Publications

Papers

Here you can view and access publications. To be able to view and access books and selected essays published in the popular media, please click here.

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Data from our recent studies can be accessed on GitHub: https://github.com/affective-brain-lab

Preprints

Vellani, V. Glickman, M., & Sharot, T. How people decide when to inform others. PsyArXiv

Blain, B., Globig L., & Sharot, T. Income shock increases delay discounting independently of emotion. PsyArXiv

Published papers (& in press)

Glickman, M. & Sharot, T. (in press) How human-AI feedback loops alter human perceptual, emotional and social judgements. Nature Human Behaviour

Kelly, C. Sharot, T. (in press) Web-Browsing Patterns Reflect and Shape Mental Health. Nature Human Behaviour

Glickman, M. & Sharot, T. (in press) AI-Induce Hyper Learning in Humans. Current Opinion in Psychology

Globig, L. & Sharot, T. (2024) Considering Information-Sharing Motives to reduce Misinformation. Current Opinion in Psychology

Kelly, C., Blain, B., & Sharot, T. (2024) High-Level Characteristics of Web Queries Change Under Threat. Scientific Reports

Zheng S., Rozenkrantz L., & Sharot T. (2024). Poor lie detection related to an under-reliance on statistical cues and overreliance on own behaviour. Communications Psychology.

Molinaro G., Cogliati Dezza I., Bühler S., Moutsiana C., & Sharot T. (2023). Multifaceted information-seeking motives in children. Nature Communications, 14, 5505.

Blain, B., Pinhorn I., & Sharot, T. (2023). Sensitivity to Intrinsic rewards is domain general and related to mental health. Nature Mental Health, 1, 679–691.

Garrett, N., & Sharot, T. (2023). There is no belief update bias for neutral events: failure to replicate Burton et al. (2022). Journal of Cognitive Psychology

Globig L., Holtz N., & Sharot, T. (2023). Changing the Incentive Structure of Social Media Platforms to Halt the Spread of Misinformation. eLife, 12, e85767.

Vellani, V., Zheng, S., Ercelik, D., Sharot, T. (2023). The illusory truth effect leads to the spread of misinformation. Cognition, 236

Bottemanne, H., Morlaas, O., Claret, A., Sharot, T., Fossati, P., Schmidt, L. (2022). Evaluation of Early Ketamine Effects on Belief-Updating Biases in Patients With Treatment-Resistant Depression. JAMA Psychiatry, 79(11), 1124-113.

Sharot, T., Rollwage, M., Sunstein, C. R., & Fleming, S. (2022). Why and when beliefs change. Perspectives On Psychological Science, 1-10.

Cogliati Dezza, I., Maher, C., Sharot, T. (2022). People adaptively use information to improve their internal and external states. Cognition, 228, 105224.

Globig, L.K., Blain, B., & Sharot, T. (2022). When Private Optimism meets Public Despair: Dissociable effects on behavior and well-being. Journal of Risk & Uncertainty, 1-22.

Vellani, V., Garrett, N., Gaule, A., Kaustubh, R.P., Sharot, T. (2022). Quantifying the heritability of belief formation. Scientific Reports, 12, 11833.

Sharot, T., & Garrett, N. (2022). A guideline and cautionary note: how to use the belief update task correctly. Methods in Psychology, 100091.

Blain B., Marks J., Czech P. & Sharot, T. (2022). Observing Others Give & Take: A Computational Account of Bystanders’ Feelings and Actions. PLOS Computational Biology

Charpentier, C.J.*, Cogliati Dezza, I.*, Vellani, V.*, Globig, L., Gädeke, M., Sharot, T. (2022) Anxiety selectively increases information-seeking in response to large changes. Scientific Reports. 12, 7385. * equal contribution.

Kelly C.A. & Sharot, T. (2021) Individual differences in information-seeking. Nature Communication, 12, 7062.

