iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

Erin Isbilen @erin-isbilen.bsky.social · 11/09/2026

Happy fall semester, everyone! I have accepted an Assistant Professorship at Yale University in the Child Study Center, School of Medicine, and have started my own lab (complete with a coat of arms which I hand-drew; no AI). The CASTLE Lab eagerly looks forward to future collaborations!

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Tess Forest @tessforest.bsky.social · 24/06/2026

I'm starting a lab at the University of Notre Dame! 🎉🍀🧠 Doors open Jan 2027. I'm most excited to meet my future students (recruiting psych grad students for 2027!), help grow a budding neuroscience area, and head home to the midwest after many years away. Please reach out! @notredame.bsky.social

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Claudia Ruzza @claudiaruzza.bsky.social · 11/06/2026

What a fantastic first day at #IASL in #SanSebastián! So many inspiring talks and posters. A particular highlight was @jennysaffran.bsky.social keynote reflecting on 30 years of research since her groundbreaking 1996 paper, inspiring us to think about what we know (and don’t) in #StatisticalLearning

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Cognitive Science of Language Lab @csl-lab.bsky.social · 11/06/2026

CSL Lab alumni @fffrinsel.bsky.social is delivering her talk about using eye tracking to study cue integration during real-time statistical learning at the conference on Interdisciplinary Advances in Statistical Learning #IASL26

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Cognitive Science of Language Lab @csl-lab.bsky.social · 11/06/2026

CSL alumna @erin-isbilen.bsky.social answering questions about her presentation on word search as a measure of statistical learning at the SL conference in San Sebastián #IASL26

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MOSAIC @uofg-mosaic.bsky.social · 27/04/2026

See images for abstracts and author bios. You can also have a look at the BBS target article, Severine will present here: www.cambridge.org/core/journal... (co-authored with @erin-isbilen.bsky.social, @mh-christiansen.bsky.social & Dan Rubenstein)

The Platform of Trust as a Deep Design Principle for Language Origins – Sławomir Wacewicz
The honesty problem in communication is well known: cheap signals are vulnerable to deception, manipulation, and receiver resistance. It follows that language-like communication presupposes a prior interactional infrastructure that stabilises honesty sufficiently for low-cost signals to scale. In language origins research, however, the full theoretical consequences of this problem are still often underplayed. As a result, I argue, many supposedly “evolutionary” models of language origins remain merely gradualistic or accretive: they describe how more language-like capacities are added over time, without fully embedding language in a general theory of the evolution of communication, such as signalling theory.

In this talk, I present the platform of trust as a starting point for theorising language origins. PoT is a socio-ecological niche in which communication can be cheap, honest, large-scale, and extended beyond kin because receivers tend to trust messages as a default. I will argue that the flipping of this default setting — from expecting manipulation to expecting honesty — is the central breakthrough in language origins, with cascading downstream consequences. Once this shift is taken seriously, many familiar features of language, including several of Hockett’s design features, can be reinterpreted as consequences of trust-based communicative efficiency. I will illustrate this with pantomime: signalling theory predicts two distinct types of pantomime, with two different evolutionary trajectories — “expensive hype” pantomime, as found in ritual and performance, and “efficient whispers” pantomime, which naturally simplifies into communicatively effective manual gestures and signs

Multimodality as a safeguard of honesty in communication and language: from Animals to Humans – Séverine Hex
Multimodality characterizes nearly every communicative system, and in our recent paper accepted in Behavioral and Brain Sciences we argue that this feature of communication plays an essential evolutionary role in safeguarding signal honesty. We first discuss the importance of honesty in communication broadly, and introduce socially-mediated controls as an alternative to intrinsic costs. We next outline how multimodality mitigates signal dishonesty, and highlight the importance of signal honesty in complex, cooperative species, such as humans, wherein acceptance may incentivize dishonesty. Finally, we urge researchers to investigate the role of multimodality and honesty in cooperative, “cheap” signals, emphasizing the need for comparative work on the forces that have shaped the evolution of communication.

