#cognitive-science — Public Fediverse posts
Live and recent posts from across the Fediverse tagged #cognitive-science, aggregated by home.social.
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Large-Language Models as a Cognitive Virus
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DATE: September 5, 2026 at 07:00AM
SOURCE: PSYPOST.ORG** Research quality varies widely from fantastic to small exploratory studies. Please check research methods when conclusions are very important to you. **
-------------------------------------------------TITLE: Brain damage reveals how a specific region generates mind-wandering
URL: https://www.psypost.org/brain-damage-reveals-how-a-specific-region-generates-mind-wandering/
Damage to a specific area of the brain limits a person’s ability to let their mind wander, according to a small study. Researchers found that this frontal brain region is necessary for generating the internal thoughts and memories that pull our attention away from the present moment. The findings were published in the journal Neuropsychologia.
The human mind frequently detaches from the immediate environment to focus on internal matters, such as planning for the future or recalling past events. Psychologists refer to this phenomenon as stimulus-independent and task-unrelated thought. In everyday language, it is more commonly known as mind-wandering.
Brain imaging studies have linked mind-wandering to the default mode network. This is a group of interconnected brain regions that activate when a person is resting or engaged in internal mental processes. One specific region in this network is the ventromedial prefrontal cortex, an area located in the lower front of the brain.
Past research indicated that damage to the ventromedial prefrontal cortex reduces mind-wandering, but the exact mechanism remained elusive. Scientists debated whether this brain region actually generates the wandering thoughts, or if it simply allows a person to become aware that their mind has wandered. A team of researchers based in Italy, led by Elisa Ciaramelli of the University of Bologna, designed an experiment to test these competing ideas.
If the ventromedial prefrontal cortex only controls a person’s awareness of their thoughts, damage to the region would cause individuals to underreport all types of distractions. However, if the region is responsible for generating internal thoughts, patients would specifically lack mind-wandering while still noticing external distractions. The researchers recruited 42 participants for a small study to investigate this distinction.
The study sample included nine patients with localized damage to the ventromedial prefrontal cortex. The researchers also included a control group of 14 patients with brain damage in other areas, along with a second control group of 19 healthy adults.
In the first phase of the experiment, known as the standard condition, participants completed a repetitive attention task on a computer. They watched a screen and pressed a button every time a pattern of vertical lines appeared among frequent patterns of horizontal lines.
Roughly every 40 trials, the program paused and asked the participants to rate their attention. If participants reported that their attention had drifted away from the task, they had to categorize the nature of the distraction.
Participants noted whether their distraction was an internal thought, a thought related to the repetitive nature of the task itself, or an external distraction like a noise in the room. If they reported an internal thought, they also specified whether the mental image was focused on the past, the present, or the future.
The patients with damage to the ventromedial prefrontal cortex reported drastically fewer internal thoughts compared to both the healthy adults and the other brain-damaged patients. They specifically lacked wandering thoughts focused on the past and the future.
These patients experienced the same amount of task-related thoughts and external distractions as the other groups. This suggests that their brains could still lose focus on the main activity, but they lacked the internal mental content needed to drift into true mind-wandering.
In a separate phase of the experiment, called the cued condition, the researchers altered the repetitive line task. Random cue words like the word seaside occasionally appeared on the screen beneath the center fixation point.
These words were designed to act as subtle triggers for autobiographical memories and wandering thoughts. When the thought probes appeared in this version of the task, participants could report if their mind-wandering had been sparked by one of the specific cue words.
When provided with these external cues, patients with damage to the ventromedial prefrontal cortex still struggled to generate wandering thoughts. They reported fewer internal thoughts triggered by the cue words than the healthy adults did.
As in the first experiment, this reduction was isolated to internal mind-wandering. The patients continued to report typical levels of external distractions and thoughts regarding the test itself.
The combined results indicate that the ventromedial prefrontal cortex is necessary for the spontaneous construction of internal events. The researchers propose that without this brain region initiating personal memories and future projections, a person’s attention is less likely to turn inward.
This finding aligns with the idea that the ventromedial prefrontal cortex helps build the mental scenes that fuel our daydreams. Because the patients retained the ability to notice external distractions, their lack of mind-wandering cannot be explained by a general failure to monitor their own thoughts.
The small number of participants in the study limits the sensitivity of the statistical analysis, meaning subtle differences between the patient groups might have gone undetected. The study format also required participants to be self-aware enough to categorize their own thoughts when prompted by the computer.
Future research will need to measure instances where people spontaneously catch themselves daydreaming, rather than relying on external computer prompts. This would help researchers confirm that the reported lack of mind-wandering holds true across different methods of measuring human attention.
Researchers might also investigate how this specific type of brain damage impacts daily functioning. A reduced capacity for mind-wandering could limit a person’s ability to plan for the future, reflect on past experiences, and engage in creative problem solving.
