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context

·December 10, 2024·7 min read

How the Brain Deciphers Context to Guide Decisions

Research reveals that the orbitofrontal cortex (OFC) and hippocampus (DH) play distinct roles in resolving ambiguous situations where the meaning of stimuli changes based on context. The OFC helps regulate behavior by using contextual knowledge, while the DH is critical for applying prior knowledge to accelerate learning new relationships.

Featured Neuroscience Psychology

·October 11, 2024·5 min read

From Face to Feeling: Context Shapes Emotion Recognition

Emotion recognition extends far beyond facial expressions, involving a rich interplay of context, physical attributes, and background knowledge. Researchers propose that recognizing emotion is part of forming an overall impression of a person, shaped by cues like clothing, perceived social roles, and personal history. For instance, a facial expression of fear might be interpreted as anger if background context suggests it.

Featured Neuroscience

·August 3, 2024·5 min read

Brain Sync: How Words and Context Shape Our Conversations

Researchers have discovered that brain-to-brain coupling during conversation is significantly influenced by the context in which words are used, not just by linguistic information alone. Using high-resolution electrocorticography and GPT-2 language models, they found that specific brain activity in both speakers and listeners is driven by the context-specific meaning of words.

Auditory Neuroscience Featured Neuroscience Open Neuroscience Articles Psychology

·March 30, 2021·5 min read

Screams of ‘Joy’ Sound Like ‘Fear’ When Heard Out of Context

When people hear screams of excited happiness, they tend to confuse the emotion with fear. Researchers say the bias toward categorizing excited and joyfully screams as fear has evolutionary roots.

Electrophysiology Featured Neuroscience Open Neuroscience Articles

·July 31, 2020·5 min read

To Distinguish Contexts, Animals Think Probabilistically

The act of remapping an area can be mathematically modeled as probabilistic reasoning in rodents.

Featured Neuroscience Psychology

·January 9, 2019·4 min read

Carrots or Candy Bars? Context Shapes Healthy Food Choices

According to researchers, our food choices may be affected by what sits closest by on the supermarket shelf. Paradoxically, the close proximity of an indulgent food can cause more people to opt for a healthier snack.

Featured Neuroscience

·December 11, 2018·6 min read

How Returning to a Prior Context Briefly Heightens Memory Recall

After creating a memory in a context, engram cells encoding the memory in the hippocampus become more excitable when the context is repeated a short time later, researchers report.

Featured Neuroscience Visual Neuroscience

·November 1, 2017·5 min read

Babies Can Use Context to Look For Things

At 6 months of age, babies are capable of memory guided attention, a new study reveals. Young infants are able to learn and remember contextual visual cues to find objects of interest, researchers report. The findings shed new light on both typical and atypical brain development.