Pub Date : 2024-04-26DOI: 10.1038/s44159-024-00300-5
Mariel K. Goddu, Alison Gopnik
Causal understanding is a defining characteristic of human cognition. Like many animals, human children learn to control their bodily movements and act effectively in the environment. Like a smaller subset of animals, children intervene: they learn to change the environment in targeted ways. Unlike other animals, children grow into adults with the causal reasoning skills to develop abstract theories, invent sophisticated technologies and imagine alternate pasts, distant futures and fictional worlds. In this Review, we explore the development of human-unique causal learning and reasoning from evolutionary and ontogenetic perspectives. We frame our discussion using an ‘interventionist’ approach. First, we situate causal understanding in relation to cognitive abilities shared with non-human animals. We argue that human causal understanding is distinguished by its depersonalized (objective) and decontextualized (general) representations. Using this framework, we next review empirical findings on early human causal learning and reasoning and consider the naturalistic contexts that support its development. Then we explore connections to related abilities. We conclude with suggestions for ongoing collaboration between developmental, cross-cultural, computational, neural and evolutionary approaches to causal understanding. Humans have a unique capacity for objective and general causal understanding. In this Review, Goddu and Gopnik describe the development of causal learning and reasoning abilities during evolution and across childhood.
{"title":"The development of human causal learning and reasoning","authors":"Mariel K. Goddu, Alison Gopnik","doi":"10.1038/s44159-024-00300-5","DOIUrl":"10.1038/s44159-024-00300-5","url":null,"abstract":"Causal understanding is a defining characteristic of human cognition. Like many animals, human children learn to control their bodily movements and act effectively in the environment. Like a smaller subset of animals, children intervene: they learn to change the environment in targeted ways. Unlike other animals, children grow into adults with the causal reasoning skills to develop abstract theories, invent sophisticated technologies and imagine alternate pasts, distant futures and fictional worlds. In this Review, we explore the development of human-unique causal learning and reasoning from evolutionary and ontogenetic perspectives. We frame our discussion using an ‘interventionist’ approach. First, we situate causal understanding in relation to cognitive abilities shared with non-human animals. We argue that human causal understanding is distinguished by its depersonalized (objective) and decontextualized (general) representations. Using this framework, we next review empirical findings on early human causal learning and reasoning and consider the naturalistic contexts that support its development. Then we explore connections to related abilities. We conclude with suggestions for ongoing collaboration between developmental, cross-cultural, computational, neural and evolutionary approaches to causal understanding. Humans have a unique capacity for objective and general causal understanding. In this Review, Goddu and Gopnik describe the development of causal learning and reasoning abilities during evolution and across childhood.","PeriodicalId":74249,"journal":{"name":"Nature reviews psychology","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2024-04-26","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"140797868","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2024-04-23DOI: 10.1038/s44159-024-00313-0
Navona Calarco
{"title":"Mapping the claustrum to elucidate consciousness","authors":"Navona Calarco","doi":"10.1038/s44159-024-00313-0","DOIUrl":"10.1038/s44159-024-00313-0","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":74249,"journal":{"name":"Nature reviews psychology","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2024-04-23","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"140669998","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2024-04-18DOI: 10.1038/s44159-024-00304-1
Kate Nussenbaum, Catherine A. Hartley
Determining how environments shape how people learn is central to understanding individual differences in goal-directed behaviour. Studies of the effects of early-life adversity on reward learning have revealed that the environments that infants and children experience exert lasting influences on reward-guided behaviour. However, the varied findings from this research are difficult to reconcile under a unified computational account. Studies of adaptive reinforcement learning have demonstrated that learning algorithms and parameters dynamically adapt to support reward-guided behaviour in varied contexts, but this body of research has largely focused on learning that proceeds within the short timeframes of experimental tasks. In this Perspective, we argue that, to understand how the structure of experienced environments shapes reward learning across development, computational accounts of the effects of environmental statistics on reinforcement learning need to be extended to encompass learning across multiple nested timescales of experience. To this end, we consider the development of reward learning through the lens of meta-learning models, in particular meta-reinforcement learning. This computational formalization can inspire new hypotheses and methods for empirical research to understand how features of experienced environments give rise to individual differences in learning and adaptive behaviour across development. Environments shape reward learning, which can result in individual differences in behaviour. In this Perspective, Nussenbaum and Hartley consider the development of reward learning through the lens of meta-learning models, in particular meta-reinforcement learning.
{"title":"Understanding the development of reward learning through the lens of meta-learning","authors":"Kate Nussenbaum, Catherine A. Hartley","doi":"10.1038/s44159-024-00304-1","DOIUrl":"10.1038/s44159-024-00304-1","url":null,"abstract":"Determining how environments shape how people learn is central to understanding individual differences in goal-directed behaviour. Studies of the effects of early-life adversity on reward learning have revealed that the environments that infants and children experience exert lasting influences on reward-guided behaviour. However, the varied findings from this research are difficult to reconcile under a unified computational account. Studies of adaptive reinforcement learning have demonstrated that learning algorithms and parameters dynamically adapt to support reward-guided behaviour in varied contexts, but this body of research has largely focused on learning that proceeds within the short timeframes of experimental tasks. In this Perspective, we argue that, to understand how the structure of experienced environments shapes reward learning across development, computational accounts of the effects of environmental statistics on reinforcement learning need to be extended to encompass learning across multiple nested timescales of experience. To this end, we consider the development of reward learning through the lens of meta-learning models, in particular meta-reinforcement learning. This computational formalization can inspire new hypotheses and methods for empirical research to understand how features of experienced environments give rise to individual differences in learning and adaptive behaviour across development. Environments shape reward learning, which can result in individual differences in behaviour. In this Perspective, Nussenbaum and Hartley consider the development of reward learning through the lens of meta-learning models, in particular meta-reinforcement learning.","PeriodicalId":74249,"journal":{"name":"Nature reviews psychology","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2024-04-18","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"140623984","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2024-04-18DOI: 10.1038/s44159-024-00311-2
Christian Montag, Peter J. Schulz, Laura Marciano, Andres Roman-Urrestarazu, Hans-Jürgen Rumpf, Benjamin Becker
The EU commission’s Digital Services Act aims to protect children and adolescents from psychological harm on social media platforms. This initiative needs to be carried out in close cooperation between the EU commission and independent academics.
