Tanya L Procyshyn, Juliette Dupertuys, Jennifer A Bartz
{"title":"Neuroimaging and behavioral evidence of sex-specific effects of oxytocin on human sociality.","authors":"Tanya L Procyshyn, Juliette Dupertuys, Jennifer A Bartz","doi":"10.1016/j.tics.2024.06.010","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.tics.2024.06.010","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>Although the social role of oxytocin came to light due to sex-specific interactions such as mother-offspring bonding, current understanding of sex differences in the effects of oxytocin on human sociality is limited because of the predominance of all-male samples. With the increasing inclusion of females in intranasal oxytocin research, it is now possible to explore such patterns. Neuroimaging studies reveal relatively consistent sex-differential effects of oxytocin on the activation of brain regions associated with processing social stimuli - particularly the amygdala. Findings from behavioral research are varied but suggest that oxytocin more often facilitates social cognition and positive social interactions in males, with context-dependent effects in each sex. We discuss potential biological and psychological mechanisms underlying the reported sex differences, and conclude with considerations for future research and clinical applications of oxytocin.</p>","PeriodicalId":49417,"journal":{"name":"Trends in Cognitive Sciences","volume":" ","pages":"948-961"},"PeriodicalIF":16.7,"publicationDate":"2024-10-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"141762017","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 affective gradient hypothesis: an affect-centered account of motivated behavior","authors":"Amitai Shenhav","doi":"10.1016/j.tics.2024.08.003","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1016/j.tics.2024.08.003","url":null,"abstract":"Everyone agrees that feelings and actions are intertwined, but cannot agree how. According to dominant models, actions are directed by estimates of value and these values shape or are shaped by affect. I propose instead that affect is the only form of value that drives actions. Our mind constantly represents potential future states and how they would make us feel. These states collectively form a gradient reflecting feelings we could experience depending on actions we take. Motivated behavior reflects the process of traversing this affective gradient, towards desirable states and away from undesirable ones. This affective gradient hypothesis solves the puzzle of where values and goals come from, and offers a parsimonious account of apparent conflicts between emotion and cognition.","PeriodicalId":49417,"journal":{"name":"Trends in Cognitive Sciences","volume":"8 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":19.9,"publicationDate":"2024-09-24","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"142329682","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}
Swati Pandita, Ketika Garg, Jiajin Zhang, Dean Mobbs
{"title":"Three roots of online toxicity: disembodiment, accountability, and disinhibition.","authors":"Swati Pandita, Ketika Garg, Jiajin Zhang, Dean Mobbs","doi":"10.1016/j.tics.2024.06.001","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.tics.2024.06.001","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>Online communication is central to modern social life, yet it is often linked to toxic manifestations and reduced well-being. How and why online communication enables these toxic social effects remains unanswered. In this opinion, we propose three roots of online toxicity: disembodiment, limited accountability, and disinhibition. We suggest that virtual disembodiment results in a chain of psychological states primed for deleterious social interaction. Drawing from differences between face-to-face and online interactions, the framework highlights and addresses the fundamental problems that result in impaired communication between individuals and explicates its effects on social toxicity online.</p>","PeriodicalId":49417,"journal":{"name":"Trends in Cognitive Sciences","volume":" ","pages":"814-828"},"PeriodicalIF":16.7,"publicationDate":"2024-09-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"141564945","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":"Level of decision confidence shapes motor memory.","authors":"Daichi Nozaki","doi":"10.1016/j.tics.2024.07.010","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.tics.2024.07.010","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>Decision making is often necessary before performing an action. Traditionally, it has been assumed that decision making and motor control are independent, sequential processes. Ogasa et al. challenge this view, and demonstrate that the decision-making process significantly impacts on the formation and retrieval of motor memory by tagging it with the level of confidence.</p>","PeriodicalId":49417,"journal":{"name":"Trends in Cognitive Sciences","volume":" ","pages":"786-788"},"PeriodicalIF":16.7,"publicationDate":"2024-09-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"141989336","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}
Taylor W Webb, Steven M Frankland, Awni Altabaa, Simon Segert, Kamesh Krishnamurthy, Declan Campbell, Jacob Russin, Tyler Giallanza, Randall O'Reilly, John Lafferty, Jonathan D Cohen
{"title":"The relational bottleneck as an inductive bias for efficient abstraction.","authors":"Taylor W Webb, Steven M Frankland, Awni Altabaa, Simon Segert, Kamesh Krishnamurthy, Declan Campbell, Jacob Russin, Tyler Giallanza, Randall O'Reilly, John Lafferty, Jonathan D Cohen","doi":"10.1016/j.tics.2024.04.001","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.tics.2024.04.001","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>A central challenge for cognitive science is to explain how abstract concepts are acquired from limited experience. This has often been framed in terms of a dichotomy between connectionist and symbolic cognitive models. Here, we highlight a recently emerging line of work that suggests a novel reconciliation of these approaches, by exploiting an inductive bias that we term the relational bottleneck. In that approach, neural networks are constrained via their architecture to focus on relations between perceptual inputs, rather than the attributes of individual inputs. We review a family of models that employ this approach to induce abstractions in a data-efficient manner, emphasizing their potential as candidate models for the acquisition of abstract concepts in the human mind and brain.</p>","PeriodicalId":49417,"journal":{"name":"Trends in Cognitive Sciences","volume":" ","pages":"829-843"},"PeriodicalIF":16.7,"publicationDate":"2024-09-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"140905175","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}
