Psychological Science

When individuals view the same visual input, they often differ in their aesthetic appeal judgments, yet why people differ remains largely unclear. Here, we tested whether individual differences in aesthetic experience are linked to differences in visual exploration. In two experiments, participants watched the documentary "Home" while their eye movements were recorded. In Experiment 1, participants continuously rated aesthetic experience throughout the movie, whereas in Experiment 2, they watched the first half without a task and rated aesthetic experience only during the second half. Inter-individual similarity in gaze patterns, assessed using fixation heatmaps across time, predicted similarity in aesthetic appeal judgments in both experiments. Notably, in Experiment 2, gaze similarity during free viewing in the first half of the movie predicted similarity in aesthetic ratings during the second half, indicating that incidental eye movement patterns predict aesthetic experiences. Together, these results show that shared gaze patterns are linked to shared aesthetic experiences under naturalistic, dynamic viewing conditions.

Pretend play is a hallmark behavior in childhood where children create nonliteral meanings. Empirical data supporting the role of social cognition and the decoupling from literality are still scarce during early development. We explored here how the comprehension of pretense affects the visual exploratory behavior of toddlers (n = 44) and adults (n = 65) when they were exposed to short video clips in which an actress performed either real actions (e.g., eating jelly) or pretend actions (e.g., pretending to eat with imaginary food), while varying the complexity of those actions. We analyzed participants exploration of the face in the videos as exploitation of social information. We showed that all observers paid more attention to the face in pretend scenarios than in real ones, measured as longer total looking time in adults and more fixations and revisits to the face in both age groups. We also found more gaze shifts (a measure of information sampling) between the face and the moving hand in the pretend videos in both age groups, mainly at the initial stages of the actions. Additionally, analyses of the scanpaths structure using gaze entropy showed less order in the exploration of pretend videos in both age groups, suggesting that pretense involved greater uncertainty and increased information seeking. The less structured trajectories were observed again mainly in complex pretend scenarios. Taken together, our gaze results indicate that from its developmental origins, the comprehension of pretense relies on social processes linked with information seeking and exploration. Significance StatementDevelopmental theories have long debated whether pretend games are born in conjunction with social capacities in the second year or become integrated later in life. Our study shows that, much like adults, toddlers visually explore pretend scenes gathering more social information and in a less structured manner compared to real-world scenarios, suggesting that the emerging capacity to play with the meaning of things is linked with that of thinking of other minds early in life.

Computational models and neurobehavioral data suggest that encoding variability affects forced-choice mnemonic discrimination. Here, we experimentally manipulated encoding variability on the forced-choice Mnemonic Similarity Task by varying stimulus repetitions during encoding. We first generated predictions from a global matching model. Behavioral data supported all predictions. Across most conditions, repetitions consistently enhanced mnemonic discrimination; however, when encoding variability was induced by 3-repetitions of the original version of the non-corresponding lure and 1-repetition of the target during learning, individuals exhibited increased interference. These findings provide further insight into theories of human memory, especially the effect of stimulus repetition on mnemonic discrimination.

The most highly predictive polygenic scores in the behavioural sciences are for cognitive traits, especially general cognitive ability (g) and educational attainment. We combined polygenic scores derived from genome-wide association studies of adult g and educational attainment to create adult 'polygenic g scores' which we used to chart the course of cognitive development of 10,000 white British children from toddlerhood through early adulthood. We integrated cross-sectional regression, latent growth curve, and confirmatory factor analysis to systematically characterise cognitive development. Polygenic g score showed minimal prediction in toddlerhood, modest prediction in childhood, and substantial prediction by early adulthood accounting for 12% of the variance. Higher polygenic g scores were associated with faster cognitive growth in latent growth models. Prediction was strongest for a cross-time latent cognitive factor (15%) capturing cognitive ability across development. By integrating polygenic prediction directly into a structural equation model framework, we provided a theoretical upper bound of genetic influences on g under minimal measurement error. We also examined the polygenic g score's prediction of educational achievement, behaviour problems, and anthropometric outcomes and found similar developmental increases in prediction for educational achievement. Together, our findings demonstrate that adult polygenic g scores can be a useful tool for charting the development of cognitive traits.

