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Steinbeis and colleagues show that chimpanzees and six-year-old children will pay a cost to see the punishment of an antisocial agent when it is deserved, suggesting that both are motivated to see just punishment enacted.
Intracranial recordings from epileptic patients during a number of different behavioural tasks reveal, in impressive spatiotemporal detail, that the human brain links perception and action through persistent neural activity in the prefrontal cortex and functionally linked brain regions.
The authors used graph signal processing to examine whether fMRI signals correspond to underlying anatomical networks. They found that alignment between functional signals and anatomical structure was associated with greater cognitive flexibility.
In a series of 11 experiments, the authors show that what has traditionally been considered 'pitch perception' is mediated by several different mechanisms.
Using magnetic resonance imaging and electroencephalography during a face-discrimination task, the authors show face-processing lateralization in infants in the first postnatal semester, despite a corpus callosum mature enough to transfer visual information across hemispheres.
Over four functional MRI experiments, Axelrod et al. show that several cognitive processes function simultaneously during self-generated mental activity.
Just et al. develop a highly accurate biological classification method for identifying suicidal ideators by applying machine learning to neural representations of death- and life-related concepts.
Direct-to-consumer advertising of pharmaceutical drugs requires mention of severe side effects, along with the most frequent. Sivanathan and Kakkar show that this practice dilutes consumers’ judgements of the overall severity of side effects
Women often behave more prosocially than men. Soutschek et al. use pharmacology and neuroimaging to show that the neural reward system appears to be more sensitive to prosocial rewards in women than men, providing a neurobiological account for this gender difference.
Haruno et al. combine functional magnetic resonance imaging, an economic game and depression self-reports to show that brain activity in the amygdala and hippocampus induced by inequity can predict present and future depression indices.
Pedroni et al. show that risk preferences vary across behavioural elicitation methods, challenging the view that risk preferences can be consistently captured by a single method.
Using behavioural experiments and computational modelling, Navajas and colleagues provide a systematic characterization of individual differences in human confidence.
A mega-analysis of whole-genome data from seven populations demonstrates substantial hidden heritability for educational attainment and reproductive behaviour, highlighting the importance of sample-specific gene–environment interaction in complex traits.
Brummitt et al. show how supply-chain disruptions can spread contagiously throughout an economy. Adaptations to frequent disruptions can lead to the emergence of a poverty trap. Implications for ‘big push’ economic development policies are discussed.
The study by Gómez et al. of frontline fighters and non-combatants shows that a willingness to fight and die in intergroup conflict is associated with the sacrifice of material concerns for sacred values, and the perceived spiritual strength of in-groups and adversaries.
Momennejad et al. formulate and provide evidence for the successor representation, a computational learning mechanism intermediate between the two dominant models (a fast but inflexible ‘model-free’ system and a flexible but slow ‘model-based’ one).
How do prior expectations affect perception? The authors show that arousal has a key role: it facilitates biases from prior expectations in predictable environments, but reduces these biases in unpredictable environments.
Speer and Delgado demonstrate that recalling positive memories dampens stress responses and correlates with activation of reward-processing corticostriatal circuits. Positive reminiscence may promote resilience to stress.