Blain, B., & Sharot, T. (2021). Intrinsic reward: potential cognitive and neural mechanisms. Current Opinion in Behavioral Sciences, 39, 113-118.

Globig L., Witte K., Feng G. & Sharot, T. (2021) Under threat weaker evidence is required to reach undesirable conclusions. Journal of Neuroscience, 41 (30) 6502-6510, PDF

Vellani, V., de Vries, L.P., Gaule, A., Sharot, T. (2020). A selective effect of dopamine on information-seeking. eLife, 9, e59152.

Ossola, P., Garrett, N., Sharot, T., Marchesi, C. (2020). Belief Updating in Bipolar Disorder Predicts Time of Recurrence. eLife, 9, e58891.

Bromberg-Martin E.S. & Sharot T. (2020). The Value of Beliefs. Neuron, 106(4), 561-565. PDF VERSION

Sharot, T. & Sunstein C.R., (2020). How People Decide What They Want to Know. Nature Human Behaviour, 1-6.

Kappes, A., Harvey, A., Lohrenz, T., Montague, R. & Sharot, T . (2020) Confirmation Bias in the Utilization of Others’ Opinion Strength. Nature Neuroscience , 23(1), 130-137.

Gesiarz, F., De Neve, J.E. & Sharot, T. (2020).The Motivational cost of inequality: Opportunity gaps reduce the willingness to work. PLOS One, 15(9): e0237914

Sharot, T. (2019). Is visual representation coloured by desire? Nature Human Behaviour, 3(9), 891-892.

Gesiarz, F., Cahill, D. P. & Sharot, T. (2019). Evidence Accumulation is Biased by Motivation: A Computational Account. PLOS Computational Biology, 15(6).

Lazzaro, S., Weidinger, L., Cooper, R., Baron-Cohen, S., Moutsiana, C. & Sharot, T. (2019). Social conformity in autism. Journal of Autism and Developmental Disorders, 49(3), 1304-1315.

Marks, J., Copland, E., Loh, E., Sunstein, C. R., & Sharot, T. (2019). Epistemic Spillovers: Learning Others’ Political Views Reduces the Ability to Assess and Use Their Expertise in Nonpolitical Domains. Cognition, 188, 74-84.

Kappes, A., & Sharot, T. (2019). The Automatic Nature of Motivated Belief Updating. Behavioural Public Policy, 3(1), 87-103.

Charpentier, C., Bromberg-Martin E., & Sharot T. (2018) Valuation of Knowledge and Ignorance in Mesolimbic Reward Circuitry.Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 115(31), E7255-E7264.

Commentary on the above paper: Levy, I. (2018). Information utility in the human brain.Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 115(31), 7846-7848.

Garrett, N., González-Garzón, A., Foulkes, L., Levita, L., & Sharot, T. (2018). Updating Beliefs Under Perceived Threat. Journal of Neuroscience,38(36), 7901-7911.

Nature Highlight: Stress opens the mind to bad news. Nature

Sunstein, C.R., Bobadilla-Suarez, S., Lazzaro, S., & Sharot, T. (2017). How people update beliefs about climate change: Good news and bad news. Cornell Law Review, 102, 1431-1444.

De Martino, B., Bobadilla-Suarez, S., Nouguchi, T., Sharot, T. & Love, B.C. (2017). Social information is integrated into value and confidence judgments according to its reliability. Journal of Neuroscience, 37(25), 6066-6074.

Bobadilla-Suarez, S., Sunstein, C. R. & Sharot, T. (2017). The intrinsic value of choice: The propensity to under-delegate in the face of potential gains and losses. Journal of Risk and Uncertainty, 54(3), 187–202.

Garrett, N. & Sharot, T. (2017) Optimistic Update Bias Holds Firm: Three Tests of Robustness Following Shah et al. Consciousness and Cognition, 50, 12-22. (for a concise version of this paper, see: The Myth of a Pessimistic View of Optimistic Belief Updating – a Commentary on Shah et al. SSRN 2811752)
Garrett, N., Lazzaro, S., Ariely, D. & Sharot, T. (2016) The brain adapts to dishonesty. Nature Neuroscience, 19(12), 1727–1732.

