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Cognition Jun 2023Human infants are fascinated by other people. They bring to this fascination a constellation of rich and flexible expectations about the intentions motivating people's...
Human infants are fascinated by other people. They bring to this fascination a constellation of rich and flexible expectations about the intentions motivating people's actions. Here we test 11-month-old infants and state-of-the-art learning-driven neural-network models on the "Baby Intuitions Benchmark (BIB)," a suite of tasks challenging both infants and machines to make high-level predictions about the underlying causes of agents' actions. Infants expected agents' actions to be directed towards objects, not locations, and infants demonstrated default expectations about agents' rationally efficient actions towards goals. The neural-network models failed to capture infants' knowledge. Our work provides a comprehensive framework in which to characterize infants' commonsense psychology and takes the first step in testing whether human knowledge and human-like artificial intelligence can be built from the foundations cognitive and developmental theories postulate.
Topics: Humans; Infant; Artificial Intelligence; Intention; Learning; Psychology, Child
PubMed: 36801603
DOI: 10.1016/j.cognition.2023.105406 -
NeuroImage Aug 2019The cortex is a massively recurrent network, characterized by feedforward and feedback connections between brain areas as well as lateral connections within an area.... (Review)
Review
The cortex is a massively recurrent network, characterized by feedforward and feedback connections between brain areas as well as lateral connections within an area. Feedforward, horizontal and feedback responses largely activate separate layers of a cortical unit, meaning they can be dissociated by lamina-resolved neurophysiological techniques. Such techniques are invasive and are therefore rarely used in humans. However, recent developments in high spatial resolution fMRI allow for non-invasive, in vivo measurements of brain responses specific to separate cortical layers. This provides an important opportunity to dissociate between feedforward and feedback brain responses, and investigate communication between brain areas at a more fine- grained level than previously possible in the human species. In this review, we highlight recent studies that successfully used laminar fMRI to isolate layer-specific feedback responses in human sensory cortex. In addition, we review several areas of cognitive neuroscience that stand to benefit from this new technological development, highlighting contemporary hypotheses that yield testable predictions for laminar fMRI. We hope to encourage researchers with the opportunity to embrace this development in fMRI research, as we expect that many future advancements in our current understanding of human brain function will be gained from measuring lamina-specific brain responses.
Topics: Animals; Brain; Brain Mapping; Cognitive Neuroscience; Humans; Magnetic Resonance Imaging
PubMed: 28687519
DOI: 10.1016/j.neuroimage.2017.07.004 -
Psychotherapy and Psychosomatics 2023
Topics: Humans; Psychology, Clinical; Psychiatry; Psychology
PubMed: 36349788
DOI: 10.1159/000527462 -
Revista Espanola de Sanidad... 2020Juvenile delinquency is a multi-causal social phenomenon, in which socio-cultural and economic, family and individual factors are interrelated. In young people with a... (Review)
Review
INTRODUCTION
Juvenile delinquency is a multi-causal social phenomenon, in which socio-cultural and economic, family and individual factors are interrelated. In young people with a greater number of associated risk factors, the measures seem to be insufficient, both in open and closed environments, since the rate of recidivism is higher.
OBJECTIVE
Identify the psychosocial risk factors that exist at intra and interpersonal level in juvenile offenders, as well as determine if these factors are interrelated.
MATERIAL AND METHOD
A literature review of articles found in different databases was carried out. The articles containing the key words selected at the beginning of the study were reviewed, and of all of them, those that met the established inclusion requirements, which are date of publication and language, were included.
RESULTS
The results of all the studies analyzed confirm the idea that a greater number of psychosocial risk factors occur in young offenders than in normalized young people. There are factors related to a family that has inadequate socialization styles, even negligent ones, accentuated by very substandard economic situations that are usually present. Along with this, the consumption of substances is a variable that is repeated continuously in these young people; united to a group of deviant pairs, that favor the appearance of criminal behaviours.
CONCLUSION
It is possible to identify the main psychosocial risk factors that occur in young offenders, and define an interrelation between these factors, but it is not linear nor can it be homogenized. More resources and prevention programs, as well as intervention, are needed at the individual, family and community levels.
Topics: Adolescent; Adolescent Behavior; Criminals; Dangerous Behavior; Family Relations; Humans; Juvenile Delinquency; Psychology, Adolescent; Risk Factors; Socialization; Socioeconomic Factors
PubMed: 33300933
DOI: 10.18176/resp.00019 -
Annual Review of Psychology Jan 2023This autobiographical essay traces my personal journey from grandson of a slave to a cultural psychologist examining racism. My journey includes growing up in a small... (Review)
Review
This autobiographical essay traces my personal journey from grandson of a slave to a cultural psychologist examining racism. My journey includes growing up in a small Ohio town, training in social psychology, and an academic career that was launched with the publication of in 1972. I weave my personal experiences with my analytical approach to racism that incorporates individual, institutional, and cultural factors that combine to explain systemic racism. The racism analysis is balanced by a narrative of mechanisms that confer resilience and psychological well-being on Black people as they navigate the obstacles of systemic racism. I also explore diversity as a form of psychological and behavioral competence required to live effectively in a diverse world. I conclude that these aspects of human relations can be better understood and addressed with advancement of diversity science.
