Conflicting findings exist regarding whether features of an object are stored separately or bound together in visual working memory. This controversy is based on an implicit assumption about a default, or fixed, mode of working memory storage. In contrast, here we asked whether the anticipated task might determine the format in which information is maintained in working memory, consistent with its task-oriented function. To test this flexible maintenance hypothesis, we recorded EEG while subjects performed a delayed (Yes/No) recognition task with different requirements and loads. Across three experiments, we compared event-related potentials (ERPs) in conditions with and without the necessity of maintaining conjunctions between features, while controlling for differences in visual stimulation. In Experiment 1 (N=24), involving color-location conjunctions, we identified a delay-period effect characterized by a positive potential shift in central-parietal channels when conjunction was not required by the task. This pattern, distinct from the effect caused by an increased working memory load, was confirmed in Experiment 2 (N=23) with an independent group of subjects using a similar paradigm, while also controlling for the physical appearance of probes. Finally, the observation of color and location conjunction in Experiments 1 and 2 was extended to Color and Orientation conjunction in Experiment 3 (N=22). Collectively, these three experiments provided reliable evidence demonstrating that the maintenance of feature conjunctions in working memory, whether spatial (location) or non-spatial (non-location), depends on the task goal.

What is hope, and how can we measure it? These questions have occupied the minds of hope scholars across disciplines. This article outlines a comprehensive approach to understanding hope: the Bidimensional Model of Hope. Building on the standard definition of hope, the bidimensional model explores hope as the intersection between wishes (desires, aspirations) and expectations (assessment of possibility). Hope is thus located on a bidimensional plane with two perpendicular axes; one corresponds to the levels of wishes to achieve an outcome, and the second to the levels of expectations of achieving the outcome. We claim that the bidimensional approach is comprehensive enough to include existing definitions of hope while being parsimonious, versatile, and applicable to many contexts, including those where the hoped-for outcome is beyond people's actual or perceived control. We show the model's theoretical and methodological utility and its use in existing qualitative and quantitative research on hope in the context of intractable international conflicts. We end with suggesting pathways for developing and applying the Bidimensional Model of Hope to assist hope research in a variety of contexts and disciplines.

Multiple systems in the brain track the passage of time and can adapt their activity to temporal requirements (Paton & Buonomano, 2018). While the neural implementation of timing varies widely between neural substrates and behavioral tasks, at the algorithmic level many of these behaviors can be described as bounded accumulation (Balci & Simen, 2024). So far, from the range of temporal psychophysical tasks, the bounded accumulation model has only been applied to temporal bisection, in which participants are requested to categorize an interval as "long" or "short" (Balci & Simen, 2014; Ofir & Landau, 2022). In this work, we extend the model to fit performance in the temporal generalization task, in which participants are required to categorize an interval as being the same or different compared to a standard, or reference, duration (Wearden, 1992). Previous models of performance in this task focused on either the group level or performance of highly trained animals (Birngruber et al., 2014; Church & Gibbon, 1982; Wearden, 1992). Whether the same models can fit performance from a few hundreds of trials of single participants, necessary for comparing performance across experimental manipulations, has not been tested. A drift-diffusion model with two decision boundaries fits the data of single participants better than the previous models. We ran two experiments, one comparing performance between vision and audition and another examining the effect of learning. We found that decision boundaries can be modified independently: While the upper boundary was higher in vision compared to audition, the lower boundary decreased with learning in the task.