Commentary on the above paper: Engelmann, J. B., & Fehr, E. (2016). The slippery slope of dishonesty.Nature Neuroscience, 19(12), 1543-1544.

Learn more about this study by clicking here

Charpentier, C., De Neve, J.E., Li, X., Roiser, J.P. & Sharot, T. (2016) Models of affective decision-making: how do feelings predict choice? Psychological Science, 27(6), 763-775.

Sharot, T. & Garrett, N. (2016) Forming Beliefs: Why Valence Matters. Trends in Cognitive Sciences, 20(1), 25-33.

Charpentier, C., De Martino, B., Sim, A.L., Sharot, T. & Roiser, J.P. (2016) Emotion-induced loss aversion and striatal-amygdala coupling in low anxious individuals. Social Cognitive and Affective Neuroscience,11(4), 569-579.

Moutsiana, C., Charpentier, C., Garrett, N., Cohen, M.X. & Sharot, T. (2015) Human frontal-subcortical circuit and asymmetric belief updating. Journal of Neuroscience, 35(42), 14077-14085.

Koster, R., Sharot, T., Yuan, R., De Martino, B., Norton, M.I. & Dolan, R.J. (2015) How beliefs about self-creation inflate value in the human brain. Frontiers in Human Neuroscience, 9, 473.
Edelson, M., Shemesh, M., Weizman, A., Yariv, S., Sharot, T. & Dudai, Y. (2014) Opposing Effects of Oxytocin on Overt Compliance and Lasting Changes to Memory. Neuropsychopharmacology, 34(23), 7744-7753.

Garrett, N., Sharot, T., Faulkner P., Korn C. W., Roiser J. P. & Dolan R. J. (2014) Losing the rose tinted glasses: neural substrates of unbiased belief updating in depression. Frontiers in Human Neuroscience, 8, 639-639.

Garrett, N. & Sharot, T. (2014) How robust is the optimistic update bias for estimating self-risk and population base rates? PLoS ONE, 9(6): e98848.

Edelson, M., Dudai, Y., Dolan, R.J. & Sharot, T. (2014) Brain Substrates of Recovery from Misleading Influence. Journal of Neuroscience, 34(23): 7744-7753.

Charpentier, C., Moutsiana, C., Garrett, N. & Sharot, T. (2014) The Brain’s Temporal Dynamics from a Collective Decision to Individual Action. Journal of Neuroscience, 34(17): 5816-5823.

Korn, C. W., Sharot, T., Walter, H., Heekeren, H.R. & Dolan, R.J. (2014) Depression is related to an absence of optimistically biased belief updating about future life events. Psychological Medicine, 44, 579-592.
Chowdhury, R., Sharot, T., Wolfe, T., Düzel, E. & Dolan, R.J. (2013) Optimistic update bias increases in older age. Psychological Medicine, 44(9), 2003-2012.

Moutsiana, C., Garrett, N., Clarke, R.C., Lotto, R.B., Blakemore, S.J. & Sharot, T. (2013) Human development of the ability to learn from bad news. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 110(41), 16396–16401.

Commentary on the above paper: Reina, V. (2013). Good and bad news on the brain on the adolescent brain. Nature, 503(7474), 48-49.

Sharot, T., Kanai, R., Marston, D., Korn, C. W., Rees, G. & Dolan, R.J. (2012) Selectively Altering Belief Formation in the Human Brain. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 109(42), 17058-17062.

Sharot, T., Fleming, S. M., Koster, R., Yu, X. & Dolan R. J. (2012) Is Choice Induced Preference Change Long Lasting. Psychological Science, 23(10), 1123-1129.

