Substack has proven to be a source of interesting read recently. Imo, it’s a nice alternative to social networks where I find the signal/noise ratio quite low. (This days, I really enjoy reading @paulbloomatyale.bsky.social’s small potatoes.) Any recommendations of good Substack to follow?

Do you ever actually check the GitHub repo of a paper you’re reading? I try to keep my profile up to date and the repos clean and reproducible, but I’m genuinely curious whether anyone looks.

Nice to see a pop science article about our paper on why riddles and whodunits are so satisfying :) www.templeton.org/news/riddles...

Great paper!

One of my favorites paper got published 🤓 It covers a lot of ground and it’s the best summary of my views on misinformation and what to do about it. Give it a read :) 🔓 osf.io/preprints/ps... 👉 doi.org/10.1177/1461...

New preprint out today (osf.io/preprints/ps...). We tested whether AI agents are actually infiltrating online surveys. Spoiler alert: they aren't Thread 🧵 [1/9]

Thrilled to share that our new paper is now out in @cognitionjournal.bsky.social: "Who knows what? Bayesian Competence Inference guides Knowledge Attribution and Information Search," with @oliviermorin.bsky.social , @hugoreasoning.bsky.social & @tadegquillien.bsky.social! Link: tinyurl.com/ykyhxcc6

The World Happiness Report 2026 theme is social media and adolescent wellbeing, so I tried to have a read. It feels a mixed bag to me. They gave prominence to the view of Jonathan Haidt and Zach Rausch, which tells about the framing, but there are also clearly more nuanced chapters.

In poverty, do people take more or less risk? Some theories contend that they avoid risk out of caution. Others that they take risks (e.g. crime) out of desperation. In our new paper in BBS, we show that they are the two sides of the same coin: the desperation threshold. Peer commentary call soon!

CALL: a PhD grant (3 years) to do a PhD with me at @cognitionens.bsky.social on the evolution of graphic codes. euraxess.ec.europa.eu/jobs/410213

🎉 Our paper is out in Communications Psychology: a perspective on behavioural public policies & the psychology of poverty. Core idea: poverty can shift psychology, so the same intervention won’t work the same for everyone. Thread 🧵

Rhea and I have been tracking our @nytimes.com word games (Wordle, Connections and the Mini) for the past two years. I decided to analyze our 4,200 gameplays with #rstats to determine a winner and made some festively embroidered charts with ggplot. Have a read. #dataviz aman.bh/blog/2025/tw...

It takes 225 million years or so for the Solar System to make one orbit around the galaxy. Sharks evolved long enough ago that they’ve done it twice.

🎉 New preprint: Bayesian Competence Inference guides Knowledge Attribution and Information search If someone knows that Venus is the only planet in the Solar System that rotates clockwise, will they also know what Earth’s only natural satellite is? What about which planets have no moons at all?

Nice to see our research featured on the eHRAF Academic Quarterly! I also discovered some interesting papers that I missed :)

Help us strengthen trust in climate scientists in the US! Join our megastudy 👇

Very cool paper!

"Depressed? Anxious? Insecure? Don’t worry about it. As long as you produce good science, you don’t have to be happy about it. We’ll be happy for you." 🙃

🎙️ EP #17 Most of us struggle w/ work-life balance. Long before the existence of long commutes and busy calendars, our ancestors lived as hunter-gatherers (HGs). Do HGs have more free time? @adigitaltanay.bsky.social discusses this & much more with Mark Dyble tinyurl.com/y6hd8ur5 (1/2)

Over the years, a lot of our guests have recommended various books and/or media relating to various aspects of cognitive science. A 🧵 EP #1 | @hugoreasoning.bsky.social recommends

Nice pop science article on insight: www.nature.com/articles/d41...

Hi! I'm attending #SBDM2025 conference over the next few days. Come find me at Poster #61 if you're interested in computational models of social cognition! Looking forward to discussing and meeting new people :)

I presented this paper at the Explaining Culture Conference last week, and I couldn't resist creating a new plot specifically for the talk. It's definitely not a good time management strategy to create new plot for each talk, but it's a lot of fun!

Very interesting feature of our social cognition!

My first podcast interview is out! We had the chance to speak with a fascinating guest, and I was especially intrigued by our discussion on the hidden challenges the brain creates when designing hearing aids. Give it a listen, it’s accessible to non-specialists!

"Such “drumming” allows chimps to communicate across long distances. Now, two studies show the animals also drum to a distinct beat, which varies across chimp societies." www.science.org/content/arti...

Our #CogSci2025 paper led by Madeleine Horner (with Adam Moore) explores people's lay conception of empathy. Main finding: people have a robust expectation that agents who feel empathy are more likely to help, especially when helping is costly. quillienlab.github.io/Horner%20et%...

