iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

Marius Mercier @mariusmercier.bsky.social · 7h

Have a look, I promise it’s worth your time :)

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Edgar Dubourg @edgardubourg.bsky.social · 02/10/2026

Our paper 'Carving Stories at Their Natural Joints' is out in Psychological Review (@apajournals.bsky.social). It means a lot to me, especially because I got to collaborate with many researchers from different disciplines whose work I truly admire.

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Marius Mercier @mariusmercier.bsky.social · 22/07/2026

Just arrived in Rio for #CogSci2026! I will be participating in poster sessions 1 & 4 (P1-C-19, P4-C-13) to talk about Bayesian models of social cognition. Happy to chat and connect :)

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koenfucius @koenfucius.bsky.social · 13/07/2026

Research by @mariusmercier.bsky.social et al suggests people can predict, with broad accuracy, from the (rarity of) conspiracy theories someone endorses/rejects what other conspiracy theories they would endorse/reject, and infer related personality traits: buff.ly/kAkhRl2

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Marius Mercier @mariusmercier.bsky.social · 04/06/2026

New paper accepted as a proceedings of the Cognitive Science Society: "Inferring arithmetic skills from speed and accuracy”! We tested whether people were optimal in their inference of others' math skills. doi.org/10.31234/osf...

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Grégoire Darcy @gdarcy.bsky.social · 13/05/2026

Happy to have presented at @culturalevolsoc.bsky.social the work we did with Mia Karabegovic & @hugoreasoning.bsky.social on the moral psychology of intellectual property : moral intuitions about IP are less about protecting ideas, and more about protecting accurate reputation attribution.

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tadegquillien.bsky.social @tadegquillien.bsky.social · 06/05/2026

Our new paper with @maxtaylordavies.bsky.social introduces a resource-rational model of Theory of Mind. The model can explain many of the successes and failures of mindreading in human adults and children, and non-human primates. 🧵 royalsocietypublishing.org/rspb/article...

royalsocietypublishing.org

Factive mindreading reflects the optimal use of limited cognitive resources

Abstract. The capacity to represent the mental states of other individuals, known as ‘mindreading’ or ‘theory of mind’, is key to successful social predict

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Marius Mercier @mariusmercier.bsky.social · 08/05/2026

Next week, I will be presenting this work and some extensions at #HBES2026 in Rabat, Morocco. Happy to connect!

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Marius Mercier @mariusmercier.bsky.social · 30/04/2026

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?

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Marius Mercier @mariusmercier.bsky.social · 28/04/2026

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.

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Marius Mercier @mariusmercier.bsky.social · 24/04/2026

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

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Sacha Altay @sachaltay.bsky.social · 07/04/2026

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...

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Andrew Gordon @andrewgordon.bsky.social · 01/04/2026

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]

osf.io

OSF

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Marius Mercier @mariusmercier.bsky.social · 30/03/2026

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

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Alberto Acerbi @acerbialberto.com · 21/03/2026

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.

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Benoît de Courson @bdecourson.bsky.social · 23/02/2026

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!

cambridge.org

Explaining the paradoxical effects of poverty on risk taking: The Desperation Threshold Model | Behavioral and Brain Sciences | Cambridge Core

Explaining the paradoxical effects of poverty on risk taking: The Desperation Threshold Model

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Thomas Beuchot @thomasbeuchot.bsky.social · 19/01/2026

🎉 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 🧵

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Aman Bhargava @aman.bh · 27/12/2025

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...

A digital illustration styled to look like an embroidered fabric patch or cross-stitch. The text reads 'TWO YEARS OF WORD GAMES' in the center, with '2025' at the bottom and 'AMAN V. RHEA' in the top right. The background is a checkered pattern of colored squares (green, yellow, gray, purple, and blue), mimicking the color palettes of Wordle and Connections.

A scatter plot titled 'CROSSWORD TIMES' comparing daily Mini Crossword completion times over two years. The chart uses a pixelated aesthetic. Aman's data (left, in blue) shows a widely scattered distribution with a trend line hovering between 1 and 1.5 minutes, and includes a high outlier labeled 'Legendary bad Saturday.' Rhea's data (right, in red) is much more tightly clustered near the bottom, with a trend line consistently sitting around or below the 1-minute mark.