Sharot T., Guitart-Masip M., Korn C. W., Chowdhury R., Dolan R.J. (2012) How Dopamine Enhances an Optimism Bias in Humans. Current Biology, 22(16), 1477-1481.

Guitart-Masip M., Chowdhury R., Sharot T., Dayan P., Duzel E., Dolan R.J. (2012) Action controls dopaminergic enhancement of reward representations. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 109(19), 7511-7516.
Sharot, T. (2011) The Optimism Bias. Current Biology,21(23), R941-R945.

Sharot, T., Korn, C. W. & Dolan, R. J. (2011) How unrealistic optimism is maintained in the face of reality. Nature Neuroscience, 14, 1475–1479.

Edelson, M., Sharot, T., Dolan, R. J. & Dudai, Y. (2011) Following the crowd: Brain Substrates of Long-Term Memory Conformity. Science, 333(6038), 108-111.

Commentary on the above paper: Roediger, H. L. & McDermott, K. B. (2011) Remember When, Science, 333(6038), 47-48.

Sharot, T., Shiner, T. & Dolan, R. J. (2010) Experience and Choice Shape Expected Aversive Outcome. Journal of Neuroscience, 30(27), 9209-9215.

Sharot, T., Velasquez, C. M. & Dolan, R. J. (2010) Do Decisions Shape Preference? Evidence from Blind Choice. Psychological Science, 21(9), 1231-1235.
Sharot, T., Shiner, T., Brown, A. C., Fan, J. & Dolan, R. J. (2009) Dopamine Enhances Expectation of Pleasure in Humans. Current Biology, 24(19), 2077-2080.

Sharot, T., De Martino, B. & Dolan, R. J. (2009) How Choice Reveals and Shapes Expected Hedonic Outcome. Journal of Neuroscience, 29(12), 3760-3765. Commentary on the above paper: Venkatraman, V., Ritchey, M. & Reeck, C. (2009) Post-choice revaluation of hedonic preferences: Insights from functional imaging. Frontiers in Human Neuroscience, 3(18).

Phelps, E. A. & Sharot, T. (2008) How (and Why) Emotion Enhances the Subjective Sense of Recollection. Current Directions in Psychological Science, 17(2), 147-152.

Sharot, T. & Yonelinas A.P. (2008) Differential time-dependent effects of emotion on the recollective experience and memory for contextual information. Cognition, 106(1), 538-547.

Sharot, T., Davidson, M. L., Carson, M. M. & Phelps, E. A. (2008) Eye movements predict recollective experience. PLoS ONE, 3(8), e2884.
Sharot, T., Riccardi, M. A., Raio, C. M. & Phelps, E. A. (2007) Neural Mechanisms Mediating Optimism Bias. Nature, 450(7166), 102 – 105.

Commentary on the above paper: Schacter, D. L. & Addis, D. R. (2007) The optimistic brain. Nature Neuroscience, 10(11), 1345-1347.

Sharot, T., Verfaellie, M., Yonelinas, A. P. (2007) How Emotion Strengthens the Recollective Experience: A Time-Dependent Hippocampal Process. PLoS ONE, 2(10), e1068.

Sharot, T., Martorella, E. A., Delgado, M. R. & Phelps, E. A. (2007) How personal experience modulates the neural circuitry of memories of September 11. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 104 (1), 389-394.
Sharot, T., Delgado, M. R. & Phelps, E. A. (2004) How emotion enhances the feeling of remembering. Nature Neuroscience, 7(12), 1376–1380.

Sharot, T. & Phelps, E. A. (2004) How Arousal Modulates Memory: Disentangling the Effects of Attention and Retention. Cognitive Affective Behavioral Neuroscience, 4(3), 294-306.

Vakil, E., Sharot, T., Markowitz, M., Aberbuch, S. & Groswasser, Z. (2003) Script memory for typical and atypical actions: controls versus patients with severe closed-head injury. Brain Injury, 17(10), 825-833.