When less humanity is more: A single target compensation phenomenon between human nature and human uniqueness This research examines the dynamic relationship between the two dimensions of humanity perception – human nature (HN) and human uniqueness (HU) – as defined in Haslam’s (2006) Dual Model of Dehumanization. While these dimensions have long been relied on to study perceptions of humanity, the relationship between them remains unclear. Building on prior research showing compensation effects in social judgment, as well as our own prior unpredicted results, we hypothesized that a similar pattern might occur between HN and HU. Across four studies (N = 660), we independently manipulated vignette-based targets of social perception to appear either low or high on one dimension, using a 2 × 2 factorial design. On a subsequent measure of humanity perception, a strong compensation pattern between HU and HN emerged. Targets described as low in HN were perceived as higher in HU than those described as high in HN. Conversely, targets low in HU were seen as higher in HN than those described as high in HU. These findings support the existence of a dimensional compensation mechanism in humanity perception. Results are discussed in terms of potential cognitive mechanisms behind compensation, the role of social comparison, and the potential implication of the self in this process..
Collaborative reasoning and problem-solving in early childhood A core aspect of human intelligence is the ability to reason. Recently, the social dimension of reasoning has been emphasized such that reasoning enables people to justify their beliefs/proposals to collectively solve problems, in which the goal of the participants is to reach the decision that provides most benefit to all. An important debate in the literature is whether collaborative reasoning leads to good/optimal decisions. Here, we contrast these traditional and social views on reasoning and review the evidence on whether individuals benefit from collective reasoning in a special population: young children. We argue that collaborative problem-solving contexts uniquely facilitate the development of young children’s reasoning as it pushes them to treat their partners’ perspectives as equal to their own, enabling them to better understand and evaluate them.
Thalamocortical regulation of prefrontal stability enables abstract rule generalization Our ability to generalize abstract rules to new situations is a cognitive hallmark, yet its neural basis is unclear. We identified a thalamocortical circuit essential for this process in mice. During a cross-modal rule transfer task, medial prefrontal cortex (mPFC) neurons encoded task rules across sensory modalities to enable generalization. Crucially, mediodorsal thalamus (MD) projections to mPFC were causally required: Inhibiting this pathway destabilized mPFC representations and impaired rule transfer, whereas enhancing it improved performance. Without MD input, mPFC recruited distinct populations for each task, losing cross-context stability. Direct mPFC excitation impaired generalization, underscoring the specificity of thalamic regulation. Thus, the MD stabilizes mPFC activity for flexible rule transfer—a mechanism with implications for cognitive disorders and artificial intelligence.
Autonomic indicators of self-transcendence: insights from the numadelic VR paradigm Self-transcendent experiences (STEs) offer profound and beneficial shifts in perspective, yet remain largely inaccessible outside elite contemplative or pharmacological contexts. Although neural measures have advanced our understanding of these states, their cost and limited ecological validity restrict broader application. This study evaluates heart rate variability (HRV) amplitude, a measure reflecting dynamic sympathovagal engagement, as a cost-effective and sustainable physiological marker of STE during ‘numadelic’ virtual reality (VR) experiences designed to dissolve self-boundaries and foster embodied presence. Building on previous work showing (i) associations between non-ordinary states of consciousness (NOSC) and autonomic activity during psychedelic administration, and (ii) comparable STE intensity in non-drug numadelic VR, we tested whether HRV amplitude reflects STE depth and relates to affective and relational outcomes during numadelic VR. Ninety-six participants engaged in guided meditation either in numadelic VR or a non-VR audio-guided group format. Cardiac and respiratory data were recorded during the session, alongside pre- and post-meditation psychological assessments. Findings show that HRV amplitude measured during numadelic VR correlates with subjective STE ratings, as well as compassion traits, and emotional improvement following practice. Reanalysis of data from a prior psychedelic study further supports the relevance of this measure across different methods of inducing NOSCs. These results advance the psychophysiological mapping of STEs and identify HRV amplitude as a promising real-time biomarker that may help guide participants toward self-transcendent states within adaptive environments. By integrating contemplative science with immersive design, this work contributes to scalable tools that broaden access to and deepen understanding of STEs.
Dissociable after-effects of prosocial acts: Effort is costly for others but valued for self Engaging in prosocial behavior requires effort, yet people are often averse to exerting effort for others’ benefit. However, it remains unclear how effort exertion affects subsequent reward evaluation during prosocial acts. Here, we combined high-temporal-resolution electroencephalography with a paradigm that independently manipulated effort and reward for self and others to elucidate the neural mechanisms underlying the reward after-effect of prosocial effort expenditure. We found dissociable reward after-effects for self-benefiting and other-benefiting effort. For self-benefiting rewards, the reward positivity (RewP) increased with effort demand, suggesting an effort-enhancement effect. In contrast, for other-benefiting rewards, the RewP decreased as effort increased, demonstrating an effort-discounting effect. Critically, this dissociation was contingent upon high reward magnitude and modulated by individual differences in effort discounting, yet remained distinct from performance evaluation. Our findings reveal distinct neural computations for self- and other-benefiting efforts, offering new insights into how prior effort expenditure shapes reward evaluation during prosocial behavior.