{"title":"Safeguarding young users on social media through academic oversight","authors":"Christian Montag, Peter J. Schulz, Laura Marciano, Andres Roman-Urrestarazu, Hans-Jürgen Rumpf, Benjamin Becker","doi":"10.1038/s44159-024-00311-2","DOIUrl":"10.1038/s44159-024-00311-2","url":null,"abstract":"The EU commission’s Digital Services Act aims to protect children and adolescents from psychological harm on social media platforms. This initiative needs to be carried out in close cooperation between the EU commission and independent academics.","PeriodicalId":74249,"journal":{"name":"Nature reviews psychology","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2024-04-18","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"140623979","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2024-04-16DOI: 10.1038/s44159-024-00310-3
Teresa Schubert
Nature Reviews Psychology is interviewing individuals with doctoral degrees in psychology who pursued non-academic careers. We spoke with Deepti Ramadoss about her journey from research scientist to director of graduate studies.
{"title":"From the lab to a career in graduate education","authors":"Teresa Schubert","doi":"10.1038/s44159-024-00310-3","DOIUrl":"10.1038/s44159-024-00310-3","url":null,"abstract":"Nature Reviews Psychology is interviewing individuals with doctoral degrees in psychology who pursued non-academic careers. We spoke with Deepti Ramadoss about her journey from research scientist to director of graduate studies.","PeriodicalId":74249,"journal":{"name":"Nature reviews psychology","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2024-04-16","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"140614369","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2024-04-08DOI: 10.1038/s44159-024-00297-x
Mauro Manassi, David Whitney
Positive serial dependencies are phenomena in which actions, perception, decisions, and memory of features or objects are systematically biased towards the recent past. Across several decades, serial dependencies have been variously referred to as priming, sequential dependencies, sequential effects or serial effects. Despite a great deal of research, the functional purpose of positive serial dependencies remains unknown. In this Perspective, we propose that their goal is to promote the stability, accuracy and efficiency of perceptual representations. By continuously inducing serial dependencies, cognition compensates for variability in sensory input and thus stabilizes what would otherwise be a noisy, jittery and discontinuous experience of the world. We theorize that this goal is served by continuity fields: spatiotemporal integration mechanisms that continuously bias perception and cognition towards previously encountered information, thereby smoothing representations to promote the stability, accuracy and efficiency of experience. Experiences of objects and features are biased to appear more like previously seen stimuli than they really are. In this Perspective, Manassi and Whitney describe this phenomenon of positive serial dependence and propose continuity fields as the underlying mechanism.
{"title":"Continuity fields enhance visual perception through positive serial dependence","authors":"Mauro Manassi, David Whitney","doi":"10.1038/s44159-024-00297-x","DOIUrl":"10.1038/s44159-024-00297-x","url":null,"abstract":"Positive serial dependencies are phenomena in which actions, perception, decisions, and memory of features or objects are systematically biased towards the recent past. Across several decades, serial dependencies have been variously referred to as priming, sequential dependencies, sequential effects or serial effects. Despite a great deal of research, the functional purpose of positive serial dependencies remains unknown. In this Perspective, we propose that their goal is to promote the stability, accuracy and efficiency of perceptual representations. By continuously inducing serial dependencies, cognition compensates for variability in sensory input and thus stabilizes what would otherwise be a noisy, jittery and discontinuous experience of the world. We theorize that this goal is served by continuity fields: spatiotemporal integration mechanisms that continuously bias perception and cognition towards previously encountered information, thereby smoothing representations to promote the stability, accuracy and efficiency of experience. Experiences of objects and features are biased to appear more like previously seen stimuli than they really are. In this Perspective, Manassi and Whitney describe this phenomenon of positive serial dependence and propose continuity fields as the underlying mechanism.","PeriodicalId":74249,"journal":{"name":"Nature reviews psychology","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2024-04-08","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"140590744","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2024-04-04DOI: 10.1038/s44159-024-00306-z
Katherine McAuliffe
A priori sampling decisions often constrain which age groups are tested in particular developmental studies, which can profoundly shape inferences about developmental change. Thus, it is important to pull back the curtain on what drives these decisions.
{"title":"Sampling decisions in developmental psychology","authors":"Katherine McAuliffe","doi":"10.1038/s44159-024-00306-z","DOIUrl":"10.1038/s44159-024-00306-z","url":null,"abstract":"A priori sampling decisions often constrain which age groups are tested in particular developmental studies, which can profoundly shape inferences about developmental change. Thus, it is important to pull back the curtain on what drives these decisions.","PeriodicalId":74249,"journal":{"name":"Nature reviews psychology","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2024-04-04","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"140590440","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
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