A Phone in a Basket Looks Like a Knife in a Cup: Role-Filler Independence in Visual Processing.

When a piece of fruit is in a bowl, and the bowl is on a table, we appreciate not only the individual objects and their features, but also the relations containment and support, which abstract away from the particular objects involved. Independent representation of roles (e.g., containers vs. supporters) and "fillers" of those roles (e.g., bowls vs. cups, tables vs. chairs) is a core principle of language and higher-level reasoning. But does such role-filler independence also arise in automatic visual processing? Here, we show that it does, by exploring a surprising error that such independence can produce. In four experiments, participants saw a stream of images containing different objects arranged in force-dynamic relations-e.g., a phone contained in a basket, a marker resting on a garbage can, or a knife sitting in a cup. Participants had to respond to a single target image (e.g., a phone in a basket) within a stream of distractors presented under time constraints. Surprisingly, even though participants completed this task quickly and accurately, they false-alarmed more often to images matching the target's relational category than to those that did not-even when those images involved completely different objects. In other words, participants searching for a phone in a basket were more likely to mistakenly respond to a knife in a cup than to a marker on a garbage can. Follow-up experiments ruled out strategic responses and also controlled for various confounding image features. We suggest that visual processing represents relations abstractly, in ways that separate roles from fillers.

Improving dependability in science: A critique on the psychometric qualities of the HiTOP psychosis superspectrum.

We reevaluated HiTOP's existing factor analytic evidence-base for a Psychosis (P) superspectrum as encompassing two psychosis-relevant subfactors ("spectra")-Thought Disorder (TD) and Detachment (D). We found that their data did not support P as a superspectrum with TD and D subfactors. Instead, TD contained both positive and negative symptoms of psychosis and emerged at the subfactor level. D did not target negative symptoms but, largely, disorders unrelated to psychosis and should not be placed under P. Determining if P is truly a superspectrum with psychosis TD and D subfactors will require factor analyses whose items are symptom-based and span the full range of psychopathology. Secondly, HiTOP authors state that TD and D provide a "nearly 2-fold" improvement in reliability over schizophrenia diagnoses but, after aligning the comparative study methodologies, this 2-fold improvement disappears. Finally, HiTOP's use of the term thought disorder is inconsistent with the ICD-11 and psychosis literature, in which it refers to formal thought disorder. We recommend that HiTOP (a) refer to P as a subfactor with positive and negative symptoms of psychosis until research indicates otherwise, (b) regularly rely on formal systematic reviews, (c) use appropriate reliability comparisons, (d) deconflate D with negative symptoms, and (e) rename TD.

Risk of suicide and suicide-related events in subjects treated with antiseizure medications.

INTRODUCTION: In the United States, it is reported that 1.4% of the general population commits suicide. It has been postulated that antiseizure medications (ASMs) can lead to the development of suicidal ideation and suicidal behavior; however, this risk is still very low and has yet to be precisely established. AREAS COVERED: This narrative review evaluates the risk of suicide-related events (SREs) in subjects taking ASMs for various neurological disorders. Screening tools for suicidal ideation and suicidal behavior are also discussed. References for this article were found using PubMed/MEDLINE. EXPERT OPINION: Although some ASMs can be associated with SREs, this is not yet clearly established. The mechanisms involved in suicide risk in subjects taking ASMs are multifactorial. The bidirectional relationship between depression and epilepsy, as well as other associations, should be kept in mind when interpreting any impact of ASMs in PWE. Screening for SREs, close monitoring of subjects taking ASMs are the most appropriate strategies to minimize suicide risk. More efforts should be made to achieve accurate risk stratification through prognostic models that could be applied to subjects taking ASMs. Studies exploring the association between ASMs and suicide should consider ASMs individually and control for prior SREs.

Early-emerging combinatorial thought: Human infants flexibly combine kind and quantity concepts.

