Trends in Cognitive Sciences最新文献

Everybody knows intuitively what mental fatigue is. However, we poorly understand why fatigue emerges with time spent on demanding cognitive work and how such 'cognitive fatigue' impacts neural processing and behavioral guidance. Here, we review experimental investigations that induced cognitive fatigue and recorded its potential markers, including self-report, behavioral performance, economic choice, physiological and neural activity. We then review theoretical models of cognitive fatigue, classically divided into biological and motivational accounts. To explain key observations and reconcile debated theories, we finally propose a conceptual model (dubbed MetaMotiF), in which cognitive fatigue would emerge for biological reasons and yet affect motivational processes that regulate the behavior. More precisely, fatigue would arise from metabolic alterations in cognitive control brain regions, following their excessive mobilization. In turn, these metabolic alterations would increase the cost of cognitive control, which would shift decisions towards actions that require little effort and yield immediate rewards.

Cognitive neuroscience research has begun to use natural language processing (NLP) to examine memory narratives with the hopes of gaining a nuanced understanding of the mechanisms underlying differences in memory recall, both across groups and tasks. However, the diversity of NLP approaches can make it challenging for researchers to know which techniques to use and when to apply them. We outline how different NLP techniques can be applied to narrative descriptions to address specific questions about the neurocognitive processes underlying memory narratives. We also discuss the strengths and limitations of NLP methods for use in memory research, highlighting both their potential and their constraints in uncovering the mechanisms of remembering.

Panichello et al. recently demonstrated that working memory (WM) information can be maintained without active neural firing. Instead, it is stored in rapidly modulating neural connectivity patterns. This validates the activity-silent model of WM, and unifies the mechanisms of long-term memory (LTM) and WM. Here, we highlight the ramifications of these findings.

People in many Western countries hold a dim view of their collective future, a negativity bias not universally shared but related to societal factors, such as country well-being, nationalism, and news coverage. An optimistic outlook should be cultivated to promote civic engagement and constructive policymaking at this time of geopolitical tension.

The hippocampus is essential for episodic memory, yet its coding mechanism remains debated. In humans, two main theories have been proposed: one suggests that concept neurons represent specific elements of an episode, while another posits a conjunctive code, where index neurons code the entire episode. Here, we integrate new findings of index neurons in humans and other animals with the concept-specific memory framework, proposing that concept neurons evolve from index neurons through overlapping memories. This process is supported by engram literature, which posits that neurons are allocated to a memory trace based on excitability and that reactivation induces excitability. By integrating these insights, we connect two historically disparate fields of neuroscience: engram research and human single neuron episodic memory research.

We discuss recent findings suggesting that non-human animals lack memory for stimulus sequences, and therefore do not represent the order of stimuli faithfully. These observations have far-reaching consequences for animal cognition, neuroscience, and studies of the evolution of language and culture. This is because, if non-human animals do not remember or process information about order faithfully, then it is unlikely that non-human animals perform mental simulations, construct mental world models, have episodic memory, or transmit culture faithfully. If this suggested sequence bottleneck proves to be a prevalent characteristic of animal memory systems, as suggested by recent work, it would require a re-examination of some influential concepts and ideas.

How does social cognition help us communicate through language? At what levels does this interaction occur? In classical views, social cognition is independent of language, and integrating the two can be slow, effortful, and error-prone. But new research into word level processes reveals that communication is brimming with social micro-processes that happen in real time, guiding even the simplest choices like how we use adjectives, articles, and demonstratives. We interpret these findings in the context of advances in theoretical models of social cognition and propose a communicative mind-tracking framework, where social micro-processes are not a secondary process in how we use language - they are fundamental to how communication works.

Recent human intracerebral recordings reveal that frontoparietal circuits linked by the superior longitudinal fasciculus (SLF) have critical, hemisphere-asymmetric contributions to conscious perception. Right-hemisphere networks are crucial for attention-based prioritization of information; left-hemisphere regions contribute to perceptual decisions and model building. These asymmetries confirm and specify clinical evidence from neglect patients.