Psychological review最新文献

Memory is formed through repeated action and perception. The primitive manifestation of this type of memory in infants has been observed through a procedure called mobile paradigm. Three-month-old infants can retain behavioral changes during interaction with a mobile for a week without reminders, and this retention can be prolonged for 2-4 weeks with reminders. However, precisely what infants can remember and how memory retention and reactivation work at this young age remains unclear. In this article, we introduce dynamical systems models that replicate this form of memory by incorporating two dynamic properties. The first dynamic process is responsible for creating and retaining a memory of the experience of controlling movement generation to interact with the environment. While this memory can be used in retention tests of learned behaviors, it undergoes a gradual decay. The second property involves asymmetric bifurcation, through which a memory of the circular causality between self-movement and environmental events is formed. This memory, related to agency, persists and enables reactivation of the decayed memory of learned behaviors. Our simulation suggests that memory emerges as an embodiment of internal dynamics through the repetition of action and perception. The form of retained memory in the mobile paradigm is comparable to that in the A-not-B error and habituation-dishabituation tasks. The theory of dynamical systems unifies experimental results regarding memory in early life as an embodied process, with the maturation of the memory system originating from the embodied process between the brain, body, and environment. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2025 APA, all rights reserved).

A recent line of research has shown that humans and rodents can monitor errors in their timing behavior in individual trials. This ability is called temporal error monitoring (TEM). Electrophysiological studies showed that TEM-related neural signals of error are present before the timing behavior is manifested. These results have crucial implications for the function and modeling of TEM as they show that timing errors are read out rather than detected retrospectively. Such real-time error monitoring allows emergent timing error signals to improve the impending timing behavior in a prospective fashion (e.g., increasing the timing threshold when "earlier-than-target" errors are detected), enabling within-trial error corrections. In this article, we present a drift-diffusion model of real-time TEM with prospective (within-trial) behavioral modulation/refinement elements that are sensitive to task representations. Our model predicts the read-out of timing signals before the manifestation of the timing behavior and the translation of these signals into the improvement of timing accuracy within individual trials (thus improving overall precision) without violating the psychophysical and statistical features of the timing behavior. Finally, the task representation dependency of the decision element accounts for the widely reported reward-rate maximizing timing behavior. Our model introduces a new theoretical foundation for TEM with many testable behavioral and electrophysiological predictions. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2025 APA, all rights reserved).

Why do some mental activities feel harder than others? The answer to this question is surprisingly controversial. Current theories propose that cognitive effort affords a computational benefit, such as instigating a switch from an activity with low reward value to a different activity with higher reward value. By contrast, in this article, I relate cognitive effort to the fact that brain neuroanatomy and neurophysiology render some neural states more energy-efficient than others. I introduce the concept of the "controllosphere," an energy-inefficient region of neural state space associated with high control, which surrounds the better known "intrinsic manifold," an energy-efficient subspace associated with low control. Integration of control-theoretic principles with classic neurocomputational models of cognitive control suggests that dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (DLPFC) implements a controller that can drive the system state into the controllosphere, anterior cingulate cortex (ACC) implements an observer that monitors changes of state of the controlled system, and cognitive effort reflects a mismatch between DLPFC and ACC energies for control and observation. On this account, cognitive effort scales with the energetic demands of the DLPFC control signal, especially when the consequences of the control are unobservable by ACC. Further, I propose that neural transitions through the controllosphere lead to a buildup of neural waste. Cognitive effort therefore prevents against neural damage by discouraging extended periods of high control. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2025 APA, all rights reserved).

Work on the "double empathy problem" (DEP) is rapidly growing in academic and applied settings (e.g., clinical practice). It is most popular in research on conditions, like autism, which are characterized by social cognitive difficulties. Drawing from this literature, we propose that, while research on the DEP has the potential to improve understanding of both typical and atypical social processes, it represents a striking example of a weak derivation chain in psychological science. The DEP is poorly conceptualized, and we find that it is being conflated with many other constructs (i.e., reflecting the "jingle-jangle" fallacy). We provide examples to show how this underlies serious problems with translating theoretical claims into empirical predictions and evidence. To start tackling these problems, we propose that DEP research needs reconsideration, particularly through a better synthesis with the cognitive neuroscience literature on social interaction. Overall, we argue for a strengthening of the derivation chain pertaining to the DEP, toward more robust research on (a)typical social cognition. Until then, we caution against the translation of DEP research into applied settings. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2025 APA, all rights reserved).

Orthographic processing is an open problem. Decades of visual word recognition research have fueled the development of various theoretical frameworks. Although these frameworks have had good explanatory power, various recent results cannot be satisfactorily captured in any model. In order to account for old and new phenomena alike, here I present a new theory of how the brain computes letter positions. According to PONG (which describes the Positional Ordering of N-Grams), each hemisphere of the brain comprises a set of mono- and multigram detectors. The crux is that the detectors for a given N-gram are activated to different extents in their respective hemispheres, depending on where in the visual field the N-gram is located. This differential activity allows the brain to estimate the leftness or rightness of that N-gram, whereby word activation is a function of the N-gram's identity plus its laterality relative to that of other activated N-grams. Simulations with PONG suggest that the framework effectively accounts for classic phenomena, as well as newer phenomena and cross-linguistic differences that cannot be explained by other models. I also reflect on the neurophysiological plausibility of the model and avenues for future inquiry. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2025 APA, all rights reserved).

Implicit leadership theories (ILTs) are people's lay theories, definitions, or conceptualizations of leadership. In adults, they determine what actions we perceive as leadership, influence to whom we grant leadership status, and shape our own behaviors when we want to be seen as leader. Naturally, there has been an enduring interest in how these ILTs develop in children. Current theorizing on the development of leadership conceptualizations in children aligns with a stepwise progression mirroring Piaget's stage-based approach to cognitive development. However, contemporary approaches to cognitive development, such as Siegler's overlapping waves theory (OWT), acknowledge that children's development is linked to cognitive success and failure. This article integrates the findings from empirical studies into children's leadership conceptualizations and reinterprets them against OWT. This reinterpretation resolves findings that align poorly with a stepwise approach and demonstrates a strong fit with OWT. As such, children's leadership conceptualizations develop by generating and testing cognitive approaches-physical-spatiotemporal, functional, socioemotional, and humanitarian-and instead of progressing through these in order and according to age, they display variation and selection, that with experience and exposure, lay down selective combinations, which often engage multiple dimensions simultaneously. Consequently, the development of children's understanding of leaders is nonlinear, can be multidimensional, and is based on trial and error largely in response to their experiences. The article concludes with a discussion of the implications for future research and practice. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2025 APA, all rights reserved).