iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

Benjamin Pitt @benjaminpitt.bsky.social · 23/07/2026

This can help explain how people learn so much, so flexibly. The same mechanism that allowed our participants to induce arbitrary structure in novel patterns may also be what allows people to induce the systematic structure of their physical, social, and cultural environment, whatever it might be.

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Benjamin Pitt @benjaminpitt.bsky.social · 23/07/2026

This algorithm induction ability did not evolve in humans for decoding patterns of colored blocks. Rather, it may have evolved as a general-purpose learning mechanism for decoding almost any real-world pattern, whether it's how to play tag, use chopsticks, or build a canoe, just by watching.

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Benjamin Pitt @benjaminpitt.bsky.social · 23/07/2026

A generative Bayesian LOT model of children’s response patterns showed that they weren’t just learning simple associations among neighboring blocks. They were inducing algorithms that could explain the patterns we showed them, like scientists developing a theory.

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Benjamin Pitt @benjaminpitt.bsky.social · 23/07/2026

Accuracy was high at every age we tested, starting at 3 years old. Even children without any formal schooling – children who do not even know how to count – decoded our patterns well above chance on their first (and only) try.

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Benjamin Pitt @benjaminpitt.bsky.social · 23/07/2026

Instead, they generalized. Even though the response patterns looked different physically from the sample patterns, they were similar logically – far more similar than you’d expect by chance. The kids saw through the superficial features and discovered the underlying rule.

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Benjamin Pitt @benjaminpitt.bsky.social · 23/07/2026

We showed US American and Indigenous Tsimane’ children simple patterns of colored blocks like 🔺🔷🔺🔷 and asked them to make their own ‘sibling’ pattern, with no help. We limited their patterns to different blocks and different lengths (and even different ‘alphabets’) to make copying impossible.

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Benjamin Pitt @benjaminpitt.bsky.social · 23/07/2026

New paper finally out in @NatureComms with E. Leib, D. O’Shaughnessy, C. Gallardo, @sferrigno.bsky.social, and @spiantado.bsky.social. 📝Children across cultures discover the latent algorithms that structure what they see, even without instruction, feedback, or formal schooling.🧵 tinyurl.com/4a238m2d

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Benjamin Pitt @benjaminpitt.bsky.social · 25/11/2025

Come work with me on cognitive diversity, development & dynamics in beautiful Amherst, Massachusetts! Graduate student applications are due a week from today. cognitiveconstructionlab.com

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Benjamin Pitt @benjaminpitt.bsky.social · 12/11/2025

This shows people are not limited to using one reference frame at a time, even in the very same action. Instead, people across cultures may habitually use compound cognitive maps composed of multiple reference frames to represent the multidimensional spatial relations of their environment.

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Benjamin Pitt @benjaminpitt.bsky.social · 12/11/2025

A group of US undergrads were more egocentric overall (more blue), but often made the same kind of hybrid responses: Egocentric on the front-back axis and allocentric on the left-right axis at the same time. One action, two reference frames.

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Benjamin Pitt @benjaminpitt.bsky.social · 12/11/2025

Here’s a canoncal response. She finds an object in her far right cup, turns around, and places it in her far LEFT cup. This preserves the object’s EGOcentric position in front-back space (i.e. far, far) but preserves its ALLOcentric position in left-right space (e.g. window-side, window-side).

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Benjamin Pitt @benjaminpitt.bsky.social · 12/11/2025

Here’s what they did. Some of their responses were fully egocentric (blue), and some were fully allocentric (pink), but most were mixed (purple), corresponding to an egocentric frame on one axis and an allocentric frame on the other axis in the very same action (i.e. placing an object in a cup).

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Benjamin Pitt @benjaminpitt.bsky.social · 12/11/2025

In each trial, participants picked up an object from one of 16 cups laid out on the "study" table (in four groups of four), turned around 180 degrees to face an identical "test" table, and were asked to put the object in the corresponding cup.

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Benjamin Pitt @benjaminpitt.bsky.social · 12/11/2025

We know from a past study that Tsimane’ switch reference frames depending on which spatial axis is relevant, lateral (left-right) or sagittal (front-back): tinyurl.com/347h9b2y.

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Benjamin Pitt @benjaminpitt.bsky.social · 12/11/2025

We addressed this question with the Tsimane’, an indigenous group of farmer-foragers living in the Bolivian Amazon.

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Benjamin Pitt @benjaminpitt.bsky.social · 12/11/2025

But neuroscience says otherwise. All sorts of animals – including humans – integrate egocentric and allocentric spatial information all the time, to be able to navigate a complex 3D spatial world. So which is it? One-at-a-time or habitually integrated?

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Benjamin Pitt @benjaminpitt.bsky.social · 12/11/2025

*Egocentric* coordinates are centered on the body (e.g. my left) and so turn with the observer. *Allocentric* coordinates are based on the environment (e.g. East-West, uphill-downhill), and so stay put even if you don’t.

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Benjamin Pitt @benjaminpitt.bsky.social · 27/10/2025

The Cognitive Construction Lab will study children and adults across cultures to understand how the diversity of human experience produces a diversity of human minds. Check out the brand new lab website! cognitiveconstructionlab.com

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