The tendency to embrace or avoid risk varies across and within individuals, with significant consequences for mental health. Such variations are typically explained by differences in the weights given to potential gains versus potential losses. Applying this insight to real-life decisions, however, is complicated because such decisions are often based on prior learning experiences. This raises a consequential question: which cognitive process primarily determines the weighting of gains and losses – decision-making or learning?

With rising risks to democracy, the delegitimization of political actors that criticize state policies is increasing worldwide. Our research examines what intergroup psychological interventions can contribute to the (re)legitimization of these critical voices. We consider two approaches to legitimization, as a process involving the recategorization of a target from illegitimate to legitimate: (1) interventions encouraging recategorization of societal actors based on common preferences, values and/or the common ingroup identity; and (2) interventions highlighting inconsistencies between delegitimizing attitudes and ingroup identity, values or interest. An intervention tournament among 1691 Jewish Israelis tested several interventions, based on real information, against a generic Control condition. The results of a mixed-effects model revealed that two interventions, highlighting commonalities between the delegitimized group and mainstream attitudes and values, were effective in increasing the group’s perceived legitimacy. These interventions, emphasizing common interests (e.g., supporting communities, reducing disparities in the provision of health services) and common values (e.g., human dignity, fair due process), can be applied to amplify and include critical voices as part of the effort to combat the harmful consequences of democratic backsliding.

Recent landmark studies show that the brain is equipped to learn not just average expected outcomes, but entire distributions of expected outcomes. Yet the role of such distributional learning in shaping human decision-making remains to be determined. To study this question, we designed two tasks where participants experienced different outcome distributions, provided their estimates of each, and reported their preferences among them. In one task, which facilitated distributional learning, participants’ preferences significantly diverged from their own estimates, consistent with predictions of Prospect Theory. Conversely, in a task that hindered distributional learning, the divergence of preferences from estimates was eliminated. Computational modelling showed how distributional learning may be responsible for disassociating preferences from estimations by enabling the application of a utility function to different potential outcomes. Our findings offer a new understanding of when and how preferences deviate from normative decision-making, a fundamental question in the study of human rationality.

This study investigates the effects of disclosing an autism diagnosis on non-autistic listeners’ empathy and social interest towards the autistic discloser. In Study 1, participants (non-autistic students in the social sciences/humanities [n = 99; 70% female]) watched a video of an autistic adult sharing an autobiographical story and reported how they believed the storyteller felt, following an introduction in which the storyteller did or did not disclose their diagnosis. Their evaluation of the storyteller’s emotions was compared to the storyteller’s own reports, resulting in an empathic accuracy measure. Participants reported how empathic they felt towards the storyteller and how socially interested they were in them. Studies 2 and 3 replicated the same procedure with STEM students (n = 96; 40% female), and with non-student adults (n = 76; 50% female) from diverse professional/occupational backgrounds, with an additional question about working together. In Study 1, participants in the self-disclosure condition demonstrated higher empathic accuracy, reported more empathy, and greater social interest in the storyteller. Study 2 showed a similar trend of higher empathy in the self-disclosure condition but no differences in social interest measures. Interest in working with the storyteller was higher in the self-disclosure condition. In Study 3, participants in the self-disclosure condition demonstrated higher empathy and greater interest in hearing another story and working with the storyteller. An individual’s self-disclosure of an autism diagnosis improved others’ ability to empathize with them and willingness to work with them. We discuss the complex effect of self-disclosure on social interest in an autistic person.

People are more likely make self-destructive choices – from drug use to self-harm – in certain affective states. While this phenomenon is usually explained by affective influences on choice, here we explore an often-overlooked alternative mechanism: state-dependent learning. For example, if an approach behavior such as drinking is learned in a state of positive affect, its future value would be inflated in a congruent (positive) relative to incongruent (negative) affective state. Studies of Pavlovian-to-instrumental transfer suggest that such effects reflect Pavlovian influences on behavior. Effects of naturalistically evolving affective states on learning are hard to capture in cross-sectional studies, and we tested our hypothesis in a large intensive longitudinal study where initial learning of stimuli precedes subsequent test trials by days or weeks.

Working memory is a neurocognitive system for maintaining and manipulating information online for a short period after the source of information disappears. The information held in working memory has been shown to flexibly match current functional goals. Considering this, we revisited the question of whether information is held in working memory as separate features or as bound objects. We conjectured that, rather than having a fixed answer, the format in which information is maintained in working memory is also task dependent. In two separate experiments, we investigated the binding between features when the location was not (Experiment 1, color and orientation binding) or was (Experiment 2, color and location binding) a task-relevant feature in a delayed (yes/no) recognition task by manipulating the relative relevance of conjunctions and separate features. Each experiment included two conditions: binding dominant (BD), which emphasized the retention of binding between features, and feature dominant (FD), which emphasized the retention of individual features. In both experiments, we found that memory for conjunctions was better in the BD condition and that memory for separate features was better in the FD condition. These patterns suggested that the formats of objects in visual working memory could be shaped by the tasks they serve. Additionally, we found that the memory of location was impaired when the conjunction between location and color was task irrelevant, whereas the memory of color and the memory of orientation were relatively independent of each other. We conclude that the representation format of objects in working memory is influenced by task requirements.