Speakers:
Sławomir Wacewicz Sławomir Wacewicz (Nicolaus Copernicus University in Toruń) is an Associate Professor of Linguistics. He is co-founder of the Centre for Language Evolution Studies (CLES), where he currently serves as deputy head. He also directs the Toruń Interactionist Lab (TIL), which investigates the dynamics of human interaction. His work on the cost-benefit calculus of communication has contributed to current debates on language origins, espcially through the notion of a "platform of trust" as a foundational condition for the evolution of cheap, open-ended human communication.
Severine Hex Severine Hex (University of Exeter; Junior Fellow, Harvard Society of Fellows) is a comparative ethologist. She studies how animals in complex societies use multimodal communication and social bonds to navigate their social worlds. She will present her new BBS target article, "Multimodality as a safeguard of honesty in communication and language: from Animals to Humans", which argues that combining signals across modalities is one of evolution's key solutions to the honesty problem — from animal displays to human language.
What is MOSAIC? MOSAIC is the Multimodal Social Interaction Group of the School of Psychology and Neuroscience at the University of Glasgow. We meet monthly to discuss pressing topics in social interaction research. Everyone is welcome to join our events. We now have 200+ members from international institutions, all interested in social interactions. Feel free to attend these sessions if the topics are of interest, and help us spread the word! Email us at Jonas.Noelle@glasgow.ac.uk if you would like to join the mailing list. Also, if you are interested in hosting one of these sessions, let us know!

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Morten H. Christiansen @mh-christiansen.bsky.social · 13/04/2026

What can multimodality do for honesty in communication across species? 🤔 In our BBS target paper, we argue that it's crucial. Want to comment on that? 👉 Submit commentary proposals until May 5, 2026 Collaborative work w/@dr-severinehex.bsky.social, @erin-isbilen.bsky.social & Dan Rubenstein

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Erin Isbilen @erin-isbilen.bsky.social · 13/04/2026

Interested in the role of multimodaility in communication across species? Our new BBS article with @dr-severinehex.bsky.social, @mh-christiansen.bsky.social, and Dan Rubenstein is now accepting commentaries. The deadline is May 5th.

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Dr. Severine Hex, PhD @dr-severinehex.bsky.social · 09/03/2026

I am delighted to share my new paper with coauthors @mh-christiansen.bsky.social, @erin-isbilen.bsky.social, and Dan Rubenstein. We argue that multimodality safeguards signal honesty by forming a multimodal gestalt that increases complexity and facilitates social costs on dishonesty.

cambridge.org

Multimodality as a safeguard of honesty in communication and language: from Animals to Humans | Behavioral and Brain Sciences | Cambridge Core

Multimodality as a safeguard of honesty in communication and language: from Animals to Humans

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Cognitive Science of Language Lab @csl-lab.bsky.social · 10/03/2026

📣 Another BBS paper from the CSL Lab! This paper w/alumni @dr-severinehex.bsky.social and @erin-isbilen.bsky.social + Daniel Rubenstein and @mh-christiansen.bsky.social argues that multimodality is key to safeguarding honesty in communication in humans and other animals 👉 doi.org/10.1017/S014...

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Morten H. Christiansen @mh-christiansen.bsky.social · 18/11/2025

Congratulations to Dr. @sere-yu-wang.bsky.social for defending her PhD dissertation with flying colors! 👏

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BogaertsLab @bogaertslab.bsky.social · 24/09/2025

Curious about the human ability to extract regularities from sensory input (i.e., “statistical learning”) and individual differences therein? #CognitiveScience #Learning Our #Consensus paper presents the collective insights of 27 researchers worldwide 🌎 💬 🌍 💬 🌏 💬: 🔗 doi.org/10.31234/osf...

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Max Planck Institute for Psycholinguistics @mpi-nl.bsky.social · 09/09/2025

For decades, linguists assumed kids drive language change through ‘imperfect’ learning. New research by Raviv, Blasi & Kempe (Psychological Review) show that instead, adolescents and young adults are more likely to spread, normalize, and cement linguistic shifts. www.mpi.nl/news/young-c...

