Explore the vast range of titles available.

Visual input is often noisy and discontinuous, even though the physical environment is generally stable. The authors show that the visual system trades off change sensitivity to capitalize on physical continuity via serial dependence: present perception is biased toward past visual input. This bias is modulated by attention and governed by a spatiotemporally-tuned operator, a continuity field. Visual input often arrives in a noisy and discontinuous stream, owing to head and eye movements, occlusion, lighting changes, and many other factors. Yet the physical world is generally stable; objects and physical characteristics rarely change spontaneously. How then does the human visual system capitalize on continuity in the physical environment over time? We found that visual perception in humans is serially dependent, using both prior and present input to inform perception at the present moment. Using an orientation judgment task, we found that, even when visual input changed randomly over time, perceived orientation was strongly and systematically biased toward recently seen stimuli. Furthermore, the strength of this bias was modulated by attention and tuned to the spatial and temporal proximity of successive stimuli. These results reveal a serial dependence in perception characterized by a spatiotemporally tuned, orientation-selective operator—which we call a continuity field—that may promote visual stability over time.

Rationale5-methoxy-N,N-dimethyltryptamine is a psychotropic substance found in various plant and animal species and is synthetically produced. 5-methoxy-N,N-dimethyltryptamine is used in naturalistic settings for spiritual exploration, recreation, or to address negative affect and mood problems. However, scientific knowledge on the effects of 5-methoxy-N,N-dimethyltryptamine in humans is scarce.ObjectivesThe first objective was to assess the effects of inhalation of vaporized synthetic 5-methoxy-N,N-dimethyltryptamine on neuroendocrine markers. The second objective was to assess effects of the substance on affect and mindfulness. In addition, we assessed whether ratings of subjective measures were associated with changes in stress biomarkers (i.e., cortisol) and immune response (i.e., IL-6, CRP, IL-1β), as well as the acute psychedelic experience.MethodsAssessments (baseline, immediately post-session, and 7-day follow-up) were made in 11 participants. Salivary samples were collected at baseline and post-session and analyzed by high-sensitivity enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA).Results5-methoxy-N,N-dimethyltryptamine significantly increased cortisol levels and decreased IL-6 concentrations in saliva immediately post-session. These changes were not correlated to ratings of mental health or the psychedelic experience. Relative to baseline, ratings of non-judgment significantly increased, and ratings of depression decreased immediately post-session and at follow-up. Ratings of anxiety and stress decreased from baseline to 7-day follow-up. Participant ratings of the psychedelic experience correlated negatively with ratings of affect and positively with ratings of non-judgment.ConclusionInhalation of vaporized synthetic 5-methoxy-N,N-dimethyltryptamine produced significant changes in inflammatory markers, improved affect, and non-judgment in volunteers. Future research should examine the effect of 5-methoxy-N,N-dimethyltryptamineamine with healthy volunteers in a controlled laboratory setting.

RationaleHypothetical moral dilemmas, pitting characteristically utilitarian and non-utilitarian outcomes against each other, have played a central role in investigations of moral decision-making. Preferences for utilitarian over non-utilitarian responses have been explained by two contrasting hypotheses; one implicating increased deliberative reasoning, and the other implicating diminished harm aversion. In recent field experiments, these hypotheses have been investigated using alcohol intoxication to impair both social and cognitive functioning. These studies have found increased utilitarian responding, arguably as a result of alcohol impairing affective empathy.ObjectivesThe present research expands existing investigations by examining the acute effects of alcohol on affective empathy and subsequent moral judgments in traditional vignettes and moral actions in virtual reality, as well as physiological responses in moral dilemmas.MethodsParticipants (N = 48) were administered either a placebo or alcohol in one of two dosages; low or moderate. Both pre- and post intervention, participants completed a moral action and moral judgment task alongside behavioural measures of affective empathy.ResultsHigher dosages of alcohol consumption resulted in inappropriate empathic responses to facial displays of emotion, mirroring responses of individuals high in trait psychopathy, but empathy for pain was unaffected. Whilst affective empathy was influenced by alcohol consumption in a facial responding task, both moral judgments and moral actions were unaffected.ConclusionsThese results suggest that facets, beyond or in addition to deficits in affective empathy, might influence the relationship between alcohol consumption and utilitarian endorsements.

