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

A little example of children's peer culture in the wild: my 5-year-old son and his classmates worked together to make these (truly stunning) pieces of art. I asked to take them home & frame them. To quote Picasso: "It took me four years to paint like Raphael, but a lifetime to paint like a child."

New from me and Alan Leslie! We got the band back together to lay out our view on object representations in the infant mind: non-discursive indexes that operate within a language of thought, & which get development of a more complex object concept off the ground www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...

when mailing lists think they can hide their little 'unsubscribe' button

Children drive all sorts of things, including me, to distraction; but they also shape culture. Important theory piece.

Sheina Lew-Levy@sheinalew.bsky.social · 3w ago

www.durham.ac.uk/news-events/...

Any model of cultural transmission that implies a sender and a receiver vastly underestimates the role of active (re)construction. Great to see more articles like this making it into print

Dorsa Amir@dorsaamir.bsky.social · last mo.

When we consider children in cultural evolution, we tend to cast them as recipients of adult culture. In our BBS target article, @sheinalew.bsky.social & I argued there's more: through 'peer cultures', children actively drive cultural adaptation. Our final paper + a rich set of responses is out now!

When we consider children in cultural evolution, we tend to cast them as recipients of adult culture. In our BBS target article, @sheinalew.bsky.social & I argued there's more: through 'peer cultures', children actively drive cultural adaptation. Our final paper + a rich set of responses is out now!

FIFA bending the rules to give the US team an edge? Ladies and gentlemen, American soccer has finally arrived.

Most of the statistical tests you learned in stats class — t-test, ANOVA, correlation — are actually special cases of a single thing: linear regression. Ch 7 of Experimentology argues that thinking in models, not tests, is more flexible and a better foundation for theory. 🧵 experimentology.io

Complexity is ubiquitous in the world around us. But different stimuli are complex for different reasons. Does the mind nevertheless represent a ‘unified’ notion of complexity across domains? In @nathumbehav.nature.com, @chazfirestone.bsky.social & I show the answer is: yes! osf.io/preprints/ps...

When I will respond to your email

he was so real for this

For 99% of human history, children were free to roam their environments at will. No longer. So kids are roaming online worlds instead. Today in Psyche, I write about how the Internet became the last refuge for childhood freedom, and why that might be okay. psyche.co/ideas/have-o...

Don't be shy to take on a little two-week side project. These five months will be the most precious three years of your academic journey.

It's time for my favorite manuscript submission ritual! Scrolling through every single ManuscriptCentral login I've ever used in my career in a futile, fifteen-minute attempt to gain entry before I inevitably give up & reset my password to a new one which will also be lost to the sands of time.

Meet @dorsaamir.bsky.social, director of the Mind & Culture Lab at Duke University & 2026 APS Spence Award recipient! #Psychology Learn about her research, her career, & her advice for the upcoming generation of psychological scientists: www.psychologicalscience.org/publications...

Hyperfixation of the week: there is apparently a field called “forensic hairdressing” where people try to reconstruct ancient hair techniques. Below is one from Ancient Rome ca. 120 AD. The leading figure is a hairstylist-turned-archaeologist named Janet Stephens who also does video tutorials. Cool!

I will never forgive AI for taking the em-dash away from me. I was — gratuitously — using it first!

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

Did you know that the spinning top is one of the most common forms of traditional play worldwide? Our research found tops to be nearly universal across human cultures. Wherever you come from, your ancestors probably spun tops. New preprint: Top of the World osf.io/preprints/so... Thread:

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...

"...it remains unclear how exactly culture ‘shapes’ cognition. The study outlines four pathways: culture can privilege one cognitive process over another, prune out disfavored processes, produce new processes, or have no effect on cognition." www.cell.com/trends/cogni...

What does it mean for culture to ‘shape’ cognition?

Human culture and cognition vary widely across groups, but how exactly culture ‘shapes’ cognition remains underspecified. In this review, we outline four qualitatively different pathways by which cult...

cell.com

Quite honored to be included in this amazing cohort of 2026 APS Janet Taylor Spence Award recipients. Grateful to APS for the recognition, and to the mentors & collaborators & friends who make it all possible.

Association for Psychological Science@psychscience.bsky.social · 5mo ago

Congratulations to the 2026 APS Spence Award Recipients! @dorsaamir.bsky.social, @williambrady.bsky.social, @esfinn.bsky.social, @andrewgrotzinger.bsky.social, @ycleong.bsky.social, @danieljamesyon.bsky.social, www.psychologicalscience.org/members/awar...

Congratulations to the 2026 APS Spence Award Recipients! @dorsaamir.bsky.social, @williambrady.bsky.social, @esfinn.bsky.social, @andrewgrotzinger.bsky.social, @ycleong.bsky.social, @danieljamesyon.bsky.social, www.psychologicalscience.org/members/awar...

Fascinating research by @dorsaamir.bsky.social et al finds marked variation in 4 cooperative behaviours—fairness, trustworthiness, forgiveness, and honesty—among children aged 5-13 in five societies, which converges toward the societal norms in middle childhood: www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...

People form beliefs not only as individual agents, but as members of social groups. Children (4-6 years old) who belonged to a group were more convinced by evidence that supported their ingroup’s belief (and were less convinced by evidence that opposed their ingroup): www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Fun etymology fact (which is maybe obvious but I just learned!)— The word “galaxy” comes from the Greek “galaksias” meaning “milk” (same root as “lactose”). The Greeks thought our galaxy looked like a ring of spilled milk, which is also why we (& others) call it the Milky Way, but metaphors vary!

Our lab has the capacity to test ~500 uni students each semester If you’re a researcher in cognitive psychology or metascience and need data collection support, we’d love to collaborate. We can help collect high-quality data from a large student sample. Get in touch to discuss potential projects!

If you work at the intersection of computational neuroscience and machine learning, consider applying for this postdoc position (January 2027 start date): academicpositions.harvard.edu/postings/15868 An opportunity to work with a great group of people across Harvard, MIT, and UC Berkeley.

No matter where they live, kids cooperate according to their community’s social norms by middle childhood. Learn more in #ScienceAdvances: https://scim.ag/4r0Rxga

The emergence of cooperative behaviors, norms, and strategies across five diverse societies

Children’s cooperative behaviors and norms develop along distinct cultural pathways shaped by local norms.

scim.ag