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Mike Frank @mcxfrank.bsky.social · 02/09/2025

*Sharing for our department’s trainees* 🧠 Looking for insight on applying to PhD programs in psychology? ✨ Apply by Sep 25th to Stanford Psychology's 9th annual Paths to a Psychology PhD info-session/workshop to have all of your questions answered! 📝 Application: tinyurl.com/pathstophd2025

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Morten H. Christiansen @mh-christiansen.bsky.social · 22/07/2025

Happy to contribute an article on #LanguageEvolution to the Open Encyclopedia of Cognitive Science @oecs-bot.bsky.social Everything you ever wanted to know about language evolution in ~1K words—well just scratching the surface 😉 dig into the references for more info oecs.mit.edu/pub/18miikqb...

oecs.mit.edu

Language Evolution

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Riccardo Fusaroli @fusaroli.eurosky.social · 07/07/2025

Now "The development of turn-taking skills" is officially out in Cognitive Science: dx.doi.org/10.1111/cogs.70082 (and preprint still here: osf.io/preprints/ps...). See the thread below for a quicker insight on the findings!

dx.doi.org

The Development of Turn‐Taking Skills in Typical Development and Autism

Social interaction depends on turn-taking and adapting to one's conversational partner, yet little is known about the typical and atypical development of these abilities. We investigated this in a lo...

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Cognitive Science Society @cogscisociety.bsky.social · 28/05/2025

🏆 Each year, outstanding early-career researchers are honored with the Robert J. Glushko Dissertation Award in Cognitive Science. Meet some of this year’s winners and learn about their work! #CogSci2025 #GlushkoPrize cognitivesciencesociety.org/2025-glushko...

cognitivesciencesociety.org

2025 Glushko Dissertation Prize Winners - Cognitive Science Society

The Cognitive Science Society and the Glushko-Samuelson Foundation would like to honor the next generation of cognitive scientists by highlighting this year’s winners of the Robert J. Glushko disserta...

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Adele Goldberg @adelegoldberg.bsky.social · 21/04/2025

Thanks to Evan Kidd, @mcxfrank.bsky.social & @asifamajid.bsky.social (Eds) for organizing the awesome *Open* Encyc. of Cog. Sci. and entrusting me with/ the honor of penning the entry on "Language" (in < 3500 words, so do see other entries for much, MUCH more!) oecs.mit.edu/pub/ho9e9c80...

oecs.mit.edu

Language

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Morten H. Christiansen @mh-christiansen.bsky.social · 27/02/2025

What is human #StatisticalLearning for? The standard assumption is that the goal of SL is to learn the regularities in the environment to guide behavior. In our new Psych Review paper, we argue that SL instead is provides the basis for novelty detection within an information foraging system 1/2

Depiction comparing standard views of statistical learning with a sponge and the new information foraging view with an octopus

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Erin Isbilen @erin-isbilen.bsky.social · 17/02/2025

Interested in a new natural language statistical learning task? Our paper in JEP: LMC w/ Abby Laver Noam Siegelman @jimmagnuson.bsky.social & Dick Aslin presents a modified word search game that manipulates the statistical properties of words. Performance predicts key reading-related skills!

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Mike Frank @mcxfrank.bsky.social · 13/01/2025

How strong is the relationship between caregiver speech and language development? A meta-analysis (Coffey & Snedeker) - important attempt to try and estimate input-uptake relationships across studies www.cambridge.org/core/journal...

cambridge.org

How strong is the relationship between caregiver speech and language development? A meta-analysis | Journal of Child Language | Cambridge Core

How strong is the relationship between caregiver speech and language development? A meta-analysis

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Erin Isbilen @erin-isbilen.bsky.social · 13/01/2025

How does multimodal communication in non-human animals change under environmental stress? Our new paper with Severine Hex & Dan Rubenstein shows that communicative flexibility may facilitate survival, using plains zebras as a case study! 🦓 Read more below: onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/...

onlinelibrary.wiley.com

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Federico Rossano @federicorossano.bsky.social · 15/12/2024

New article on how dogs are using their soundboards at home is finally out! Using a large dataset (250K) of button presses by dogs and owners, we show that dogs’ presses are (i) non-accidental, (ii) non-random, and (iii) not mere repetitions of their owners’ presses. www.nature.com/articles/s41...

nature.com

Soundboard-trained dogs produce non-accidental, non-random and non-imitative two-button combinations - Scientific Reports

Scientific Reports - Soundboard-trained dogs produce non-accidental, non-random and non-imitative two-button combinations

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