New paper! Setting goals is so useful in complex settings because it can reduce the environment's complexity to only the goal-relevant features. But for humans, reframing comes at a cost. Could this explain why we're so bad at abandoning goals that are no longer worthwhile? 🧵

Great to see our new paper out; evidence for Neanderthals in Arabia! Time to stop imagining our hominin cousins as only being found in cold northern forests! www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...

Neanderthals in the desert? Population history best explains Middle Palaeolithic technological heterogeneity in Arabia

Northeast Africa and Southwest Asia present a rich record of hominin occupations between ca. 100 and 50 thousand years ago (ka) at a critical biogeogr…

sciencedirect.com

Jimbob Blinkhorn@jblinkhorn.bsky.social · 4d ago

New paper klaxon! Neanderthals in the Desert? Our new paper suggests that Neanderthals may have been responsible for producing MIS 3 Middle Palaeolithic Levallois blanks in northern Arabia! Have a look at this: www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...

Out now in PNAS. www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/... Thank you to all peers and colleagues who provided invaluable feedback during the process!

A demographic theory of similarity-biased social learning | PNAS

We develop a demographic theory of similarity-biased social learning that formalizes our understanding of when and why individuals should preferent...

pnas.org

Alejandro Pérez Velilla@apvelilla.bsky.social · 5mo ago

New preprint with @psmaldino.bsky.social on the evolution of similarity-biased learning: osf.io/preprints/so... This mathematical treatment both simplifies and extends our previous simulation treatment of the subject: www.cambridge.org/core/journal...

@peetertinits.bsky.social crushed it today with the Price-equation based decomposition plots of linguistic change in early modern Europe. #dh2026

Reminder: two weeks are left to apply for the PhD and postdoc positions in my lab. See more info here www.aesthetics.mpg.de/en/career/jo...

Very lucky and grateful to present this paper in Daejeon at #DH2026 with @tonyamart.bsky.social — if you’re wondering what the queen of pop herself is doing on the slide, we also have posterior predictions over her song lyrics and her poetry book!

Bret Beheim@babeheim.bsky.social · 7d ago

@artjomshl.bsky.social and @tonyamart.bsky.social compare the evolutionary dynamics of poetry and lyrics over the last few centuries #dh2026

I summarised my path in (social) science as a love story for cultural evolution: selfmademodeler.wordpress.com/2026/07/28/c...

Cultural Evolution, a Love Story

I recently read this quote from Albert Camus. “A man’s work is nothing but this slow trek to rediscover, through the detours of art, those great and simple images in whose presence his heart first …

selfmademodeler.wordpress.com

​New article!: The Origins and Evolution of Writing www.annualreviews.org/content/jour... 🧵1/

The Origins and Evolution of Writing

For centuries, scholars have debated the etiology and evolution of writing. The most persistent concerns relate to the relationship between writing and social organization, linguistic structure, and c...

annualreviews.org

Cultural Evolution of Perfumes since 1900 arxiv.org/abs/2607.19520

Cultural Evolution of Perfumes since 1900

Perfumes are cultural artifacts and works of sensory art, composed from a finite, recombinable palette of notes that together evoke a distinctive scent impression. Here, we assemble the largest perfum...

arxiv.org

How many languages have existed over the Holocene—and what does that reveal about the design space of languages and cultures? Now out in @science.org www.science.org/eprint/QDZNY....

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...

science.org

The Sheep Detectives is film of the year

“this epistemic exclusion (in)visibly shapes the academic community, determining whose voices are heard and what kind of knowledge is shared and taken seriously” academic.oup.com/isp/advance-...

Forum: The Passports They Carry: Global South Scholars and the Global Academic Mobility Divide

Abstract. Passport inequality is more than a simple logistical inconvenience; it is a fundamental injustice that undermines the ideals of fairness and equa

academic.oup.com

Cool new paper about correcting the biases in cultural data using methods from ecology. royalsocietypublishing.org/rsif/article...

Correcting collection bias in comparative studies of diversity

Abstract. Comparative analyses of diversity in human populations often rely on historical, archival and observational data, which are systematically shaped

royalsocietypublishing.org

1/ New Brunel CCE commentary in Behavioral and Brain Sciences by @replicatedtypo.bsky.social and @matcharbonneau.bsky.social 🧠🌍✨ “Subjective selection needs socially transmitted goals and culturally evolving problems”

4/ Also in the issue is a new paper from @replicatedtypo.bsky.social and @matcharbonneau.bsky.social on “Modelling the emergence of open-ended cultural evolution” This asks why does human culture not just accumulate, but keep opening up new problems, new goals and new ways of thinking? 🤔

Modelling the emergence of open-ended cultural evolution

Abstract. Humans stand alone in terms of their potential to collectively and cumulatively change their culture in an open-ended manner. This open-endedness

doi.org

1/ Some very nice CCE news 📢 A new Philosophical Transactions B theme issue on The evolution of collective intelligence is out, co-edited by @replicatedtypo.bsky.social from @brunelpsy.bsky.social 🧠🧬👇

Volume 381 Issue 1948 | Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B | The Royal Society

Influential themed journal issues across the life sciences.

royalsocietypublishing.org

📣🤩 The next @brunelpsy.bsky.social 'Ask a Psychologist' podcast is with Dr Matteo De Marco on AI, technology and memory 🤖🧠 enjoy and subscribe to see new episodes!