The study, “vmPFC damage reduces mind-wandering, but not other classes of off-task thought,” was authored by Elisa Ciaramelli, Virginia Pollarini, Andrea Crisafulli, Alessia Ferretti, and Manila Vannucci.
URL: https://www.psypost.org/brain-damage-reveals-how-a-specific-region-generates-mind-wandering/
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#psychology #counseling #socialwork #psychotherapy @psychotherapist @psychotherapists @psychology @socialpsych @socialwork @psychiatry #mentalhealth #psychiatry #healthcare #depression #psychotherapist #MindWandering #vmPFC #VentromedialPrefrontalCortex #BrainDamage #Neuroscience #DefaultModeNetwork #AutobiographicalMemory #InternalThoughts #FuturePlanning #CognitiveScience
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DATE: September 4, 2026 at 07:33AM
SOURCE: SCIENCE DAILY MIND-BRAIN FEEDTITLE: A longer exhale may push your brain toward bolder decisions
URL: https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2026/09/260904000320.htm
Slow breathing with a prolonged exhale made people more willing to take risks by changing heart activity and increasing the brain’s sensitivity to rewards. The findings suggest that something as simple as controlling your breath can directly influence how you evaluate choices.
URL: https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2026/09/260904000320.htm
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#psychology #counseling #socialwork #psychotherapy @psychotherapist @psychotherapists @psychology @socialpsych @socialwork @psychiatry #mentalhealth #psychiatry #healthcare #depression #psychotherapist #Breathwork #LongExhale #RiskTaking #DecisionMaking #BrainChemistry #HeartRateVariability #RewardSensitivity #CognitiveScience #MindfulBreathing #BoldChoices
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Beautiful people, deadline for submission to AICS2026 has been extended to September 10th.
We are accepting full papers as well as students paper and previously published works (NECTAR Track).
www.aics2026.com
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Submissions are flowing in for the 34th Irish Conference on Artificial Intelligence🤖 and Cognitive Science🧠. Can't wait to see (and host) you all in Dublin 🇮🇪 in October!
Registration info going live soon!
www.aics2026.com
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DATE: August 31, 2026 at 11:54PM
SOURCE: SCIENCE DAILY MIND-BRAIN FEEDTITLE: Scientists find a human-only gene that may help explain our brainpower
URL: https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2026/08/260831015141.htm
Scientists discovered that human microglia, immune cells that help shape developing brain circuits, can take four to eight years to mature instead of just weeks as they do in mice. The unusually slow process may help explain how the human brain develops its remarkable complexity and cognitive abilities.
URL: https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2026/08/260831015141.htm
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#psychology #counseling #socialwork #psychotherapy @psychotherapist @psychotherapists @psychology @socialpsych @socialwork @psychiatry #mentalhealth #psychiatry #healthcare #depression #psychotherapist #HumanBrain #Microglia #BrainDevelopment #CognitiveScience #Neuroscience #BrainMaturation #HumanUniqueness #Neurology #BrainResearch #Genetics
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DATE: August 31, 2026 at 08:53AM
SOURCE: SCIENCE DAILY PSYCHOLOGY FEEDTITLE: Scientists challenge a 70-year-old “lizard brain” myth
URL: https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2026/08/260829235958.htm
A long-standing picture of brain evolution as newer, rational layers stacked on top of an ancient “lizard brain” may be deeply misleading. Researchers found that evolution instead appears to balance two competing styles of brain wiring, expanding one while shrinking the other depending on what an animal needs to survive.
URL: https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2026/08/260829235958.htm
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#psychology #counseling #socialwork #psychotherapy @psychotherapist @psychotherapists @psychology @socialpsych @socialwork @psychiatry #mentalhealth #psychiatry #healthcare #depression #psychotherapist #BrainEvolution #LizardBrainMyth #Neuroscience #BrainWiring #EvolutionaryBiology #ScienceNews #ResearchUpdate #AnimalBrains #NeuralNetworks #CognitiveScience
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DATE: August 31, 2026 at 08:53AM
SOURCE: SCIENCE DAILY MIND-BRAIN FEEDTITLE: Scientists challenge a 70-year-old “lizard brain” myth
URL: https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2026/08/260829235958.htm
A long-standing picture of brain evolution as newer, rational layers stacked on top of an ancient “lizard brain” may be deeply misleading. Researchers found that evolution instead appears to balance two competing styles of brain wiring, expanding one while shrinking the other depending on what an animal needs to survive.