The full paper is open access, for those who want to dive deeper into methods, robustness checks, and open datasets. Thanks for reading. Thanks to my co-authors! www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Imaginary worlds like Star Wars and Game of Thrones dominate global culture. Are they really a recent phenomenon, or have they always been central to storytelling? In our latest paper, we investigate the historical trajectory of imaginary worlds with new large-scale data.

"What goes on four feet in the morning, two feet at midday, and three feet in the evening?" This riddle is thousands of years old, but why does it stick with us? In our new paper, we argue that the feeling of insight might explain the lasting success of some cultural products: tinyurl.com/4j756h9a

This statement from the NSF is insane. Science is, in essence, designed to separate the true from the false. Understanding how falsehoods spread is key to the scientific endeavor. It is not a violation of free speech to be proven wrong.

Super happy to have presented our research at @ehbea.bsky.social !

A few photos of this weekend's hike to Royaumont Abbey, near Paris. (Accessible super easily with public transport from Paris)

🎙️ EP #14 What are the multiple ways in which social media 'might' affect mental health? What can parents do, given the messy state of the scientific literature? @adigitaltanay.bsky.social discusses this & much more with @orbenamy.bsky.social tinyurl.com/5eum2vxm [Jon Haidt Easter Egg in 🧵 below]

The Cognitations Podcast is now on BlueSky, give it a follow 🙂 @cognitations.bsky.social

Based on recent incidents like this one, I can't in good conscience, recommend that any (non-U.S.) prospective PhD student or Postdoc seek a position in the U.S. at this time. www.nytimes.com/2025/03/26/u...

"The Appeal of Insight: Why Riddles and Whodunits Captivate Us" - These studies contribute to a growing literature in which the cultural success of fictional stories is explained by their ability to tap into specific cognitive mechanisms. osf.io/preprints/ps...

This is a terrible UI change and may also impact peer review. In a previous project, I created a component per experience which are now inaccessible from the file section in the main project (but were accessible in the overview). Please @cos.io, bring back the files overview in the home page.

🎙️EP #13 Out Why do humans think about knowledge? How does this capacity enable communication? Jay discusses this and much more with Jennifer Nagel open.spotify.com/episode/6xyn... #TIL #philsky #PsychSciSky #podcasts

New cultural evolution modelling paper with @bdecourson.bsky.social on @pnas.org! "Weak individual preferences stabilize culture" A quick 🧵 www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/...

Where do moralizing religions come from? Useless cognitive by-products?Cultural group selection for complex societies? Our Psych Review paper argues: neither. Let’s rethink their cognitive & evolutionary origins🧵 w/ @manvir.bsky.social @nbaumard @jbaptistandre.bsky.social doi.org/10.1037/rev0...

Very happy to see this paper out in @pnas.org! 🧠This project was a result of collaboration with Charles de Dampierre, now CEO at Bunka.ai, and Catherine Tallon-Baudry, my PhD co-supervisor at @lsp-ens.bsky.social and LNC (ENS Paris). doi.org/10.1073/pnas... #AcademicSky #PsychSciSky #neuroskyence

📖 Open Social Psychology Textbook 📖 Call for Contributors 🙋🏻‍♀️ New FORRT initiative to develop an open-access textbook on social psychology. Goal: summarize 🏛️ classical findings 🏛️ and discuss them in light of replication attempts. 🧵 Find out how you can get involved below 👇

New WP! The illusory truth effect (repetition -> belief) is core to psych of beliefs, & thought to be a deep bias impacting misinfo, persuasion & advertising Why would cognition include such a flaw? We argue it is a rational adaptation to high-quality info environments 🧵1/

Does the culture you grow up in shape the way you see the world? In a new Psych Review paper, @chazfirestone.bsky.social & I tackle this centuries-old question using the Müller-Lyer illusion as a case study. Come think through one of history's mysteries with us🧵(1/13):

I'll be there to present our latest research on modelling how people infer others' competence from minimal cues. Let me know if you want to chat!

It is often said that having a longer PhD and publishing more before starting a postdoc can be beneficial. However, a new study in PNAS shows that having highly cited publications during a PhD does not impact faculty employment: www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/...

The pre-print is now available here: osf.io/preprints/os...

Nobel prize winner Katelyn Karikó has spent endless hours to gain unprecedented insights into nature. But she also enjoys the feelings of insight triggered by watching Columbo. Are there people who just enjoy feelings of insights more, whatever their source? Our recent findings suggest that yes:

🥳 My first publication ever in Personality and Individual Difference, with @edgardubourg.bsky.social and @hugoreasoning.bsky.social. Insight can arise from a wide range of experiences, from making groundbreaking discoveries to reading a whodunit. Are some people more interested in this feeling?