Combinatorial thought, or the ability to combine a finite set of concepts into a myriad of complex ideas and knowledge structures, is the key to the productivity of the human mind and underlies communication, science, technology, and art. Despite the importance of combinatorial thought for human cognition and culture, its developmental origins remain unknown. To address this, we tested whether 12-mo-old infants (N = 60), who cannot yet speak and only understand a handful of words, can combine quantity and kind concepts activated by verbal input. We proceeded in two steps: first, we taught infants two novel labels denoting quantity (e.g., "mize" for 1 item; "padu" for 2 items, Experiment 1). Then, we assessed whether they could combine quantity and kind concepts upon hearing complex expressions comprising their labels (e.g., "padu duck", Experiments 2-3). At test, infants viewed four different sets of objects (e.g., 1 duck, 2 ducks, 1 ball, 2 balls) while being presented with the target phrase (e.g., "padu duck") naming one of them (e.g., 2 ducks). They successfully retrieved and combined on-line the labeled concepts, as evidenced by increased looking to the named sets but not to distractor sets. Our results suggest that combinatorial processes for building complex representations are available by the end of the first year of life. The infant mind seems geared to integrate concepts in novel productive ways. This ability may be a precondition for deciphering the ambient language(s) and building abstract models of experience that enable fast and flexible learning.

Deciphering language disturbances in schizophrenia: A study using fine-tuned language models.

This research presents two stable language metrics, namely Successful Prediction Rate (SPR) and Disfluency (DF), to objectively quantify the linguistic disturbances associated with schizophrenia. These novel language metrics can capture both off-topic responses and incoherence in patients' speech by modeling speech information and fine-tuning techniques. Additionally, these metrics exhibit cultural sensitivity while providing a more comprehensive evaluation of linguistic abnormalities in schizophrenia. This research fine-tuned the ELECTRA Pretrained Language Model on a 750 MB text corpus obtained from major Chinese mental health forums. The effectiveness of the fine-tuned language model is verified on a group comprising 38 individuals diagnosed with schizophrenia and 25 meticulously matched healthy controls. The study explores the association between the fine-tuned language model and the Positive and Negative Syndrome Scale (PANSS) items. The results demonstrate that SPR is higher in healthy controls, indicating better language understanding by the pre-trained language model. Conversely, DF is higher in individuals with schizophrenia, indicating more inconsistent language structure. The relationship between linguistic features and P2 (conceptual disorganization) reveals that patients with positive P2 exhibit lower SPR and higher DF. Binary logistic regression using the combined SPR and DF features achieves 84.5 % accuracy in classifying P2, exceeding the performance of traditional features by 20.5 %. Moreover, the proposed linguistic features outperform traditional linguistic features in discriminating FTD (formal thought disorder), as demonstrated by multivariate linear regression analysis.

Acupressure in Psychotherapy as an Unsinkable Rubber Duck: A reply to.

In a recent publication entitled "Integrating the Manual Stimulation of Acupuncture Points Into Psychotherapy: A Systematic Review with Clinical Recommendations," appearing in this journal, Feinstein (2023) aims to aggregate the evidence on Emotional Freedom Techniques (EFT) across the "hierarchy of evidence." EFT is based on the premise that tapping facilitates alterations in "energy meridians" and that these alterations reduce psychological symptoms or disorders. This commentary addresses several concerns with the Feinstein (2023) review including the pseudoscientific concept of energy meridians, the lack of evidence that tapping on acupressure points is the active ingredient that resolves psychological disorders, serious methodological flaws with EFT research, and the incompatibility of EFT with the ethical practice of psychology. Thus, we disagree with Feinstein's (2023) conclusion that "The body of research on acupoint tapping that has emerged over the past two decades and the increasing quality of the study designs appears promising" (p. 61) and instead argue that EFT represents a pseudoscientific, "unsinkable rubber duck" (i.e., a belief that people continue to hold despite evidence to the contrary).

Examining the predictive utility of suicidal ideation characteristics in relation to real-time monitoring of suicidal ideation and suicide attempts at follow-up.

INTRODUCTION: Several characteristics of suicidal ideation, including frequency, duration, perceived controllability, and intensity, have been identified. The present study examined whether these characteristics of baseline suicidal ideation uniquely predicted (1) the severity, variability, and frequency of suicidal ideation assessed through real-time monitoring; and (2) suicide attempts at 3-week and 6-month follow-up among recently discharged psychiatric inpatients. METHODS: A sample of 249 adults (Mage = 40.43, 55.1% female, 91.4% White) completed a baseline assessment of their suicidal ideation characteristics during psychiatric hospitalization, five daily ecological momentary assessments (EMA) for 21 days following discharge, and follow-up assessments of suicide-related outcomes at 3-week and 6-month follow-up. RESULTS: Perceived controllability of suicidal thoughts was uniquely associated with the variability of EMA-assessed suicidal ideation and the presence of suicide attempts at 3-week, but not 6-month follow-up. No other characteristic of baseline suicidal ideation was uniquely associated with EMA-assessed suicidal ideation or the presence of suicide attempts at follow-up. CONCLUSIONS: Given links between the perceived controllability of suicidal ideation and (1) momentary variability of suicidal ideation and (2) suicide attempts over the subsequent 3 weeks, perceived controllability of suicidal thinking may be a useful marker of short-term risk that may be malleable to clinical intervention.

