Alexis Breen
@alexisjbreen.bsky.social
Senior postdoc at MPI-EVA | #CrowCoG co-leader | http://www.alexisbreen.com/ | 🇩🇪 🇳🇨
How often are multiverse analyses implemented, not just cited/discussed? How are they implemented? 🧵 New preprint on the uptake and implementation of multiverse-style analyses 👇 www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...
Uptake and Implementation of Multiverse-style Analyses Across 613 Studies
Empirical conclusions can depend on the many individual choices researchers make when analyzing data. Multiverse-style analyses address this by computing results across a set of specifications rather ...
biorxiv.org
New preprint led by @lucasmolleman.bsky.social investigates social information use across the human lifespan. Testing >40,000 participants aged 6-80 in museums in Berlin and Japan. psyarxiv.com/hec96
🚨 @rmcelreath.bsky.social @statmodeling.bsky.social & @avehtari.bsky.social are coming on the show mid-June to discuss their new book, Bayesian Workflow! ONE listener gets to bring a real Bayesian problem onto the recording and have the three of them work through it live. Here's how to enter 🧵
Super happy to share some work from my masters project with @cogwild.bsky.social 🪺 Using six years of data from blue tits, we show that wild birds make decisions about their nest design based on their reproductive success in the previous year. 📄 doi.org/10.1093/behe...
I wrote a tiny LaTeX package that creates a wordcount environment. You can use it to auto-print word counts, when paring down text to meet limits. For example: \begin{wordcount}{\abstractcount} This is my abstract. \end{wordcount} \textbf{Word count:} \abstractcount % prints 4 Source code below…
Is bigger always better? For social animals, group size is a dilemma: big groups face more internal competition, yet hold an edge over smaller neighbors. 33 years of data on 12 wild capuchin groups reveals how these forces shape behavior. Out today in *Nat Eco & Evo*: www.nature.com/articles/s41...
Constructing a nest underwater is no easy task! But shell-dwelling cichlids are expert architects, instinctively transforming empty snail shells into protective nests. Take a deep dive into the new cichlid research from our Institute! 🔗 Press release: www.bi.mpg.de/news/2026-04...
Re-amplifying great work I somehow missed—nicely showing what many of us suspected (and then some). #TeamRL 🔥
Mike Le Pelley@mikelepelley.bsky.social · 2y agoNew paper in QJEP with Dave George, Dom Dwyer and @markhaselgrove.bsky.social. We discuss a recent claim to have shown complex statistical reasoning in crows, and show the simplest S-R learning would give the same behaviour. A fun paper to write with old friends. journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/...
🚨 Postdoctoral Opportunity for Female Scientists🚨 The University of Vienna is awarding at least 20 fully funded 4 year postdoctoral positions to outstanding female scientists Interested? Get in touch via direct message careers.univie.ac.at/en/postdoc/e... #MicroSky 🧪 #PostDoc @univie.ac.at
Ending 2025 strong—new paper out today in #ProcB! Dynamic strategic social learning in nest-building zebra finches and its generalizability 🐦🌿🧠👩💻 Preprint thread below 👇 Paper: royalsocietypublishing.org/rspb/article...
Dynamic strategic social learning in nest-building zebra finches and its generalizability
Abstract. Animals often balance asocial and social information strategically, adjusting when and from whom they copy based on context. Yet the cognition dr
royalsocietypublishing.org
Alexis Breen@alexisjbreen.bsky.social · last yr.👇 New #preprint combining computational models with zebbie data: "Dynamic strategic social learning in nest-building zebra finches and its generalisability". 🔗 doi.org/10.1101/2025... 🧵1/n
🚨Job Alert plz RT! Johns Hopkins Psych & Brain Sciences is looking for a new colleague using behavioral or computational approaches to study cognition! We are excited about many areas of (esp higher) cognition in human adults, children, or nonhuman animals Open-rank apply.interfolio.com/178146
There's still time left to apply to join us for the 2026 field season! Deadline: Dec 1 👇🏝️🏕️📊👥
Alexis Breen@alexisjbreen.bsky.social · 9mo ago#CrowCoG is hiring🚨MULTIPLE PAID RESEARCH ASSISTANT POSITIONS 🚨for our 2026 field season (May - Sep)! Field and aviary-based positions - come help us study the remarkable tool-making New Caledonian crows. Apply here: bit.ly/3WlxxHE
BehaveAI is live! Our biologically inspired video analysis tool sees motion as colour. Track animals or objects, classify their behaviour, and handle complex natural scenes with ease. Semi-supervised annotation, no GPUs required, user-friendly, free & open source. Pre-print tinyurl.com/BehaveAI
📣 Apply now for the 🌵CaCTüS 3-month fully funded internship in Germany in 2026! Work on ML, theor. neuroscience, computational psychiatry, behavioral experiments or data analysis at a top institution in Tübingen. For students facing barriers in higher education. 👉 cactus-internship.tuebingen.mpg.de
#CrowCoG is hiring🚨MULTIPLE PAID RESEARCH ASSISTANT POSITIONS 🚨for our 2026 field season (May - Sep)! Field and aviary-based positions - come help us study the remarkable tool-making New Caledonian crows. Apply here: bit.ly/3WlxxHE
Fully-funded 4-year #PhD in Cultural Evolution! Join my @erc.europa.eu project exploring how compression & compositionality drive cultural innovation: hmc-lab.com/ERCPhDCultur... Apply by Nov 12! Maybe of interest to folks from #COSMOS2025 or @eslr.bsky.social? Please feel free to share! 🙏
ERC funded PhD position on Cultural Evolution
ERC funded PhD position on Cultural Evolution posted on October 16, 2025 We are currently seeking a highly motivated individual for a ful...