Bayesian accounts of perception, such as predictive processing, suggest that perceptions integrate expectations and sensory experience, and thus assimilate to expected values. Furthermore, more precise expectations should have stronger influences on perception. We tested these hypotheses in a paradigm that manipulates both the mean value and the precision of cues within-person. Forty-five participants observed cues-presented as ratings from 10 previous participants-with varying cue means, variances (precision), and skewness across trials. Participants reported expectations regarding the painfulness of thermal stimuli or the visual contrast of flickering checkerboards. Subsequently, similar cues were each followed by a visual or noxious thermal stimulus. While perceptions assimilated to expected values in both modalities, cues9 precision mainly affected visual ratings. Furthermore, behavioral and computational models revealed that expectations were biased towards extreme values in both modalities, and towards low-pain cues specifically. fMRI analysis revealed that the cues affected systems related to higher-level affective and cognitive processes--including assimilation to the cue mean in a neuromarker of endogenous contributions to pain and in the nucleus accumbens, and activity consistent with aversive prediction-error-like encoding in the periaqueductal gray during pain perception-but not systems related to early perceptual processing. Our findings suggest that predictive processing theories should be combined with mechanisms such as selective attention to better fit empirical findings, and that expectation generation and its perceptual effects are mostly modality-specific and operate on higher-level processes rather than early perception.

Predictive updating of object spatial coordinates from retinotopic pre-saccadic to post-saccadic positions contributes to stable visual perception. However, whether object features are predictively represented at the remapped location remains contested. Many previous studies showing evidence of feature remapping neglect the spatially invariant representation of features in the visual system. For example, feature-based attention boosts attended features across the entire visual field, potentially contributing to the maintenance of stimulus features across saccades. We set out to characterise the spatiotemporal dynamics of feature processing during stable fixation and active vision. To do so, we applied multivariate decoding methods to electroencephalography (EEG) data collected while participants viewed brief visual stimuli. Stimuli appeared at different locations across the visual field at either high or low spatial frequency (SF). During fixation, classifiers were trained to decode SF presented at one parafoveal location and cross-tested on SF from either the same, adjacent or more peripheral locations. When training and testing on the same location, SF was classified shortly after stimulus onset (~80 ms). Decoding of SF at locations farther from the trained location emerged later (~150-300 ms), with decoding latency modulated by eccentricity. This analysis provides a detailed time course for the spread of feature information across the visual field. Next, we investigated how active vision impacts the emergence of SF information. In the presence of a saccade, the decoding time of peripheral SF at parafoveal locations was accelerated, indicating predictive anticipation of SF due to the saccade. Crucially however, this predictive effect was not limited to the specific remapped location. Rather, peripheral SF was correctly classified, at an accelerated time course, at all parafoveal positions. This indicates a spatially coarse remapping of stimulus features during active vision, likely enabling a smooth transition on saccade landing.

Background and Aim: The potential of large language models (LLMs) like GPT-4 to generate clear and empathetic medical documentation is becoming increasingly relevant. This study evaluates these constructs in discharge letters generated by GPT-4 compared to those written by emergency department (ED) physicians. Methods: In this retrospective, blinded study, 72 discharge letters written by ED physicians were compared to GPT-4-generated versions, which were based on the physicians9 follow-up notes in the electronic medical record (EMR). Seventeen evaluators, 7 physicians, 5 nurses, and 5 patients, were asked to select their preferred letter (human or LLM) for each patient and rate empathy, clarity, and overall quality using a 5-point Likert scale (1 = Poor, 5 = Excellent). A secondary analysis by 3 ED attending physicians assessed the medical accuracy of both sets of letters. Results: Across the 72 comparisons, evaluators preferred GPT-4-generated letters in 1,009 out of 1,206 evaluations (83.7%). GPT-4 letters were rated significantly higher for empathy, clarity, and overall quality (p < 0.001). Additionally, GPT-4-generated letters demonstrated superior medical accuracy, with a median score of 5.0 compared to 4.0 for physician-written letters (p = 0.025). Conclusion: GPT-4 shows strong potential in generating ED discharge letters that are empathetic and clear, preferable by healthcare professionals and patients, offering a promising tool to reduce the workload of ED physicians. However, further research is necessary to explore patient perceptions and best practices for leveraging the advantages of AI together with physicians in clinical practice.