Why do we think? The dynamics of spontaneous thought reveal its functions.

Spontaneous thought-mind wandering, daydreaming, and creative ideation-makes up most of everyday cognition. Is this idle thought, or does it serve an adaptive function? We test two hypotheses about the functions of spontaneous thought: First, spontaneous thought improves memory efficiency. Under this hypothesis, spontaneous thought should prioritize detailed, vivid episodic simulations. Second, spontaneous thought helps us achieve our goals. Under this hypothesis, spontaneous thought should prioritize content relevant to ongoing goal pursuits, or current concerns. We use natural language processing and machine learning to quantify the dynamics of thought in a large sample (N = 3,359) of think aloud data. Results suggest that spontaneous thought both supports memory optimization and keeps us focused on current concerns.

Relationship between Thought Style, Emotional Response, Post-Traumatic Growth (PTG), and Biomarkers in Cancer Patients.

(1) Introduction: Cancer diagnosis has been related to depression, anxiety, and distress, as well as to post-traumatic growth (PTG). One of the mediating variables for emotional response is thought style (rumination, cognitive avoidance, and cognitive engagement). (2) Aim: To identify the relationship between thought style and emotional responses to cancer. A secondary aim was to identify the relationship between emotional responses and inflammatory immunological biomarkers. (3) Method: A total of 115 patients with cancer were included in the study. Before initiating cancer treatment, patients were assessed using the Hospital Anxiety and Depression Scale (HADS), distress thermometer, and Post-Traumatic Growth Inventory (PTGI). Patients provided their most recent blood biometry. (4) Results: Rumination correlated with anxiety, depression, and distress. Cognitive avoidance correlated with PTG (-0.240) and distress (-0.209). Cognitive engagement correlated with PTG (0.393). Regarding thought style and biomarkers, a negative correlation was observed for absolute neutrophils with cognitive avoidance (-0.271) and rumination (0.305). Regarding biomarkers and emotional responses, there was a negative correlation between PTG and absolute lymphocytes (-0.291). There was also a correlation between PTG and neutrophils (0.357) and neutrophil-to-lymphocyte ratio (NLR) (0.295). (5) Conclusions: Thought style is related to the emotional response to a cancer diagnosis; rumination is related to depression, distress, and anxiety; and cognitive engagement is related to PTG. PTG is related to inflammation and immunological biomarkers.

Default mode network electrophysiological dynamics and causal role in creative thinking.

The default mode network (DMN) is a widely distributed, intrinsic brain network thought to play a crucial role in internally-directed cognition. The present study employs stereo-electroencephalography in 13 human patients, obtaining high resolution neural recordings across multiple canonical DMN regions during two processes that have been associated with creative thinking: spontaneous and divergent thought. We probe these two DMN-associated higher cognitive functions through mind wandering and alternate uses tasks, respectively. Our results reveal DMN recruitment during both tasks, as well as a task-specific dissociation in spatiotemporal response dynamics. When compared to the fronto-parietal network, DMN activity was characterized by a stronger increase in gamma band power (30-70 Hz) coupled with lower theta band power (4-8 Hz). The difference in activity between the two networks was especially strong during the mind wandering task. Within the DMN, we found that the tasks showed different dynamics, with the alternate uses task engaging the DMN more during the initial stage of the task, and mind wandering in the later stage. Gamma power changes were mainly driven by lateral DMN sites, while theta power displayed task-specific effects. During alternate uses task, theta changes did not show spatial differences within the DMN, while mind wandering was associated to an early lateral and late dorsomedial DMN engagement. Furthermore, causal manipulations of DMN regions using direct cortical stimulation preferentially decreased the originality of responses in the alternative uses task, without affecting fluency or mind wandering. Our results suggest that DMN activity is flexibly modulated as a function of specific cognitive processes and supports its causal role in divergent thinking. These findings shed light on the neural constructs supporting different forms of cognition and provide causal evidence for the role of DMN in the generation of original connections among concepts.

