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Last update: 2026-10-23
2026-10-21
In this study, participants improved at copying an unfamiliar alphabet character even though they only practiced writing rotated versions of it. The experiments reveal that the motor system can refine movements by creating an abstraction of their structure, and not only by repeating the same mechanical muscle commands.
DOI: 10.1038/s41562-026-02614-12026-10-19
Zekun Sun, Zhiran Xie, Samuel D. McDougle
Practicing unfamiliar characters in rotated orientations improved upright writing as much as direct practice, showing that the motor system learns by abstracting a movement’s structure, not just its details.
DOI: 10.1038/s41562-026-02597-z2026-10-19
R. Hans Phaf
DOI: 10.1038/s41562-026-02618-x2026-10-19
Matthias Schmelzer, Steffen Lange
Artificial intelligence (AI), as it currently unfolds, is incompatible with a sustainable transformation of the economy, which arguably requires degrowth. AI is the growth paradigm reborn — built on enclosed commons, powered by fossil energy, and driven by a competitive logic that makes precaution structurally impossible. Limits to AI growth are not technophobia; they are our best chance for a liveable future for all.
DOI: 10.1038/s41562-026-02617-y2026-10-19
Yue Xu, Umit Keles, Chujun Lin, Ralph Adolphs
Xu et al. examine how people perceive faces as being associated with psychological traits, using a task that imposes no a priori labels.
DOI: 10.1038/s41562-026-02605-22026-10-14
In 2023, Change.org introduced an artificial intelligence (AI)-supported petition-drafting tool to their platform. With access to this tool, users’ petitions changed substantially, and their texts became more similar to one another. At the same time, overall petition outcomes did not improve, which shows the limits of AI integration into online advocacy communities.
DOI: 10.1038/s41562-026-02579-12026-10-12
Raymond I. Orr
Settler states increasingly offer Indigenous peoples symbolic recognition, such as land acknowledgements, instead of political power or resources, yet the effects of these gestures are untested. Peyton and McNamee’s experiments in the USA and Australia find that land acknowledgements raise awareness of Indigenous peoples but reduce interest in learning more.
DOI: 10.1038/s41562-026-02619-w2026-10-12
Adam B. Cohen, Amiryah N. Toves
Previous research has widely associated East Asian cultures with higher levels of collectivism, which is often measured through self-report scales that emphasize warmth and prosociality towards all people. Talhelm et al. developed a responsibilism scale that captures duties and responsibilities in close relationships.
DOI: 10.1038/s41562-026-02616-z2026-09-21
Gaia Ghirardi, Arno Van Hootegem, K. Paige Harden
DOI: 10.1038/s41562-026-02561-x2026-09-21
Qiyang Zhang, Renwen Zhang, Nan Liu
Artificial intelligence (AI) companions promise connection at low cost, but their effects are not evenly distributed. When user vulnerabilities, platform control loopholes, and governance gaps coincide, these systems risk deepening inequalities by exposing vulnerable users to more risks.
DOI: 10.1038/s41562-026-02538-w2026-09-21
Inequalities in education, health, technology and social status are often studied in isolation. This Focus issue shows how these inequalities are interconnected in the real world, and how competing views of fairness shape the responses to them. To reduce inequality, we need more research on the drivers: how complex interactions among individual beliefs, institutions, technologies and environments widen the gaps or create opportunities for change.
DOI: 10.1038/s41562-026-02600-72026-09-21
Jennifer M. Piscopo
DOI: 10.1038/s41562-026-02521-52026-09-21
John C. Mitani
Seeing a deadly ‘civil war’ unfold among chimpanzees has been a painful experience for John Mitani. His decades of watching wild great apes now evoke his family’s experience with xenophobia. But to him, the war highlights what makes humans unique: not our conflicts, but our unparalleled capacity for tolerance and cooperation.