Shaocong Ma, Ayse Payir, Niamh McLoughlin, Paul L Harris
{"title":"Scientific and religious beliefs are primarily shaped by testimony.","authors":"Shaocong Ma, Ayse Payir, Niamh McLoughlin, Paul L Harris","doi":"10.1016/j.tics.2024.04.014","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.tics.2024.04.014","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>Understanding why individuals are more confident of the existence of invisible scientific phenomena (e.g., oxygen) than invisible religious phenomena (e.g., God) remains a puzzle. Departing from conventional explanations linking ontological beliefs to direct experience, we introduce a model positing that testimony predominantly shapes beliefs in both scientific and religious domains. Distinguishing direct experience (personal observation) from cultural input (testimony-based evidence), we argue that even apparently direct experiences often stem from others' testimony. Our analysis indicates that variability in direct experience cannot explain belief disparities between science and religion, within each domain, or across cultures. Instead, variability in testimony is the primary driver of ontological beliefs. We present developmental evidence for testimony-based beliefs and elucidate the mechanisms underlying their impact.</p>","PeriodicalId":49417,"journal":{"name":"Trends in Cognitive Sciences","volume":" ","pages":"792-803"},"PeriodicalIF":16.7,"publicationDate":"2024-09-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"141162419","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}
Steven T Piantadosi, Dyana C Y Muller, Joshua S Rule, Karthikeya Kaushik, Mark Gorenstein, Elena R Leib, Emily Sanford
{"title":"Why concepts are (probably) vectors.","authors":"Steven T Piantadosi, Dyana C Y Muller, Joshua S Rule, Karthikeya Kaushik, Mark Gorenstein, Elena R Leib, Emily Sanford","doi":"10.1016/j.tics.2024.06.011","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.tics.2024.06.011","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>For decades, cognitive scientists have debated what kind of representation might characterize human concepts. Whatever the format of the representation, it must allow for the computation of varied properties, including similarities, features, categories, definitions, and relations. It must also support the development of theories, ad hoc categories, and knowledge of procedures. Here, we discuss why vector-based representations provide a compelling account that can meet all these needs while being plausibly encoded into neural architectures. This view has become especially promising with recent advances in both large language models and vector symbolic architectures. These innovations show how vectors can handle many properties traditionally thought to be out of reach for neural models, including compositionality, definitions, structures, and symbolic computational processes.</p>","PeriodicalId":49417,"journal":{"name":"Trends in Cognitive Sciences","volume":" ","pages":"844-856"},"PeriodicalIF":16.7,"publicationDate":"2024-09-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"141903363","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":"What does decoding from the PFC reveal about consciousness?","authors":"Ned Block","doi":"10.1016/j.tics.2024.05.004","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.tics.2024.05.004","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>Disputes between rival theories of consciousness have often centered on whether perceptual contents can be decoded from the prefrontal cortex (PFC). Failures to decode from the PFC are taken to challenge 'cognitive' theories of consciousness such as the global workspace theory and higher-order monitoring theories, and decoding successes have been taken to confirm these theories. However, PFC decoding shows both too much and too little. Too much because cognitive theories of consciousness do not need PFC rerepresentation of perceptual contents since pointers to perceptual representations suffice. Too little because there is evidence that PFC decoding of perceptual content reflects postperceptual cognitive representation, such as thoughts that have those perceptual contents rather than conscious percepts.</p>","PeriodicalId":49417,"journal":{"name":"Trends in Cognitive Sciences","volume":" ","pages":"804-813"},"PeriodicalIF":16.7,"publicationDate":"2024-09-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"141307161","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}
Nandakumar S Narayanan, Zahra Jourahmad, Rachel C Cole, James F Cavanagh
{"title":"Cognition falters at ~4 Hz in Parkinson's disease.","authors":"Nandakumar S Narayanan, Zahra Jourahmad, Rachel C Cole, James F Cavanagh","doi":"10.1016/j.tics.2024.06.002","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.tics.2024.06.002","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>Cognitive impairments are common in Parkinson's disease (PD). We have linked this deficit to attenuated midfrontal 1-8-Hz activity that fails to engage cortical cognitive networks. We discuss the consequences of these impairments and how they might be leveraged for PD-specific neurophysiological markers and for novel brain stimulation paradigms.</p>","PeriodicalId":49417,"journal":{"name":"Trends in Cognitive Sciences","volume":" ","pages":"789-791"},"PeriodicalIF":16.7,"publicationDate":"2024-09-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC11458154/pdf/","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"141604396","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":"Why metacognition matters in politically contested domains.","authors":"Helen Fischer, Stephen Fleming","doi":"10.1016/j.tics.2024.06.005","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.tics.2024.06.005","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>Emerging evidence highlights the importance of metacognition - the capacity for insight into the reliability and fallibility of our own knowledge and thought - in politically contested domains. The present synthesis elucidates why metacognition matters in politically charged contexts and its potential impact on how individuals form beliefs, process evidence, and make decisions.</p>","PeriodicalId":49417,"journal":{"name":"Trends in Cognitive Sciences","volume":" ","pages":"783-785"},"PeriodicalIF":16.7,"publicationDate":"2024-09-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"141555804","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}