10.1016/j.tics.2025.03.002","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.tics.2025.03.002","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>The classical view of visual cortex organization as a collection of specialized modules processing distinct features like color and motion has profoundly influenced neuroscience for decades. This framework, rooted in historical philosophical distinctions between qualities, gave rise to the 'binding problem': how the brain integrates these separately processed features into coherent percepts. We present converging evidence from electrophysiology, neuroimaging, and lesion studies that challenges this framework. We argue that the binding problem may be an artifact of theoretical assumptions rather than a real computational challenge for the brain. Drawing insights from deep neural networks (DNNs) and recent empirical findings, we propose a framework where the visual cortex represents naturally co-occurring patterns of information rather than processing isolated features that need binding.</p>","PeriodicalId":49417,"journal":{"name":"Trends in Cognitive Sciences","volume":" ","pages":"505-515"},"PeriodicalIF":16.7,"publicationDate":"2025-06-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC12135946/pdf/","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"144056433","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"心理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Physics versus graphics as an organizing dichotomy in cognition.","authors":"Halely Balaban, Tomer D Ullman","doi":"10.1016/j.tics.2025.05.003","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1016/j.tics.2025.05.003","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>People build world models that simulate the dynamics of the real world. They do so in engineered systems for the purposes of scientific understanding or recreation, as well as in intuitive reasoning to predict and explain the environment. On the basis of a major split in the simulation of real-time dynamics in engineered systems, we argue that people's intuitive mental simulation includes a basic split between physical simulation and graphical rendering. We first show how the separation between physics and graphics relies on a natural division of labor in any cognitive system. We then use the physics/graphics distinction to tie together and explain a range of classic and recent findings across different domains in cognitive science and neuroscience, including aphantasia and imagery, different visual streams, and object tracking.</p>","PeriodicalId":49417,"journal":{"name":"Trends in Cognitive Sciences","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":16.7,"publicationDate":"2025-05-31","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"144200624","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 brain bases of emotion generation and emotion regulation.","authors":"Jin-Xiao Zhang, Ke Bo, Tor D Wager, James J Gross","doi":"10.1016/j.tics.2025.04.013","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1016/j.tics.2025.04.013","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>Emotion generation and emotion regulation are widely seen as functionally distinct. This distinction has inspired efforts to define separable brain bases of each, with emotion generation thought to involve mainly subcortical structures such as the amygdala, and emotion regulation thought to involve mainly cortical regions such as fronto-parietal cortices. However, emerging findings challenge strong neural separability accounts, revealing substantial overlap between brain systems underlying emotion generation and emotion regulation. In this opinion article we review evidence that supports and challenges neural separability. Based on this evidence, we propose an updated neural account using a valuation-systems perspective that incorporates both common and distinct brain bases of emotion generation and emotion regulation. Finally, we discuss implications for next-generation study designs, methods, and clinical interventions.</p>","PeriodicalId":49417,"journal":{"name":"Trends in Cognitive Sciences","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":16.7,"publicationDate":"2025-05-29","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"144188380","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}
Boris Cheval, Silvio Maltagliati, Florent Desplanques, Wanja Wolff
{"title":"Unpacking the dynamic role of physical effort in shaping behavior.","authors":"Boris Cheval, Silvio Maltagliati, Florent Desplanques, Wanja Wolff","doi":"10.1016/j.tics.2025.04.012","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1016/j.tics.2025.04.012","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>Effort plays a crucial role in shaping behavior. We propose that physical effort - and its perception - modulates people's engagement across different stages of behavioral regulation: before, during, and after engagement. We demonstrate that individuals tend to avoid effort before engagement, minimize effort during task performance, and derive a sense of reward from effort after engagement due to an effort-justification mechanism. This dynamic and stage-specific approach moves beyond static models of effort (de)valuation, offering a more nuanced understanding of how effort shapes behavior. Focusing on physical activity, we explore how these specific effort-related mechanisms could promote physical activity by fostering conditions where individuals engage in active behaviors because of the potential rewards effort brings, despite its associated cost.</p>","PeriodicalId":49417,"journal":{"name":"Trends in Cognitive Sciences","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":16.7,"publicationDate":"2025-05-28","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"144182829","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}
Lillian Behm, Nicholas B Turk-Browne, Melissa M Kibbe
