Cognitive Science

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

Reviving Bistable Perception in Patients With Depression by Decreasing the Overestimation of Prior Precision

Abstract Slower perceptual alternations, a notable perceptual effect observed in psychiatric disorders, can be alleviated by antidepressant therapies that affect serotonin levels in the brain. While these phenomena have been well documented, the underlying neurocognitive mechanisms remain to be elucidated. Our study bridges this gap by employing a computational cognitive approach within a Bayesian predictive […]

Published on May 14, 2024

Improved Perception of Aggression Under (un)Related Threat of Shock

Abstract Anxiety shifts visual attention and perceptual mechanisms, preparing oneself to detect potentially threatening information more rapidly. Despite being demonstrated for threat-related social stimuli, such as fearful expressions, it remains unexplored if these effects encompass other social cues of danger, such as aggressive gestures/actions. To this end, we recruited a total of 65 participants and […]

Published on May 14, 2024

Autonomous Sensory Meridian Response (ASMR) and the Functions of Consciousness

Abstract “Autonomous Sensory Meridian Response” (ASMR) refers to a sensory-emotional experience that was first explicitly identified and named within the past two decades in online discussion boards. Since then, there has been mounting psychological and neural evidence of a clustering of properties common to the phenomenon of ASMR, including convergence on the set of stimuli […]

Published on May 14, 2024