The Rorschach Trauma Content Index (TCI) is a valid indicator of trauma in adult victims but has not yet been validated in children. This study aimed to evaluate the validity of the Rorschach Performance Assessment System (R-PAS) CritCont% as a TCI in children and to examine the utility of adding the aggression content score (AGC) to the CritCont% index, thus forming a revised TCI (TCI-R). We compared the Rorschach of children with complex trauma and children with single trauma against R-PAS norms and nontraumatized patients, in a sample of 104 children (age 8–12 years), who were divided into three clinical groups: complex trauma, single trauma, and nontraumatized patients. Both CritCont% and TCI-R were found to be related to complex trauma but not to single trauma. The TCI-R had a larger effect size than the CritCont% in its ability to differentiate between patients with complex trauma and nontraumatized patients. The findings contribute to the ecological validity of the CritCont% as a trauma index in children and suggest that the AGC should be further studied as part of the CritCont% index in trauma. Clinical implications regarding the understanding and assessment of complex trauma are discussed, with a focus on the importance of aggression in the inner world of traumatized children.

Recent statistical learning views of reading posit that writing systems present to their readers a wide range of statistical regularities which are leveraged to process printed texts. While substantial research has focused on the “vertical” correlations between orthographic, phonological, and semantic units in a given writing system, here we employ information-theoretic measures to further consider “horizontal” regularities—the extent to which printed units predict and are predicted by other printed units, in one writing system compared to another. As a first step, we present a novel information-theoretic measure that captures how horizontal regularities constrain lexical access given the distribution of orthographic information in a writing system and considering realistic retinal and cognitive constraints. We then present a series of empirical studies serving as proof of concept, from both single-word reading experiments and analyses of eye movements during naturalistic reading, which examine how a reader who has internalized these regularities could leverage them for efficient uncertainty reduction regarding printed information while reading on-the-fly. Our findings converge on high-order general principles fleshed out in terms of explicit computational mechanisms that simultaneously apply to a wide range of writing systems and that can potentially explain behavioral outcomes across the trajectory of reading development and reading skill. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2025 APA, all rights reserved)

To interact effectively with our surroundings, we rely on strategies to reduce uncertainty. One important source of information is temporal regularities, which enable us to form predictions about when events will occur, and through this, prepare for them in advance. Such preparation was shown to facilitate motor planning, yet the impact of temporal anticipation on perceptual acuity is unknown, and the cognitive computations underlying this process remain debated. To answer these questions, we administered a new difficult change discrimination task with variable anticipatory periods (N=142). We show that both perceptual sensitivity and motor responses are influenced by temporal structure. Using computational modelling, we show that the cognitive operation underlying this behavior is based on a logarithmic transformation of the event hazard rate (HR) and reveal a crucial role of temporal-estimation noise in shaping this computation, both when temporal information is encoded, and when it is decoded. Together, our results highlight the fundamental contribution of anticipation in directing behavior and advance our understanding of temporal processing in the brain.

Post-concussion symptoms (PCS) and posttraumatic stress symptoms (PTSS) are common after mild traumatic brain injuries (mTBI) in children. Psychological factors, especially pre-injury trait anxiety, are associated with the development of PCS and PTSS. However, the underlying mechanisms are understudied. The current study aimed to explore whether alexithymia (difficulty in identifying and describing emotions) moderates the associations between children’s pre-injury trait anxiety and PCS, as well as PTSS in bothchildren and parents following mTBI. Participants were 53 children aged 8–16 with mTBI and their parents, recruited from the Emergency Department. Immediate mTBI symptoms were assessed by the Emergency Department physician within 24 hours post-injury. One-week post-injury, acute PTSS (children and parents), children’s pre-injury trait anxiety, and alexithymia were measured using self-reported questionnaires. PCS were measured by symptom reports (including a baseline; reported by parents) and neuropsychological tests assessing cognitive functioning, including performance validity tests. PCS and cognitive functioning were assessed one-week and four-month post-injury. We found that alexithymia significantly moderated the associations between children’s pre-injury trait anxiety and both PCS and PTSS in children and parents at one-week post-injury. Higher levels of alexithymia strengthened these associations. Alexithymia was found significantly associated with PCS at four-month post-injury. However, alexithymia did not moderate the association between pre-injury trait anxiety and PCS at four-month post-injury or cognitive functioning at one-week or four months. In conclusion, pre-injury trait anxiety and alexithymia are crucial in mTBI outcomes, being associated with PCS and PTSS development. Therefore, addressing emotional factors is important in TBI recovery.