Each individual person looks at natural scenes in their own unique way, resulting in a distinct perceptual experience of the world. However, little is known about why such differences in gaze emerge. Here, we test the hypothesis that idiosyncrasies in gaze behavior are predicted by inter-subject variations in internal models--expectations about how scenes typically look. In two experiments, we first characterized participants personal internal models by asking them to draw typical bathroom and kitchen scenes. Individual differences in these drawings were quantified using an objective deep learning pipeline and, in turn, related to individual differences in gaze behavior. In Experiment 1, where participants freely viewed a set of kitchen and bathroom photographs, inter-subject similarities in internal models did not predict inter-subject similarities in gaze. In Experiment 2, we encouraged strategic exploration through gaze-contingent viewing and a memory task. Here, inter-subject similarities in internal models predicted similarities in fixation frequency and the sequence in which different object categories were inspected. These findings suggest that the influence of internal models on visual exploration is stronger under increased sensory uncertainty and when expectation-guided sampling of the environment is encouraged. Together, our results provide new insights into how individual expectations shape gaze behavior and help explain why people differ in how they explore the visual world.

Visual false memory refers to our tendency to falsely recognize novel stimuli that are visually similar to seen stimuli. Visual false memory also occurs when stimuli are meaningful, suggesting that semantic information interferes with the encoding of visual details. However, the neural mechanisms of this semantic interference effect are largely unknown. In the present fMRI study, participants were scanned while encoding visually similar fonts presented with words (word-fonts) or pseudowords (pseudoword-fonts), and later, when recognizing old, new similar (lures), and new dissimilar (novel) fonts displayed in the same meaningless letter string. We performed (1) representational similarity analysis (RSA) at encoding to identify visual, visuosemantic, and semantic representations associated with subsequent visual true and false font recognition, (2) encoding-retrieval similarity (ERS) analysis to assess their reinstatement during retrieval, and (3) mediational analyses to examine hippocampal contributions. The study yielded three main findings. First, visuosemantic representations supported true font recognition when stored in right fusiform gyrus, but false recognition of word-fonts when stored in the left fusiform gyrus. Second, mirroring this pattern, reinstatement in right fusiform gyrus was associated with true font recognition, whereas reinstatement in left fusiform gyrus was linked to false recognition of word-fonts. Finally, posterior hippocampal activation reduced false font memory mainly for pseudoword-associated fonts via decreased reinstatement in perceptual regions, while anterior hippocampal activity increased false memory of word-fonts via enhanced reinstatement in semantic regions. Taken together, these findings reveal how distinct hippocampal-cortical pathways differentially bias memory towards perceptual specificity or semantic generalization. Significance StatementFalse memories are often triggered by visual similarity, but this study shows that meaning encoded during learning can distort memory for visual details, even when retrieval cues are meaningless. Participants learned fonts associated with words or pseudowords and judged whether similar lure fonts, shown on a meaningless letter string, were seen before. Although behavioral performance was similar across conditions, brain imaging revealed a key dissociation: the left fusiform gyrus and anterior hippocampus promote semantic generalization that increases false recognition, whereas the right fusiform gyrus and posterior hippocampus support perceptual specificity that protects against it. These findings reveal how distinct hippocampal-cortical pathways differentially bias memory toward truth or illusion.