Twin bonds, likely the most enduring of human relationships, provide both solace and rivalry for twins. Using an evolutionary psychology perspective, this chapter scrutinizes twins’ bonds from prenatal stages to childhood to better understand their unique relationships. Twins’ interactions, which begin in the womb, establish patterns of cooperation and competition. The initial years pose parenting challenges that shape the twins’ experiences of dependency and rivalry. As twins grow, five dimensions—closeness, dependence, conflict, rivalry, and dominance—emerge, evolving distinctly between monozygotic twins (MZ: sharing close to 100% of their genes) and dizygotic twins (DZ: sharing on average 50% of their genetic variance). The chapter notes the closer relationship MZ twins share compared to DZ twins. While the closeness and dependence among DZ twins decline throughout childhood, these elements remain stable in MZ twins. The effect of zygosity on conflict and rivalry is less clear. For both MZ and DZ twins, conflict stays steady, while rivalry intensifies with school entry, probably driven by external comparisons, but lessens as twins develop into late childhood. Unlike singletons, where birth order dictates dominance dynamics, in twins, this dynamic is more variable and becomes more defined by around 6.5 years of age. Several factors are presented as impacting the nature of the twins’ relationships: the evolvement of ‘twin language’, the parenting style and the differential parenting they receive. This exploration into the development of twins’ relationships underlines the importance of tailored caregiving and invites further research into the genetic and environmental factors that shape close bonds.

There has been broad consensus that effective visual search relies on comparing the visual input with an active representation of the target's features stored in working memory, known as the search template. However, recent findings challenge this notion by indicating that efficient search can occur even without a search template. That is, individuals could locate a familiar face faster than chance, even when unaware of the specific person they were searching for. If a search template is not mandatory, what could be the guiding mechanism of efficient search? Two experiments suggest that focusing on extrafoveal abilities holds the key to this question. Specifically, we demonstrate that recognition processes, encompassing familiarity and recollection, can take place through extrafoveal vision. Moreover, the capacity to determine whether a face is familiar emerges as a significant predictor of search performance. These findings contribute to our understanding of visual attention models and highlight individual differences in extrafoveal visual processing capabilities.

Interval timing, the ability of animals to estimate the passage of time, is thought to involve diverse neural processes rather than a single central “clock” (Paton & Buonomano, 2018). Each of the different processes engaged in interval timing follows a different dynamic path, according to its specific function. For example, attention tracks anticipated events, such as offsets of intervals (Rohenkohl & Nobre, 2011), while motor processes control the timing of the behavioral output (De Lafuente et al., 2024). Hence, different processes provide complimentary perspectives on mechanisms of time perception. The temporal bisection task, where participants categorize intervals as “long” or “short”, is thought to rely on the same mechanisms as other perceptual decisions (Balcı & Simen, 2014). In line with this hypothesis, we previously described an EEG potential that tracks the formation of decision following the end of the timed interval (Ofir & Landau, 2022). Here, we track the dynamics of motor preparation to investigate the formation of decision within the timed interval. In contrast to typical perceptual decisions, where motor plans for all response alternatives are prepared simultaneously (Shadlen & Kiani, 2013), we find that different temporal decisions develop sequentially. While preparation for “long” responses was already underway before interval offset, no preparation was found for “short” responses. Furthermore, within intervals categorized as “long”, motor preparation was stronger at interval offset for faster responses. Our findings shed light on the unique dynamics of temporal decisions and demonstrate the importance of considering neural activity in timing tasks from multiple perspectives.

Visual art and vision science had long been intertwined, both revealing and sharing countless insights on human vision over their respective histories. Deep artistic experiences and extensive artistic knowledge are often associated with “artistic expertise,” which in vision science traditionally echoes visual expertise from other professional domains (e.g., medicine, sports, driving). However, unlike other visual domains, artistic experiences involve more spontaneous and imaginative aspects, and no explicit success parameters. We hypothesized that viewing of artworks would lead to nuanced effects of expertise that may differ from other types of visual expertise. In our study, art experts and non-experts observed modern paintings and were free to view them within a relatively long time window. Higher expertise in art was associated with viewing modern paintings for significantly longer durations, and liking the paintings significantly more. However, contrary to other visual expertise studies, eye movement patterns exhibited little to no effect of artistic expertise. Based on these findings, we suggest a recontextualization of visual artistic expertise and discuss potential research directions, alongside methodological challenges in the experimental design.