Publications in Behavioral Science & Comparative Psychology by NOMIS researchers

Binary climate data visuals amplify perceived impact of climate change

NOMIS Researcher(s)

April 17, 2025

Details

For much of the global population, climate change appears as a slow, gradual shift in daily weather. This leads many to perceive its impacts as minor and results in apathy (the ‘boiling frog’ effect). How can we convey the urgency of the crisis when its impacts appear so subtle? Here, through a series of large-scale cognitive experiments (N = 799), we find that presenting people with binary climate data (for example, lake freeze history) significantly increases the perceived impact of climate change (Cohen’s d = 0.40, 95% confidence interval 0.26–0.54) compared with continuous data (for example, mean temperature). Computational modelling and follow-up experiments (N = 398) suggest that binary data enhance perceived impact by creating an ‘illusion’ of sudden shifts. Crucially, our approach does not involve selective data presentation but rather compares different datasets that reflect equivalent trends in climate change over time. These findings, robustly replicated across multiple experiments, provide a cognitive basis for the ‘boiling frog’ effect and offer a psychologically grounded approach for policymakers and educators to improve climate change communication while maintaining scientific accuracy.

Research field(s)
Information & Communication Technologies, Psychology & Cognitive Sciences, Behavioral Science & Comparative Psychology

DOI
10.1038/s41562-025-02183-9

A hypothalamic circuit underlying the dynamic control of social homeostasis

NOMIS Researcher(s)

Published in Nature

February 26, 2025

Details

Social grouping increases survival in many species, including humans^1,2. By contrast, social isolation generates an aversive state (‘loneliness’) that motivates social seeking and heightens social interaction upon reunion^3,4,5. The observed rebound in social interaction triggered by isolation suggests a homeostatic process underlying the control of social need, similar to physiological drives such as hunger, thirst or sleep^3,6. In this study, we assessed social responses in several mouse strains, among which FVB/NJ mice emerged as highly, and C57BL/6J mice as moderately, sensitive to social isolation. Using both strains, we uncovered two previously uncharacterized neuronal populations in the hypothalamic preoptic nucleus that are activated during either social isolation or social rebound and orchestrate the behaviour display of social need and social satiety, respectively. We identified direct connectivity between these two populations and with brain areas associated with social behaviour, emotional state, reward and physiological needs and showed that mice require touch to assess the presence of others and fulfil their social need. These data show a brain-wide neural system underlying social homeostasis and provide significant mechanistic insights into the nature and function of circuits controlling instinctive social need and for the understanding of healthy and diseased brain states associated with social context.

Research field(s)
Neuroscience, Biochemistry & Molecular Biology, Behavioral Science & Comparative Psychology

DOI
10.1038/s41586-025-08617-8

Biased expectations about future choice options predict sequential economic decisions

NOMIS Researcher(s)

Published in Communications Psychology

December 18, 2024

Details

Considerable research has shown that people make biased decisions in “optimal stopping problems”, where options are encountered sequentially, and there is no opportunity to recall rejected options or to know upcoming options in advance (e.g. when flat hunting or choosing a spouse). Here, we used computational modelling to identify the mechanisms that best explain decision bias in the context of an especially realistic version of this problem: the full-information problem. We eliminated a number of factors as potential instigators of bias. Then, we examined sequence length and payoff scheme: two manipulations where an optimality model recommends adjusting the sampling rate. Here, participants were more reluctant to increase their sampling rates when it was optimal to do so, leading to increased undersampling bias. Our comparison of several computational models of bias demonstrates that many participants maintain these relatively low sampling rates because of suboptimally pessimistic expectations about the quality of future options (i.e. a mis-specified prior distribution). These results support a new theory about how humans solve full information problems. Understanding the causes of decision error could enhance how we conduct real world sequential searches for options, for example how online shopping or dating applications present options to users.

Research field(s)
Behavioral Science & Comparative Psychology

DOI
10.1038/s44271-024-00172-8

From the body’s viscera to the body’s image: Is there a link between interoception and body image concerns?

NOMIS Researcher(s)

Published in Neuroscience and Biobehavioral Reviews

June 1, 2017

Details

Interoception, the sense of the physiological condition of the body originating from within its internal organs, and body image, namely the perception, feelings and attitudes one has about one’s body, are two fundamental components of our sense of personal identity and overall well-being. However, the relation between interoception and body image remains poorly understood. We here review recent behavioural and neuroimaging evidence from non-clinical and clinical populations (e.g. eating disorders) to propose that basic interoceptive processes and interoceptive awareness may crucially contribute to the complex formation of body image, as well as to its disturbances. In particular, lower interoceptive accuracy and awareness are associated with body-image concerns. We provide a potential mechanistic explanation of the link between interoception and body image, which aims to integrate interoceptive and exteroceptive representations of the body. The suggested link between interoception and body image can inform new empirically testable hypotheses on the underlying neurocognitive processes that are central to body image concerns and disturbances, and motivate relevant clinical implications.

Research field(s)
Health Sciences, Psychology & Cognitive Sciences, Behavioral Science & Comparative Psychology

DOI
10.1016/j.neubiorev.2017.03.017

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