Eye Adult Changes in Thought (Eye ACT) Study: Design and Report on the Inaugural Cohort.

Background: Conflicting research on retinal biomarkers of Alzheimer's disease and related dementias (AD/ADRD) is likely related to limited sample sizes, study design, and protocol differences. Objective: The prospective Eye Adult Changes in Thought (Eye ACT) seeks to address these gaps. Methods: Eye ACT participants are recruited from ACT, an ongoing cohort of dementia-free, older adults followed biennially until AD/ADRD, and undergo visual function and retinal imaging assessment either in clinic or at home. Results: 330 participants were recruited as of 03/2023. Compared to ACT participants not in Eye ACT (N = 1868), Eye ACT participants (N = 330) are younger (mean age: 70.3 versus 71.2, p = 0.014), newer to ACT (median ACT visits since baseline: 3 versus 4, p < 0.001), have more years of education (17.7 versus 16.2, p < 0.001) and had lower rates of visual impairment (12% versus 22%, p < 0.001). Compared to those seen in clinic (N = 300), Eye ACT participants seen at home (N = 30) are older (77.2 versus 74.9, p = 0.015), more frequently female (60% versus 49%, p = 0.026), and have significantly worse visual acuity (71.1 versus 78.9 Early Treatment Diabetic Retinopathy Study letters, p < 0.001) and contrast sensitivity (-1.9 versus -2.1 mean log units at 3 cycles per degree, p = 0.002). Cognitive scores and retinal imaging measurements are similar between the two groups. Conclusions: Participants assessed at home had significantly worse visual function than those seen in clinic. By including these participants, Eye ACT provides a unique longitudinal cohort for evaluating potential retinal biomarkers of dementia.

A latent classes analysis to detect cognitive and emotional profiles in cancer patients.

Thought style has been described as a mediator between cancer diagnosis and the emotional response to cancer. Describe the latent profiles related to thought style (rumination, cognitive engagement, and cognitive avoidance) and emotional response in a sample of cancer patients. 159 cancer patients were assessed prior to starting treatment. Measurement instruments used were HADS, Cancer response thought style inventory, distress thermometer, and PTGI. Analysis of latent classes to explore profiles of who share the same thought style. The solution had 4 subgroups: first group was avoidance, the means for anxiety, depression and post-traumatic growth were the lowest of the four groups. The second group was rumination, presenting highest scores for anxiety, depression and post-traumatic growth. The third group was indeterminate, this group presented low anxiety and depression. The fourth group, with cognitive engagement presented low anxiety and depression and post-traumatic growth was high.

On second thoughts: Testing the underlying mechanisms of spontaneous future thought.

The human capacity to imagine possible future events unintentionally, with minimal cognitive effort, is termed spontaneous future thought (SFT). This paper addresses an important theoretical question for cognitive science: What are the possible cognitive mechanisms underlying such SFT experiences? We contrasted three hypotheses present in the literature: the online construction hypothesis, the recasting hypothesis, and the memories of future thoughts hypothesis. Study 1 (N = 41) used novel subjective ratings which challenged the recasting mechanism: SFTs were mostly rated as dissimilar to autobiographical memories, suggesting they are not simply past experiences 'recast' as future events. Study 2 (N = 90) used a novel experimental paradigm, comparing effects of voluntary episodic future constructions and non-personal narratives upon subsequent spontaneous thought sampling. Results suggested that voluntary future constructions remain accessible to spontaneous retrieval, supporting the memories of future thoughts hypothesis. This finding, and other data presented across the two studies, still indicates a role for online construction processes in SFT, but further empirical work is needed to clarify how and when constructive processes are engaged in SFT. Taken together, these two studies represent initial efforts to elucidate the mechanisms underlying SFT, providing the first proof-of-principle that deliberately envisioned future events can reappear, without intention, in consciousness at some later time, and further supporting the dual process account of future thinking. These methods and findings provide a firm basis for subsequent experimental and longitudinal research on SFT.