Habits in humans are commonly studied through outcome devaluation paradigms, but most existing tasks fail to capture the robustness of habitual behavior seen in animal models. I introduce two novel behavioral tasks designed to overcome these limitations. In the first task, ("shooting aliens task", n = 45), I simplified an existing instrumental learning task and implemented a novel intra-block reversal method in which stimulus positions changed unexpectedly within blocks while maintaining the same stimulus-action mappings. Participants also completed a classical devaluation phase with explicit reward changes. In the second task ("hands-attack task", n = 44), which relied on real-life avoidance behavior, devaluation was achieved by reversing reward contingencies and allowing participants to inhibit the dominant avoidance response in favor of a more effortful counterattack. Across both tasks, overtrained conditions led to more errors and longer response times after devaluation, confirming increased insensitivity to outcome change. Intra-block reversals in the shooting aliens task produced stronger habitual signatures than standard whole-block devaluation, revealing a greater cost of overriding automatic responses. In the hands-attack task, even without prior training, participants showed clear markers of habitual behavior, suggesting that real-world action patterns can replicate key features of laboratory habits. Interestingly, participants were more accurate in overriding overtrained responses when attacks were highly familiar, possibly due to enhanced perceptual processing, although this came at the cost of longer response times. These findings introduce two complementary tools that address key limitations in current paradigms: the intra-block reversal increases habit sensitivity without inflating working memory demands, while the hands-attack task captures naturalistic habit expression without artificial training, using a single, ecologically valid session. Both are suited for clinical applications, particularly where time constraints or cognitive load limit the feasibility of traditional approaches.

The ability to evaluate ones own knowledge states is often studied using paradigms in which participants make a decision and subsequently report their confidence. This structure has motivated hierarchical models in which confidence arises from a metacognitive process, distinct from the decision process itself, that estimates the probability that the choice is correct (Meyniel et al., 2015; Pouget et al., 2016; Fleming and Daw, 2017). Here, we contrast this framework with an alternative based on an intentional architecture (Shadlen et al., 2008). In this account, choice and confidence are determined simultaneously through a multidimensional drift-diffusion process, where each dimension represents one choice-confidence combination (Ratcliff and Starns, 2009, 2013). Choice, response time, and confidence jointly emerge when one of these accumulators reaches a decision bound. To adjudicate between these accounts, we fit both models to behavioral data from two perceptual tasks: a random-dots motion discrimination task with incentivized confidence reports, and a luminance discrimination task without feedback or incentives. The integrated model provided a superior fit for the incentivized motion task, whereas the hierarchical model more accurately captured behavior in the un-incentivized luminance task. These results suggest that confidence does not rely on a single computational mechanism, but rather its implementation may adapt to the specific demands and structure of the task.

The ability to generate novel creative ideas (divergent thinking) is closely linked with our ability to imagine novel future events (episodic simulation). Here, we employed an individual differences approach to examine whether divergent thinking and episodic simulation are differentially associated with episodic and semantic retrieval ability. In response to object word cues, participants generated meanings and definitions (semantic memory), remembered a past event (episodic memory), imagined a novel future event (episodic simulation), or generated novel uses (divergent thinking). Replicating previous findings, divergent thinking ability was predicted by the number of episodic details generated during episodic simulation. When directly comparing episodic and semantic memory, the strongest predictor of divergent thinking was semantic memory. In contrast, episodic simulation ability was predicted by both episodic and semantic memory. We interpret these findings as support for the semantic scaffold hypothesis of imagination, according to which semantic memory provides the necessary scaffold or framework for flexible expressions of cognition such as divergent thinking and episodic simulation. As episodic simulation, relative to divergent thinking, was associated with both episodic and semantic retrieval, these findings are taken to reflect common reliance on event construction processes recruited during both episodic remembering and imagining.

The role of spatial attention in iconic memory - an early interface between visual perception and short-term memory - remains poorly understood. Across two experiments run in 2025, we investigated how endogenous spatial attention modulates iconic memory using a partial-report paradigm. In both exper-iments, pre-cues manipulated the allocation of spatial attention before stimulus onset. Stimulus arrays were then briefly presented to one hemifield and followed by a post-cue that probed iconic memory at varying delays after stimulus offset. In Experiment 1 (N = 47), valid attentional cues improved perfor-mance at short delays. Performance was modeled with an exponential decay function to dissociate effects on initial stimulus availability at short SOAs, the rate of iconic decay, and later transfer to working mem-ory. This analysis indicated that valid pre-cues increased initial stimulus availability relative to invalid pre-cues. In Experiment 2 (N = 66), a neutral pre-cue condition was added, and post-cues were pre-sented at three delays (0, 120, and 1240 ms). This revealed that performance differences were driven by attentional costs at invalidly cued locations, with no detectable benefits at validly cued locations relative to neutral cues. Together, these results show that spatial attention modulates the earliest measurable phase of iconic memory by shaping the initial sensory trace. The cost-dominated pattern suggests that attention primarily suppresses information at unattended locations rather than enhancing representa-tions at attended locations. This finding challenges the view of iconic memory as a pre-attentive sensory store and indicates that attentional selection operates earlier than previously assumed. Significance StatementThe influence of attention on iconic memory - a high-capacity, ultra-brief sensory store - remains highly debated. We demonstrate that endogenous spatial attention modulates iconic memory at its earliest measurable stage. Critically, this modulation reflects an attentional cost at unattended locations rather than a benefit at attended locations, suggesting that spatial attention acts through inhibitory suppression of irrelevant sensory input. These findings challenge models proposing that early sensory representation is categorically attention-free and establish a suppressive role for attention in shaping visual short-term memory at its earliest stage.