DOI: 10.1038/s41562-026-02601-62026-09-21
Nihan Toprakkiran, Marina Treskova, Jale Tosun, Alexander Zipf, Joacim Rocklöv
Global health inequity is increasingly driven by the triple planetary crisis of climate change, biodiversity loss and pollution. To address it, we must place health at the centre of climate and environmental action and develop interventions that target both individual behaviours and structural drivers of inequality.
DOI: 10.1038/s41562-026-02565-72026-09-21
Mark Rubin
Is a 50% replication rate too high, too low or just right? We need a target replication rate to answer this question. Here, I evaluate two potential target rates, the ‘optimal’ replication rate and the ‘expected’ replication rate, and I call for an educational intervention to better appreciate their limitations.
DOI: 10.1038/s41562-026-02602-52026-09-21
Alexander W. Cappelen, Bertil Tungodden
The idea of meritocracy — that income differences should reflect performance rather than luck or inherited privilege — can be used to justify inequality. Yet people who consider meritocracy to be fair may disagree about redistribution. Understanding these disagreements can help to reduce polarization.
DOI: 10.1038/s41562-026-02567-52026-09-17
David Holtz, Iavor Bojinov, Ramesh Johari, Nathan Kallus, Apoorva Lal, Sathya Anand, Kyle Carlson, Brent Cohn, Tom Cunningham, Alex Deng, Maria Dimakopoulou, Amit Gandhi, Victor Kostyuk, Madhav Kumar, Shyue-Ming Loh, Widad Machmouchi, Jialiang Mao, James McQueen, John Meakin, Konrad Miziolek, Dominique Perrault-Joncas, Vladimir Petrovic, Sven Schmit, James Sorenson, Matthew Wardrop, Michael Zhao, Wenjing Zheng, Martin Tingley
Large-scale experiments now underpin much of modern social science. This Perspective highlights six emerging challenges and suggests directions for future research.
DOI: 10.1038/s41562-026-02582-62026-09-17
Max Spohn, Amira Boland, Jessica Lasky-Fink, Elizabeth Linos, Weston Merrick, Pedro Rey-Biel, Theodore Svoronos
Bridging the gap between evidence production and policy impact requires understanding how evidence becomes useful, usable and used. Spohn et al. discuss the obstacles and set a research agenda for evidence adoption.
DOI: 10.1038/s41562-026-02593-32026-09-15
Michael V. Reiss, Susanne J. Adler, Christopher Barrie, Jana B. Berkessel, Johannes Breuer, Abel Brodeur, Garret Christensen, Tobias Dienlin, Jeremy Freese, Ben Greiner, Mario Haim, Tom E. Hardwicke, Magnus Johannesson, Gary King, Frauke Kreuter, Christopher Lucas, Ana Martinovici, Christophe Pérignon, Marko Sarstedt, Felix D. Schönbrodt, Oleg Urminsky, Wouter van Atteveldt, Simine Vazire, Lars Vilhuber, Florian von Wangenheim, Eric-Jan Wagenmakers, Nicolas Pröllochs, Claire Robertson, Felix Holzmeister, Stefan Feuerriegel, Hauke Roggenkamp
DOI: 10.1038/s41562-026-02609-y2026-09-15
Rebecca K. Ivic, Scott C. Ratzan, Ruth M. Parker
Can AI do more than deliver health information? This Perspective argues that AI should be designed to support understanding, informed decision-making and action, placing health literacy at the centre of AI design and governance.
DOI: 10.1038/s41562-026-02595-12026-09-15
Alan N. Williams, Raymond Tobler, Billy Griffiths, Sean Ulm, Matthew C. Nitschke, Michael I. Bird, Shane Ingrey, Frédérik Saltré, Kirsty Beller, Ian J. McNiven, Nicholas Pitt, Lynette Russell, Alistair Paterson, Christopher Wilson, Corey J. A. Bradshaw
Before the British invasion in 1788, Australia’s Indigenous population is estimated to have numbered about 2.2 million people, exceeding previous estimates. An estimated 2.06 million excess deaths occurred between 1788 and 1861.
