Neuromatch Academy: a 3-week, online summer school in computational neuroscience

Neuromatch Academy (https://academy.neuromatch.io; (van Viegen et al., 2021)) was designed as an online summer school to cover the basics of computational neuroscience in three weeks. The materials cover dominant and emerging computational neuroscience tools, how they complement one another, and specifically focus on how they can help us to better understand how the brain functions. An original component of the materials is its focus on modeling choices, i.e. how do we choose the right approach, how do we build models, and how can we evaluate models to determine if they provide real (meaningful) insight. This meta-modeling component of the instructional materials asks what questions can be answered by different techniques, and how to apply them meaningfully to get insight about brain function

Trait Somatic Anxiety is Associated With Reduced Directed Exploration and Underestimation of Uncertainty

Anxiety has been related to decreased physical exploration, but past findings on the interaction between anxiety and exploration during decision-making were inconclusive. Here, we examined how latent factors of trait anxiety relate to different exploration strategies when facing volatility-induced uncertainty. Across two studies (total N = 985), we demonstrated that people used a hybrid of directed, random, and undirected exploration strategies, which were respectively sensitive to relative uncertainty, total uncertainty, and value difference. The somatic factor of trait anxiety, i.e. the propensity to experience physical symptoms of anxiety, was inversely correlated with directed exploration and undirected exploration, manifesting as being less likely to choose the uncertain option and reducing choice stochasticity regardless of uncertainty. Somatic anxiety is also associated with underestimation of relative uncertainty. Together, these results reveal the selective role of trait somatic anxiety in modulating both uncertainty-driven and value-driven exploration strategies

Emotion Language Use in Narratives of the 9/11 Attacks Predicts Long-Term Memory

Despite considerable cognitive neuroscience research demonstrating that emotions can influence the encoding and consolidation of memory, research has failed to demonstrate a relationship between self-reported ratings of emotions collected soon after a traumatic event and memory for the event over time. This secondary analysis of data from a multi-site longitudinal study of memories of the 9/11/2001 terrorist attacks, asked the question of whether emotional language use could predict memory over time. In the two weeks following the 9/11 attacks, participants (N = 691; mean age 36.8; 72% identifying as male; 76% identifying as white) wrote narratives about how they learned of the attacks and the impact of the attacks on them. Language features of these narratives were extracted using the Linguistic Inquiry Word Count program and used to predict three types of memory: (1) event memory accuracy, (2) flashbulb memory consistency, and (3) emotion memory consistency. These outcomes were assessed at the time of writing, one, three, and 10 years after the 9/11 attacks. Results of linear mixed-effects models indicate that greater use of negative emotion words in narratives predicts better event memory accuracy three and 10 years after the attacks and worse flashbulb memory consistency 10 years after the attacks. However, emotion word use did not predict emotion memory consistency across time. We also examine whether other exploratory linguistic predictors are associated with memory over time. These findings suggest that assessing language usage may serve as a potential early indicator of memory over time

Pupil size encodes uncertainty during exploration

Exploration is an important part of decision making and is crucial to maximizing long-term reward. Past work has shown that people use different forms of uncertainty to guide exploration. In this study, we investigate the role of the pupil-linked arousal system in uncertainty-guided exploration. We measured participants’ pupil dilation (N = 48) while they performed a two- armed bandit task. Consistent with previous work, we found that people adopted a hybrid of directed, random and undirected exploration, which are sensitive to relative uncertainty, total uncertainty and value difference between options, respectively. We also found a positive correlation between pupil size and total uncertainty. Furthermore, augmenting the choice model with subject-specific total uncertainty estimates decoded from the pupil size improved predictions of held-out choices, suggesting that people used the uncertainty estimate encoded in pupil size to decide which option to explore Together, the data shed light on the computations underlying uncertainty-driven exploration. Under the assumption that pupil size reflects Locus Coeruleus-Norepinephrine (LC-NE) neuromodulatory activity, these results also extend the theory of LC-NE function in exploration, highlighting its selective role in driving uncertainty- guided random exploration

How beliefs around peers’ risk preferences get incorporated into adolescents’ decision making

Underlying various routes to peer influence on risky choices is the assumption that individuals have beliefs around their peer’s preferences which are incorporated in their choices. However, much is unknown about the accuracy of these beliefs and how they weigh in individuals’ considerations. We tested these implicit assumptions by actually collecting real-life peers’ preference to contrast with people’s prediction, and quantifying what changes when individuals were asked to take the peer’s perspective as the decision-maker instead of themselves. Since perspective taking develops through late adolescence, adolescence makes an especially dynamic window for observation. With a sample of typically developing friend dyads (N=128, 12.0-22.8 years), we collected fully mutual data on decision preferences in an economic risky decision making task with safe (certain) and risky (more variable outcomes) options that vary in their expected values. Upon establishing individuals’ baseline risk preferences and their prediction of their peers’ risk preferences, they took their own and their peers’ perspective in choices where their unchosen option was assigned to the peer. We modified an economic expected utility model to include a new parameter representing the adjudication between one’s own and friend’s outcome, and analyzed age-related changes with Generalized Additive Models. We found although peer’s risk preferences were overestimated in decisions on average, participants aged 16-22 years weighed friend outcome more and earned less when taking their friend’s perspective compared to their own, indicating this is a heightened period for prosocial considerations

Overestimating the intensity of negative emotion in autobiographical memory: evidence from the 9/11 attack and Covid-19 pandemic

Project examining how well negative emotions are remembered 1 year after initial intake across two different events: 9/11 and Covid-1

Overestimating the intensity of negative feelings in autobiographical memory: Evidence from the 9/11 attack and COVID-19 pandemic

When recalling autobiographical events, people not only retrieve event details but also the feelings they experienced. The current study examined whether people are able to consistently recall the intensity of past feelings associated with two consequential and negatively valenced events, i.e. the 9/11 attack (N = 769) and the COVID-19 pandemic (N = 726). By comparing experienced and recalled intensities of negative feelings, we discovered that people systematically recall a higher intensity of negative feelings than initially reported – overestimating the intensity of past negative emotional experiences. The COVID-19 dataset also revealed that individuals who experienced greater improvement in emotional well- being displayed smaller biases in recalling their feelings. Across both datasets, the intensity of remembered feelings was correlated with initial feelings and current feelings, but the impact of the current feelings was stronger in the COVID-19 dataset than in the 9/11 dataset. Our results demonstrate that when recalling negative autobiographical events, people tend to overestimate the intensity of prior negative emotional experiences with their degree of bias influenced by current feelings and well-being