Mesocorticostriatal Reinforcement Learning of State Representation and Value with Implications for the Mechanisms of Schizophrenia Mesocorticostriatal dopamine projections are crucial for value learning, motivational control, and cognitive functions. However, while dopamine’s role in value learning as reward-prediction-error (RPE) has been much understood, precise roles in motivational control and cognitive functions remain more elusive. Computationally, this corresponds to that while the operation of mesostriatal dopamine could be minimally described by simple reinforcement learning (RL) models with one-dimensional reward/RPE and fixed state representation, (1) how reward-specific motivational control can be achieved through heterogeneous dopamine responses, and (2) how sophisticated cortical state representation can be formed through mesocortical dopamine, cannot be captured by such simple models. To address both of these at once, we combined recent models for each of them: the “Reward Bases (RB),” which achieved reward-specific motivational control through multidimensional RPE (but with fixed cortical representation), and the “online value-recurrent-neutral-network (OVRNN),” which achieved state representation learning through training of RNN by RPE (but of one-dimensional). We show the combined model can achieve both functions simultaneously via double “feedback alignments” of the cortical and striatal downstream connections to the mesocorticostriatal dopamine projections. Crucially, cortical inhibition-dominance is a key for successful learning. Excessive excitation leads to aberrant persistent activity, which disrupts the alignments and impairs reward-specific motivational control and credit assignment. This implies how negative and positive symptoms of schizophrenia could emerge from excitation/inhibition imbalance, and we show how our model could explain altered brain activations in patients. Our model thus provides an integrated computational account for dopamine’s functions, with implications on how its dysfunctions link to schizophrenia.
When Attention Fails Memory: Voluntary Orienting Deficits and Visual Short-Term Memory in Intellectual Disability Individuals with intellectual disability (ID) exhibit deficits in both selective attention and visual short-term memory (VSTM). However, whether attentional deficits directly constrain VSTM performance in ID remains unknown. Here, we examined the interplay between these two processes in ID and their correlates with fluid intelligence across individuals with varying levels of intellectual functioning. Nineteen adults with ID and twenty-two chronologically matched neurotypical adults (TDA) carried out the Attentional Orienting Task (AOT), in which they briefly viewed a memory array, followed by a probe and indicated whether the probe was previously presented in the memory array. Visuospatial attention cues were shown before (pre-cues) or after (retro-cues) the memory array to assess attentional orienting in service of VSTM encoding and maintenance, respectively, compared to neutral, baseline attention cues. Additionally, participants completed Raven’s 2, a non-verbal reasoning test. TDA adults outperformed individuals with ID across all conditions. Importantly, while TDA demonstrated clear attentional orienting benefits in service of VSTM, individuals with ID showed no cueing benefits either before encoding into VSTM or during VSTM maintenance. Correlation and regression analyses showed that attentional orienting abilities predicted fluid intelligence beyond baseline VSTM performance. Current results show for the first time that attentional deficits constrain VSTM performance in ID, whereas individual differences in attentional orienting in service of VSTM predict non-verbal reasoning abilities. These findings speak to the overall functioning difficulties individuals with ID face and highlight the need to consider the dynamic relation between these cognitive processes when designing assessments and interventions for intellectual disabilities.
Early dopamine disruption in the entorhinal cortex of a knock-in model of Alzheimer’s disease The entorhinal cortex is a critical brain area for memory formation, while also the region exhibiting the earliest histological and functional alterations in Alzheimer’s disease (AD). The entorhinal cortex therefore has been long hypothesized as one of the originating brain areas of AD pathophysiology, although circuit mechanisms causing its selective vulnerability remain poorly understood. Here we show that dopamine neurons projecting their axons to the lateral entorhinal cortex (LEC), critical for memory formation in healthy brains, become dysfunctional from the early pathological stage and cause associative memory impairments in amyloid precursor protein knock-in mice. Dopamine dysfunction led to the disruption of associative memory encoding of LEC layer 2/3. Optogenetic reactivation of LEC dopamine fibers rescued associative learning behavior. L-DOPA treatment restored memory encoding of LEC neurons and associative memory of amyloid precursor protein knock-in mice. These results suggest early dysfunction of LEC-projecting dopamine neurons underlie memory impairment in AD from early stages, pointing to a need for clinical investigation of LEC dopamine in patients with AD.
Connectivity of the Right Cerebello-Left Hippocampal Circuit Across Adulthood Direct communication between the hippocampus and cerebellum has been shown via coactivation and synchronized neuronal oscillations in animal models. Further, the cerebello-hippocampal circuit has been under-investigated in the human brain and may be impacted by sex steroid hormones. The cerebellum and hippocampus are dense with estradiol and progesterone receptors relative to other brain regions. Females experience up to a 90% decrease in ovarian estradiol production after the menopausal transition. Postmenopausal women show lower cerebello-cortical functional connectivity (FC) compared to reproductive aged females. Further, sex hormones are established modulators of both memory function and synaptic organization in the hippocampus in non-human animal studies. However, investigation of the cerebello-hippocampal (CB-HP) circuit has been limited to animal studies and small homogeneous samples of young adults as it relates to spatial navigation. Here, we investigate the CB(right)-HP(left) circuit in 138 adult humans (53% female) from 35-86 years of age, to define its FC patterns, and investigate its associations with behavior, hormone levels, and sex differences therein. We demonstrated robust FC patterns between the right CB and left HP in this sample. We predicted and found negative relationships between age and CB-HP FC. As expected, estradiol levels exhibited positive relationships with CB-HP connectivity. We found lower CB-HP FC with higher levels of progesterone. We provide the first characterization of the CB-HP circuit across middle and older adulthood and demonstrate that connectivity is sensitive to sex steroid hormone levels. This work provides the first clear CB-HP circuit functional mapping in the human brain and serves as a foundation for future work in neurological and psychiatric diseases.