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

We're officially launching the new PSL CultureLab in 10 days ! If you're interested in the research of a collective bridging Computational Humanities, Social Sciences and Cultural Evolution, you can check our programme (and come to our event, if you're in Paris 22 September): psl.eu/agenda/collo...

🎊 New paper out! In this @cp-trendscognsci.bsky.social Forum, we (with @lucasmolleman.bsky.social and @bjornlindstrom.bsky.social) summarize how reward learning can lead to adaptive social learning. We also explore the broader consequences for cultural evolution: www.cell.com/trends/cogni... 🚄

💥 Our new paper (with ‪@lucasmolleman.bsky.social and ‪@bjornlindstrom.bsky.social‬) is now out in @nathumbehav.nature.com‬ 🥳 www.nature.com/articles/s41... 🧠 Here, we advance a novel RL account—the Social Feature Learning (SFL) model—that explains how people learn to learn from others! 🤝 🧵👇

Postdoc in agent-based human-earth system modelling We are looking for a modeller with experience in agent-based or human earth system modelling and with interest in transdisciplinary sustainability science as part of the Anthropocene navigator project in a two-three year position in Stockholm.

The second @rldmdublin2025.bsky.social poster from the lab is by fantastic PhD student Shen Tian. Using modeling and experiments, he investigated the key role of semantic knowledge in a complex innovation task (originated by @maximederex.bsky.social). On Thursday, poster #86

I'm presenting a poster at #RLDM2025 this Thursday in Dublin! I'm on Poster Session 3: Poster #14: Language allows culture to improve mental models 💭 Please find me if you want to talk cultural evolution & language!

Big cities are vibrant hubs of culture, but why exactly is that? Now out in @natcomms.nature.com, we analysed music listening patterns of over 2.5 million people and demographics to examine mechanisms driving cultural diversity. With @researchdeezer.bsky.social @norijacoby.bsky.social Highlights ⬇

New paper out in Topics in Cognitive Science! "Open-Ended Technological Evolution: The Co-Evolution of Invention and Cognitive Technologies" 🧵 onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1...

Join our @erc.europa.eu funded lab @ki.se! We're hiring a postdoc to explore how humans learn from each other — with fMRI, modeling, & behavioral experiments. 🧠👫 A chance to lead cutting-edge work in social neuro & computational psychology. Apply: shorturl.at/GJQuW

Success in academia often has more to do with luck, patronage and the job market than “hard work”. Good academics acknowledge this. I worked hard, but I was in the right place at the right time on occasion. Historians far more talented than I have fallen between the cracks.

As grant money starts drying up, it's more important than ever not to waste it on paying publishers' open access "article processing fees" when we can host PDFs for free. Tom Morgan and I wrote a paper on this, forthcoming at Science and Public Policy. Accepted draft here: osf.io/preprints/os...

One way to pass on our own causal understanding about how a physical system works is to provide a verbal explanation about it. Read in American Journal of Psychology Vol. 137, Iss. 3. @neurogiovanni.bsky.social @blubludoesscience.bsky.social scholarlypublishingcollective.org/uip/ajp/arti...

With @sheinalew.bsky.social: Teaching is associated with the transmission of opaque culture and leadership across 23 egalitarian hunter-gatherer societies, in @naturecomms.bsky.social #evolution #culture 🧪 #LeadSciSky #CultEvo www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Announcing American Journal of Psychology Vol. 137, Iss. 3! Featuring contributions from @neurogiovanni.bsky.social , @blubludoesscience.bsky.social , & more! Plus, book reviews, including review & response on "Smart Management" @mitpress.bsky.social scholarlypublishingcollective.org/uip/ajp/issu...

CE postdoc alert 🚨

Postdoc opening in beautiful Stockholm 🇸🇪! Join us at Karolinska Institutet to explore how interdependent traits shape social learning and cultural evolution. 🧠 Behavioral + computational work 🤝 Work w/ labs in Amsterdam @lucasmolleman.bsky.social & Leuven Details: shorturl.at/Wzy9o

Great opportunity to study social learning and cultural evolution within a wonderful team & lab at the @ki.se in Stockholm! You can contact me (or @bjornlindstrom.bsky.social directly) if you have any questions!

post doc position on "affective social learning" in Andreas Olsson's group at Karolinska Institute. Recommended! ki.varbi.com/en/what:job/...

Pleased to see our work published: The Ties That Bind: Computational, Cross-cultural Analyses of Knots Reveal Their Cultural Evolutionary History and Significance We analysed knots across 12,000 years and 82 societies. Time to tie a thread 🧵 about why knots matter. doi.org/10.1017/S095...

🚀COSMOS is BACK!!!💫 The Computational School on Modeling Social and collective behavior (COSMOS) will take place in RIKEN, Tokyo, between 29 Sept - 3 Oct, organised by me and fantastic @thecharleywu.bsky.social ! Application deadline: 25th April. For more details see 👉️ cosmossummerschool.github.io

🚨 New preprint out! 🚨 How do people make moral judgments as third parties? 👀 We show how two motivations—inequality aversion (fair = moral) ⚖️ and the common-is-moral heuristic (frequent = moral 👨‍👩‍👧‍👧—interact to shape evaluations 🧵👇 📄 osf.io/preprints/ps...

📝New paper in iScience (@cp-iscience.bsky.social) by myself and a wonderful cast of co-authors (sadly not on bluesky). We investigated the neural circuit involved in watching other people build tools! 🧵 (1/8) [link: 10.1016/j.isci.2025.111870]

Job offer! 3-year PDRA studying archaeological content on social media from a cultural evolution perspective. Based at Edinburgh, supervised by @chiara-bonacchi.bsky.social and myself -project "Weaponised Pasts: The Evolution Of Heritage-based Hostility On Social Media’. Please share! bit.ly/3QCXUFS

Interesting article by @blubludoesscience.bsky.social and colleagues on social learning mechanisms. #ehbea #culturalevolution #psychscisky www.cell.com/iscience/ful...

📝New paper in iScience (@cp-iscience.bsky.social) by myself and a wonderful cast of co-authors (sadly not on bluesky). We investigated the neural circuit involved in watching other people build tools! 🧵 (1/8) [link: 10.1016/j.isci.2025.111870]

Looking forward to this workshop! I'll be speaking about RL models of social media engagement data.

For those who missed the @culturalevolsoc.bsky.social conference in Durham last September, the recorded talks are now freely available to watch here: underline.io/events/456/l...

🤖+🧠=🚀 How can AI enhance human collective innovation? Join our postdoc position (in close collaboration w. @anilyaman.bsky.social at VU Amsterdam) at Karolinska Institutet to explore human-AI collaboration using computational modeling, simulations & experiments. ki.varbi.com/en/what:job/...

Amazing opportunity to explore social learning and cultural evolution within a beautiful team & lab at the @ki.se in Stockholm! You can contact me (or @bjornlindstrom.bsky.social directly) if you have any questions!

💥Postdoc Opening! 💥We (@lucasmolleman.bsky.social & Piet van den Berg) seek a postdoc to study social learning and cultural evolution. We are looking for someone with math/computational modeling skills & interest in human behavior. Get in touch if you have any questions! shorturl.at/W6Qsb

Announcement! The next @culturalevolsoc.bsky.social CES conference will be at UM6P in Rabat, Morocco, provisional dates 11-13th May 2026! Hosted by Mathieu Charbonneau, @sarahalami.bsky.social, @zhgarfield.com & @edseabright.bsky.social. Save the dates! culturalevolutionsociety.org/news-and-eve...