Highlights Evidence is mixed about whether hippocampal volume affects cognitive task performance. This is particularly the case concerning individual differences in healthy people. We collected structural MRI data from 217 healthy people. They also had widely-varying performance on cognitive tasks linked to the hippocampus. In-depth analyses showed little evidence hippocampal volume affected task performance.

Autobiographical memory, future thinking, and spatial navigation are critical cognitive functions that are thought to be related and are known to depend upon a brain structure called the hippocampus. Surprisingly, direct evidence for their interrelatedness is lacking, as is an understanding of why they might be related. There is debate about whether they are linked by an underlying memory-related process or, as has more recently been suggested, because they each require the endogenous construction of scene imagery. Here, using a large sample of participants and multiple cognitive tests with a wide spread of individual differences in performance, we found that these functions are indeed related. Mediation analyses further showed that scene construction, and not memory, mediated (explained) the relationships between the functions. These findings offer a fresh perspective on autobiographical memory, future thinking, navigation, and also on the hippocampus, where scene imagery appears to play an influential role.

Imagined contact is an intervention that combines the prejudice‐reduction of intergroup contact with the easy, low‐risk application of imagery‐based techniques. Accordingly, it can be applied where direct contact is difficult or risky. However, a possible limitation of imagined contact is that it may not be effective for participants with stronger initial prejudices, which would limit its usefulness and application. Two experiments (N1 = 103, N2 = 95) investigated whether initial prejudice moderated imagined contact's effects on explicit attitudes, behavioral intentions (Experiment 1), implicit attitudes, and petition‐signing behaviors (Experiment 2) toward two different outgroups. In both experiments, imagined contact was more effective when initial prejudice was higher. Implications for imagined contact theory and application are discussed.

Objective Personality change is a growing field of interest, but relatively few studies have examined causes of change in Openness. We investigated whether it is possible to influence state Openness, and through what mechanisms this effect may occur. Method In two experiments (Study 1: N = 144, Mage = 36.4, 58% female, 88% White; Study 2: N = 269, Mage = 34.0, 60% female, 91% White), participants reflected on and wrote about a personal experience requested to be either: nostalgic; positive and novel (Study 1); positive or novel (Study 2); or ordinary. They rated the events for nostalgia, positivity, novelty, and sociality, and completed measures of state positive affect, self‐esteem, social connectedness, meaning in life, and state Openness. Results Participants who recalled positive and/or novel events reported greater state Openness than those who recalled ordinary events. In Study 1, this also applied to those recalling nostalgic events. Event ratings of positivity (both studies), nostalgia and novelty (Study 2) independently predicted state Openness. State positive affect and self‐esteem were independent predictors in both studies, suggesting possible indirect paths. Conclusions Reflecting on nostalgic, positive, and novel experiences can increase state Openness. This finding may be useful for interventions targeting trait‐level change.

Autobiographical memory, future thinking and spatial navigation are critical cognitive functions that are thought to be related, and are known to depend upon a brain structure called the hippocampus. Surprisingly, direct evidence for their interrelatedness is lacking, as is an understanding of why they might be related. There is debate about whether they are linked by an underlying memory-related process or, as has more recently been suggested, because they each require the endogenous construction of scene imagery. Here, using a large sample of participants and multiple cognitive tests with a wide spread of individual differences in performance, we found that these functions are indeed related. Mediation analyses further showed that scene construction, and not memory, mediated (explained) the relationships between the functions. These findings offer a fresh perspective on autobiographical memory, future thinking, navigation, and also on the hippocampus, where scene imagery appears to play an influential role.

46Marked disparities exist across healthy individuals in their ability to imagine scenes, recall 47 autobiographical memories, think about the future and navigate in the world. The importance 48 of the hippocampus in supporting these critical cognitive functions has prompted the question 49 of whether differences in hippocampal grey matter volume could be one source of performance 50 variability. Evidence to date has been somewhat mixed. In this study we sought to mitigate 51 issues that commonly affect these types of studies. Data were collected from a large sample of 52 217 young, healthy adult participants, including whole brain structural MRI data (0.8mm 53 isotropic voxels) and widely-varying performance on scene imagination, autobiographical 54 memory, future thinking and navigation tasks. We found little evidence that hippocampal grey 55 matter volume was related to task performance in this healthy sample. This was the case using 56 different analysis methods (voxel-based morphometry, partial correlations), when whole brain 57 or hippocampal regions of interest were examined, when comparing different sub-groups 58 (divided by gender, task performance, self-reported ability), and when using latent variables 59 derived from across the cognitive tasks. Hippocampal grey matter volume may not, therefore, 60 significantly influence performance on tasks known to require the hippocampus in healthy 61 people. Perhaps only in extreme situations, as in the case of licensed London taxi drivers, are 62 measurable ability-related hippocampus volume changes consistently exhibited. 63 64 65 KEYWORDS 66 Hippocampal volume; scene construction; autobiographical memory; future thinking; spatial 67 navigation; individual differences 68 69 A larger number of studies have investigated the relationship between hippocampal 103 volume and memory ability in healthy individuals, but with mixed results. On the one hand, 104

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In recent years, the use of machine learning to predict personality from digital data has gained increasing interest from organisations, academics and the public. In turn, a new field of personality computing has developed, which involves combining machine learning techniques with psychological measures of personality. However, effectively integrating these approaches is challenging - the fields of machine learning and psychology are highly disparate, with different objectives, methodologies, and perspectives on performing and reporting research. In this article, we report findings from a systematic review that analysed 178 personality computing studies published before November 2020. We developed a novel set of criteria that was used to evaluate the quality of study design and reporting of each study according to 10 criteria: hypotheses, study rationale, selection of features, algorithm training, ground truth, sampling, the evaluation of algorithms’ performance (i.e., classification, regression), the performance measures reported, and detail concerning ethics and open science practices. Our findings highlight that a large proportion of studies lack detail on the above criteria, which leads to questions over the validity, reliability, and replicability of the findings. We discuss the implications of this research for practice and recommend directions for future work.