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.
Trudel et al. find that the ventromedial prefrontal cortex carries multiple decision variables, the strength and polarity of which vary according to their relevance to the context of exploration, exploitation and the transition between these states.
Zhou, Pei et al. develop a more realistic information cascade model that reproduces key structures of real-world diffusion trees in distinct social platforms by combining a peer-to-peer diffusion pattern with a correction for observational bias.
How We Feel is a web and mobile-phone application for collecting de-identified self-reported COVID-19-related data. These data are used to map a diverse set of symptomatic, demographic, exposure and behavioural factors relevant to the ongoing pandemic.
Maarten van Ham et al. track changes in the social geography of New York City, London and Tokyo. They find that the workforces are professionalizing. High income earners are concentrating in the city centres, whereas poverty is suburbanizing.
A comparison of 41 languages reveals that words for common actions, artefacts and natural kinds are less translatable than expected. Translatability is related to the cultural similarity of language communities and to their historic relationships.
Coscia et al. use a large dataset of business travel to show that, before they become competitive in new industries, countries receive visitors from places where that industry already thrives.
An agent-based model of SARS-CoV-2 transmission shows that testing, contact tracing and household quarantine could keep new COVID-19 waves under control while allowing the reopening of the economy with minimal social-distancing interventions.
Lewis and Lupyan find that gender stereotypes, such as the idea that men are more suited for paid work and women are more suited for taking care of the home and family, are reflected in the large-scale distributional structure of natural language.
Camerer et al. use standardized experiments across thousands of students to demonstrate empirical regularities in two-person bargaining and trading in markets. Bargaining outcomes lean toward equal sharing, and markets rapidly create prices that match supply and demand.
We know from past research that humans tend to learn more from good news than from bad news. Chambon et al. show that this confirmation bias is specific to free choices (that is, feedback towards actions that reflect people’s own decision).
Brazil has one of the fastest-growing COVID-19 epidemics in the world. De Souza et al. report epidemiological, demographic and clinical findings for COVID-19 cases in the country during the first 3 months of the epidemic.
By synthesizing information on archaeological sites, palaeoclimate reconstructions and ancient DNA, Betti et al. show that the Neolithic expansion in Europe was not a continuous process of diffusion, but a series of climate-driven episodes of varying speeds.
A new study presenting two variations of the influential two-stage decision task shows that detailed task instructions lead participants to make model-based choices and that a simple model-free/model-based dichotomy does not describe behaviour well.
Intracranial brain stimulation in humans elicits a large variety of perceptual, motor and cognitive effects. Fox et al. show strong links between the distribution and content of these responses and the brain’s intrinsic network architecture.
Brauer et al. show that communication about peers’ pro-diversity attitudes and inclusive behaviours increases positive attitudes toward outgroups among university students and improves sense of belonging and better grades among marginalized students.
Xie et al. combine evidence from behavioural data, computational modelling and intracranial electroencephalogram methods to show that the human brain prioritizes certain information to facilitate associative memory retrieval.
Lopez and Rodo explore post-lockdown scenarios by using a stochastic modified SEIR model, showing that lockdowns should last at least 60 days to avoid a second wave of infection. Social distancing, increasing awareness and personal protective behaviours could replace lockdowns.
Fusing models from epidemiology and network science, Block et al. show how to ease lockdown and slow infection spread by strategic modification of contact through seeking similarity, strengthening communities and repeating interaction in bubbles.
Guan et al. analyse the impacts of COVID-19 restrictions on global supply chains. Earlier, stricter and shorter lockdowns can minimize overall losses. A ‘go-slow’ approach to lifting restrictions may reduce overall damages if it avoids the need for further lockdowns.