Effects of frequent assessments on the severity of suicidal thoughts: an ecological momentary assessment study.

Objective: In recent years, there has been a significant increase in research using ecological momentary assessment (EMA) to explore suicidal thoughts and behaviors (STBs). Meanwhile, concerns have been raised regarding the potential impacts of frequent and intense STBs assessments on the study participants. Methods: From November 2021 to June 2023, a total of 83 adolescent and young adult outpatients (Mage = 21.0, SDage = 6.3, 71.1% female), who were diagnosed with mood disorders, were recruited from three psychiatric clinics in China. Smartphone-based EMA was used to measure suicidal thoughts three times per day at randomly selected times. We examined the change of suicidal thoughts in each measurement and within 1 day to evaluate potential adverse effects using Bayesian multilevel models. Results: The 3,105 effective surveys were nested in 83 participants (median follow-up days: 14 days). The results of two-level models indicated that suicidal thoughts decreased during the monitoring period. However, this effect varied among different individuals in the two-level model. Conclusion: Our findings did not support the notion that repeated assessment of suicidal thoughts is iatrogenic, but future research should continue to investigate the impact of frequent assessment on suicidal thoughts, taking into account individual differences and utilizing larger sample sizes.

How Do You Know If You Were Mind Wandering? Dissociating Explicit Memories of Off Task Thought From Subjective Feelings of Inattention.

Mind wandering is a common experience in which your attention drifts away from the task at hand and toward task-unrelated thoughts. To measure mind wandering we typically use experience sampling and retrospective self-reports, which require participants to make metacognitive judgments about their immediately preceding attentional states. In the current study, we aimed to better understand how people come to make such judgments by introducing a novel distinction between explicit memories of off task thought and subjective feelings of inattention. Across two preregistered experiments, we found that participants often indicated they were "off task" and yet had no memory of the content of their thoughts-though, they were less common than remembered experiences. Critically, remembered experiences of mind wandering and subjective feelings of inattention differed in their behavioral correlates. In Experiment 1, we found that only the frequency of remembered mind wandering varied with task demands. In contrast, only subjective feelings of inattention were associated with poor performance (Experiments 1 and 2) and individual differences in executive functioning (Experiment 2). These results suggest that the phenomenology of mind wandering may differ depending on how the experiences are brought about (e.g., executive functioning errors versus excess attentional resources), and provide preliminary evidence of the importance of measuring subjective feelings of inattention when assessing mind wandering.

A comparison of chain-of-thought reasoning strategies across datasets and models.

Emergent chain-of-thought (CoT) reasoning capabilities promise to improve the performance and explainability of large language models (LLMs). However, uncertainties remain about how reasoning strategies formulated for previous model generations generalize to new model generations and different datasets. In this small-scale study, we compare different reasoning strategies induced by zero-shot prompting across six recently released LLMs (davinci-002, davinci-003, GPT-3.5-turbo, GPT-4, Flan-T5-xxl and Cohere command-xlarge). We test them on six question-answering datasets that require real-world knowledge application and logical verbal reasoning, including datasets from scientific and medical domains. Our findings demonstrate that while some variations in effectiveness occur, gains from CoT reasoning strategies remain robust across different models and datasets. GPT-4 benefits the most from current state-of-the-art reasoning strategies and performs best by applying a prompt previously discovered through automated discovery.

A category theory perspective on the Language of Thought: LoT is universal.

The Language of Thought (LoT) hypothesis proposes that some collections of mental states and processes are symbol systems to explain language-like systematic properties of thought. Recent proponents of this hypothesis point to additional LoT-like properties in non-linguistic domains to claim that LoT remains the "best game in town" in terms of explanatory coverage. Nonetheless, LoT assumes but does not explain why/how symbolic representations connect to other (non-symbolic) formats. The perspective presented here is supposed to bridge this gap as a duality in a category theoretical sense: (perceptual) data are projected onto a base (conceptual) space in one direction, and in the opposite direction, these data are referenced by that space. Accordingly, perception is dual to conception. These constructions follow from a universal mapping principle affording an explanation for why/how symbolic and non-symbolic formats are connected: as the "best" possible transformation between the two forms- so the slogan, LoT is universal. This view also sheds some light on the apparent pervasiveness of logic-like capacities across age-groups and species, and these constructions constitute special types of categories called toposes (topoi), and every topos has an interpretation in first-order logic.