Some images are consistently remembered better than others, suggesting that memorability reflects intrinsic image properties. We tested whether within-category distinctiveness underlies this effect. Across three experiments (N = 477), participants categorized indoor scenes previously rated for subjective typicality and then completed recognition memory tests. Typical scenes were categorized faster and more accurately, but were remembered worse and showed a more liberal response bias than atypical scenes. These opposing effects were robust across categories. To link subjective typicality to visual representations, we quantified image distinctiveness using a convolutional neural network (CNN). Across layers, CNN-derived distinctiveness closely tracked human typicality judgments and predicted both categorization speed and memorability, with strongest effects in higher, semantic layers. Critically, the memory advantage for atypical scenes persisted even when most images were atypical, ruling out rarity within the experimental context. Together, the results show that intrinsic scene memorability reflects an images position within a category-specific representational space.

Color is a prominent feature of visual experience, yet humans can recognize objects easily and accurately from grayscale images. We examined whether color becomes more useful when spatial information is degraded due to blurring. Participants viewed naturalistic scenes in color or grayscale, and reported whether a named target object was present across a range of blur levels that simulated optical defocus from 0-8 diopters. With unblurred images, performance did not differ between color and grayscale conditions, but as blur increased, recognition accuracy declined. Color provided a modest but reliable advantage at higher levels of blur, suggesting that color becomes increasingly useful when optical quality is degraded. We hypothesize that the evolutionary shift towards trichromacy may have been partially driven by the need to compensate for optical degradation due to aging and/or accumulated light exposure.

Wellbeing is commonly defined as the combination of feeling good and functioning well and typically conceptualized as two related but distinct components. Hedonic wellbeing emphasizes pleasure, happiness, and life satisfaction, while eudaimonic wellbeing focuses on meaning, personal growth, flourishing, and the realization of ones potential. The Mental Health Continuum-Short Form was developed as a comprehensive measure of wellbeing and includes three subscales assessing emotional, social, and psychological wellbeing. Although the Mental Health Continuum total score is often interpreted as an indicator of overall wellbeing, the underlying genetic structure of its three subscales and its genetic overlap with other commonly used wellbeing measures remains unclear. Using data from 5,212 individuals from the Netherlands Twin Register (72% female, mean age 36.4), we fitted multivariate twin models to examine the genetic architecture of the Mental Health Continuum and its associations with other wellbeing measures (quality of life, life satisfaction, subjective happiness, and flourishing). Results indicate that, at the genetic level, the Mental Health Continuum is best explained by its three distinct subscales rather than by a latent factor. When considering the Mental Health Continuum together with the other wellbeing measures, we found moderate to high genetic correlations (r = 0.52 - 0.83), indicating substantial overlap in the genetics underlying the wellbeing constructs. However, we did not find evidence for a single common genetic factor underlying all constructs. These findings highlight the multidimensional structure of wellbeing, but the moderate to high genetic correlations across measures suggest that it is important to align the level of measurement (phenotypic vs genetic) with the research question.

