Obituaries capture the best in people. An analysis of 38 million obituaries from the United States found that many focused on the values of tradition and benevolence. Major events shape obits: The COVID-19 pandemic has eroded benevolence. In PNAS: www.pnas.org/doi/abs/10.1...

Prior work shows AI is often truth-biased in text-based deception detection. In our new 12-study paper in @journal-of-comm.bsky.social, we find a substantial lie-bias in audiovisual deception detection during mock interrogations. Read more here! doi.org/10.1093/joc/...

New in @pnas.org! We analyzed 38 million US obituaries to see how we remember the deceased: - Tradition & benevolence dominate legacies - Major cultural events (e.g., 9/11) shifted what values were emphasized - Gender & age of the deceased shape legacies doi.org/10.1073/pnas...

🪦 New in @pnas.org: we analyzed 38 million U.S. obituaries to ask what signals a life well lived: What values are people most remembered for? How do legacies shift with cultural events? How do age and gender shape what it means to have lived well? www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/...

New in @pnas.org! We analyzed 38 million US obituaries to see how we remember the deceased: - Tradition & benevolence dominate legacies - Major cultural events (e.g., 9/11) shifted what values were emphasized - Gender & age of the deceased shape legacies doi.org/10.1073/pnas...

It's August 1st. U.S. academics on the semester system:

Looks like someone at Meta has been doing their Stanford homework. www.uploadvr.com/meta-ideal-v...

VHIL suggests "30 minutes" for VR sessions. Robby Ratan & colleagues tested it. 30 participants met regularly over 3 months. Duration had an inverted U-shaped relationship with peer social presence. Many peaks are in the 30 minute range but varied by participant. vhil.stanford.edu/publications...

Personality activates differently depending on environmental context. Also in VR! @davidmmarkowitz.bsky.social shows groups with extraverts excel in large spaces. Extroversion detectable by speech in platforms who can "shard" users by world size for group success. vhil.stanford.edu/publications...

I urge everyone to read Unbreaking’s new page on everything the govt is doing to destroy & diminish medical research funding. It’s the best thing I’ve read on this topic: @lizneeley.bsky.social & co have such done an incredible job. unbreaking.org/issues/medic...

Five enduring, in-lab VR results (w/ @stanfordvr.bsky.social): (1) presence depends on activity, (2) self-avatars shape behavior, (3) VR better for procedural than abstract learning,(4) body tracking is powerful but privacy-risky, (5) people underestimate VR distance. www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Study: "the benefit of being there [VR] depends on the activity; self-avatars influence behaviour; procedural training works better than abstract learning; body tracking makes VR unique; people underestimate distance in VR." #VirtualReality #ImmersiveLearning #EdTech www.nature.com/articles/s41...

5 robust, replicated, & meta-analyzed findings from 30 years of psych research in VR. Timeline of events in experiment history, recommendations for consumers & scholars new to the medium, and the DICE model on when to use (and not use) VR. @nathumbehav.nature.com vhil.stanford.edu/publications...

3/ We’re thrilled to feature two keynote speakers who are shaping the field: 🗣️ The Mohrmann Lecture: Dr. Dana Mastro from UCSB (@ucsantabarbara.bsky.social) 📣 Conference Keynote: Dr. David Markowitz (@davidmmarkowitz.bsky.social) from MSU (@msucomartsci.bsky.social)

2/ This year’s theme — Media, Health, and Society — brings together 53 unique research presentations on topics including AI and algorithmic influence, social media and well-being, information integrity, and public health communication.

🧵/ The 2025 Comm Horizons Conference (communication.ucdavis.edu/horizonconf2...) is almost here! From May 16–18, UC Davis will host scholars from around the world to explore how media, health, and society intersect across lifespans and diverse communities @ucdavis.bsky.social @ucdlands.bsky.social

Congratulations to psychologists Rich Petty, Phoebe Ellsworth, BJ Casey, Jamie Pennebaker, & Alison Gopnik on their election to the National Academy of Sciences today!!

Who speaks next? @PortiaWang.bsky.social analyzed a VR dataset of 77 sessions, 1660 minutes of group meetings over 4 weeks. Verbal & nonverbal history captured at millisecond level predicted turn-taking at nearly 30% over chance. To appear @acm-cscw.bsky.social. vhil.stanford.edu/publications...

