New paper in @nature.com with @lukebeehewitt.bsky.social, @isaiasghezae.bsky.social, & @robbwiller.bsky.social: Can LLMs predict results of social science experiments? Across 70 experiments, we find a strong correspondence (r=.85) between predicted and observed effects. doi.org/10.1038/s415... 🧵

Children’s Representations of Possibility: Uncertainty About “What” Is Easier Than Uncertainty About “Where”

Children’s Representations of Possibility: Uncertainty About “What” Is Easier Than Uncertainty About “Where”

Abstract. Young children struggle in situations involving mere possibility, such as when a target object could be in one of two possible locations. This difficulty is often interpreted as a general…

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🍄 New paper out in PLOS Computational Biology! 🍄 I, and others, have previously drawn a comparison between the classic “cost-avoidance” argument for social learning and the central idea of resource rationality... (1/8)

Yale is hiring in developmental psychology (open rank )! We're especially interested in complementing and broadening our area, including via somewhat less traditionally central such as cross-cultural and comparative approaches. Feel free to reach out with questions!

New paper out today in Social and Personality Psychology Compass! What happens when our moral values come into conflict? Our new paper explores "metamorality": the second-order principles we use to navigate conflicting moral choices. W/ Jesse Graham

Now out in Noûs: A communication-first account of explanation, with Jacqueline Harding (jacquelineharding.github.io) and Thomas Icard (stanford.edu/~icard/). Paper: onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/... Preprint: arxiv.org/abs/2505.03732

Why do societies rely on rigid moral rules? Don't lie. Keep your promises. Don't steal. We all recognize there are good reasons to make exceptions. So why are moral rules so often categorical? Our new paper proposes an answer. 🧵

How do people build new ideas from existing knowledge? By tracking Wikipedia searches, we found that novel ideas emerged when people balanced exploration with exploitation—alternating between distant topics and deep dives into related information.

Luck and Intentional Action: A Causal Account

Luck and Intentional Action: A Causal Account

Abstract. Can you perform an action intentionally if there was only a small chance your action would succeed? Researchers studying the folk concept of intentional action have documented complex…

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What's more nonsensical: smashing a pumpkin using a number, or growing flowers inside a sneeze? Our paper on graded inconceivability is out now in Cognition! Come for the cognitive science 🧠🔍, stay for the whimsy 🌼🧚! 🔗Journal link: bit.ly/gradedInconCog

Tomer Ullman@tomerullman.bsky.social · last mo.

Now out (for realz) in Cognition: "People Make Graded Judgments About The Inconceivable" (by Hu, Sosa, & me) Free preprint: www.tomerullman.org/papers/grade... Journal link: bit.ly/gradedInconCog @jennhu.bsky.social @cognitionjournal.bsky.social

If you have (or will soon) complete your PhD & would like to join a thriving cultural evolution research group in NEW ZEALAND, drop me a line. UoA offers a handful of funded research fellowships. Applications must be made by a faculty member. Deadline August. Pls share with your students

Levine @sydneylevine.bsky.social et al.'s "Resource-rational contractualism: A triple theory of moral cognition" is out in BBS, highly worth your time: bit.ly/BBSLevine26 if you had time left, I had thoughts: "Non-negotiable problems for a negotiation framework of morality" bit.ly/BBSTUCom26

Some of the first work related to my ERC is now available as a preprint 👉 arxiv.org/pdf/2606.20623 We model the learning of real-world melodies as resource-constrained inference over generative programs, with new implications for Rate-distortion theory: learning changes what is cheap to encode! 🧵👇

Hanqi Zhou@hanqizhou.bsky.social · last mo.

Most models of learning ask what you can represent. We think the real bottleneck is what you can afford to find, since searching for a good representation is itself expensive. New preprint w/ @davidnagy.bsky.social, Peter Dayan & @thecharleywu.bsky.social 🧵👇

New paper with Ángel Jiménez, @keith-jensen.bsky.social, Lei Chang and Hui Jing Lu Limited evidence that reputation-based partner choice facilitates information sharing in humans royalsocietypublishing.org/rspb/article...

Limited evidence that reputation-based partner choice facilitates information sharing in humans

Abstract. A necessary prerequisite for the accumulation of beneficial knowledge, or ‘cumulative cultural evolution’, is the sharing of information via soci

royalsocietypublishing.org

I wrote a book! It's called WHY WE ASK WHY, and it's about the human drive to explain, combining psychology, philosophy, and stories. It will be released on October 6, but it's currently available for pre-order from Barnes & Noble at 25% off with code PREORDER25.

Representing possible alternatives lies at the heart of moral judgment. As LLMs become embedded in our reasoning processes, they change the set of alternatives we bring to mind. 💭 Our #CogSci2026 paper shows that AI might be making us judge people harsher. ⚖️ osf.io/preprints/ps...

