Library

The first thirteen papers: individuality in brains, decoding thought and imagery, memory engrams, brain preservation, and simulated people. 13 papers

• Slotnick & Schacter2004A sensory signature that distinguishes true from false memoriesAsksBehavioural studies show true memories come with more sensory and perceptual detail than false ones.
• Suzuki et al.2004Memory reconsolidation and extinction have distinct temporal and biochemical signaturesAsksRetrieval is not passive: it can trigger reconsolidation (a protein-synthesis-dependent re-stabilisation of the original memory, during which the memory is vulnerable) or extinction (new learning of "cue predicts nothing" that competes…
• Bonnici et al.2012Detecting representations of recent and remote autobiographical memories in vmPFC and hippocampusAsksWhere in the brain is information about specific autobiographical memories represented, and does that change between memories two weeks old and memories ten years old?
• Ryan et al.2015Engram cells retain memory under retrograde amnesiaAsksDoes memory consolidation happen inside the engram cells, and when a protein-synthesis inhibitor causes retrograde amnesia, is the memory gone or merely unretrievable?
• Abdou et al.2018Synapse-specific representation of the identity of overlapping memory engramsAsksTwo memories learned close in time are encoded in overlapping neuronal ensembles (memory linking).

Recording a single brain for a month, spontaneous thought, self-report and deception, and models of one brain. 23 papers

• Rusconi and Mitchener-Nissen2013Prospects of functional magnetic resonance imaging as lie detectorFor usNeural lie detection, by construction, cannot catch self-deception.
• Charest et al.2014Unique semantic space in the brain of each beholder predicts perceived similarityFor usMeasured, person-specific semantic structure exists, and it matters.
• Nielson et al.2015Human hippocampus represents space and time during retrieval of real-world memoriesFor usA month of a healthy person's life can be captured passively and labelled (verified).
• Poldrack et al.2015Long-term neural and physiological phenotyping of a single human (MyConnectome)For usFeasibility (verified): one healthy, motivated adult can be scanned about 100 times over a year and a half with daily questionnaires, weekly blood and consumer sleep sensing.
• Kane et al.2017For whom the mind wanders, and when, varies across laboratory and daily-life settingsFor usSpontaneous thought has a stable person-level signature.

What a base engine should be trained on and how, what it must contain, and how to test that it holds no one. 42 papers

• Spelke and Kinzler2007Core knowledgeFor usA candidate list for what is shared by birth: representations of objects, agents, approximate number and layout geometry, with signature limits that are the same in infants, monkeys, schooled adults and unschooled Amazonian adults.
• Henrich et al.2010The weirdest people in the world?For us"The part of the brain we all share" is smaller than intuition says, and intuition is a bad guide.
• Kuppens et al.2010Feelings change: accounting for individual differences in the temporal dynamics of affect (DynAffect)For usA fitted form for B4's slow, daily-life channel.
• Briley and Tucker-Drob2014Genetic and environmental continuity in personality development: A meta-analysisFor usThe brief asked for one meta-analysis of the heritability of personality or of social attitudes.
• Rutledge et al.2014A computational and neural model of momentary subjective well-beingFor usA fitted, per-person form for B4's fast channel.

Social pressure, persuasion by reasons, and how much of each change lasts. 16 papers

• Cacioppo et al.1996Dispositional differences in cognitive motivation: the life and times of individuals varying in need for cognitionFor usNC is a stable person setting for updating on reasons: a test–retest correlation of .88 over weeks and .66 over months.
• Tormala and Petty2002What doesn't kill me makes me stronger: the effects of resisting persuasion on attitude certaintyFor usAn attempt at persuasion that fails still changes the person.
• Kumkale and Albarracín2004The sleeper effect in persuasion: a meta-analytic reviewFor usChange with reasons persists better than change from cues.
• Pronin et al.2007Alone in a crowd of sheep: asymmetric perceptions of conformity and their roots in an introspection illusionFor usPeople report being less influenced than they were, and than equally influenced peers, and they misremember their own conforming record.
• Bohns et al.2014Underestimating our influence over others' unethical behavior and decisionsFor usAbout two thirds of people agreed to a stranger's direct request to do a minor dishonest or destructive act; requesters expected about a third.