DOI: 10.1038/s41562-026-02571-92026-09-15
Zui C. Narita, Gemma Knowles, Susan M. Sawyer, Syudo Yamasaki, Darío Moreno-Agostino, Jordan DeVylder, Junko Niimura, Naomi Nakajima, Satoshi Yamaguchi, Mariko Hosozawa, Miharu Nakanishi, Yutaka Sawai, Daiki Nagaoka, Ryo Sasaki, Rui Zhou, Naho Yamane, Jacqueline Cosse, Daniel Stanyon, Haruka Goto, Riki Tanaka, Akito Uno, Satoshi Usami, Shuntaro Ando, Mariko Hiraiwa-Hasegawa, Toshi A. Furukawa, Tomohiro Shinozaki, Kiyoto Kasai, Vikram Patel, Atsushi Nishida, Yumi Nakaegawa, Yayoi Muramatsu, Riko Suzuki, Nagisa Katoono, Keigo Oyamada, Rin Kataoka, Koutarou Takada
Girls tend to show higher rates of depression and suicidal ideation than boys. This work suggests that loneliness and pressure to be thin explain much of this gap, suggesting that social factors are key targets for youth-focused support, policy and intervention.
DOI: 10.1038/s41562-026-02578-22026-09-15
Tal Boger, Chaz Firestone
Boger and Firestone show that humans possess a domain-general, cross-modal representation of complexity.
DOI: 10.1038/s41562-026-02502-82026-09-15
Theresa Mercer
Returning to academia after extended leave often depends on luck and goodwill. We need better and formalized systems to facilitate returns and retention, argues Theresa Mercer.
DOI: 10.1038/s41562-026-02594-22026-07-20
Tobia Spampatti
Nature Human Behaviour, Published online: 20 July 2026; doi:10.1038/s41562-026-02530-4 Climate change and misinformation are interconnected global crises shaped by tensions between individual, collective and vested interests. Drawing on climate psychology, we distil six insights for misinformation research to strengthen policy relevance, systems thinking and resilience to attacks.]]>
DOI: 10.1038/s41562-026-02530-42026-07-15
Anne G. E. Collins
Nature Human Behaviour, Published online: 15 July 2026; doi:10.1038/s41562-026-02508-2 Practicing components of a problem often improves later performance in the full problem, but can also hinder it. Mi and Summerfield suggest that ‘divide and conquer’ approaches succeed when the components are well aligned with inexpensive heuristic learning strategies and can enable the learner to recruit more complex, optimal strategies.]]>
DOI: 10.1038/s41562-026-02508-22026-07-13
Susan Hilbolling
Nature Human Behaviour, Published online: 13 July 2026; doi:10.1038/s41562-026-02529-x The unspoken tensions that AI brings to academic collaboration]]>
DOI: 10.1038/s41562-026-02529-x2026-07-10
Daniel S. Malawsky
Nature Human Behaviour, Published online: 10 July 2026; doi:10.1038/s41562-026-02491-8 Associations between polygenic indices and cognitive ability in children increase with age while rare damaging variant associations attenuate, with differential effects across the cognitive ability distribution.]]>
DOI: 10.1038/s41562-026-02491-82026-07-08
Nature Human Behaviour, Published online: 08 July 2026; doi:10.1038/s41562-026-02499-0 Gaze behaviour is marked by striking individual differences. We used eye tracking and brain imaging to decipher the mechanisms that underlie these differences, which revealed that the individual tendency to look at faces or text is systematically linked to how well the visual brain can process these stimuli.]]>
DOI: 10.1038/s41562-026-02499-02026-07-07
Diana Kollenda
Nature Human Behaviour, Published online: 07 July 2026; doi:10.1038/s41562-026-02494-5 In this Article, Kollenda et al. find that individual differences in gaze are linked to neural tuning in individual brains: stronger tendencies to look at faces or text correlate with more distinct neural representations of the corresponding category.]]>
DOI: 10.1038/s41562-026-02494-5