Search

• The present paper hypothesizes how research in personality psychology will change with the recent emergence of the Internet of Things (IoT). In a society, where humankind is digitally interconnected and all machines in one's own household or at work are linked to the Internet, manifold data from human-machine-interaction can be used to predict psychological traits and states. • In the present theoretical paper, we first explain why it is (still) important to study personality and we also give a short (historical) overview on different theoretical and methodological approaches to study personality. Second, this work will focus on a recent addition to the toolbox of a personality psychologist, namely digital phenotyping via methods from Psychoinformatics , which falls into the realm of the aforementioned IoT. Aside from an introduction into these new concepts, we discuss strengths and limitations of this new data layer of interest for personality psychologists. • Finally, it is argued that in these modern times personality psychology research is conducted in many scattered scientific areas with researchers sometimes unaware of each other. Therefore, tremendous collaborative efforts need to be invested in order to reunify the psychological/neuroscientific oriented personality science to ultimately understand why we are the creatures we are. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Reinforcement learning methods have recently been very successful at performing complex sequential tasks like playing Atari games, Go and Poker. These algorithms have outperformed humans in several tasks by learning from scratch, using only scalar rewards obtained through interaction with their environment. While there certainly has been considerable independent innovation to produce such results, many core ideas in reinforcement learning are inspired by phenomena in animal learning, psychology and neuroscience. In this paper, we comprehensively review a large number of findings in both neuroscience and psychology that evidence reinforcement learning as a promising candidate for modeling learning and decision making in the brain. In doing so, we construct a mapping between various classes of modern RL algorithms and specific findings in both neurophysiological and behavioral literature. We then discuss the implications of this observed relationship between RL, neuroscience and psychology and its role in advancing research in both AI and brain science. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

• Panksepp's Affective Neuroscience Theory belongs to the most important emotion theories. • The present work provides a comprehensive review on studies using the Affective Neuroscience Personality Scales (ANPS). • The ANPS aims to assess individual differences in primary emotional systems. • The current review covers 17 years of ANPS-research after the first publication of the ANPS in 2003. • The ANPS 3.1 is presented in the Appendix of the paper. Jaak Panksepp's Affective Neuroscience Theory (ANT) belongs to the most prominent emotion theories in the psychological and psychiatric sciences. ANT proposes the existence of seven primary emotional systems deeply anchored in the mammalian brain. These emotional/motivational systems have been shaped by evolutionary processes and function as tools for survival in mammalian species. The systems are called SEEKING, LUST, CARE, and PLAY, as well as ANGER, FEAR, and SADNESS. Panksepp carved out these emotional systems via means of deep brain stimulation, brain lesion and pharmacological manipulation studies. Davis et al. (2003) designed the Affective Neuroscience Personality Scales (ANPS) against the background of findings from ANT. This self-report inventory is meant to enable researchers to assess individual differences in primary emotional systems. Seventeen years have passed since the first version of the ANPS has been published. Therefore, we now provide a comprehensive overview on studies using the ANPS including work from personality science, psychiatry and the neurosciences. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper provides a critical review of several possible mechanisms at different levels of analysis underlying the effects and therapeutic potential of psychedelics. At the (1) biochemical level, psychedelics primarily affect the 5-HT 2A receptor, increase neuroplasticity, offer a critical period for social reward learning, and have anti-inflammatory properties. At the (2) neural level, psychedelics have been associated with reduced efficacy of thalamo-cortical filtering, the loosening of top-down predictive signaling and an increased sensitivity to bottom-up prediction errors, and activation of the claustro-cortical-circuit. At the (3) psychological level, psychedelics have been shown to induce altered and affective states, they affect cognition, induce belief change, exert social effects, and can result in lasting changes in behavior. We outline the potential for a unifying account of the mechanisms underlying psychedelics and contrast this with a model of pluralistic causation. Ultimately, a better understanding of the specific mechanisms underlying the effects of psychedelics could allow for a more targeted therapeutic approach. We highlight current challenges for psychedelic research and provide a research agenda to foster insight in the causal-mechanistic pathways underlying the efficacy of psychedelic research and therapy. • This paper comprehensively reviews the pharmacological, neural and psychological mechanisms underlying psychedelics. • We critically evaluate the merits and pitfalls of each explanatory mechanism. • We provide a research agenda for psychedelic research, including a theory of pluralistic causation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Twenty academic psychologists and neuroscientists, with an interest in autism and based within the United Kingdom, were interviewed between 2012 and 2013 on a variety of topics related to the condition. Within these qualitative interviews researchers often argued that there had been a ‘turn to infancy’ since the beginning of the 21st century with focus moving away from the high functioning adolescent and towards the pre-diagnostic infant deemed to be ‘at risk’ of autism. The archetypal research of this type is the ‘infant sibs’ study whereby infants with an elder sibling already diagnosed with autism are subjected to a range of tests, the results of which are examined only once it becomes apparent whether that infant has autism. It is claimed in this paper that the turn to infancy has been facilitated by two phenomena; the autism epidemic of the 1990s and the emergence of various methodological techniques, largely although not exclusively based within neuroscience, which seek to examine social disorder in the absence of comprehension or engagement on the part of the participant: these are experiments done to participants rather than with them. Interviewees claimed that these novel methods allowed researchers to see a ‘real’ autism that lay ‘behind’ methodology. That claim is disputed here and instead it is argued that these emerging methodologies other various phenomena, reorienting the social abnormality believed typical of autism away from language and meaning and towards the body. The paper concludes by suggesting that an attempt to draw comparisons between the symptoms of autism in infant populations and adults with the condition inevitably leads to a somaticisation of autism. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

There is a long-standing debate in the philosophy of mind and philosophy of science regarding how best to interpret the relationship between neuroscience and psychology. It has traditionally been argued that either the two domains will evolve and change over time until they converge on a single unified account of human behaviour, or else that they will continue to work in isolation given that they identify properties and states that exist autonomously from one another (due to the multiple-realizability of psychological states). In this paper, I argue that progress in psychology and neuroscience is contingent on the fact that both of these positions are false. Contra the convergence position, I argue that the theories of psychology and the theories of neuroscience are scientifically valuable as representational tools precisely because they cannot be integrated into a single account. However, contra the autonomy position, I propose that the theories of psychology and neuroscience are deeply dependent on one another for further refinement and improvement. In this respect, there is an irreconcilable codependence between psychology and neuroscience that is necessary for both domains to improve and progress. The two domains are forever linked while simultaneously being unable to integrate. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]