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Social Observations, Decisions, Explore/Exploit
“Observational learning of exploration-exploitation strategies in bandit tasks” In decision-making scenarios, individuals often face the challenge of balancing between exploring new options and exploiting known ones—a dynamic known as the exploration-exploitation trade-off. In such situations, people frequently have the opportunity to observe others’ actions. Yet little is known about when, how, and from whom individuals…
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From reductionism to realism
“From reductionism to realism: holistic mathematical modelling for complex biological systems” At its core, the physics paradigm adopts a reductionist approach, aiming to understand fundamental phenomena by decomposing them into simpler, elementary processes. While this strategy has been tremendously successful in physics, it has often fallen short in addressing fundamental questions in the biological sciences.…
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Affective State as a central component to environmental changes
“Considering affective state as a central component of the response of animals to environmental changes” Current environmental changes are often considered as negatively impacting the affective state of animals. Yet, the interplay betweenenvironmental conditions and affective state should rather be viewed as a reciprocal and dynamic relationship, as variation in affective state likely determines how…
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Music as a scientific metaphor for mind and brain
“Music as a scientific metaphor for mind and brain” Metaphors have long played multiple roles in conceptualizing the mind and brain, guiding the development and refinement of theoretical models and empirical questions. Early analogies (comparing the brain to hydraulic systems, telephone exchanges, factories, or libraries) offered shortcuts to understanding aspects of cognition, memory, and brain…
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Active Construction of Past Episodes
“The active construction of past episodes” Episodic memories – declarative memories of past events, characterized by rich spatiotemporal context – play a central role in guiding perception and behaviour. Here, we advance a model that integrates episodic memories within the active inference framework. We describe how episodic memories are incorporated into the generative models used…
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MOPGA: Multidisciplinary science
“Multidisciplinary science funding is more than ever a planetary priority: Reflections from the Make Our Planet Great Again (MOPGA) program” Global change poses “wicked problems” that have become ever more complex, pervasive, and damaging. Developing innovative solutions increasingly require diverse research approaches. The Franco-German Make Our Planet Great Again (MOPGA) program was designed to create a unique…
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Wise Machines
“Imagining and building wise machines: the centrality of AI metacognition” Although artificial intelligence (AI) has become increasingly smart, its wisdom has not kept pace. In this opinion article, we examine what is known about human wisdom and sketch a vision of its AI counterpart. We introduce human wisdom as strategies for solving intractable problems—those outside…
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Linking fast and slow
“Linking fast and slow: The case for generative models” A pervasive challenge in neuroscience is testing whether neuronal connectivity changes over time due to specific causes, such as stimuli, events, or clinical interventions. Recent hardware innovations and falling data storage costs enable longer, more naturalistic neuronal recordings. The implicit opportunity for understanding the self-organised brain…
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Robust Decision-Making Via Free Energy Minimization
“Robust Decision-Making Via Free Energy Minimization” html, pdf, video, Nature Communications Despite their groundbreaking performance, state-of-the-art autonomous agents can misbehave when training and environmental conditions become inconsistent, with minor mismatches leading to undesirable behaviors or even catastrophic failures. Robustness towards these training/environment ambiguities is a core requirement for intelligent agents and its fulfillment is a…
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Exploration and Exploitation & Coping Strategy
“Transition Dynamics Between Exploration and Exploitation Predicts Individual Differences in Coping Strategy” Adaptive decision-making requires balancing exploitation of known rewarding options with exploration of uncertain alternatives, a dilemma also known as the exploration-exploitation tradeoff. While this framework has been widely studied in reinforcement learning research, its relevance to coping, defined as the cognitive and behavioral…
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Your brain on nature
“Your brain on nature: A scoping review of the neuroscience of nature exposure” The relationship between natural environments and human cognition has gathered increasing attention across disciplines, including neuroscience, environmental psychology, and public health. An expanding body of empirical evidence supports the notion that exposure to nature consistently promotes psychological and physiological well-being. However, our…
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Licht op het donker
Recent zijn een aantal boeken en publicaties verschenen en onder de aandacht gekomen, die licht gaven op het donkere dat gebeurd was. Enkele zijn samengevat in een eigen pagina:
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Geweld herkennen
“Geweld herkennen in complexe scheiding. Inkijken bij het geïnstrumentaliseerde kind” (https://gompel-svacina.eu/product/geweld-herkennen-in-complexe-scheiding/) Manipulatie en controle bij echtscheidingen: “Dit zadelt kinderen op met levenslang trauma” Valerie Swennen, GVA – 19 januari 2026 “Geweld in scheidingen blijft vaak verborgen, maar de gevolgen zijn diep en blijvend.”Dit boek nodigt uit om met andere ogen te kijken naar conflict, communicatie…
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Morele revolutie
“Morele revolutie, Rutger Bregman“ De westerse wereld verkeert in een morele crisis. Niet de meest bekwame, maar de meest schaamteloze leiders komen aan de macht. In zijn BBC Reith Lectures — hier in ongecensureerde vorm — brengt Rutger Bregman zijn hele oeuvre samen in een pleidooi voor een morele revolutie. Bregman is geen vrije denker,…
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D: The Dark Factor of Personality
“The Dark Factor of Personality” A unified theory of aversive personality Ethically, morally, and socially questionable behavior is part of everyday life and instances of ruthless, selfish, unscrupulous, or even downright evil behavior can easily be found across history and cultures. Psychologists sometimes use the umbrella term “dark traits” to subsume personality traits that are…
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The Science of Revenge
“The Science of Revenge, James Kimmel Jr.” In this definitive book on revenge, James Kimmel, Jr., JD, exposes the unseen neurobiological cause of violence—the compulsive desire for retribution—and offers a profound new understanding of human behavior and breakthrough framework for making our lives and communities safer. Yale violence researcher and psychiatry lecturer James Kimmel, Jr.,…
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Poisonous People
“Leanne ten Brinke: Poisonous People” In Poisonous People, award-winning psychologist Dr. Leanneten Brinke offers a brilliant new perspective on darkpersonalities. Weaving together personal stories andpathbreaking research, she depicts a surprising reality: a small portion of the population causes most of the world’s suffering. People with psychopathic and related personalitytraits commit a disproportionate amount of crime,…
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