Brooding, Reflection, and Anger Rumination Relate to Suicidal Ideation through the Role of Thought Control.

Despite the far-reaching impact of suicide on our communities, suicide prevention has historically focused on distally related risk factors for suicidality, which gives us an incomplete picture of how someone comes to make a suicide attempt. Instead, our focus needs to extend to research that explains the maintenance and progression from an emotional state to a suicidal crisis. One such factor, rumination, may create or worsen suicidal thinking by amplifying the distress associated with negative thoughts. Ruminative thoughts are often described as difficult to control, and people may think about suicide as an escape from these uncontrollable thoughts. The current study examined the relationship between severity of lifetime suicidal thinking and certain forms of rumination (i.e., brooding, reflection, anger rumination, and suicidal rumination) in a sample of 145 undergraduate students with suicidal thoughts. For each form of rumination that was related to suicidal thinking, we then examined whether that relationship was accounted for by perceived uncontrollability of one's own thoughts. We found that all forms of rumination were related to severity of lifetime suicidal thinking, as well as heightened perceived inability to control one's own thoughts. This thought control inability helped account for the relationships between brooding, reflection, and anger rumination with severity of suicidal thinking, but did not play a role in the relationship between suicidal rumination and suicidal ideation severity. Clinicians should be aware of the impact ruminative thoughts may have on suicidal thinking. More research needs to be done to replicate and extend these effects.

Brooding, reflection, anger rumination, and suicidal rumination were examined.All subtypes of rumination were related to suicidal ideation and thought control.All but suicidal rumination were related to ideation through thought control.

A comprehensive guide to research protocols for collecting and coding involuntary past and future thoughts.

The paper presents a comprehensive guide for researchers investigating mind-wandering and related phenomena such as involuntary past and future thinking. Examining such spontaneous cognitions presents a challenge requiring not only the use of appropriate laboratory-based procedures, but also the coding of complex qualitative data. This guide outlines two main stages of existing research protocols: data acquisition and data coding. For the former, we introduce an easily modifiable computerized version of the vigilance task, designed for broad application in studies focusing on eliciting and measuring involuntary thoughts in controlled laboratory conditions. Regarding data preparation and coding, we provide a detailed step-by-step procedure for categorizing and coding different types of thoughts, involving both participants and competent judges. Additionally, we address some of the difficulties that may arise during this categorization and coding process. The guide is supplemented by a clip demonstrating the main part of the experimental procedure and a step-by-step example of the subsequent data processing stages. We anticipate that this research guide will not only assist a broader group of researchers interested in investigating spontaneous cognition, but will also inspire future studies on spontaneous cognition and related phenomena.•There is a need for standardized approaches to working with qualitative data when investigating spontaneous thoughts.•The paper outlines a comprehensive protocol for collecting and coding involuntary past and future-oriented thoughts.•The paper also presents a detailed step-by-step procedure for data preparation and coding to categorize different types of thoughts, involving both participants and competent judges.

The Future-oriented Repetitive Thought (FoRT) scale: Validation in Chinese samples and application in the schizophrenia spectrum.

BACKGROUND: Repetitive thoughts are usually associated with psychopathology. The Future-oriented Repetitive Thought (FoRT) Scale is a measure designed to capture frequency of repetitive thought about positive and negative future events. However, the validity of the scale in Chinese population and its application in the schizophrenia spectrum have not been examined. METHODS: The current study aimed to examine the psychometric properties of the Chinese version of the FoRT scale and to apply it to the schizophrenia spectrum. In Study 1, three samples (total N = 1875) of university students were recruited for exploratory factor analysis, confirmatory factor analysis, and validity test, respectively. In Study 2, we identified subsamples with high schizotypal traits (N = 89) and low schizotypal traits (N = 89), and recruited 36 inpatients with schizophrenia and 41 matched healthy controls. RESULTS: The three-factor (pessimistic repetitive future thinking, repetitive thinking about future goals, and positive indulging about the future) structure of the FoRT scale with one item deleted, fitted the Chinese samples. And the scale could distinguish patients with schizophrenia and individuals with high schizotypal traits from controls. CONCLUSION: These findings support that the Chinese version of the FoRT scale is a valid tool and provide evidence for the potential applications in the schizophrenia spectrum.