Human behaviour articles within Nature Communications

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  • Article
    | Open Access

    The neural basis of individual differences in episodic memory performance is not well understood. Here, the authors show in a large fMRI dataset that activity of the hippocampus, orbitofrontal cortex and posterior cingulate cortex accounts for individual variability in memory performance.

    • Léonie Geissmann
    • , David Coynel
    •  & Dominique J. F. de Quervain

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Knowledge can impact children’s emotion, cognition, and action. The authors show that when seeking information, children consider if information is useful, positive, and lowers uncertainty, with the emphasis on these considerations changing with age.

    • Gaia Molinaro
    • , Irene Cogliati Dezza
    •  & Tali Sharot

  • Article
    | Open Access

    People differ in the extent to which they experience a lack of economic resources compared to others. Here, the authors show that such experiences at the individual level as well as income inequality at the national level are associated with self-reported morality-related outcomes.

    • Christian T. Elbæk
    • , Panagiotis Mitkidis
    •  & Tobias Otterbring

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Open science practices are becoming more common in the social sciences, but there is limited data on their popularity and prevalence. Here, using survey data, the authors provide evidence that levels of adoption are relatively high and underestimated by many in the field.

    • Joel Ferguson
    • , Rebecca Littman
    •  & John-Henry Pezzuto

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Inspired by human analogical reasoning in cognitive science, the authors propose an approach combining deep learning systems with an analogical reasoning mechanism, to detect abstract similarity in real-world images without intensive training in reasoning tasks.

    • Taylor Webb
    • , Shuhao Fu
    •  & Hongjing Lu

  • Article
    | Open Access

    How our ability to infer the cognitive and emotional states of other people manifests in both neural activity and real-world social behavior is not fully understood. Here, the authors show neural activation patterns in the right posterior superior temporal sulcus during a social inference task predict the number of social contacts in both neurotypical and autism groups.

    • Anita Tusche
    • , Robert P. Spunt
    •  & Ralph Adolphs

  • Article
    | Open Access

    How hippocampal area CA1 and the entorhinal cortex preserve temporal memories over long timescales is not known. Here, the authors show using 7T fMRI, that temporal context memory for scene images is predicted by the re-expression of CA1 and entorhinal cortex activity patterns during subsequent encounters over a period of months.

    • Futing Zou
    • , Guo Wanjia
    •  & Sarah DuBrow

  • Article
    | Open Access

    The neural processes underlying the prediction of unfolding external dynamics are not well understood. Here, the authors combine magnetoencephalography and naturalistic dynamic stimuli and show predictive neural representations of observed actions which are hierarchical in nature.

    • Ingmar E. J. de Vries
    •  & Moritz F. Wurm

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Understanding the neural processes governing the human gut-brain connection has been challenging. Here, the authors investigate the perceptual response and neural correlates of gastrointestinal sensation using a minimally invasive mechanosensory probe.

    • Ahmad Mayeli
    • , Obada Al Zoubi
    •  & Sahib S. Khalsa

  • Article
    | Open Access

    The authors examine how the brain processes actions performed by humans and events involving objects. Their findings suggest that a common neural code is used in the brain’s action observation network to represent event information, regardless of animacy.

    • Seda Karakose-Akbiyik
    • , Alfonso Caramazza
    •  & Moritz F. Wurm

  • Article
    | Open Access

    The ventromedial prefrontal-cortex (vmPFC) encodes expected value signals that contribute to choices. Here the authors show that during decision-making the human ventromedial prefrontal cortex contains a task-context representation that arbitrates between simultaneously active representations of expected values in the current versus other task contexts.

    • Nir Moneta
    • , Mona M. Garvert
    •  & Nicolas W. Schuck

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Filtering or gating relevant information into working memory has been attributed to the striatum. Here, the authors reveal neocortical filtering mechanisms, namely, rapid changes in oscillatory theta networks, that predict fast and flexible human behavior.

    • Elizabeth L. Johnson
    • , Jack J. Lin
    •  & David Badre

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Behavioural adaptation from semantic priming is accompanied by reduced neural activity in bulk-tissue measurements, but the underlying single neuron mechanisms remain unclear. Here, the authors leverage simultaneous intracranial EEG and single neuron spiking recordings in the human medial temporal lobe to unveil differential sharpening and fatiguing mechanisms across different temporal lobe areas.

    • Thomas P. Reber
    • , Sina Mackay
    •  & Florian Mormann

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Drawings can vary in abstraction while still being meaningful. Here, the authors leverage a two-player drawing game to evaluate a cognitive account of pictorial meaning in which both visual and social information jointly support visual communication.

    • Robert D. Hawkins
    • , Megumi Sano
    •  & Judith E. Fan

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Here, the authors show that real-world extraordinary altruists, including heroic rescuers and altruistic kidney donors, are distinguished by unusually unselfish traits and decision-making patterns. This pattern was not predicted by a general sample of adults who were asked what traits would characterize altruists.

    • Shawn A. Rhoads
    • , Kruti M. Vekaria
    •  & Abigail A. Marsh

  • Article
    | Open Access

    How humans distinguish perception from mental imagery is not well understood. Here, the authors show that reality judgements are based on the intensity of a mixture of imagined and real signals.

    • Nadine Dijkstra
    •  & Stephen M. Fleming

  • Article
    | Open Access

    How we juggle morally conflicting outcomes during learning remains unknown. Here, by comparing variants of reinforcement learning models, the authors show that participants differ substantially in their preference, with some choosing actions that benefit themselves while others choose actions that prevent harm.