Humans are adept at distinguishing individual faces, yet inversion dramatically impairs this ability. This face inversion effect is remarkably robust across observers, but evidence is mixed as to whether inversion also impairs the perception of facial parts, particularly the eye region. Some studies have shown that featural processing is preserved or even enhanced when faces are inverted, whereas others have reported clear inversion-related impairments in feature-based judgements. These mixed findings may reflect limited statistical power, unbalanced participant sex ratios, and heterogeneous task designs. To address these issues, we examined how strongly face inversion affects sensitivity to gaze direction in a well-powered, sex-balanced sample. A total of 190 participants judged whether the eyes in briefly presented upright or inverted faces were looking directly at them or not. Inversion reliably reduced sensitivity to gaze direction, yielding a medium-to-large effect size. Females showed modestly higher overall sensitivity than males (a small-to-medium effect), whereas the inversion effect was highly similar for females and males. These findings show that brief gaze judgements are not immune to inversion, even in a task that could in principle be based largely on eye-region information. They provide quantitative constraints that models of gaze perception should accommodate, including the largely sex-invariant inversion effect.

Stored memories are useless unless they are available for retrieval. Thus, investigating different ways to modulate retrieval is crucial. Novelty has been extensively studied as a modulator of memory. In this study, we investigated whether exposure to a novel event, an innovative neuroscience lesson, can enhance memory retrieval and divergent thinking in high school students. Across three experiments, we assessed the timing and mechanisms underlying these effects. In experiment 1, we found that memory retrieval was enhanced when the novel lesson occurred immediately before a memory test, but not when it was presented one hour earlier. In experiment 2, we found that the same immediate novelty exposure improved divergent thinking performance. Finally, in experiment 3, we explored potential shared mechanisms using a competition protocol and revealed that novelty improved divergent thinking regardless of its timing relative to memory retrieval. However, memory retrieval benefited only when tested immediately before the divergent thinking task. These results suggest that novelty boosts both memory retrieval and divergent thinking, but through partially distinct mechanisms. Our findings demonstrate that a simple, real-world classroom intervention can effectively enhance key cognitive functions in students. Significance StatementStored memories are only valuable if they can be retrieved, and memory retrieval plays a key role in creative thinking. Here, we tested whether a simple, novel event, a neuroscience lesson, could enhance memory retrieval and creative thinking in a real-world classroom setting. We found that novelty improved both memory retrieval and divergent thinking, an aspect of creative thinking, when presented immediately before the task. Finally, we revealed a non-reciprocal competition effect between memory retrieval and divergent thinking. These findings highlight a practical, low-cost intervention to boost key cognitive functions in students, demonstrating that brief, well-timed novel experiences can support both learning and creative thinking in educational environments.

Children frequently intervene in social conflicts by punishing violators or helping victims, yet the motivational mechanisms underlying such third-party altruistic behavior remain poorly understood. It remains unclear how children balance fairness concerns against self-interest, how these motivations interact with intervention costs and impact on outcomes, and whether gender and individual differences reflect distinct motivational structures. Here, we applied the motive cocktail model, which assumes that altruistic behavior arises from multiple prosocial motives, to dissociate motivations underlying third-party interventions. We studied 229 children aged 8-12 years (123 boys), an age when fairness and inequality aversion are reliably expressed. The third-party intervention task manipulated inequality between others, the personal cost of intervention, its impact on outcomes, and the form of intervention (punishment versus helping). Children intervened more as inequality increased and less as intervention costs rose, indicating a trade-off between moral benefits and self-interest. Gender differences emerged only under high-cost and high-impact conditions, with boys engaging in more punishment interventions. The motive cocktail model outperformed alternative models and revealed that boys showed stronger aversion to disadvantageous inequality and a greater tendency to reverse victims disadvantage than girls. Clustering analyses further identified distinct motivational profiles within each gender. These findings demonstrate that childrens third-party altruistic behavior is governed by multiple dissociable motives. This study provides a mechanistic account of how social motivations are organized and weighted during late childhood.

