When it comes to making choices, past decisions may play a surprisingly large role. The traditional view of decision-making is that our choices are guided by what we remember about the outcomes of previous choices we’ve made. But in recent … Continue reading
Journal Club
Highlighting recently published papers selected by Academy members
Category Archives: Psychological and Cognitive Sciences
Future choices may be guided by our memories of past ones
Categories: Economic sciences | Journal Club | Neuroscience | Political Science | Psychological and Cognitive Sciences
Tagged choice, decision-making, fMRI, hippocampus, learning
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People who are likely to dismiss journalism as “fake news” tend to believe the world is predictable
The notion of “fake news” spread like wildfire in the United States after the 2016 election. Recent research in Psychological Science tried to determine what psychological factors drove this concept—generally defined as the suspicion that politically-biased news outlets produce deliberately … Continue reading
Categories: Journal Club | Psychological and Cognitive Sciences
Tagged fake news, need for structure, psychology, social psychology
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Judging others based on the rewards they receive correlates with political leanings
Which employee deserves the highest salary? Should a professor receive tenure? Did my spouse do their fair share of the household chores? These types of questions all require people to pass judgment on the effort expended by others. According to … Continue reading
Categories: Journal Club | Neuroscience | Political Science | Psychological and Cognitive Sciences
Tagged decision-making, politics, rewards
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Dopamine-making neurons, an ongoing mystery, play a bigger role in reinforcing learning than in initiating action
Deep in the midbrain, one type of neuron has two crucial jobs when it comes to acting while anticipating a reward—a state also known as Pavlovian conditioning. Called dopaminergic (DA) neurons, they can link a signal, such as a sound … Continue reading
For choices involving uncertainty, the brain simplifies the math that drives our decisions
Every day, people make countless decisions, big and small: Should I buy that new house? Do I want chocolate or vanilla ice cream? A recent study suggests that when faced with uncertainty regarding a choice, how a person evaluates their … Continue reading
Journal Club: Psychological tasks in the lab are poor predictors of real-world self-regulation
Skipping dessert to stay healthy, saving money for a rainy day, not shouting at your boss even when there might be good reason—psychologists group these and other human behaviors under the large umbrella of “self-regulation.” That is, despite the near-term … Continue reading
Categories: Journal Club | Psychological and Cognitive Sciences
Tagged psychological space, self-regulation, surveys, tasks
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Journal Club: Pinpointing theory of mind deficiencies in autism
Around age four, preschoolers learn that other people have unique thoughts and feelings, an inner life. These children start to be able to predict a person’s behavior based on that understanding. They start developing theory of mind (ToM). That developmental … Continue reading
Categories: Journal Club | Neuroscience | Psychological and Cognitive Sciences
Tagged ASD, autism, theory of mind
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Journal Club: Tracing light’s effect on mood and learning in mice from the eye to deep within the brain
To the mammalian eye, light offers more than just sight. “Light is so important for many innate functions,” says neuroscientist Samer Hattar of the National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH). “We really don’t appreciate the importance of light in our … Continue reading
Journal Club: Attention may be at the root of confirmation bias
Confirmation bias is a pervasive phenomenon. Whether it’s a news article or an additional piece of scientific data, people tend to interpret new information as evidence confirming their prior beliefs—even if it actually doesn’t. “People have been aware of this … Continue reading
Categories: Journal Club | Neuroscience | Psychological and Cognitive Sciences
Tagged attention, confirmation bias, social media, visual perception
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Journal Club: Canines remember who cooperates, suggesting principles similar to those seen in human interaction
Human cooperation often comes down to one key understanding: You help me, I’ll help you. Social animals, including dogs, also help others, even nonrelatives. But many scientists assume that animal cooperation is a different breed. They see animals as less … Continue reading
Categories: Animal Behavior | Anthropology | Journal Club | Psychological and Cognitive Sciences
Tagged Belgian shepherd, cooperation, dog, reciprocal cooperation
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Journal Club: Study dissects stereotypes, looking to understand their roots and ways to break them down
A stereotype, put simply, is a belief about a group. But for psychology professor Andrei Cimpian of New York University, that definition doesn’t have sufficient nuance. To understand what a stereotype truly is, he says, we need to understand its … Continue reading
Categories: Journal Club | Psychological and Cognitive Sciences | Social Sciences
Tagged cognitive structure, stereotype
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