Children's prosocial and selfish rule-breaking following an implicit quid pro quo 🚨Recent work by Leon Li and Sebastian Grueneisen

Children learn what is right or wrong selectively from a legitimate authority’s punishment 
‼️Work by Young-eun Lee, Setayesh Radkani & Rebecca Saxe

I have been so excited about this project. In many ways the most surprising thing to me was how seemingly similar the AI-discovered models were to simple ones I thought I understood, even though they fit way better. This means we can also really get what makes them work.

Kevin J Miller@kevinjmiller.bsky.social · 2mo ago

Computational models are a key part of science but discovering new ones is hard! DataDIVER discovers concise models from data, which surface new mechanistic ideas and clear predictions for future experiments From Google Deepmind Neuroscience Lab + collaborators www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...

Hi everyone! My paper on cognitive representations of relationships and their developmental origins is finally out! I had a blast responding to the commentary and was honored to be able to engage with people who laid the foundation for my research program. www.cambridge.org/core/journal...

Why do humans punish? Our new paper, with @manvir.bsky.social, is out in Psychological Science! With experiments in a small-scale society (Mentawai) & the US, we test whether punitive cognition evolved to deter wrongdoing or restore fairness. link: tinyurl.com/msrmu7cc pdf: tinyurl.com/mvprz8fb

Semantic knowledge is key for human innovation and cultural evolution! Our paper (thread in repost), led by fantastic @anilyaman.bsky.social & rising star @ts-brain.bsky.social is out in @pnas.org! www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/... I will present this work at APS Barcelona (29/5), happy to chat!

Björn Lindström@bjornlindstrom.bsky.social · 10mo ago

How do humans keep inventing tools and technologies that no single person could create alone? Our new preprint, led by @anilyaman.bsky.social & @ts-brain.bsky.social shows that semantic knowledge guides innovation and drives cultural evolution. 🧠📘 arxiv.org/abs/2510.12837

Pointing out that “everyone else is already doing it!” is a classic way to motivate prosocial behavior. But how can we encourage actions which aren't popular yet? In a new paper in @jexpsocpsych.bsky.social, Mike Norton and I had a lot of fun testing a method using "collective streaks." (1/5)

Aside from testing the MR view, we offer a new theoretical take on why kids fail. Kids conceptualize the goal of object retrieval tasks exactly as adults do betting. When we bet on horses, we don't spread bets across all options, but try to pick a winner. When FORCED to spread bets, kids succeed.

Urvi Maheshwari ツ@urvi.bsky.social · 2mo ago

New preprint w @carenwalker.bsky.social & @drbarner.bsky.social! We test the "minimal representations" hypothesis that explains gaps in 3yos modal reasoning. Against it, we find that even 2½yos reason about mutually exclusive possibilities... when goals are clear to them. osf.io/preprints/ps... 1/6

📣Recent work from Bill Pepe, Brandon Woo, Ashley Thomas & Lindsey Powell: Infants use helping to infer the existence and strength of caring relationships

Interesting new mathematical paper in PNAS by Jarvis, Klein, Rosman & Saxe: ‘Compositionality and systematicity emerge from iterated learning in deep linear networks’. A few thoughts. www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/...

Compositionality and systematicity emerge from iterated learning in deep linear networks | PNAS

Humans have a remarkable ability to systematically generalize—reasoning about new situations by combining aspects of previous experiences. Language...

pnas.org

Research by @lfitouchi.bsky.social & @manvir.bsky.social suggests the tension between (evolutionary) deterrence, and (intuitive) retribution punishment motives is resolved by a model reflecting restoration of mutual benefit between cooperative partners→compensation+deterrence buff.ly/3T6fdvd

One of the biggest insights from my research over the past few years: Groups (not just the individuals within them, but groups as distributed entities) do a remarkable range of things to manage emotion. See new paper in American Psychologist with Yajun Cao psycnet.apa.org/doiLanding?d...

"contractualism stands on three theoretical pillars that have stood the test of time and enjoyed widespread influence across the humanities, the natural sciences, and the social sciences: social-contract theory, evolutionary theory, and game theory"

Contractualist Moral Cognition: From the Normative to the Descriptive at Three Levels of Analysis

Visual summary of the paper. Taking inspiration from the contractualist tradition in moral philosophy is helpful to better understand morality at three interrelated levels of analysis: Its evolutiona...

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Our new paper with @maxtaylordavies.bsky.social introduces a resource-rational model of Theory of Mind. The model can explain many of the successes and failures of mindreading in human adults and children, and non-human primates. 🧵 royalsocietypublishing.org/rspb/article...

Factive mindreading reflects the optimal use of limited cognitive resources

Abstract. The capacity to represent the mental states of other individuals, known as ‘mindreading’ or ‘theory of mind’, is key to successful social predict

royalsocietypublishing.org