{"title":"Fixed and flexible perceptual rhythms.","authors":"Aaron Kaltenmaier, Matthew H Davis, Clare Press","doi":"10.1016/j.tics.2025.05.011","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1016/j.tics.2025.05.011","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>Our sensory inputs are never identical across time and contain temporal structure. Cognitive scientists have recently been fascinated by how these sensory rhythms interact with neural oscillatory rhythms to dictate perception. However, there are parallel lines of enquiry that propose clear, but apparently incompatible, answers to this question. One largely suggests that neural oscillations are flexible and adjust to the temporal structure of the external world. Another suggests that they are fixed by intrinsically determined processes, like our own motor routines or local neural architectural constraints. Here, we highlight how the literature must now crucially ask how rhythmic sources are combined to determine sensory and, in turn, motor processing. To this end, we offer a model based around statistical (Bayesian) learning principles.</p>","PeriodicalId":49417,"journal":{"name":"Trends in Cognitive Sciences","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":16.7,"publicationDate":"2025-06-17","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"144327519","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}
Veronika Job, Christopher Mlynski, Christina A Bauer
{"title":"How rethinking difficulties can shape important life outcomes.","authors":"Veronika Job, Christopher Mlynski, Christina A Bauer","doi":"10.1016/j.tics.2025.05.018","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1016/j.tics.2025.05.018","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>Difficulties are a common part of life, ranging from daily challenges to chronic adversity. While difficulties can undermine well-being, they can also promote growth and resilience. What determines whether difficulty harms or helps? A growing body of research points to the role of difficulty beliefs, that is, general beliefs about whether dealing with difficulty is harmful or beneficial. Prior work has examined these beliefs across domains such as task-level demand, life situation-level stress, and identity-level challenges, but these literatures remain disconnected. In this review, we synthesize these research streams, highlighting their shared principles. We propose a unifying mechanistic model and show how an integrative perspective can clarify how difficulty beliefs shape motivation, coping, and long-term outcomes across contexts.</p>","PeriodicalId":49417,"journal":{"name":"Trends in Cognitive Sciences","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":16.7,"publicationDate":"2025-06-17","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"144327520","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}
Antonia F Langenhoff, Bill D Thompson, Mahesh Srinivasan, Jan M Engelmann
{"title":"Disagreement drives metacognitive development.","authors":"Antonia F Langenhoff, Bill D Thompson, Mahesh Srinivasan, Jan M Engelmann","doi":"10.1016/j.tics.2025.05.014","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1016/j.tics.2025.05.014","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>Metacognition improves significantly over childhood, but the mechanisms underlying this development are poorly understood. We first review recent research demonstrating that disagreement prompts competent responses by young children across several metacognitive domains (confidence monitoring, information search, and source monitoring). We then propose a mechanistic model of how disagreement facilitates metacognition. We localize one main source of children's metacognitive limitations in their still-developing capacities to reason about alternative possibilities, which manifest in an overly narrow focus on one hypothesis. Disagreement increases the child's likelihood of representing alternative hypotheses, thereby promoting improved metacognitive reasoning. The broader proposal is that, through repeated experiences of disagreement, children become better at representing alternative possibilities even when reasoning on their own, leading to metacognitive development.</p>","PeriodicalId":49417,"journal":{"name":"Trends in Cognitive Sciences","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":16.7,"publicationDate":"2025-06-17","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"144327518","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 C Bernhardt, Sofie L Valk, Seok-Jun Hong, Isabelle Soulières, Laurent Mottron
{"title":"Autism-related shifts in the brain's information processing hierarchy.","authors":"Boris C Bernhardt, Sofie L Valk, Seok-Jun Hong, Isabelle Soulières, Laurent Mottron","doi":"10.1016/j.tics.2025.04.008","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1016/j.tics.2025.04.008","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>Despite considerable research efforts, mechanisms of autism remain incompletely understood. Key challenges in conceptualizing and managing autism include its diverse behavioral and cognitive phenotypes, a lack of reliable biomarkers, and the absence of a framework for integration. This review proposes that alterations in sensory-transmodal brain hierarchy are a system-level mechanism of atypical information processing in autism. Hierarchies can account for diverse autism symptomatology and help explain common neurodevelopmental hallmarks, notably a shift away from socially biased information processing, and an enhanced role, autonomy, and performance of perception. A hierarchical reference frame can also subsume spatially heterogeneous neuroimaging findings and make conceptual contact with foundational theories of cortical information processing, thereby consolidating behavioral, cognitive, computational, and neural characteristics of the condition.</p>","PeriodicalId":49417,"journal":{"name":"Trends in Cognitive Sciences","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":16.7,"publicationDate":"2025-06-16","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"144318478","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":"Statistical learning in spelling and reading.","authors":"Rebecca Treiman, Brett Kessler","doi":"10.1016/j.tics.2025.05.002","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1016/j.tics.2025.05.002","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>The statistical learning view of word reading and spelling is based on the ideas that writing systems have a rich statistical structure and that people implicitly pick up this structure as they learn to read and write. Whereas laboratory studies stress the speed and power of statistical learning, the evidence we review shows that adults with years of reading and writing experience do not always mirror the statistics of their writing system in their behavior. We consider possible reasons for these discrepancies, including the complexity of the statistical relationships, ease of production, and satisficing. The findings suggest that literacy instruction should address the probabilistic patterns in writing systems and the role of context in selecting appropriate pronunciations and spellings.</p>","PeriodicalId":49417,"journal":{"name":"Trends in Cognitive Sciences","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":16.7,"publicationDate":"2025-06-16","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"144318479","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}
