A new study reveals that people with lower self-awareness about their own decision accuracy show stronger brain responses to morally charged political issues, potentially explaining why some political beliefs are so rigid.
A new MIT study shows that both humans and animals continue to explore different approaches to a task even after learning the optimal strategy, due to potential benefits of discovering new, better alternatives or adapting to changes in the environment.
A study by MIT suggests that humans and animals have a built-in tendency to continuously tweak their methods, driven by the potential for discovering superior strategies and adapting to unforeseen changes.
The article from Earth.com discusses a study revealing that both humans and animals have an inherent tendency to experiment and explore, even after mastering a task. Conducted by researchers at MIT, the study suggests that this behavior serves two main purposes: adapting to potential changes in task rules and discovering potentially better solutions. The study involved humans and marmosets performing a task that required them to react when an image disappeared. Despite learning optimal strategies, participants continued to alter their responses based on past experiences, indicating an exploratory approach to improve their internal model of the environment. This behavior has implications for understanding learning processes and could provide insights into autism spectrum disorders, as marmosets are increasingly used in related research. The full study was published in the journal Current Biology.
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First, he says, simply because a task's rules seem set one moment doesn't mean they'll stay that way in this uncertain world, so altering behavior from the optimal condition every so often could help reveal necessary adjustments.
Second, and of equal importance, continuous exploration could also offer a chance to discover something superior to our current best.
"If the goal is to maximize reward, you should never deviate once you have found the perfect solution, yet you keep exploring. Why? It's like food. We all like certain foods, but we still keep trying different foods because you never know, there might be something you could discover," noted the researchers.
A survey of 100 researchers in animal behavior, conducted by Marcela Benítez and colleagues from Emory University and published in the journal Royal Society Open Science, has provided insights into current scientific views on animal emotions and consciousness. The survey reflects a growing acceptance of these capacities in a wide range of animals, highlighting the evolving perspectives in the field of animal behavior.
| Animal Group | Percentage Believing in Emotions |
|---|---|
| Non-human primates | 98% |
| Other mammals | 89% |
| Birds | 78% |
| Cephalopods | 72% |
| Fish | 53% |
| Insects | 67% |
| Other invertebrates | 71% |
The survey suggests a significant shift in scientific thought, with a majority of researchers now attributing emotions to a wide range of animals, even those previously considered less sentient. This indicates a growing acceptance of the complexity and depth of animal emotional experiences, likely influenced by recent research in animal cognition and emotions.
A study in Psychiatry Research: Neuroimaging found structural differences in the precuneus, a brain region associated with memory and self-focus, in individuals who tend to ruminate, which is common in depression. The findings suggest that rumination may result from network-level interactions in the brain.
Psychologists found that 44.7% of recorded earworms matched the original song's pitch perfectly, suggesting a common 'musical superpower'.
Dedre Gentner is a professor of psychology and cognitive science at Northwestern University. Her research interests include learning and thinking, analogy, similarity and metaphor, concepts and conceptual structure, language and cognition, and language acquisition.
A new model developed by researchers at MIT and the University of Washington predicts human goals or actions more accurately than previous models. The latent inference budget model identifies patterns in human or machine decision-making and uses this information to forecast behavior.
- The format of human thought is a subject of debate, with some people visualizing images and others relying on an internal voice or both.
- Aphantasia is a condition where an individual cannot visualize images in their mind's eye, while anendophasia is the absence of an inner voice or inner speech.
- A study by Nedergaard and Lupyan found that people with more inner speech recalled more words in a verbal memory task and were faster and more accurate in a rhyming task compared to those with less inner speech. However, they did not differ in task-switching or same/different tasks.
- The study suggests that people with less inner speech may use a different form of thinking called "unsymbolized thinking."
- Most people use a combination of visual imagery, an internal voice, or both when thinking, but not everyone does.