Meet James Pennebaker, professor emeritus of psychology at the University of Texas at Austin, who is set to become APS's next president later this year. Read more to discover how Pennebaker describes the lessons and impact of his research in social psychology.

With all of the big announcements about AI-facilitated scientific research, like OpenAI's Deep Research and Google's AI co-scientist, it appears as though our thinky-piece on AI in the research process might be worth a re-read: www.frontiersin.org/journals/soc...

This was such a fun and informative project between @stanfordvr.bsky.social and me. We can learn a lot about a field through large-scale literature overviews facilitated by NLP and LLMs. Check out the paper in Cyberpsychology Behavior and Social Networking! www.liebertpub.com/doi/10.1089/...

🚨 Join us for #CommHorizons25, hosted by the Department of Communication @ucdavis.bsky.social! Theme: Media, Health, & Society: Exploring Wellbeing Across Lifespans & Diverse Communities Keynotes: Drs. Dana Mastro & @davidmmarkowitz.bsky.social. Info: communication.ucdavis.edu/horizonconf2...

Outgoing EIC Sungeun Chung reflects on communication science’s growth in publications and impact but questions its overall cumulative progress. For the field to advance—they argue—we need: greater theoretical refinement, critical debate, and careful integration + synthesis doi.org/10.20879/acr...

12/7/2024 -- Songs & Stories with my good pal, Steve DeMaria. This night of community, music, friendship, and reflection was one of the most meaningful experiences I have ever had. Many thanks to all who joined! Here's a small glimpse into the night, with videos to come soon.

Hey, it's finally up! I'm hiring a postdoctoral researcher for our new and growing computational social science lab! If you're passionate about Computational Social Science, Social/Personality Psychology, and AI/NLP, don't be shy — apply! jobs.utdallas.edu/postings/28227

It seems like many people have migrated to #commsky! I hope this becomes an inviting, fun, and thoughtful community. If people on here happen to also be at #nca24, please say hi!

It seems like many people have migrated to #commsky! I hope this becomes an inviting, fun, and thoughtful community. If people on here happen to also be at #nca24, please say hi!

Numbers Are Persuasive—If Used in Moderation Despite innumeracy/math anxiety, people often appreciate numbers Thanks to @davenussbaum.bsky.social and Daisy Yuhas for great advice on this new piece with @davidmmarkowitz.bsky.social in @sciam.bsky.social www.scientificamerican.com/article/numb...

New research in PNAS Nexus reveals that AI like GPT4 can simplify scientific writing, improving public understanding of science and perceptions of scientists. When AI crafts lay summaries, readers grasp content better and view scientists as more credible. academic.oup.com/pnasnexus/ad...

Bad: The simpler-writing heuristic posits that in competitive information environments readers choose simpler headlines, confirmed by large-scale experimental evidence Good: Readers prefer to click on a clear, simple headline (by @davidmmarkowitz.bsky.social and collaborators) #journalismsky

2.5 lies per minute seemed high to me, so I asked a friend who is a deception expert how this compares to other data. Apparently, research on this topic tends to find that people lie 1-2 times *per day* so this rate is...high. More here: "Lying in everyday life" psycnet.apa.org/record/1996-...

Excited to announce the release of our new paper, "Verbal Behavior and the Future of Social Science"! Co-authored with @davidmmarkowitz.bsky.social, we delve into the transformative potential of Natural Language Processing (NLP) in social sciences. dx.doi.org/10.1037/amp0... (1/)

There are a *lot* of researchers out there asking "How similar is ChatGPT to humans on X psychological test?" @davidmmarkowitz.bsky.social, Kate Blackburn, and I suggest that we can be thinking much, much more broadly about the future potential of generative AI: doi.org/10.3389/frsp...

Excited to share our new paper in Frontiers in Social Psychology! 🚀 With @ryanboyd.io and Kate Blackburn, we explore how AI may revolutionize academic research. Many pieces focus on AI's shortcomings, but we focused on the benefits and potential. Dive in: www.frontiersin.org/articles/10....

Academia needs to consider a world where AI is our primary research collaborator. In our new preprint, @davidmmarkowitz.bsky.social, Kate Blackburn, and I imagine a near-future where AI permeates science, providing some ideas about ethics, equality, and responsibility. osf.io/preprints/ps...

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