Cognitive Science

The latest breakthroughs, innovations, and cool happenings at the cutting edge of the world of cognitive science. Updated daily.

Political reinforcement learners

Politics can seem home to the most calculating and yet least rational elements of humanity. How might we systematically characterize this spectrum of political cognition? Here, we propose reinforcement learning (RL) as a unified framework to dissect the political mind. RL describes how agents algorithmically navigate complex and uncertain domains like politics. Through this computational […]

Published on January 9, 2024

Does Lexical Coordination Affect Epistemic and Practical Trust? The Role of Conceptual Pacts

Abstract The present study investigated whether humans are more likely to trust people who are coordinated with them. We examined a well-known type of linguistic coordination, lexical entrainment, typically involving the elaboration of “conceptual pacts,” or partner-specific agreements on how to conceptualize objects. In two experiments, we manipulated lexical entrainment in a referential communication task […]

Published on January 8, 2024

Neuro-environmental interactions: a time sensitive matter

IntroductionThe assessment of resting state (rs) neurophysiological dynamics relies on the control of sensory, perceptual, and behavioral environments to minimize variability and rule-out confounding sources of activation during testing conditions. Here, we investigated how temporally-distal environmental inputs, specifically metal exposures experienced up to several months prior to scanning, affect functional dynamics measured using rs functional […]

Published on January 8, 2024