Using new survey data (N = 1,646), we examine the attitudes academic scientists at 21 elite U.S. research universities have about the perceived conflict between religion and science. In contrast to public opinion and scholarly discourse, most scientists do not perceive a conflict between science and religion. Different from what other studies would indicate, this belief does not vary between so...

these and other alternative hypotheses using human subjects. The relative merits of these alternative hypotheses are not the focus of this commentary. Over the last decade this literature derived from human studies has been supplemented by neurophysiological data from macaque monkeys. In monkeys performing an eye movement stop signal task, neurons are found in the supplementary eye field that s...

The signaling context has been found to change the meaning of the silent bared-teeth display (SBT) in pigtail macaques (Macaca nemestrina) such that the SBT in apparently peaceful contexts communicates subordination, a long-term pattern of behavior, whereas in conflict contexts it communicates immediate submission (PNAS, 104: 1581-1586). However, the context dependent nature of the SBT has not ...

Theisen (JPR, 2012) recently constructed a novel high-resolution data set of intergroup and political conflict in Kenya (1989-2004) and examined whether the risk of conflict onset and incidence responds to annual pixel-level variations in temperature and precipitation. Thiesen concluded that only extreme precipitation is associated with conflict incidence and that temperature is unrelated to co...

There has been accumulating evidence that cognitive control can be adaptively regulated by monitoring for processing conflict as an index of online control demands. However, it is not yet known whether top-down control mechanisms respond to processing conflict in a manner specific to the operative task context or confer a more generalized benefit. While previous studies have examined the taskse...

The present study used paired-picture paradigm, where either congruent or incongruent emotional expressions were presented side by side to measure the neural correlates underlying the processing of emotional conflict effect. Event-related potentials were recorded while participants identified whether the valences of the paired-picture were consistent or not. The results showed that incongruent ...

We investigated if single and double conflicts are processed separately in different brain regions and if they are differentially vulnerable to TMS perturbation. Fifteen human volunteers performed a single (Flanker or Simon) conflict task or a double (Flanker and Simon) conflict task in a combined functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging (fMRI) and Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation (TMS) study. Th...

A principal function of the medial frontal cortex, in particular the anterior cingulate cortex (ACC), is to monitor action. The error-related negativity (ERN, or N(E)), an event-related brain potential, reflects medial frontal action-monitoring processes. Specifically, the error-detection theory of the ERN states that the ERN reflects ACC processing that is directly related to detecting the err...

Facial displays of emotions can help to infer the mental states of other individuals. However, the expectations we generate on the basis of people's emotions can mismatch their actual behaviour in certain circumstances, which generates conflict. In the present study, we explored the neural mechanisms of emotional conflict during interpersonal interactions. Participants had to accept or reject e...

Economic decision-making involves the weighting of magnitude and probability of potential gains/losses. While previous work has examined the neural systems involved in decision-making, there is a need to understand how the parameters associated with decision-making (e.g., magnitude of expected reward, probability of expected reward and risk) modulate activation within these neural systems. In t...