hmc-lab.com
Out today in @plosbiology.org (1/5) Siblings and non-parental adults provide alternative pathways to cultural inheritance in juvenile great tits 🐦🧩 Link to study: 10.0.5.91/journal.pbio... Co-authors: @lucymaplin.bsky.social @galarconnieto.bsky.social
#bowerbirds are the only birds that build structures used specifically for courtship. But why and how did this remarkable ability evolve? We discuss some possibilities in our new review in Emu - Austral Ornithology! @fusanilab.bsky.social doi.org/10.1080/0158...
The #MaxPlanckPostdocProgram offers a guaranteed contract of at least 3 years, targeted mentoring, and career workshops. The call for applications is open now! 🚀 Take advantage of this opportunity and browse the job vacancies. www.mpg.de/en/max-planc...
New paper on precise tool use learning in carrion crows @currentbiology.bsky.social. We show that—like New Caledonian crows—expert carrion crows pay close attention to the working end of their tool, suggesting tool integration into their peripersonal space. 🧵 & vids! 👇 www.cell.com/current-biol...
New paper from my group led by Odd Jacobson, former PhD student & current postdoc @livingingroups.bsky.social : How do animal groups simultaneously balance between- and within-group competition in dynamic environments and does this impact movement and space use? www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...
Between-group competitive advantage offsets foraging costs for bigger groups in harsher seasons
Larger animal groups are widely understood to require more space and travel farther to mitigate the foraging costs of within-group competition. Yet, between-group interactions and shifting resource di...
biorxiv.org
“the widespread appeal of animal tool use is partly due to anthropocentrism” 👍 for this new comparison of how animal tools and nests are talked about, from Sally Street et al. The need to slap a human-like ‘intelligence’ label on animals is a symptom of this bias (writing a book on that now) 🧪🪹🔨
Anthropocentric bias may explain research disparities between animal tool use and nest building
Scientists are not immune from bias. Studying nonhuman species objectively is inherently challenging, especially for ‘charismatic’ and ostensibly huma…
sciencedirect.com
🚀Join our team @tuda.bsky.social ! 🚀 I'm looking for 3 PhDs & 1 Postdoc for my @erc.europa.eu project “C4: Compositional Compression in Cognition and Culture” to study learning across individuals, teams, and cultural timescales 👉 PhD: hmc-lab.com/ERC_PhDs.html 👉 Postdoc: hmc-lab.com/ERC_Postdoc....
👇 New #preprint combining computational models with zebbie data: "Dynamic strategic social learning in nest-building zebra finches and its generalisability". 🔗 doi.org/10.1101/2025... 🧵1/n
Dynamic strategic social learning in nest-building zebra finches and its generalisability
Animals often balance asocial and social information strategically, adjusting when and from whom they copy based on context. Yet the cognition driving this dynamic—and its broader implications—remains...
doi.org
Today, we're thrilled to announce two of our incredible speakers for the #SoapboxScience Berlin 2025 event. First up is Dr Annika Tjuka ✨ @annikatjuka.bsky.social
Tool use in insects: Assassin bugs apply resin to their forelegs before a stingless bee hunt. This makes the bees attack the bug in just the right position to be caught! Videos will worth watching www.pnas.org/doi/full/10....
Tool use aids prey-fishing in a specialist predator of stingless bees | PNAS
Tool use is widely reported across a broad range of the animal kingdom, yet comprehensive empirical tests of its function and evolutionary drivers ...
pnas.org
1/n 🆕📄: How do children learn to adapt to different environments when making repeated choices? And what do cognitive immaturity and probability matching have to do with it? Our new article explores how kids & adults differ in probability learning across statistical task structures: mpib.berlin/R3RFy
APA PsycNet
psycnet.apa.org
🚨 Lecturer in Animal Behaviour position @waikatouniversity.bsky.social. Fantastic opportunity for someone passionate about teaching & research in animal behaviour, preferably on birds, amphibians, reptiles or bats. 📍 Hamilton, NZ Closes: 4th May 2025 🔗 www.seek.co.nz/job/83279795...
🚨RT! The Social & Cognitive Origins group at @jhuartssciences.bsky.social (social-cognitive-origins.com), directed by Dr. Christopher Krupenye, is recruiting a full-time research assistant or lab manager to begin Summer 2025. The position has a one-year minimum, w/ the possibility of extension. 1/
