Thank you for visiting nature.com. You are using a browser version with limited support for CSS. To obtain
the best experience, we recommend you use a more up to date browser (or turn off compatibility mode in
Internet Explorer). In the meantime, to ensure continued support, we are displaying the site without styles
and JavaScript.
TROVE2, a gene implicated in inflammatory response and autoimmunity, is also associated with enhanced memory for emotionally charged events in post-traumatic stress disorder.
Using a large-scale analysis of publication records and a random-walk model, Jia and colleagues show that the evolution of scientists’ research interests throughout their careers is characterized by a regular and reproducible pattern.
Lefebvre et al. present behavioural and neural evidence showing that the ‘optimism bias’ is a manifestation of a general cognitive tendency for preferential learning from positive, compared with negative, outcomes.
A Bayesian theory of mind model is shown to infer and quantify the mental state and judgements of humans in decision-making scenarios. The model is a key step towards enabling machines to ‘intuit’ human thoughts and desires.
Takagi and colleagues present a model of how human pairs learn movements through touch. Participants learn in the same way when the model is applied to a robotic partner. This is important for the development of physical assistance robotics.
Betsch and colleagues show that vaccination willingness is higher in cultures that focus on collective benefits. For cultures that lack this prosocial cultural inclination, communicating the concept of herd immunity improves willingness to vaccinate.
Using a detailed ethnographic dataset from rural India, Power finds that the outwardly religious engage in more prosocial acts, are perceived as more prosocial by others in their social network and leverage greater social support as a result.
When given time to deliberate in an economic game, individuals become less cooperative. Grossmann and colleagues show that players directed toward a third-person perspective reorientate from selfish to common goals and maintain cooperation.
Chen et al. construct a model of the neural bases of semantic representation that unifies domain-specific (distinct systems represent different kinds of things) and domain-general (knowledge for all kinds is encoded in a single network) accounts.
Data obtained over twelve months from a large cohort of stroke patients shows that most recovery occurs within three months and is predicted by the severity of the initial deficit and patients’ education level.
By developing wireless sensors to track social interactions among hunter-gatherers in the Republic of the Congo and the Philippines, Migliano et al. find that a few strong friendship ties connecting unrelated families lead to more efficient social networks.
Pah et al. analyse gun violence incidents at US schools for the period 1990–2013 and find heightened rates in the period 2007–2013. Indicators of economic distress significantly correlate with increases in the rate of gun violence.
Perceptual sensitivity in humans is shown to improve after training on a perceptual learning task owing to faster post-perceptual (late) decision-processing rather than faster sensory (early) processing.
Over six experiments, Kanakogi et al. show that infants as young as 6 months support third-party interventions that protect victims from aggressors. This suggests that human emphasis upon such acts is rooted within the preverbal infant’s mind.
Using ultra-high-field functional magnetic resonance imaging, the authors identify six widely separated maps in the human cortex that code for numerosity (the number of objects in a set).
By analysing the supermarket purchases of more than 280,000 people over several years, Riefer et al. show that people’s preferences follow their choices, rather than the other way around.
Using whole-genome data for single-nucleotide polymorphism and results from genome-wide association studies, the authors show that people’s preference for pairing with those with similar phenotypic traits has genetic causes and consequences.
Gomez-Lievano and colleagues develop a new theory of scaling in cities — how the prevalence of phenomena such as education and crime changes with population size — by unifying models of economic complexity and cultural evolution.
He and colleagues show that attention plays a key role in anchoring visual orientation in 3D space. The effect of attention was contingent on the ground being visible, suggesting our terrestrial visual system is best served by its ecological niche.