Thomas L Griffiths, Brenden M Lake, R Thomas McCoy, Ellie Pavlick, Taylor W Webb
{"title":"Whither symbols in the era of advanced neural networks?","authors":"Thomas L Griffiths, Brenden M Lake, R Thomas McCoy, Ellie Pavlick, Taylor W Webb","doi":"10.1016/j.tics.2026.02.003","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1016/j.tics.2026.02.003","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>Some of the strongest evidence that human minds should be thought of in terms of symbolic systems has been the way they combine ideas, produce novelty, and learn quickly. We argue that modern neural networks-and the artificial intelligence systems built upon them-exhibit similar abilities. This potentially undermines the argument that the cognitive processes and representations used by human minds are symbolic. We consider possible interpretations of these results-that modern neural networks implement symbolic systems, or that they approximate them subsymbolically-and the theoretical consequences of these two possibilities for explanations of human cognition at different levels of analysis. This consideration leads us to offer a new agenda for research on the symbolic basis of the mind.</p>","PeriodicalId":49417,"journal":{"name":"Trends in Cognitive Sciences","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":17.2,"publicationDate":"2026-04-15","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"147700488","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}
Shervin Safavi, Danaé Rolland, Philipp Sterzer, Renaud Jardri, Pantelis Leptourgos
{"title":"Perceptual multistability: a multifaceted window into brain dysfunctions.","authors":"Shervin Safavi, Danaé Rolland, Philipp Sterzer, Renaud Jardri, Pantelis Leptourgos","doi":"10.1016/j.tics.2026.02.008","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1016/j.tics.2026.02.008","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>Perceptual multistability, observed across species and sensory modalities, offers valuable insights into numerous cognitive functions and dysfunctions. For instance, differences in temporal dynamics and information integration during percept formation often distinguish clinical from nonclinical populations. Computational psychiatry can elucidate these variations through two primary approaches: (i) Bayesian modeling, which treats perception as an unconscious inference, and (ii) an active, information-seeking perspective (e.g., reinforcement learning), which frames perceptual switches as internal actions. Our synthesis aims to leverage multistability to bridge these computational psychiatry subfields, linking human and animal studies as well as connecting behavior to underlying neural mechanisms. Perceptual multistability emerges as a promising noninvasive tool for clinical applications, facilitating translational research and enhancing our mechanistic understanding of cognitive processes and their impairments.</p>","PeriodicalId":49417,"journal":{"name":"Trends in Cognitive Sciences","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":17.2,"publicationDate":"2026-04-11","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"147678132","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":"Explanation, scope, and perspective: sources of schismogenesis in consciousness science.","authors":"Francesco Ellia, Naotsugu Tsuchiya","doi":"10.1016/j.tics.2026.03.005","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1016/j.tics.2026.03.005","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>Contemporary consciousness science faces an impasse: competing theoretical frameworks-structuralist versus functionalist, universal versus local, intrinsic versus extrinsic-appear to be inducing philosophical deadlocks and conceptual standstills. While these debates have generated valuable insights, they have proceeded in parallel, without a systematic framework for understanding their relationships and implications. We contend that these parallel disputes reflect deeper, unresolved tensions in the conceptualization of consciousness. These debates can be addressed by recognizing three fundamental dimensions that encompass models of consciousness at a meta-theoretical level: explanatory medium, scope, and perspective. We show the interplay among different dimensions and how they mutually condition evidence, language, and concepts, reframing theoretical conflicts into tractable disagreements.</p>","PeriodicalId":49417,"journal":{"name":"Trends in Cognitive Sciences","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":17.2,"publicationDate":"2026-04-07","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"147640431","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":"Subscription and Copyright Information","authors":"","doi":"10.1016/s1364-6613(26)00061-6","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1016/s1364-6613(26)00061-6","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":49417,"journal":{"name":"Trends in Cognitive Sciences","volume":"14 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":19.9,"publicationDate":"2026-04-07","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"147681155","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":"Advisory Board and Contents","authors":"","doi":"10.1016/s1364-6613(26)00058-6","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1016/s1364-6613(26)00058-6","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":49417,"journal":{"name":"Trends in Cognitive Sciences","volume":"36 8-12 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":19.9,"publicationDate":"2026-04-07","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"147681156","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 cognitive origins of geometry","authors":"Moira R. Dillon","doi":"10.1016/j.tics.2026.01.005","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1016/j.tics.2026.01.005","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":49417,"journal":{"name":"Trends in Cognitive Sciences","volume":"112 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":19.9,"publicationDate":"2026-04-06","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"147620152","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":"Producing more while understanding less with large language models.","authors":"M J Crockett, Lisa Messeri","doi":"10.1016/j.tics.2026.01.006","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.tics.2026.01.006","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":49417,"journal":{"name":"Trends in Cognitive Sciences","volume":" ","pages":"286-287"},"PeriodicalIF":17.2,"publicationDate":"2026-04-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"146259798","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 Global Neuronal Workspace as a multilevel model of conscious processing","authors":"Jean-Pierre Changeux, Michele Farisco","doi":"10.1016/j.tics.2026.03.004","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1016/j.tics.2026.03.004","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":49417,"journal":{"name":"Trends in Cognitive Sciences","volume":"16 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":19.9,"publicationDate":"2026-04-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"147598065","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: lunch can be surprisingly affordable.","authors":"H Steven Scholte, Edward H F de Haan","doi":"10.1016/j.tics.2026.01.004","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.tics.2026.01.004","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":49417,"journal":{"name":"Trends in Cognitive Sciences","volume":" ","pages":"290-291"},"PeriodicalIF":17.2,"publicationDate":"2026-04-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"147444719","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":"Rapid decay of perceptual memory in dyslexia.","authors":"Ayelet Gertsovski, Merav Ahissar","doi":"10.1016/j.tics.2025.09.009","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.tics.2025.09.009","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>The basic mechanisms that underlie developmental dyslexia - a difficulty in acquiring reading expertise - are still debated. We propose that such difficulties should be understood within the broad framework of learning and skill acquisition. Behavioral and neural studies, as well as computational analyses, imply that acquiring expertise has atypical dynamics in dyslexia, largely due to reduced perceptual memory, which is manifested in faster decay of perceptual traces of both speech and non-speech stimuli. This faster behavioral decay is associated with faster decay of neural adaptation to stimulus regularities in perceptual cortices. We propose that these atypical dynamics lead to a slower accumulation of language statistics, manifested in reduced complexity of perceptual categories, slower acquisition of words, and - counterintuitively - larger relative difficulties as exposure to stimuli grows.</p>","PeriodicalId":49417,"journal":{"name":"Trends in Cognitive Sciences","volume":" ","pages":"309-321"},"PeriodicalIF":20.3,"publicationDate":"2026-04-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC13098541/pdf/","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"145276418","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}