{"title":"Subscription and Copyright Information","authors":"","doi":"10.1016/s1364-6613(26)00117-8","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1016/s1364-6613(26)00117-8","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":49417,"journal":{"name":"Trends in Cognitive Sciences","volume":"9 1","pages":"e1"},"PeriodicalIF":19.9,"publicationDate":"2026-06-02","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"148287333","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":"How developing prosocial motivations shape children's altruism.","authors":"Robert Hepach, Ella Daniel","doi":"10.1016/j.tics.2026.03.007","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.tics.2026.03.007","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>Developmental perspectives are crucial to harnessing the human potential for altruism. We synthesise and highlight recent research on the motivations underlying children's (costly) prosocial behaviour. The order in which children develop intrinsic, extrinsic, and strategic motivations to benefit others has implications for efforts to positively impact young people's lives.</p>","PeriodicalId":49417,"journal":{"name":"Trends in Cognitive Sciences","volume":" ","pages":"480-483"},"PeriodicalIF":20.3,"publicationDate":"2026-06-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"147724181","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":"Upfront design beats post hoc reliability fixes.","authors":"Junhua Dang, Shanshan Xiao","doi":"10.1016/j.tics.2026.04.007","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.tics.2026.04.007","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>Behavioral tasks often show robust group effects yet unreliable person-level estimates. Many 'reliability fixes' yield mixed results because they rarely change the two determinants of person-level reliability: trials per person and per-trial informativeness. Recent evidence supports this two-lever view and motivates routine reliability auditing and measurement engineering for translational use.</p>","PeriodicalId":49417,"journal":{"name":"Trends in Cognitive Sciences","volume":" ","pages":"484-487"},"PeriodicalIF":20.3,"publicationDate":"2026-06-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"147845208","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}
Rohan Rao, Hugo Six, Aurelio Cortese, Abhishek Banerjee
{"title":"Orbitofrontal-sensory cortical interactions in learning and adaptive decision-making.","authors":"Rohan Rao, Hugo Six, Aurelio Cortese, Abhishek Banerjee","doi":"10.1016/j.tics.2025.10.017","DOIUrl":"10.1016/j.tics.2025.10.017","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>The orbitofrontal cortex (OFC) is a hub for value-guided decision-making, linked reciprocally with both cortical and subcortical regions. While projections from sensory areas to the OFC - and vice versa - are known to support goal-directed learning, these projections have often been studied in isolation, and their joint effect remains poorly understood. Here, we revisit these circuits through a unifying computational framework. We propose that sensory cortices send compressed task knowledge to the OFC to build abstract task models, while OFC feedback provides teaching signals that reshape sensory representations within the cortical hierarchy. This bidirectional exchange equips sensory areas with cognitive functions that extend well beyond passive feature detection, with significant implications for our understanding of learning, cognitive models, and artificial neural networks.</p>","PeriodicalId":49417,"journal":{"name":"Trends in Cognitive Sciences","volume":" ","pages":"502-514"},"PeriodicalIF":20.3,"publicationDate":"2026-06-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7618814/pdf/","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"145688484","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}
Huili Chen, Stephen R Grimm, Olga Russakovsky, Tania Lombrozo
{"title":"Machine understanding.","authors":"Huili Chen, Stephen R Grimm, Olga Russakovsky, Tania Lombrozo","doi":"10.1016/j.tics.2026.04.003","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1016/j.tics.2026.04.003","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>What do artificial intelligence (AI) systems \"understand\"? This question arises not only in assessing a system's intelligence but also in evaluation practices to ensure the safe and responsible deployment of AI. Drawing on scholarship from philosophy and cognitive science, and informed by current practices in AI, we develop a framework for asking more precise questions and making more precise claims about machine understanding. We conceptualize understanding as a relation between a system (S) and a target of understanding (T), and we discuss how to specify the relation, the system, and the target, offering a landscape of options in each case. Our goal is not to defend a particular account of understanding, but to provide conceptual tools for those working to assess or advance machine understanding.</p>","PeriodicalId":49417,"journal":{"name":"Trends in Cognitive Sciences","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":17.2,"publicationDate":"2026-05-23","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"148007279","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}
Martin Lang, Khatereh Borhani, Alexandra Ružičková, Eva Kundtová Klocová, Radim Chvaja
