Articles in 2023

Biobanks have emerged as valuable resources for studying behavioural and social genomics, but are not representative of global populations. Thus, current research findings do not generalize, and exacerbate knowledge and health inequalities. We call on researchers, publishers and funders to address barriers to biobank diversity.

In this Stage 2 Registered Report, Blume et al. report results of a study on the contribution of colour vision mechanisms to circadian modulation by light.

Fewer than one in ten research articles are posted as preprints. Yet sharing research on public repositories comes with many advantages and few caveats. At Nature Human Behaviour, we encourage researchers to embrace preprints to jumpstart the communication of research findings.

Using eye-tracking and representational geometry analyses, Linde-Domingo and Spitzer find that, even when requested to maintain fixation, humans produce involuntary miniature gaze patterns that encode visuospatial information and change over time to reflect the underlying mental process.

The authors present a comprehensive analysis of the associations between childlessness and individual diseases in Finland and Sweden.

Policy proposals with the most votes may not always be the most informative. A research paper now makes the case that divisive issues — those that receive much support but also much opposition — provide valuable information in democratic deliberative processes, as they help to detect relevant demands that would not emerge via agreement rankings.

Using a large dataset of individuals from Early Neolithic Europe, we analysed DNA, diet and pathology to determine which factors most affected skeletal height. We found that the male–female height differences in north-central Europe were exceptionally large, and that the short stature of female individuals in this region possibly reflects a cultural preference to support male individuals. By contrast, in the Mediterranean, it is male individuals who were short, probably as a consequence of environmental stress.

Evidence from genetics, skeletal remains and dietary isotopes indicates that sex-specific height disparities in Early Neolithic Europe can be linked to culture, more than environment or genetics. This suggests that a cultural preference for males may have had biological effects 7,000 yr ago.

The use of typological conceptions of race in science is not based in evidence. A recent report from the National Academy of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine, USA clarifies how human populations should be described in genetics and genomics research. It makes twelve recommendations that are highly relevant to behavioural genetics.

The authors linked data from non-European Union migrants and resettled refugees to the national COVID-19 vaccination dataset in England, demonstrating disparities in vaccination timing and coverage.

Spampatti et al. examined the efficacy of six psychological inoculation strategies and discovered that these strategies had close to no protective effects against climate disinformation across 12 different countries.

Doctorate recipients with disabilities experienced early in life (at age <25 yr) working in STEM at academic institutions earned US$10,580 less per year than non-disabled workers and were underrepresented in higher academic positions.

This eye-tracking study of ~500 5-month-old infant twins indicates that individual preferences for faces versus non-social objects like cars and phones are associated with genetic variation.

Air pollution is a leading cause of death in the USA, with substantial disparities in its effect on different racial and ethnic groups. Ma et al. used nationwide data on air pollution and cardiovascular-disease mortality rates, and find that air pollution disproportionately effects non-Hispanic Black people compared to non-Hispanic white people.

Mumford et al. examine how response time differences can lead to confounds in functional MRI analyses, and they propose a new time-series model to account for response time effects.

Yildirim et al. present a computational model of shape perception that integrates intuitive physics to explain how shape can be inferred from the deformations it causes to other objects.

Effective government partly depends on effective communications to citizens. Over six studies in three different policy contexts, Linos et al. identify a counter-intuitive formality effect: citizens are more likely to respond to formal government communications than informal ones.

Most scientific prizes and medals are named after men, and most of these are also awarded to men. The very few awards named after women or not named after a person at all are more frequently awarded to women, although parity between the gender of recipients is still not achieved. We call on the scientific community to rethink the naming of academic awards, medals and prizes, their nomination and selection criteria, and to diversify awarding committees and procedures to ensure greater inclusivity.