"Does AI and technology ruin memory?" - Dr Matteo De Marco | Ask A Psychologist

YouTube video by Psychology @ Brunel

youtu.be

3 years after publishing my book 'Representational Change and the Use of Metaphors in Problem Solving', this week it has finally become open access www.taylorfrancis.com/reader/downl... I had a thread about it on Tw*r, but I've long since deleted that account, so let me say a few words here: 1/13

Learning from the most successful people makes sense? We show that social learning, and especially payoff bias, is bad when choice outcomes are dependent on prior success💰 As such "rich-get-richer" dynamics are everywhere, this shows fundamental boundary conditions for the benefits of SL!

Paul Bergmann@pkbergmann.bsky.social · 4w ago

New preprint with @dominikdeffner.bsky.social: While social learning is broadly adaptive when repeated decision outcomes are independent, we show that when outcomes depend on prior success, most social learning strategies deteriorate performance and increase inequality: doi.org/10.31234/osf... 1/7

Our feature review "The 'Design Features' of Language Revisited" has now been published in the July issue of Trends in Cognitive Sciences (@cp-trendscognsci.bsky.social)! doi.org/10.1016/j.ti...

Michael Pleyer@symbolicstorage.bsky.social · 8mo ago

🚨NEW PUBLICATION ALERT!🚨 The 'Design Features' of Language Revisited (w/ @mperlman.bsky.social @glupyan.bsky.social Koen de Reus & @limorraviv.bsky.social) Feature Review out now in #OpenAccess in @cp-trendscognsci.bsky.social! #language #linguistics Paper: doi.org/10.1016/j.ti...

Very excited to announce our line-up for the #CRSF2026 Interdisciplinary panel! We are thrilled to have @andrecarrington.bsky.social, @suzannevanderbeek.bsky.social, @colinthecopywriter.bsky.social, @seangroberts.bsky.social joining us for what is sure to be a wonderful event!

Freshly out in @pnasnexus.org: "On the transmission of texts: Written cultures as complex systems" The first major publication of project @lostma.bsky.social , where we lay down our methodology for studying the transmission, evolution or disparition of texts. /1 #science 🧪

On the transmission of texts: Written cultures as complex systems

Abstract. Knowledge of past cultures relies heavily on surviving written material. Over the centuries, texts were copied, altered, and often lost, leaving

academic.oup.com

We (with @felixthehauskat.bsky.social and @mathildevm.bsky.social) contributed a commentary on this fantastic paper highlighting the need to consider childhood in models of cultural evolution: www.cambridge.org/core/journal...

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!

So much for the wisdom of the crowd

New research! 📚 We built the largest database to date of cephalopod species - octopuses, squids and cuttlefish - and their brains, habitats and behaviors 🐙🧠📈 What did we find?👇 Press release: www.lse.ac.uk/news/ecologi... Paper: www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...

🚨This preprint is now out in PNAS: www.pnas.org/doi/full/10.... We combine a dyadic foraging paradigm w/ computational modeling + ABM to study how people navigate differing preferences, share responsibility for shared outcomes & what that means for the group! more in 🧵⬇️ @fearbrain.bsky.social

Ketika Garg@ketikagarg.bsky.social · 8mo ago

🚨 Excited to end the year with a new preprint w/ Wenning Deng (not on bsky) and Dean Mobbs @fearbrain.bsky.social 🎉 🎉 "Blame and Compromise During Risky Dyadic Foraging" osf.io/preprints/ps... Feedback is very welcome! Thread: 🧵 1/n

📣 I'm hiring! Two positions (PhD student & Postdoc) in my ERC project Macroevolution of European Literature. Let's study the cultural evolution of literature using massive data 📚📈 📍Frankfurt | Apply by August 15 Details: www.aesthetics.mpg.de/en/career/jo... Please repost to help spread the word!

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 🧵👇

📣 Brunel psychology has a YouTube channel exploring the research from the department in shorts and long-form interviews Check it out!

Psychology @ Brunel

Welcome to Brunel University London's Psychology channel -- a window into how we think, learn and interact. On this channel, you'll find conversations with our researchers, glimpses of student life an...

youtube.com

Grandparenting tells us much about our history. It’s important to preserve these stories theconversation.com/grandparenti...

Grandparenting tells us much about our history. It’s important to preserve these stories

Grandparents can play a fundamental role in families, yet they have often been overlooked in Australian history.

theconversation.com