Articles

Using a real-world navigation task, Bécu et al. find a preference for geometry-based navigation in older adults, and for landmark-based navigation in younger people. Older adults also show a decreased capacity to take perspective from landmarks.

Using a randomized design over 24 months, Mills et al. show that the addition of restorative-justice-informed practices to a typical treatment for domestic violence crimes leads to substantial reductions in new arrests and crime severity scores.

Smaldino et al. develop a formal model to explain cross-cultural differences in personality structure. Complex societies with more diverse niches show less covariation among behavioural traits, resulting in greater variability in personality types.

Comparing the behaviour of humans and monkeys, Farashahi et al. show that both species take uncertainty into account when weighing reward value and probability. Both species switch to a more flexible strategy for weighing information during learning.

Dahl et al. use neuromelanin-sensitive neuroimaging in a cohort of participants spanning ages 25 to 83 and report that ‘youth-like’ rostral locus coeruleus integrity is associated with better memory performance in the elderly.

Humans and animals exhibit individual preferences in decision tasks. Lebovich et al quantify these idiosyncratic choice biases and demonstrates that such biases emerge naturally from intrinsic stochasticity in the dynamics of neuronal networks.

From the 2016 US presidential election and into 2019, Kunst and colleagues show that a visceral feeling of oneness (that is, psychological fusion) with a political leader can fuel partisans’ willingness to actively participate in political violence.

Régner et al. show that, in a nationwide competition for elite research positions, committees that hold strong implicit gender biases and doubt that women face external barriers to their success promote fewer women.

Lieder et al. leverage artificial intelligence to redesign our to-do lists into games that make us more productive. Four experiments suggest that their approach can help people make better decisions, overcome procrastination and prioritize better.

Wood and Papachristos show that a gun violence field intervention reduced the two-year incidence of gunshot victimization among participants and their network peers.

Does anatomy affect cross-linguistic differences? Using computer models of the vocal tract, Dediu et al modelled how vowels are learned and transmitted across generations. Simulations show how variations in the hard palate contribute to phonetic diversity.

Cross-culturally, humans have extensive childcare systems that help parents raise their children. Page et al. examine 1,701 alloparent–child dyads in Agta people, finding that both kin selection and reciprocity are important predictors of alloparenting.

Lee et al. show people's biases in social perception can be explained merely by the structure of their social networks, without assuming biased cognition. Social perception biases can be explained by homophily of personal networks and minority-group size.

Chenoweth and Belgioioso describe the momentum of protest movements as the product of the number of participants (mass) and concentration of events in time (velocity). Higher momentum is associated with a higher probability of irregular leader exit.

Comparing white matter disconnectivity across 12 psychiatric and neurological disorders, this study finds that the connections most important for global communication and network integration are particularly vulnerable to alterations across multiple brain disorders.

A study of genetic associations identifies 46 new loci associated with alcohol consumption. By assessing their function and potential pleiotropy, the authors suggest genetic mechanisms that are shared with neuropsychiatric disorders, including schizophrenia.

Do people think that behaviour is due to genetics, regardless of whether it’s good or bad? Here Lebowitz et al. find that people think prosocial behaviour is more influenced by genetics than antisocial behaviour; this asymmetry seems to be motivated by people’s desire to blame wrongdoers.

Strimling et al. propose a model that explains the connection between ideology and moral opinions, and validate it with 44 years of polling data, confirming that positions connected to harm and fairness are more popular in liberals and become more popular over time.

Neural processing of speech adapts to goal-oriented behaviour. Here, Rutten et al. show that this process already takes place in primary auditory cortex, where task-relevant acoustic information in speech sounds is selectively enhanced.

Jin et al. find that early growth patterns in substitutive systems follow power laws rather than exponentials. Big data analyses reveal key mechanisms governing substitutions, helping to explain the observed power-law early growth.