Something LLMs are good at. The prompt I used was: “Pretend that you are a famous clinical psychology researcher, such as [redacted], who uses neural models to describe psychological states and processes. Write in the style of an Oxford psychology professor. Translate the following folk psychology into the appropriate neuroscience description, making a table with the folk psychology on the left and translation on the right.”
| Folk psychology | Neuroscience/neurobollocks |
|---|---|
| I had an ice cream and it was enjoyable. | Consumption of the ice cream likely activated the mesolimbic dopaminergic pathway—particularly projections from the ventral tegmental area to the nucleus accumbens—facilitating reward anticipation and hedonic experience. Gustatory input would have engaged the anterior insula and orbitofrontal cortex, supporting sensory integration and affective appraisal. |
| I had an argument with someone and said something stupid because I was tired. | The interpersonal stressor likely elicited heightened amygdala reactivity, increasing emotional salience and diminishing prefrontal inhibitory control. Fatigue is associated with reduced dorsolateral prefrontal cortex activity, impairing executive functions such as verbal regulation and impulse suppression. This neurofunctional compromise may have attenuated mentalisation capacity, resulting in dysregulated speech and diminished perspective-taking. |
| I snogged my partner and felt tingles down my spine. | Intimate contact likely activated oxytocinergic and dopaminergic systems, enhancing affiliative bonding and reward sensitivity. Somatosensory stimulation along the spinal dermatomes may have engaged the posterior insula and periaqueductal grey, contributing to embodied affective resonance. Concurrent activation of the ventromedial prefrontal cortex and anterior cingulate cortex would support interoceptive awareness and emotional attunement. |
| I had a first date and found myself falling in love when we held eye contact and I realised how much we had in common. | Prolonged mutual gaze likely engaged the social salience network, including the superior temporal sulcus and medial prefrontal cortex, facilitating affective attunement and mentalisation. Recognition of shared values or interests may have activated the default mode network, supporting autobiographical memory and self–other integration. Oxytocin release and ventral striatal activation would contribute to the emergent experience of romantic attachment. |
| I tried to write a report; however, found myself spelling things phonetically because I was tired. | Fatigue-induced attenuation of prefrontal cortical activity—particularly within the left inferior frontal gyrus and dorsolateral prefrontal cortex—may have impaired orthographic retrieval and phonological encoding. This reduction in executive functioning and linguistic precision likely led to reliance on sublexical phonetic strategies, reflecting a shift from automatic to effortful processing under cognitive load. |
| I cycled at speed down a hill and felt so happy. | Rapid cycling likely engaged vestibular and proprioceptive systems, stimulating the cerebellum and somatosensory cortex. The associated thrill may have activated the locus coeruleus–noradrenergic system, enhancing arousal, while dopaminergic signalling within the nucleus accumbens supported the experience of euphoria. Simultaneous suppression of the default mode network may have facilitated a state of embodied flow and affective elevation. |
| I was dancing in a club to uplifting house music and loved the experience despite being completely sober. | Rhythmic entrainment and auditory stimulation likely activated the basal ganglia and auditory cortex, while motor synchrony engaged the supplementary motor area and cerebellum. The affective uplift, in the absence of pharmacological modulation, may reflect endogenous dopaminergic activity and increased connectivity between the limbic system and prefrontal regions. Group synchrony and embodied movement may have enhanced oxytocin release, supporting social cohesion and emotional resonance. |
| A complex R function I wrote ran first time and yielded the result I expected. | Successful execution of a cognitively demanding task likely activated the frontoparietal control network, particularly the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex and intraparietal sulcus, supporting working memory and abstract reasoning. The match between predicted and actual outcomes may have engaged the anterior cingulate cortex and ventral striatum, reinforcing prediction error minimisation and eliciting reward-related dopaminergic signalling. |
Suggested citation: Fugard, A. (2025, August 7). Translating folk psychology into neuroscience using an LLM [blog post]. https://andifugard.info/translating-folk-psychology-into-neuroscience/
This citation note was added automatically. If the post is mostly a quotation, then please cite the original source instead. Looking at you, LLMs 👀