A waffle chart titled 'WINS IN A DAY' displays the percentage of days when each player achieved 0, 1, 2, or 3 wins (a 'Sweep'). Aman's grid is dominated by '1 win' (yellow) and '0 wins' (beige), with only a few red squares representing a Sweep. Rhea's grid is much more colorful, featuring large blocks of '2 wins' (green) and a significant number of 'Sweep' (red) squares.

An infographic titled 'CONNECTIONS: Who flops, clutches, or cracks purple?'. A table shows Aman has a slightly higher perfect game rate (30%) than Rhea (29%). Below, a horizontal bar chart compares specific play styles: Aman is more likely to play 'By The Book' (solving in exact order, 13%) and 'Total Flop' (losing all attempts, 6%). Rhea is significantly more likely to 'Clutch' (win with 3 mistakes made, 17%) and solve 'Purple First' (cracking the hardest category first, 8% vs Aman's 3%)

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Andy Rivkin @asrivkin.bsky.social · 21/11/2025

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.

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Marius Mercier @mariusmercier.bsky.social · 13/11/2025

🎉 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?

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Marius Mercier @mariusmercier.bsky.social · 16/10/2025

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

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Jan Pfänder @janpfa.bsky.social · 15/10/2025

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

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Marius Mercier @mariusmercier.bsky.social · 10/07/2025

"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." 🙃

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The Cognitations podcast @cognitations.bsky.social · 27/06/2025

🎙️ 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)

tinyurl.com

EP #17 | The Anthropology of Leisure Time | Mark Dyble

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The Cognitations podcast @cognitations.bsky.social · 26/06/2025

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

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Marius Mercier @mariusmercier.bsky.social · 16/06/2025

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 :)

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Marius Mercier @mariusmercier.bsky.social · 02/06/2025

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!

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Marius Mercier @mariusmercier.bsky.social · 02/06/2025

Very interesting feature of our social cognition!

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Marius Mercier @mariusmercier.bsky.social · 30/05/2025

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!

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Marius Mercier @mariusmercier.bsky.social · 12/05/2025

"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...

science.org

Chimpanzee drumming may give clues to the roots of rhythm

Behavior is more complex than scientists realized, could reveal origins of musicality

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tadegquillien.bsky.social @tadegquillien.bsky.social · 29/04/2025

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%...

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Edgar Dubourg @edgardubourg.bsky.social · 29/04/2025

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...

nature.com

Charting the rise of imaginary worlds in history - Humanities and Social Sciences Communications

Humanities and Social Sciences Communications - Charting the rise of imaginary worlds in history

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Edgar Dubourg @edgardubourg.bsky.social · 29/04/2025

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.

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Marius Mercier @mariusmercier.bsky.social · 22/04/2025

"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

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Michael Bang Petersen @m-b-petersen.bsky.social · 18/04/2025

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.

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Marius Mercier @mariusmercier.bsky.social · 16/04/2025

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

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Marius Mercier @mariusmercier.bsky.social · 31/03/2025

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

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The Cognitations podcast @cognitations.bsky.social · 28/03/2025

🎙️ 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]

tinyurl.com

EP #14 | How can Social Media Affect Mental Health? | Amy Orben

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Marius Mercier @mariusmercier.bsky.social · 27/03/2025

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

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Michael D. Nunez @nunezanalyzed.bsky.social · 27/03/2025

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...

nytimes.com

Rumeysa Ozturk, a Tufts Student, Is Detained by ICE

The university was told that the student’s visa had been terminated, its president said in a late-night email to students and faculty members.

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Alberto Acerbi @acerbialberto.com · 26/03/2025

"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...

osf.io

OSF

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Marius Mercier @mariusmercier.bsky.social · 25/03/2025

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.

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Tanay Katiyar @adigitaltanay.bsky.social · 04/03/2025

🎙️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

open.spotify.com

EP #13 | Knowledge, Communication & Curiosity | Jennifer Nagel

Cognitations · Episode

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Alberto Acerbi @acerbialberto.com · 21/02/2025

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/...

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Léo Fitouchi @lfitouchi.bsky.social · 11/02/2025

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...

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