Plant Awareness Disparity (PAD) refers to the inability of humans to notice plants and recognize their importance. Among the various factors (e.g., cultural) contributing to PAD, the less prominent visual cues of plants (e.g., color) might be one of the main features making them less noticeable to human perception. Here, we investigated whether PAD affects basic numerosity perception, which represents a fundamental cognitive ability that allows individuals to interpret and interact with their surroundings. Across three experiments, we compared how participants perceive the numerosity of plants (specifically trees), animals, and minerals. Participants completed two tasks: an estimation task, in which they reported the exact number of items in a single set and a comparison task, which required them to discriminate numerosity between two sets of items. In Experiment 1, both tasks employed colored images. We hypothesized that participants would underestimate the number of plant items in comparison to animals and minerals, given that plant stimuli typically attract less attention. In Experiment 2, black and white images were used to test whether the green color of plants contributes to PAD. In Experiment 3, all items were rotated of 180{degrees} to disrupt semantic recognition and assess whether PAD arises from higher-level cognitive processes. Results revealed a consistent underestimation of plants in Experiment 1 and 2, but this effect diminished in Experiment 3. The reduction of this effect suggests that semantic recognition processes may contribute to PAD. These results highlight how cognitive biases toward plants can influence basic perceptual judgments essential for everyday functioning.

Choice overload occurs when an ever-growing number of options impairs decision quality, because evaluating options taxes cognitive resources. We investigated whether reducing cognitive demand could mitigate overload by encouraging greater cognitive effort to achieve optimal choice. We conducted two experiments manipulating cognitive demand in complementary ways: Experiment 1 reduced demand by presenting high-attractiveness sets, and Experiment 2 did so by providing a shortlist tool. In both experiments, participants chose from sets of 6-24 options while their eye-gaze and electroencephalographic (EEG) data were recorded. We found that reducing demand made decisions faster, but did not improve choice performance as set-size increased. Under low-demand conditions, eye-gaze measures revealed narrower search and EEG measures showed reduced working memory engagement per option, together indicating less searching and processing efforts. These results suggest that even with reduced cognitive demand, people coast through easier decisions, conserving effort and leaving the choice overload effect largely intact.

Real-world visual search is often performed at the category level: we search for shoes or bags without knowing their exact features in advance. This requires categorical search templates that accommodate the inherent variability within the target category. Here, we examine how the variability in search templates across categories constrains visual search performance. We quantify template variability by measuring variability in object drawings from a large online dataset (Experiment 1) and from a controlled lab-based drawing task (Experiment 2) and in turn relate this variability to performance in categorical search. Across both experiments, higher category variability, and thus broader search templates, were associated with slower responses. Moreover, the observers most prioritized object template predicted their search performance better than other observers templates, indicating that individual differences in template variability shape visual search. Together, our findings demonstrate that naturalistic visual search is governed by structured variability across both object categories and observers.

Genetic variation contributes to individual differences in food liking and dietary behaviour. Genome-wide association studies (GWAS) have identified genetic variants associated with these traits, but most evidence comes from middle-aged and older populations. Young adulthood is a key life stage during which long-term dietary habits develop, yet the genetic basis of food liking during this period remains largely unexplored. We conducted GWAS of 97 food liking traits and two derived principal components (PCs) in 2,784 young adults (age 25) from the Avon Longitudinal Study of Parents and Children. The PCs captured broader food preference patterns reflecting preferences for diverse plant-based and seafood foods (PC1) and meat-based foods (PC2). GWAS identified 32 genome-wide significant associations across 24 traits. Cross-trait analyses indicated that several variants influenced liking across groups of related foods. For example, the lentil-associated variant rs76659918 showed associations with multiple foods, including honey, plain yogurt, chilli peppers, aubergines, avocado, and black olives, as well as PC1, whereas variants associated with bacon, burgers, and steak were linked to multiple meat-based foods and PC2. Exploratory analyses showed that TAS2R38 bitter-sensitive alleles were associated with lower liking for Brussels sprouts, with limited evidence for associations with other traits. Comparison with GWAS of food liking in the UK Biobank cohort (age 37-73) showed limited replication, with robust evidence only for the grapefruit-associated locus. This study identifies genetic variants associated with food liking in young adulthood and suggests that genetic influences operate at both the level of individual foods and broader food preference patterns.