News & Views

Although navigation and memory are known to be linked in the brain, it is still unknown how a location affects our memory for the objects within it. In an ambitious study that merges virtual reality and brain imaging, Masís-Obando and colleagues discover that places that elicit more stable brain patterns boost the memory for objects put in those places.

Can loneliness be reduced by changing perceptions of empathy? A large-scale study by Pei et al. shows that people tend to underestimate others’ empathy, and correcting this misconception fosters social connection and increases the formation of friendships.

As backlash against migrants and refugees intensifies and governments scale back support, private hosting and sponsorship have emerged as promising alternatives. A new study sheds light on their potential — and limitations — in fostering refugee integration, and offers insight for policymakers who are navigating an era of shrinking political and fiscal space.

What aspects of socioeconomic status predict health and happiness? In an ecological momentary assessment study with more than 70,000 people, Newman et al. find that income is linked to happiness but good health is more strongly associated with education.

A negative relationship with caregivers early in life known as ‘disorganized attachment’ has disruptive long-term consequences in humans. Rolland et al. find no evidence for this relationship pattern in free (that is, wild) chimpanzees in their natural environment, which underscores its maladaptive nature and indicates the role of context in shaping caregiver–infant relations.

Memory for details fades over time, yet retaining the spatiotemporal associations inherent to our individual experiences may be adaptively relevant. Using an art tour as an experimental setting, Diamond, Simpson and colleagues shed light on the role of sleep in shaping the long-term retention of episodic memory for real-world events.

Some voices are instantly recognizable, whereas others are easily forgotten — regardless of how well known the person behind them is. In an experimental study, Revsine and colleagues report consistency in the vocal identities that are remembered or forgotten by listeners, which suggests universal principles that determine what makes a voice memorable.

Genomic studies of social outcomes raise ethical considerations that heighten researcher obligations to responsibly conduct and communicate their work. A study by Akimova et al. finds that most intergenerational transmission of occupational status can be ascribed to nongenetic factors, and raises questions of how such knowledge should be used and how it might be misused.

How our brains process unexpected events is a central question in neuroscience. A study now identifies a distributed brain network that is predictive of processing unexpected events across contexts that vary in content and complexity, which advances our understanding of the neural basis that underlies the experience of surprise.

Despite rising school enrolments, in many places learning achievement has remained very low. Crawford et al. analyse data on half a million pupils from 48 low- and middle-income countries and find that children fall further behind literacy benchmarks with each grade. They suggest that a greater focus on phonics instruction and decoding skills may improve outcomes.

Mental health problems pose a great burden for today’s societies. The internet and social media are blamed for contributing to the burden, but the evidence to date is inconsistent. Kelly and Sharot shed light on the causal relationships while focusing on the affective properties of website content, and show how web browsing reflects and shapes mental health.

Mental health disorders among older adults rose during the COVID-19 pandemic, and have since continued to increase. A recent study provides timely insights into a positive association between internet use and mental wellbeing among adults aged 50 and older across 23 countries, which highlights the potential of digital technology for addressing these challenges.

Intergenerational mobility — an adult’s ability to exit poverty and earn more than their parents — is falling in the USA. Parolin et al. compare intergenerational poverty persistence (a measure of immobility) in the USA to four peer countries and conclude that disproportionately high poverty persistence in the USA is due to a weak safety net.

Honesty oaths are commonly used to promote ethical behaviour, but their effectiveness is not well understood. A mega-study involving thousands of people shows that taking an oath to be honest can reduce tax evasion in an online economic game.

Although research on misinformation and fact-checking flourishes, developmental studies that involve younger participants remain scarce. Through two experiments among 4- to 7-year-olds and a computer simulation study, Orticio et al. found that when children encountered more misleading information, they intended to seek more evidence before accepting new claims.

Our ears are known for their ability to detect fine temporal features of sound. But what about our sense of smell? Yuli Wu and colleagues have discovered that humans can discriminate between odour sequences with an impressive temporal precision of 120 ms, which reveals an unprecedented temporal sensitivity in human olfaction.

Despite much anecdotal evidence, few studies show pervasive racial bias in promotion and tenure decisions. By analysing 1,571 real promotion and tenure cases across five US universities, Masters-Waage et al. find double standards negatively applied to scholars of colour, and especially women of colour, even after accounting for scholarly productivity.

It is rare to formally identify ethnographically known rituals in the archaeological record that are more than a few hundred years old. David et al. report two buried miniature fireplaces from Cloggs Cave, southeastern Australia, that match the structure and contents of ethnographically known Australian Aboriginal rituals, which signals 500 generations of cultural tradition.

Measuring neural activity in moving humans has been a longstanding challenge in neuroscience, which limits what we know about our navigational neural codes. Leveraging mobile EEG and motion capture, Griffiths et al. overcome this challenge to elucidate neural representations of direction and highlight key cross-species similarities.

The impetus behind the development of various Chinese dialects is as yet unknown. In a comprehensive quantitative coanalysis of linguistic and genetic data across China, Yang et al. find evidence to suggest that demographic diffusion, cultural diffusion and linguistic assimilation all contributed to the expansive diversity of Chinese dialects.