URL: https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2026/08/260829235958.htm
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#psychology #counseling #socialwork #psychotherapy @psychotherapist @psychotherapists @psychology @socialpsych @socialwork @psychiatry #mentalhealth #psychiatry #healthcare #depression #psychotherapist #BrainEvolution #LizardBrainMyth #Neuroscience #BrainWiring #EvolutionaryBiology #ScienceNews #Neurobiology #AnimalBrains #CognitiveScience #MythBusting
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🧩🤖 What is #Mind? – Gottfried Vosgerau Discusses Natural and Artificial Consciousness
The question of what #Consciousness actually is ranks among the oldest and, at the same time, most difficult problems in #Philosophy.
📎https://philosophies.de/index.php/2026/06/10/was-ist-geist/
📺 https://youtu.be/l_cOUOtL3wY
#PhilosophyOfMind #GottfriedVosgerau #Zoomposium #ArtificialConsciousness #Self-Representation #CognitiveScience #Agency #EmbodiedCognition #PredictiveProcessing #AI #MindAndBrain
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Is there any research already available on possible detrimental effects of #ai use on attention span?
I feel like using AI is just as bad on attention as YT shorts, but has the added factor of also introducing learned helplessness and would like to read up on the science behind it.
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In my daily walk (8 km/5 miles) I overheard a conversation about trimming a tree that let me to ponder about fuzzy communication, energy brain budgets, energy tokens, primary and secondary thoughts clusters, latent pathways and their budgets and how context in conversation may be created and budgeted. I must clarify that I know nothing about #neuroscience or #cognitivescience but I love the subject and ponder about things. 😄
Now I want to get “Networks of the Brain”
by Olaf Sporns -
Just one more week to apply for this terrific 3-year position in #CognitiveScience at #UCD School of #Philosophy! Closing date is midday local time on Friday, 4th September. Further details at: www.ucd.ie/philosophy/n... #CogSci #PhilMind #PhilNeuro #PhilPsych #PhilJobs
RE: https://bsky.app/profile/did:plc:5rbx6ew3gjgd25eujq4ywrdr/post/3mspnrzh4ex26
Lecturer/Assistant Professor i... -
Scientists Just Developed a New AI Modeled On The Human Brain It’s Outperforming LLMs Like ChatGPT At Reasoning Tasks
Eugene Mymrin/Getty Images Scientists have developed a new type of artificial intelligence (AI) model that can reason differently from most large language models (LLMs) like ChatGPT, resulting in much better performance in key benchmarks. The new reasoning AI, called a hierarchical reasoning model (HRM), is inspired by the hierarchical and multi-timescale processing in the human brain the way different brain regions integrate information over varying durations (from milliseconds to […] -
Icelandic 'search' vs 'find': leita does it all — concrete objects, people, abstract goals like meaning or work. But 'find' is fragmented: finna covers most, reka marks surprise finds, uppgötva for discoveries, hitta for meetings. A neat typological case of asymmetry.
📄 https://nevmenandr.github.io/portfolio/assets/pdf/iceland_search.pdf
#Icelandic #Linguistics #Semantics #Typology #CognitiveScience
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🧩💭 The Mind-Body Problem – What Neuroscientists Really Say
Is the idea that our mental #will controls physical #actions an outdated form of #dualism? And is everything in the brain really strictly determined?
📺 https://youtu.be/TPCADLkSBWM
👉 https://philosophies.de/index.php/2024/03/12/grenzen_physik_psychologie
#MindBodyProblem #Consciousness #Neuroscience #PhysicsAndPsychology #WalterVonLucadou #Zoomposium #Philosophy #MindBrain #Embodiment #SystemsTheory #FreeWill #CognitiveScience #JohnDylanHaynes
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Call for Papers for the 34th Irish Conference on Artificial Intelligence and Cognitive Science (AICS 2026) is out now on our website aics2026.com.
Registration infos and submission portal are gonna be live in the coming days.
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The same words can support different interpretations depending on context.
The PUTMAN Model explores a computational approach to meaning reconstruction: how context, relationships, and prior structure influence interpretation.
The Interpretive Debugger makes part of that process visible — showing contextual links, competing interpretations, pruning, and deviation.
Paper:
https://zenodo.org/records/18651588Live Demo:
https://putmanmodel.github.io/putman-interpretive-debugger/#AI #AIAgents #NLP #CognitiveScience #OpenSource #Philosophy
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DATE: August 19, 2026 at 08:38PM
SOURCE: SCIENCE DAILY MIND-BRAIN FEEDTITLE: Researchers reveal deeper workings of brain’s information hub
URL: https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2026/08/260819041224.htm
The brain has a remarkably flexible system for handling uncertainty and changing situations. Researchers found that the frontoparietal cortex constantly shifts how it communicates with other brain regions depending on what information is needed to make a decision. Rather than simply becoming more active when things get difficult, this network appears to reorganize itself in real time.