Philip Corlett, Rosa Rossi-Goldthorpe, Praveen Suthaharan, Julia M Sheffield, Santiago Castiello de Obeso, Cecilia Heyes
{"title":"Pseudosocial cognition and paranoia.","authors":"Philip Corlett, Rosa Rossi-Goldthorpe, Praveen Suthaharan, Julia M Sheffield, Santiago Castiello de Obeso, Cecilia Heyes","doi":"10.1016/j.tics.2025.05.019","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1016/j.tics.2025.05.019","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>It has been argued that social processes are relevant to belief formation and maintenance and thence to persecutory delusions - the fixed false beliefs that others intend harm. We call this the social turn in delusions research. It suggests that paranoia is the purview of a specialized mechanism for coalitional cognition - thinking about group membership and reputation management. Here, we suggest instead that a simpler, pseudosocial learning mechanism may underwrite persecutory and other delusions. We make our case in terms of computations (prediction, not coalition), algorithm (association rather than recursion), and implementation (dopaminergic domain-general rather than social-specific regions). We conclude with suggestions for adversarial collaboration that will clarify the contributions of domain-general versus social-specific processes to delusions.</p>","PeriodicalId":49417,"journal":{"name":"Trends in Cognitive Sciences","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":16.7,"publicationDate":"2025-06-14","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"144303373","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":"Core systems of music perception.","authors":"Samuel A Mehr","doi":"10.1016/j.tics.2025.05.013","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1016/j.tics.2025.05.013","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>Human musicality is supported by two distinct systems of representation: one for tonal perception, which contextualizes pitch input in reference to a hierarchy of tones; and one for metrical perception, which contextualizes temporal input in reference to a hierarchy of rhythmic groupings. Growing evidence suggests that the two systems are universal, automatic, encapsulated, and relatively early-developing. But like speech perception, and unlike several other perceptual systems, they appear to be uniquely human. The systems of tonal and metrical perception form a foundational structure for musicality that, when combined with the processing of other acoustical information (e.g., timbre or auditory scenes), and applied in conjunction with other cognitive domains, yields a human psychology of music.</p>","PeriodicalId":49417,"journal":{"name":"Trends in Cognitive Sciences","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":16.7,"publicationDate":"2025-06-13","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"144295218","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}
Lilian A Weber, Debbie M Yee, Dana M Small, Frederike H Petzschner
{"title":"The interoceptive origin of reinforcement learning.","authors":"Lilian A Weber, Debbie M Yee, Dana M Small, Frederike H Petzschner","doi":"10.1016/j.tics.2025.05.008","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1016/j.tics.2025.05.008","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>Rewards play a crucial role in sculpting all motivated behavior. Traditionally, research on reinforcement learning has centered on how rewards guide learning and decision-making. Here, we examine the origins of rewards themselves. Specifically, we discuss that the critical signal sustaining reinforcement for food is generated internally and subliminally during the process of digestion. As such, a shift in our understanding of primary rewards as an immediate sensory gratification to a state-dependent evaluation of an action's impact on vital physiological processes is called for. We integrate this perspective into a revised reinforcement learning framework that recognizes the subliminal nature of biological rewards and their dependency on internal states and goals.</p>","PeriodicalId":49417,"journal":{"name":"Trends in Cognitive Sciences","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":16.7,"publicationDate":"2025-06-10","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"144276449","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":"Aphantasia as a functional disconnection.","authors":"Jianghao Liu, Paolo Bartolomeo","doi":"10.1016/j.tics.2025.05.012","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1016/j.tics.2025.05.012","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":49417,"journal":{"name":"Trends in Cognitive Sciences","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":16.7,"publicationDate":"2025-06-04","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"144235724","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":"Cognitive impairments in chronic pain: a brain aging framework.","authors":"Lei Zhao, Libo Zhang, Yilan Tang, Yiheng Tu","doi":"10.1016/j.tics.2024.12.004","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.tics.2024.12.004","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>Chronic pain (CP) not only causes physical discomfort but also significantly affects cognition. This review first summarizes emerging findings that reveal complex associations between CP and cognitive impairments, and then presents neuroimaging evidence showing aging-related brain alterations in CP and proposes a framework where accelerated brain aging links CP to cognitive impairments. This framework explains how CP-related multi-level factors, which either contribute to the onset of CP or arise as a result of CP, influence brain aging in linear and nonlinear ways, leading to cognitive impairments and increased dementia risk. Leveraging interpretable machine learning and molecular brain atlases, this framework enables the development of cognitive risk assessment indicators and elucidates the biological mechanisms underlying cognitive impairments in CP.</p>","PeriodicalId":49417,"journal":{"name":"Trends in Cognitive Sciences","volume":" ","pages":"570-585"},"PeriodicalIF":16.7,"publicationDate":"2025-06-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"142927628","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}