Psychology researchers and neuroscientists have been trying to understand the principles guiding social interactions for decades. While their studies have yielded interesting results, many questions remain unexplored or unanswered.
Psychology & Psychiatry
Study sheds new light on the contribution of dopamine to reinforcement learning
The neurotransmitter dopamine has often been linked to pleasure-seeking behaviors and making stimuli paired with rewards (e.g., food, drinks) valuable. Nonetheless, the processes through which this key chemical messenger contributes to learning have not yet been fully...
The neural signature of subjective disgust could apply to both sensory and socio-moral experiences
Disgust is one of the six basic human emotions, along with happiness, sadness, fear, anger, and surprise. Disgust typically arises when a person perceives a sensory stimulus or situation as revolting, off-putting, or unpleasant in other ways.
A minimal cognitive architecture reproduces control of human decision-making processes
Neuroscientists and psychologists have been trying to pinpoint the processes behind human decision-making for decades. While their efforts led to numerous interesting insights, the intricacies of complex decision-making remain poorly understood.
Evidence of a travel direction signal that is independent from head direction in humans
We generally assume that when humans are walking or otherwise moving in space, their head faces towards the direction they are traveling in. Nonetheless, travel direction and head direction are distinct factors associated with the processing of different types of...
Study suggests that living near green spaces reduces the risk of depression and anxiety
Over the past decades, a growing number of people have migrated to urban areas, while the size and population of rural areas have drastically declined. While parks and other green spaces are often viewed as beneficial for the well-being of those living in cities and...
Exploring how oxytocin interacts with testosterone while humans play a game modeling intergroup conflict
Over the past decades, numerous studies have investigated the neural and cognitive processes underpinning intergroup conflict, as this could help to explain what fuels belligerent behavior, political clashes, and wars. While these works gathered some interesting...
Exploring the factors that influence people’s ability to detect lies online
The internet has given rise to new forms of deceit and misinformation, including phishing attacks, romance scams and fake news. While many psychological studies have investigated the factors that influence people's ability to tell if others are lying in person, lie...
Study offers insights into neural mechanisms involved in progression from aggressive motivation to action
The social behaviors of humans and animals often unfold over two distinct phases, namely a motivational and an action phase. The first of these phases entails instinctual and reward-seeking mental states, characterized by sexual or aggressive drives to perform...
Dopamine fluctuations in distinct brain subregions predict rewards over a range of time-scales
Previous neuroscience studies suggest that transient increases in brain dopamine are critical signals for learning about reward, and the motivation to obtain more rewards. Researchers at University of California San Francisco carried out a study exploring transient...