Topics: Humans; Resilience, Psychological; Systemic Racism; Black People; Racism; Psychology, Social
PubMed: 36652304
DOI: 10.1146/annurev-psych-020822-052232 -
Animal Cognition Jan 2023The Darwinian idea of mental continuity is about 150 years old. Although nobody has strongly denied this evolutionary link, both conceptually and practically, relative... (Review)
Review
The Darwinian idea of mental continuity is about 150 years old. Although nobody has strongly denied this evolutionary link, both conceptually and practically, relative slow advance has been made by ethology and comparative psychology to quantify mental evolution. Debates on the mechanistic interpretation of cognition often struggle with the same old issues (e.g., associationism vs cognitivism), and in general, experimental methods have made also relative slow progress since the introduction of the puzzle box. In this paper, we illustrate the prevailing issues using examples on 'mental state attribution' and 'perspective taking" and argue that the situation could be improved by the introduction of novel methodological inventions and insights. We suggest that focusing on problem-solving skills and constructing artificial agents that aim to correspond and interact with biological ones, may help to understand the functioning of the mind. We urge the establishment of a novel approach, synthetic ethology, in which researchers take on a practical stance and construct artificial embodied minds relying of specific computational architectures the performance of which can be compared directly to biological agents.
Topics: Animals; Ethology; Cognition; Problem Solving; Psychology, Comparative
PubMed: 36445574
DOI: 10.1007/s10071-022-01719-0 -
Perspectives on Psychological Science :... Jul 2021In the face of unreplicable results, statistical anomalies, and outright fraud, introspection and changes in the psychological sciences have taken root. Vibrant reform...
In the face of unreplicable results, statistical anomalies, and outright fraud, introspection and changes in the psychological sciences have taken root. Vibrant reform and metascience movements have emerged. These are exciting developments and may point toward practical improvements in the future. Yet there is nothing so practical as good theory. This article outlines aspects of reform and metascience in psychology that are ripe for an injection of theory, including a lot of excellent and overlooked theoretical work from different disciplines. I review established frameworks that model the process of scientific discovery, the types of scientific networks that we ought to aspire to, and the processes by which problematic norms and institutions might evolve, focusing especially on modeling from the philosophy of science and cultural evolution. We have unwittingly evolved a toxic scientific ecosystem; existing interdisciplinary theory may help us intelligently design a better one.
Topics: Behavioral Research; Cultural Evolution; Humans; Philosophy; Psychology; Research Design
PubMed: 33513312
DOI: 10.1177/1745691620977471 -
The British Journal of Social Psychology Jan 2023This article introduces the special issue 'Towards a Social Psychology of Precarity' that develops an orienting lens for social psychologists' engagement with the...
This article introduces the special issue 'Towards a Social Psychology of Precarity' that develops an orienting lens for social psychologists' engagement with the concept. As guest editors of the special issue, we provide a thematic overview of how 'precarity' is being conceptualized throughout the social sciences, before distilling the nine contributions to the special issue. In so doing, we trace the ways in which social psychologists are (dis)engaging with the concept of precarity, yet too, explore how precarity constitutes, and is embedded within, the discipline itself. Resisting disciplinary decadence, we collectively explore what a social psychology of precarity could be, and view working with/in precarity as fundamental to addressing broader calls for the social responsiveness of the discipline. The contributing papers, which are methodologically pluralistic and provide rich conceptualisations of precarity, challenge reductionist individualist understandings of suffering and coping and extend social science theorizations on precarity. They also highlight the ways in which social psychology remains complicit in perpetuating different forms of precarity, for both communities and academics. We propose future directions for the social psychological study of precarity through four reflexive questions that we encourage scholars to engage with so that we may both work with/in, and intervene against, 'the precarious'.
Topics: Humans; Psychology, Social; Adaptation, Psychological; Individuality
PubMed: 36637066
DOI: 10.1111/bjso.12618 -
Topics in Cognitive Science Oct 2019Although cognitive science started in the 1970s as a multidisciplinary field with the goal of becoming an interdisciplinary one over time, it is now dominated by...
Although cognitive science started in the 1970s as a multidisciplinary field with the goal of becoming an interdisciplinary one over time, it is now dominated by cognitive psychology. The question becomes whether this matters, and if it does, what should cognitive scientists do about it? I propose that the multidisciplinarity and interdisciplinarity of cognitive science does matter because it leads to potential generation of new ideas, models, and methods. I offer a few recommendations for reforming cognitive science based, in part, on the recent 41st annual meeting of the Cognitive Science Society that sought to reopen cognitive science to minority disciplines comprising cognitive science.
Topics: Cognition; Cognitive Science
PubMed: 31621185
DOI: 10.1111/tops.12469 -
Current Biology : CB Dec 2020Interview with Aniruddh Patel, who studies the cognitive, neural, and evolutionary foundations of music at Tufts University.
Interview with Aniruddh Patel, who studies the cognitive, neural, and evolutionary foundations of music at Tufts University.
Topics: Faculty; History, 20th Century; History, 21st Century; Humans; Male; Music; Psychology; Universities
PubMed: 33290698
DOI: 10.1016/j.cub.2020.09.065