Category: Biology of Information
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Wise Machines
“Imagining and building wise machines: the centrality of AI metacognition” We examine the why and the how of building wise artificial intelligence. Wisdom helps humans navigate intractable problems through object-level strategies (for managing problems) and metacognitive strategies (for managing object-level strategies). Wise metacognition includes strategies such as intellectual humility, perspective-taking, and context adaptability. Wise artificial…
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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” Increased alpha/theta oscillations and reduced amygdala activity consistently observed. Structural and functional brain changes associated with greenspace and immersive VR. A conceptual model integrates sensory, contextual, and individual moderating factors. The relationship between natural environments and human cognition has gathered increasing attention…
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Narcissism: Blunted Error-Related Brain Activity
“Narcissism Is Associated With Blunted Error-Related Brain Activity” Narcissism is associated with self-enhancement and social antagonism, yet its neural underpinnings, particularly in error processing, remain underexplored. Competing theoretical models, such as the mask model and the metacognitive model, offer conflicting hypotheses regarding how narcissism influences early neural responses to errors. We examine whether grandiose agentic…
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Active information sampling in health and disease
“Active information sampling in health and disease” Active information gathering is a fundamental cognitive process that enables organisms to navigate uncertainty and make adaptive decisions. This review has synthesised current knowledge on the behavioural, neural, and computational mechanisms underlying information sampling across health and disease. Several key themes have emerged from this analysis. Firstly, information…
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Boredom and curiosity – information
“Boredom and curiosity: the hunger and the appetite for information“ Boredom and curiosity are common everyday states that drive individuals to seek information. Due to their functional relatedness, it is not trivial to distinguish whether an action, for instance in the context of a behavioral experiment, is driven by boredom or curiosity. Are the two…
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Delusion as embodied emotion
“Delusion as embodied emotion: a qualitatively driven, multimethod study of first-episode psychosis in the UK” Delusions in psychosis involve complex and dynamic experiential, affective, cognitive, behavioural, and interpersonal alterations. Their pattern of emergence during the early stages of illness remains poorly understood and the origin of their thematic content unclear. Phenomenological accounts have emphasised alterations…
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Intuitive insight: Fast associative processes drive sound creative thinking
“Intuitive insight: Fast associative processes drive sound creative thinking” We tested intuitive vs. deliberate responding using a two-response paradigm. Correct creative answers often emerged intuitively under load and time pressure. Intuitive solutions rely on fast associative processes in semantic memory. Intuition may play a greater role in creativity than previously assumed. Convergent thinking, the ability…
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Switching, fast and slow
“Switching, fast and slow: Deciphering the dynamics of memory search, its brain connectivity patterns, and its role in creativity “ Creative ideas emerge from the process of searching and combining concepts in memory, involving both associative and controlled mechanisms. How these processes unfold during memory search and relate to creativity remains unclear. We explored the neurocognitive…
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The interoceptive origin of reinforcement learning
“The interoceptive origin of reinforcement learning” Primary rewards are accompanied by a cascade of earlier signals – secondary and proxy rewards – that facilitate learning and prospective control rather than sustaining reinforcement. Primary reward signals are dependent on internal states and goals. The traditional reinforcement learning framework needs to be extended to address the generation…
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Paradox of Predictability
“The paradox of predictability provides a bridge between micro- and macroevolution” The relationship between the evolutionary dynamics observed in contemporary populations (microevolution) and evolution on timescales of millions of years (macroevolution) has been a topic of considerable debate. Historically, this debate centers on inconsistencies between microevolutionary processes and macroevolutionary patterns. Here, we characterize a striking…
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The Universe Learning Itself
“The Universe Learning Itself: On the Evolution of Dynamics from theBig Bang to Machine Intelligence” We develop a unified, dynamical-systems narrative of the universe that traces a continuous chain of structure formation from the Big Bang to contemporary human societies and their artificial learning systems. Rather than treating cosmology, astrophysics, geophysics, biology, cognition, and machine…
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Decoding the architecture of living systems
“Decoding the architecture of living systems“, by Manlio De Domenico The possibility that evolutionary forces — together with a few fundamental factors such as thermodynamic constraints, specific computational features enabling information processing, and ecological processes — might constrain the logic of living systems is tantalizing. However, it is often overlooked that any practical implementation of…
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Mapping interactions between adversity and neuroplasticity across development
“Mapping interactions between adversity and neuroplasticity across development” Highlights: We propose a theoretical framework to formalize major ways in which experience (particularly adversity) interacts with neuroplasticity during human development. Adversity can uniquely influence neural circuitry depending on the state of neuroplasticity during the developmental timing of exposure (i.e., neuroplasticity as a moderator). Neuroplasticity is itself…
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The ‘made-up mind’.
“The ‘made-up mind’. Deriving new hypotheses on delusions from general psychological models of belief maintenance” Highlights Delusions may be maintained by changed external input and prediction error processing. Perceived belief utility and high accordance with related beliefs favor maintenance. Systematized delusions may result from deriving auxiliary hypotheses or latent causes. How well conflicting evidence is…
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Stubborn Goals: the adaptive value
“The adaptive value of stubborn goals” Humans show strong attachment to goals they have selected. While often framed as a maladaptive bias, we outline three adaptive functions leading to stable goals: efficient cognitive resource allocation, shielding from interference, and scaffolding motivation in the absence of immediate and tangible reward signals. These considerations shape the algorithmic…