    • Laura Fornari
    • , Kalliopi Ioumpa
    •  & Valeria Gazzola

  • Article
    | Open Access

    It remains unclear how the Stroop effect occurs and gets resolved in the human brain. Here, the authors show that a functional loop involving the prefrontal cortex and cerebellum may play a critical role during word-color perception.

    • Moe Okayasu
    • , Tensei Inukai
    •  & Koji Jimura

  • Article
    | Open Access

    In animals, sensory systems appear optimized for the statistics of the external world. Here the authors take an artificial psychophysics approach, analysing sensory responses in artificial neural networks, and show why these demonstrate the same phenomenon as natural sensory systems.

    • Ari S. Benjamin
    • , Ling-Qi Zhang
    •  & Konrad P. Kording

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Sleep varies within and between individuals. Here, using self-reported sleep duration from a large sample of participants across 63 countries, the authors show three phases in the adult human life-course, consistent across culture, gender, education and other demographics.

    • A. Coutrot
    • , A. S. Lazar
    •  & H. J. Spiers

  • Comment
    | Open Access

    This Comment piece summarises current challenges regarding routine vaccine uptake in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic and provides recommendations on how to increase uptake. To implement these recommendations, the article points to evidence-based resources that can support health-care workers, policy makers and communicators.

    • Cornelia Betsch
    • , Philipp Schmid
    •  & Amanda Garrison

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Here, by studying a multi-ethnic cross-sectional urban cohort (N = 3211, 6 ethnic groups), the authors show that depressive symptom levels are related to the gut microbiota taxonomic characteristics but that these are largely invariant across ethnic groups.

    • Jos A. Bosch
    • , Max Nieuwdorp
    •  & Anja Lok

  • Article
    | Open Access

    How the human visual system leverages the rich structure in object motion for perception remains unclear. Here, Bill et al. propose a theory of how the brain could infer motion relations in real time and offer a unifying explanation for various perceptual phenomena.

    • Johannes Bill
    • , Samuel J. Gershman
    •  & Jan Drugowitsch

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Misinformation online can be shared by major political figures and organizations. Here, the authors developed a method to measure exposure to information from these sources on Twitter, and show how exposure relates to the quality of the content people share and their political ideology.

    • Mohsen Mosleh
    •  & David G. Rand

  • Article
    | Open Access

    In a prospective longitudinal study of 833 adults, we demonstrate that how you wake up and regain alertness in the hours after sleep is weakly associated with your genes. Instead, the modifiable factors of how you are sleeping, eating and exercising influence your return to full alertness, free of sleepiness.

    • Raphael Vallat
    • , Sarah E. Berry
    •  & Matthew P. Walker

  • Article
    | Open Access

    The authors report findings from their study of female student participants interested in engineering at college entry who were randomly assigned to a female peer mentor, male mentor, or no mentor for their first year of college. The authors show that students assigned to a female peer mentor show benefits in psychological experiences in engineering, aspirations to pursue postgraduate engineering degrees, and emotional well-being, which persists up to one year after graduation.

    • Deborah J. Wu
    • , Kelsey C. Thiem
    •  & Nilanjana Dasgupta

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Autobiographical memories are associated with activity in the hippocampus and the parietal cortex. Here the authors characterise the neural substrates for retrieving autobiographical memories from a large dataset, and identify a topography within the medial parietal cortex that reflects memory content, age, and memory strength.

    • Wilma A. Bainbridge
    •  & Chris I. Baker

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Classical forgetting methods typically re-expose people to reminders of their unwanted memories. Here, the authors disrupt unpleasant memories by subliminally reactivating them as participants suppress retrieval of unrelated neutral memories, avoiding the need for conscious exposure.

    • Zijian Zhu
    • , Michael C. Anderson
    •  & Yingying Wang

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Little is known about the dynamics of human cooperation in groups with changing compositions. Using data from a large-scale and long-term online public goods game, this study shows how group changes are associated with temporarily lower cooperation.

    • Kasper Otten
    • , Ulrich J. Frey
    •  & Naomi Ellemers

  • Article
    | Open Access

    People are remarkably good at learning about others’ personalities. Here, the authors develop computational models showing that this learning relies on a combination of prior beliefs and similarities between personality traits.

    • Koen M. M. Frolichs
    • , Gabriela Rosenblau
    •  & Christoph W. Korn

  • Article
    | Open Access

    For many AI systems, it is hard to interpret how they make decisions. Here, the authors show that non-experts value interpretability in AI, especially for decisions involving high stakes and scarce resources, but they sacrifice AI interpretability when it trades off against AI accuracy.

    • Anne-Marie Nussberger
    • , Lan Luo
    •  & M. J. Crockett

  • Comment
    | Open Access

    Adolescence is marked by heightened stress exposure and psychopathology, but also vast potential for opportunity. We highlight how researchers can leverage both developmental and individual differences in stress responding and corticolimbic circuitry to optimize interventions during this unique developmental period.

    • Dylan G. Gee
    • , Lucinda M. Sisk
    •  & Nessa V. Bryce

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Most humans procrastinate to some extent, despite adverse consequences. Here, the authors show that how much an individual procrastinates, both in the lab and at home, relates to brain signals that reflect temporal discounting of effort cost.

    • Raphaël Le Bouc
    •  & Mathias Pessiglione

  • Article
    | Open Access

    Humans can infer rules for building words in a new language from a handful of examples, and linguists also can infer language patterns across related languages. Here, the authors provide an algorithm which models these grammatical abilities by synthesizing human-understandable programs for building words.

    • Kevin Ellis
    • , Adam Albright
    •  & Timothy J. O’Donnell

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