People and societies seek to combat harmful events. However, because resources are limited, every wrong righted leaves another wrong left unchecked. Responses must therefore be calibrated to the magnitude of the harm. One underappreciated factor that affects this calibration may be people's oversensitivity to intent. Across a series of studies, people saw intended harms as worse than unintended harms, even though the two harms were identical. This harm-magnification effect occurred for both subjective and monetary estimates of harm, and it remained when participants were given incentives to be accurate. The effect was fully mediated by blame motivation. People may therefore focus on intentional harms to the neglect of unintentional (but equally damaging) harms.

Discovering how people judge their memories has been a major issue for metacognitive research for over 4 decades; many factors have been discovered that affect people’s judgments, but exactly how those effects are mediated is poorly understood. For instance, the effect of word pair relatedness on judgments of learning (JOLs) has been repeatedly demonstrated, yet the underlying basis of this substantial effect is currently unknown. Thus, in three experiments, we assessed the contribution of beliefs and processing fluency. In Experiment 1 , participants studied related and unrelated word pairs and made either prestudy JOLs or immediate JOLs. Participants gave higher estimates for related than for unrelated pairs, suggesting that participants’ beliefs at least partially drive the relatedness effect on JOLs. Next, we evaluated the contribution of processing fluency to the relatedness effect either (1) by disrupting fluency by presenting half the pairs in an aLtErNaTiNg format (Experiment 2 ) or (2) by measuring how fluently participants processed pairs at study and statistically estimating the degree to which conceptual fluency mediated the effects of relatedness on JOLs (Experiment 3 ). Results from both experiments indicated that fluency contributes minimally to the relatedness effect. Taken together, these results indicate that people’s beliefs about how relatedness influences memory are responsible for mediating the relationship between relatedness and JOLs. In general, empirically establishing what mediates the effects of other factors on people’s judgments remains a major agenda for advancing theory of metacognitive monitoring.

Mismatches between perceived and veridical physiological signals during false feedback (FFB) can bias emotional judgements. Paradigms using auditory FFB suggest perceived changes in heart rate (HR) increase ratings of emotional intensity irrespective of feedback type (increased or decreased HR), implicating right anterior insula as a mismatch comparator between exteroceptive and interoceptive information. However, few paradigms have examined effects of somatosensory FFB. Participants rated the emotional intensity of randomized facial expressions while they received 20 s blocks of pulsatile somatosensory stimulation at rates higher than HR, lower than HR, equivalent to HR, or no stimulation during a functional magnetic resonance neuroimaging scan. FFB exerted a bidirectional effect on reported intensity ratings of the emotional faces, increasing over the course of each 20 s stimulation block. Neuroimaging showed FFB engaging regions indicative of affective touch processing, embodiment, and reflex suppression. Contrasting higher vs. lower HR FFB revealed engagement of right insula and centres supporting socio-emotional processing. Results indicate that exposure to pulsatile somatosensory stimulation can influence emotional judgements though its progressive embodiment as a perceived interoceptive arousal state, biasing how affective salience is ascribed to external stimuli. Results are consistent with multimodal integration of priors and prediction-error signalling in shaping perceptual judgments.