{"title":"Cognitive computations underlying ritual performance and persistence.","authors":"Martin Lang, Khatereh Borhani, Alexandra Ružičková, Eva Kundtová Klocová, Radim Chvaja","doi":"10.1016/j.tics.2026.04.009","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1016/j.tics.2026.04.009","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>From petitionary prayers to pilgrimages, rituals are found in every known culture. Yet, the reason for their persistence is a matter of active debate. Some studies portray rituals as attempts to affect uncertain outcomes, whereas others emphasize their role in facilitating social cohesion. We review the cognitive processes underlying both perspectives and draw on advances in reinforcement learning to integrate them. Specifically, ritual participation is motivated by two processes: habitual reinforcement of affective and social rewards experienced during performance (model-free learning) and reinforcement of pragmatic and cooperative benefits derived from culturally shared world models (model-based learning). This framework synthesizes previous accounts and illuminates ritual's role in sustaining intersubjectively aligned world models in past and present societies.</p>","PeriodicalId":49417,"journal":{"name":"Trends in Cognitive Sciences","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":17.2,"publicationDate":"2026-05-18","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"147976727","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":"Embracing the suboptimal organization of the human brain.","authors":"Kayson Fakhar, Duncan E Astle","doi":"10.1016/j.tics.2026.04.008","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1016/j.tics.2026.04.008","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>Human brain architecture is guiding brain-inspired artificial intelligence (AI) and has been treated as an optimal template, whose deviations could mark different psychiatric and neurological conditions. We argue this premise is wrong: under any single goal (e.g., minimal wiring cost or maximal communication efficiency), the human connectome is suboptimal. Instead, its organization reflects multi-objective trade-offs navigated over evolution and development under biological and environmental constraints. For psychopathology, atypical trajectories are not distances from an ideal brain but reweighted compromises in the same trade-off space. For neuro-AI, directly duplicating the brain's connectivity risks copying its irrelevant compromises. Treating brains and models as products of multi-objective optimization and co-tuning relevant objectives offers a more powerful framework for interpreting clinical phenotypes and designing next-generation AI.</p>","PeriodicalId":49417,"journal":{"name":"Trends in Cognitive Sciences","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":17.2,"publicationDate":"2026-05-15","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"147950108","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}
Edgar Dubourg, Hayley K Jach, Thomas Beuchot, Luke D Smillie, Nicolas Baumard
{"title":"Openness to Experience: from ecology to culture.","authors":"Edgar Dubourg, Hayley K Jach, Thomas Beuchot, Luke D Smillie, Nicolas Baumard","doi":"10.1016/j.tics.2026.03.006","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1016/j.tics.2026.03.006","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>Individuals high in Openness to Experience are more likely to enjoy imaginary worlds, visit museums, be vaccinated, support redistribution, endorse animal rights, and volunteer, alongside a wide array of other characteristic behaviors. Although these behaviors appear disparate, we propose that they form a coherent constellation grounded in a tendency to explore the unknown and tolerate uncertainty. This clarifies why levels of Openness vary across individuals, groups, and historical periods: exploration is modulated by ecological conditions such as safety and resource availability. When environments make exploration worthwhile, Openness expands; when conditions are harsh or precarious, it contracts. Consequently, ecological differences should generate systematic differences in cultural forms. This framework explains how ecological conditions shape culture through their effects on personality.</p>","PeriodicalId":49417,"journal":{"name":"Trends in Cognitive Sciences","volume":" ","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":17.2,"publicationDate":"2026-05-07","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"147845211","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)00098-7","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1016/s1364-6613(26)00098-7","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":49417,"journal":{"name":"Trends in Cognitive Sciences","volume":"6 1","pages":"e1"},"PeriodicalIF":19.9,"publicationDate":"2026-05-05","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"148286701","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)00095-1","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1016/s1364-6613(26)00095-1","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":49417,"journal":{"name":"Trends in Cognitive Sciences","volume":"28 1","pages":"i"},"PeriodicalIF":19.9,"publicationDate":"2026-05-05","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"148286702","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}