URL: https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2026/08/260819041224.htm
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#psychology #counseling #socialwork #psychotherapy @psychotherapist @psychotherapists @psychology @socialpsych @socialwork @psychiatry #mentalhealth #psychiatry #healthcare #depression #psychotherapist #BrainResearch #FrontoparietalCortex #Neuroscience #DecisionMaking #UncertaintyProcessing #BrainConnectivity #NeuralNetworks #CognitiveScience #RealTimeReorganization #InformationHub
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I discuss a podcast by Kristen Lindquist, who does a fantastic job dismantling some misunderstandings of the relationship between emotions and the brain, but her reconstructions are equally suspect.
https://brywillis634737.substack.com/p/the-net-and-the-sea
Link to source podcast on Substack.
#philosophy #psychology #language #metaphysics #constructivism #substack #blog #podcast #emotions #cognitivescience #cognition #determinism #phenomena #amnesia #brain #anger #fear
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Chain-of-Thought Reasoning in the Wild Is Not Always Faithful
https://arxiv.org/abs/2503.08679
Comments: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49363587
#HackerNews #ChainOfThought #Reasoning #AI #Research #Faithfulness #CognitiveScience
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DATE: August 18, 2026 at 12:40PM
SOURCE: SCIENCE DAILY MIND-BRAIN FEEDTITLE: Mysterious waves sweeping across your brain may help turn sensory chaos into what you see
URL: https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2026/08/260816044827.htm
Traveling electrical waves sweeping across the brain may help determine what we notice, predict what comes next, and construct our internal picture of the world. Researchers now argue that these waves aren't just background activity—they could be a core computational engine behind perception and memory.
URL: https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2026/08/260816044827.htm
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#psychology #counseling #socialwork #psychotherapy @psychotherapist @psychotherapists @psychology @socialpsych @socialwork @psychiatry #mentalhealth #psychiatry #healthcare #depression #psychotherapist #BrainWaves #PerceptionScience #Neuroscience #CognitiveScience #SensoryProcessing #MemoryFormation #NeuralOscillations #BrainResearch #PredictiveCoding #NeuroscienceFindings
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Alright, future engineers!
**Interleaving:** Mix different subjects/problem types during one study session.
Ex: Don't just do Chapter 1 problems. Do some from Ch1, then Ch3, then Ch1 again.
Pro-Tip: Builds flexible problem-solving & helps differentiate similar concepts.
#StudySmart #CognitiveScience #STEM #StudyNotes -
The brain uses flexible, multipurpose neural circuits—specifically in the prefrontal cortex—that can be repurposed to store different types of information, such as sensory inputs or action plans, rather than relying on separate, dedicated neurons for every distinct task.
#Neuroscience #CognitiveScience #ComputationalNeuroscience #sflorg
https://www.sflorg.com/2026/08/ns08172601.html -
DATE: August 16, 2026 at 08:02AM
SOURCE: SCIENCE DAILY PSYCHIATIRY FEEDTITLE: A little movement in midlife could pay off for your brain years later
URL: https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2026/08/260814235839.htm
Exercise and healthy blood sugar levels in midlife may help slow cognitive decline decades later. Physical activity appeared especially beneficial for Mexican American adults, suggesting that some brain-protective factors may differ across populations.
URL: https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2026/08/260814235839.htm
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#psychology #counseling #socialwork #psychotherapy @psychotherapist @psychotherapists @psychology @socialpsych @socialwork @psychiatry #mentalhealth #psychiatry #healthcare #depression #psychotherapist #midlifehealth #brainhealth #cognitivescience #exerciseandbrain #bloodsugarcontrol #preventalzheimers #lateinamericanshealth #physicalactivity #neuroprotection #healthyaging
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Full disclosure: I've long been suspicious of psychology and its claims. Sabine Hossenfelder points out how psychology corrupts neuroscience and cognitive science. At least that's my take.
#philosophy #psychology #cognitivescience #neuroscience #agency #substack #blog #essay #fMRI #scepticism #pseudoscience #tarot #ontology #methodology
Post not endorsed by Sabine Hossenfelder, though I appreciate her prompts.
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DATE: August 13, 2026 at 01:40AM
SOURCE: SCIENCE DAILY MIND-BRAIN FEEDTITLE: Human brain cells are far more powerful than scientists thought
URL: https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2026/08/260812015216.htm
A single human brain cell may be far more powerful than scientists once realized. Researchers found that cortical neurons can perform remarkably complex computations, giving them capabilities more like tiny biological computers than simple on-off switches. This could help explain why the human brain supports abilities such as language, imagination, and mathematics.
URL: https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2026/08/260812015216.htm
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#psychology #counseling #socialwork #psychotherapy @psychotherapist @psychotherapists @psychology @socialpsych @socialwork @psychiatry #mentalhealth #psychiatry #healthcare #depression #psychotherapist #BrainPower #Neuroscience #CorticalNeurons #BrainComputers #HumanBrain #NeuralComputations #LanguageImaginationMath #BiologicalComputers #CognitiveScience #BrainResearch