{"title":"The ubiquity of episodic-like memory during infancy.","authors":"Lillian Behm, Nicholas B Turk-Browne, Melissa M Kibbe","doi":"10.1016/j.tics.2025.04.003","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1016/j.tics.2025.04.003","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>Considerable progress has been made in understanding early memory development. However, much of this research pre-dates contemporary theories of memory systems in the mature brain. This review provides a refresher on these conceptual frameworks and proposes a common theoretical foundation for reconciling adult and infant studies. This foundation enables a critical analysis of infant studies that have directly tested memory and suggests that they may not capture the full nature and extent of episodic memory abilities in infancy. The analysis is extended to infant studies that are ostensibly focused on cognitive domains other than memory and finds that many such tasks require episodic-like memory. Thus, there may be substantially more evidence for episodic-like memory in infants than previously recognized.</p>","PeriodicalId":49417,"journal":{"name":"Trends in Cognitive Sciences","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":16.7,"publicationDate":"2025-05-21","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"144129112","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":"Choice overload and its consequences for animal decision-making.","authors":"Jessie C Tanner, Claire T Hemingway","doi":"10.1016/j.tics.2025.01.003","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.tics.2025.01.003","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>Animals routinely make decisions with important consequences for their survival and reproduction, but they frequently make suboptimal decisions. Here, we explore choice overload as one reason why animals may make suboptimal decisions, arguing that choice overload may have important ecological and evolutionary consequences, and propose future directions.</p>","PeriodicalId":49417,"journal":{"name":"Trends in Cognitive Sciences","volume":" ","pages":"403-406"},"PeriodicalIF":16.7,"publicationDate":"2025-05-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"143190578","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}
Luca D Kolibius, Sheena A Josselyn, Simon Hanslmayr
{"title":"On the origin of memory neurons in the human hippocampus.","authors":"Luca D Kolibius, Sheena A Josselyn, Simon Hanslmayr","doi":"10.1016/j.tics.2025.01.013","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.tics.2025.01.013","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>The hippocampus is essential for episodic memory, yet its coding mechanism remains debated. In humans, two main theories have been proposed: one suggests that concept neurons represent specific elements of an episode, while another posits a conjunctive code, where index neurons code the entire episode. Here, we integrate new findings of index neurons in humans and other animals with the concept-specific memory framework, proposing that concept neurons evolve from index neurons through overlapping memories. This process is supported by engram literature, which posits that neurons are allocated to a memory trace based on excitability and that reactivation induces excitability. By integrating these insights, we connect two historically disparate fields of neuroscience: engram research and human single neuron episodic memory research.</p>","PeriodicalId":49417,"journal":{"name":"Trends in Cognitive Sciences","volume":" ","pages":"421-433"},"PeriodicalIF":16.7,"publicationDate":"2025-05-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"143558538","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}
Zhewei Zhang, Kauê M Costa, Angela J Langdon, Geoffrey Schoenbaum
{"title":"The devilish details affecting TDRL models in dopamine research.","authors":"Zhewei Zhang, Kauê M Costa, Angela J Langdon, Geoffrey Schoenbaum","doi":"10.1016/j.tics.2025.02.001","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.tics.2025.02.001","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>Over recent decades, temporal difference reinforcement learning (TDRL) models have successfully explained much dopamine (DA) activity. This success has invited heightened scrutiny of late, with many studies challenging the validity of TDRL models of DA function. Yet, when evaluating the validity of these models, the devil is truly in the details. TDRL is a broad class of algorithms sharing core ideas but differing greatly in implementation and predictions. Thus, it is important to identify the defining aspects of the TDRL framework being tested and to use state spaces and model architectures that capture the known complexity of the behavioral representations and neural systems involved. Here, we discuss several examples that illustrate the importance of these considerations.</p>","PeriodicalId":49417,"journal":{"name":"Trends in Cognitive Sciences","volume":" ","pages":"434-447"},"PeriodicalIF":17.2,"publicationDate":"2025-05-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC12058390/pdf/","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"143524893","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"心理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Negative affect-driven impulsivity as hierarchical model-based overgeneralization.","authors":"Aysenur Okan, Michael N Hallquist","doi":"10.1016/j.tics.2025.01.002","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.tics.2025.01.002","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>'If your mouth is burned by milk, you blow before you eat yogurt' ('Sütten ağzı yanan yoğurdu üfleyerek yer'). This Turkish proverb advises caution based on past experiences when similar situations are encountered. However, although we may infer similarities across experiences, each situation is a complex combination of many features, and generalizing across situations based on perceived similarities may not achieve desired outcomes when obtaining them depends on more subtle or overlooked features. Here, we examine how models of generalization can uncover the model-based (MB) processes underlying reactive and rigid behaviors traditionally considered model-free (MF). Our novel conceptualization suggests that emotionally driven impulsive behaviors stem from a propensity to overgeneralize based on surface-level similarities, hindering the incorporation of other informative, discriminant cues.</p>","PeriodicalId":49417,"journal":{"name":"Trends in Cognitive Sciences","volume":" ","pages":"407-420"},"PeriodicalIF":16.7,"publicationDate":"2025-05-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC12058388/pdf/","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"143371286","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"心理学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"OA","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}