Our recollections tend to become more similar to the correct information when we recollect an initial response using the correct information, known as the hindsight bias. This study investigated the effect of memory load of information encoded on the hindsight bias’s magnitude. We assigned participants (N = 63) to either LOW or HIGH conditions, in which they answered 20 or 50 questions, which were their initial responses. Then, they memorized and remembered the correct information. They finally recollected the initial responses. Twenty of the fifty questions in the HIGH condition were identical to those in the LOW condition. We used the answers to these 20 common questions in LOW and HIGH conditions to examine the effect of the memory load of information encoded, defined as the number of correct answers to remember (i.e., 20 or 50) on the hindsight bias. Results indicated that the magnitude of the hindsight bias was more prominent in the HIGH than the LOW condition, suggesting that the memory load amplifies the hindsight bias’s magnitude. This finding also implies that controlling the memory load of information encoded when learning correct information could mitigate the hindsight bias. We expect these findings to have practical implications in occupational settings where hindsight bias could lead to critical errors such as financial losses or medical problems.

Evidence shows that the font size of study items significantly influences judgments of learning (JOLs) and that people's JOLs are generally higher for larger words than for smaller words. Previous studies have suggested that font size influences JOLs in a belief-based way. However, few studies have directly examined how much people's beliefs contribute to the font-size effect in JOLs. This study investigated the degree to which font size influenced JOLs in a belief-based way. In Experiment 1, one group of participants (learners) studied words with different font sizes and made JOLs, whereas another group of participants (observers) viewed the learners' study phase and made JOLs for the learners. In Experiment 2, participants made both JOLs and belief-based recall predictions for large and small words. Our results suggest that metamemory beliefs play an important role in the font-size effect in JOLs.

Abstract Attributing motives to others is a crucial aspect of mentalizing, can be biased by prejudice, and is affected by common psychiatric disorders. It is therefore important to understand in depth the mechanisms underpinning it. Toward improving models of mentalizing motives, we hypothesized that people quickly infer whether other’s motives are likely beneficial or detrimental, then refine their judgment (classify-refine). To test this, we used a modified Dictator game, a game theoretic task, where participants judged the likelihood of intent to harm vs. self-interest in economic decisions. Toward testing the role of serotonin in judgments of intent to harm, we delivered the task in a week-long, placebo vs. citalopram study. Computational model comparison provided clear evidence for the superiority of classify-refine models over traditional ones, strongly supporting the central hypothesis. Further, while citalopram helped refine attributions about motives through learning, it did not induce more positive initial inferences about others’ motives. Finally, model comparison indicated a minimal role for racial bias within economic decisions for the large majority of our sample. Overall, these results support a proposal that classify-refine social cognition is adaptive, although relevant mechanisms of serotonergic antidepressant action will need to be studied over longer time spans.

People judge the nature of human behaviors based on underlying intentions and possible outcomes. Recent studies have demonstrated a causal role of the right temporoparietal junction (rTPJ) in modulating both intention and intention-based outcome evaluations during social judgments. However, these studies mainly used hypothetical scenarios with socially undesirable contexts (bad/neutral intentions and bad/neutral outcomes), leaving the role of rTPJ in judging good intentions and good outcomes unclear. In the current study, participants were instructed to make goodness judgments as a third party toward the monetary allocations from one proposer to another responder. Critically, in some cases, the initial allocation by the proposer could be reversed by the computer, yielding combinations of good/bad intentions (of the proposer) with good/bad outcomes (for the responder). Anodal (n = 20), cathodal (n = 21), and sham (n = 21) transcranial direct current stimulation (tDCS) over the rTPJ were randomly assigned to 62 subjects to further examine the effects of stimulation over the rTPJ in modulating intention-based outcome evaluation. Compared to the anodal and sham stimulations, cathodal tDCS over the rTPJ reduced the goodness ratings of good/bad outcomes when the intentions were good, whereas it showed no significant effect on outcome ratings under unknown and bad intentions. Our results provide the first evidence that deactivating the rTPJ modulates outcome evaluation in an intention-dependent fashion, mainly by reducing the goodness rating towards both good/bad outcomes when the intentions are good. Our findings argue for a causal role of the rTPJ in modulating intention-based social judgments and point to nuanced effects of rTPJ modulation.