—— Open Mind is MIT Press’s Diamond Open Access Cognitive Science journal. We now have our first Impact Factor: 2.9 as of June 2026 Submit your papers to Open Mind direct.mit.edu/opmi

Before entering a long decline that continues into the present, humanity may have spoken far more languages, experiencing a “golden age” of linguistic diversity, with tens of thousands of languages spoken worldwide only several thousand years ago, a new Science study finds. https://scim.ag/4b8zW0b

The rise and fall of language diversity through the Holocene

Characterizing the factors that have shaped linguistic diversity is fundamental for understanding human history, culture, and cognition. In this study, we combined statistical and social computational...

scim.ag

Another cool study on children's algorithmic learning abilities!

Nature Human Behaviour@nathumbehav.nature.com · 10mo ago

Children can solve a difficult sorting task by spontaneously discovering efficient sorting algorithms. Older children outperform younger children, showing developmental growth in strategy use and problem-solving. @hw-yang.bsky.social‬‬ @celestekidd.bsky.social www.nature.com/articles/s41...

New paper finally out in @NatureComms with E. Leib, D. O’Shaughnessy, C. Gallardo, @sferrigno.bsky.social, and @spiantado.bsky.social. 📝Children across cultures discover the latent algorithms that structure what they see, even without instruction, feedback, or formal schooling.🧵 tinyurl.com/4a238m2d

The Cognitive Origins Lab @uwpsych.bsky.social is hiring! We are looking for a full-time Research Specialist (postbac) to work on non-invasive primate + child cognition research. Full-time, 2 years, starts June 2026. Apply here: wisconsin.wd1.myworkdayjobs.com/UW_Madison/j...

The Cognitive Construction Lab is hiring a full-time lab manager! Come work with me at UMass Amherst, starting this Fall. Apply here: tinyurl.com/3dpz5m3j

Technical Assistant I (Lab Manager - Cognitive Construction Lab) - Amherst, Massachusetts, United States

Title: Technical Assistant I (Lab Manager - Cognitive Construction Lab) Executive Area: Academic Affairs College/School/MBU: College of Natural Sciences Department: Psychology and Brain Sci Work Locat...

tinyurl.com

What does it mean for culture to “shape” cognition? In our new TiCS paper, @benjaminpitt.bsky.social & I offer a typology of four possible effects: culture can Privilege one cognitive process over others, Prune out disfavored ones, Produce new ones, or have no effect. www.cell.com/trends/cogni...

The strongest version of this illusion I’ve seen! Absolute head-wrecker!

Humans exhibit an astonishing variety of marriage systems. Sometimes monogamous, other times polygamous, occasionally we even marry ghosts. The diversity can seem to defy any general explanation. In my new piece for Works in Progress, I write about the Darwinian logic behind it. 1/

The market for marriage - Works in Progress Magazine

It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a good agricultural surplus, must be in want of a wife.

worksinprogress.co

"We say things like, ‘You have some food on your left cheek,’” said @benjaminpitt.bsky.social. “We would never say that you have some food on your down-river cheek or on your east cheek, but other cultures do.”  www.psychologicalscience.org/news/2026-ja...

Across Cultures, People Combine Reference Frames to Orient Themselves

A 2025 study explores allocentric and egocentric references and whether the two can be integrated simultaneously in a single action.

psychologicalscience.org

Highly highly recommended! The place is great and @cmolho.bsky.social is fabulous to work with!

Catherine Molho@cmolho.bsky.social · 8mo ago

🚨Two postdoc positions @tse-fr.eu @iast.fr 🚨 We are recruiting two postdocs as part of the ANR-funded project ENFORCE. Join me, @giuliandr.bsky.social, & @zhgarfield.com, to study punitive systems across societies. Full time, 2 years, no teaching. Deadline: Jan 23 www.tse-fr.eu/groups/depar...

Come work with me on cognitive diversity, development & dynamics in beautiful Amherst, Massachusetts! Graduate student applications are due a week from today. cognitiveconstructionlab.com

Benjamin Pitt@benjaminpitt.bsky.social · 9mo ago

I’ll be considering graduate school applications for Fall 2026 – positions are fully funded, typically for 5 years. Deadline to apply to the Cognition program is December 1. Come do science with me in beautiful Amherst, Massachusetts! www.umass.edu/natural-scie...

Fully funded #PhDposition in Comparative Cultural Psychology @mpi-eva-leipzig.bsky.social. We will use touchscreen experiments & eyetracking to study mental simulations in nonhuman apes & human children across different cultures. All info here: www.eva.mpg.de/career/posit... Please share / apply!🙏

Positions available - Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology

eva.mpg.de

Do people remember where things are relative to their body (e.g. my left side) or relative to the environment (the North/uphill side)? The answer is both at once, according to my new paper now out in Psychological Science! 🧵 journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/...

Sage Journals: Discover world-class research

Subscription and open access journals from Sage, the world's leading independent academic publisher.

journals.sagepub.com

I’m delighted to announce that I’ll be joining the faculty at @umassamherst.bsky.social next year as an assistant professor in Psychological & Brain Sciences! 🥳

a cartoon of homer simpson says whoo-hoo in front of a stone wall

ALT: a cartoon of homer simpson says whoo-hoo in front of a stone wall

media.tenor.com

We have extended the deadline for this position to January 31st. Also, the start date is pretty flexible; if you're graduating next spring/summer and interested in the role, apply!

Bill Thompson@wdt.bsky.social · 2y ago

We have a postdoc position available in my lab at UC Berkeley, 2 years+, flexible start date, research focus is social reasoning and cultural evolution from a computational perspective. Deadline = November 29th. aprecruit.berkeley.edu/JPF04639

Our new paper, on the evolution of institutions, is out in PNAS! How can institutions promote cooperation when they themselves rely on cooperation? Check out JB's awesome thread! Very proud of this paper with @jliep.bsky.social, N. Baumard, @jbaptistandre.bsky.social! www.pnas.org/doi/abs/10.1...

Jean-Baptiste André@jbaptistandre.bsky.social · 2y ago

Do we cooperate because of institutions, or do institutions exist because we cooperate? In this @pnas.org paper led by @jliep.bsky.social, with @lfitouchi.bsky.social & N. Baumard, we develop a mathematical model that answers this question. 👇 www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/...

No evidence for inequity aversion in non-human animals: a #meta-analysis of accept/reject paradigms royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/10.1098/... New paper led by Oded Ritov and w/ @nicholaraihani.bsky.social and Jan Engelmann.

No evidence for inequity aversion in non-human animals: a meta-analysis of accept/reject paradigms | Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences

Disadvantageous inequity aversion (IA), a negative response to receiving less than others, is a key building block of the human sense of fairness. While some theorize that IA is shared by species acro...

royalsocietypublishing.org