Style and register as stable personal habits, and how to tell a voice from its imitation. 8 papers

• Mehl & Pennebaker2003The sounds of social life: a psychometric analysis of students' daily social environments and natural conversationsFor usThe most stable markers of spoken voice are the ones written text and cleaned transcripts throw away: swearing (r .86 over four weeks), non-fluencies (.62) and fillers (.59).
• Evert et al.2015Towards a better understanding of Burrows's Delta in literary authorship attributionFor usDelta's logic fits the base and slot design.
• Rivera-Soto et al.2021Learning universal authorship representationsFor usA learned authorship embedding is a usable ruler for "same author", but not a content-free one.
• Wegmann et al.2022Same author or just same topic? Towards content-independent style representationsFor usContent leakage is the central threat to a voice test, and it is large.
• Stamatatos et al.2023Overview of the authorship verification task at PAN 2023For usA person's "voice" is not one surface style.

Expertise, thinking time, and what sets the size of a person's slot. 15 papers

• Gobet & Simon2000Five seconds or sixty? Presentation time in expert memoryFor usAn expert's domain knowledge is about 10⁴–10⁵ patterns and more.
• Macnamara et al.2014Deliberate practice and performance in music, games, sports, education, and professions: a meta-analysisFor usA person's skill level cannot be inferred from their practice history.
• Burgoyne et al.2016The relationship between cognitive ability and chess skill: a comprehensive meta-analysisFor usGeneral capacity explains little of the differences among skilled adults.
• Mollica & Piantadosi2019Humans store about 1.5 megabytes of information during language acquisitionFor usThe culture layer's language content is small.
• Geirhos et al.2020Beyond accuracy: quantifying trial-by-trial behaviour of CNNs and humans by measuring error consistencyFor usThe core fidelity metric for a capability profile is accuracy-corrected item agreement.

Personal updating, drift in running replicas, persona models, and memory in language-model agents. 88 papers

• Talarico & Rubin2003Confidence, not consistency, characterizes flashbulb memoriesFor usQ3: a human-like memory drifts in detail while confidence stays.
• Coman et al.2009Forgetting the unforgettable through conversation: socially shared retrieval-induced forgetting of September 11 memoriesFor usQ3: remembering selectively reshapes what stays accessible, even for vivid memories.
• Hirst et al.2009Long-term memory for the terrorist attack of September 11: flashbulb memories, event memories, and the factors that influence their retentionFor usQuestion 3: the size of the divergence the candidate prediction expects.
• Sliwinski et al.2009Intraindividual change and variability in daily stress processes: findings from two measurement-burst diary studiesFor usQuestion 1: a person's way of reacting exists, but it is only partly a trait.
• Boyce et al.2010The dark side of conscientiousness: conscientious people experience greater drops in life satisfaction following unemploymentFor usQ1 and the pilot's lost-job stratum: trait direction can run against the stereotype.

Source memory, consolidation and reconsolidation, schemas, and false memory. 47 papers

• Lindsay & Johnson1989Source-oriented testing changes both errors and hitsFindsTwo experiments retained 108/117 and 132/136 students after random deletions to balance four cells.
• Lindsay1990Rejecting a suggestion and recovering an event are different outcomesFindsThe analyzed sample comprised 136 students; another 37 tested students were randomly deleted to balance cells.
• Johnson et al.1993Source attribution is a judgment to explainFindsThe framework proposes that people attribute memories to sources using available perceptual, contextual, semantic, affective, and cognitive-operation information, rather than ordinarily reading an unambiguous origin label.
• Roediger and McDermott1995Associative intrusions and reported recollectionFindsExperiment 1 tested 36 students with six selected associative word lists.
• Klein et al.1996Trait self-reports during temporary amnesiaFindsW.J., an eighteen-year-old student, developed retrograde amnesia after a concussion; CT revealed no abnormality.

Connectomes, consciousness against responsiveness, and what a reconstruction would and would not establish. 21 papers

• Prinz et al.2004Similar activity from different circuit parametersAsksMust a small neural circuit have narrowly specified cellular and synaptic parameters to generate a tightly specified motor rhythm?
• Casali et al.2013Perturbational complexity indexAsksCan a direct perturbation of cortex reveal whether the brain supports widespread, differentiated interactions, even when a person cannot perform a sensory, motor or cognitive task?
• Frässle et al.2014Binocular rivalry without continuous perceptual reportAsksDoes frontal BOLD activity associated with a spontaneous change in binocular-rivalry perception remain when observers no longer report every perceptual switch?
• Casarotto et al.2016Independent calibration of perturbational complexity for unresponsive patients
• Siclari et al.2017The neural correlates of dreamingAsksCan EEG distinguish reported experience from reported absence of experience within sleep stages, and does its location relate to subsequently reported dream contents?