iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

Marius Mercier @mariusmercier.bsky.social · 03/10/2026

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

Reposted by Marius Mercier

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.

34120

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

And, here is a thread about the second poster, accepted as a proceeding paper! bsky.app/profile/mari...

010

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

Here is the thread for the first poster, based on a recent paper: bsky.app/profile/mari...

110

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 :)

1163

Reposted by Marius Mercier

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

043

Marius Mercier @mariusmercier.bsky.social · 08/06/2026

...the 1st was used for the predictions in the evaluation phase (so that performance was not affected by fatigue, etc.). So, maybe for the next XP I should increase the delta and see if it makes a change, or add a bit of uncertainty around the accuracy so that speed is more informative.

110

Marius Mercier @mariusmercier.bsky.social · 08/06/2026

We tried to give participants a sense of the difficulty of each condition by making them complete 3 short quiz. In the Slow cond. they did: SlowSlowFast and in the Fast cond. they did: SlowFastSlow. The 3rd quiz was to make participants try all conditions, and...

110

Marius Mercier @mariusmercier.bsky.social · 08/06/2026

Hi Emory! Sorry for the delay, your answer made me think of additional analyses. I think that you're right that the delta between 20s & 40s is not enough. Participants seem to mostly track the difference in difficulty between the fast & slow, but the true diff might not be large enough (~10-30pp).

100

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

Huge thanks to my co-authors Ruby de Lanerolle (co-first author), @oliviermorin.bsky.social, @tadegquillien.bsky.social and to my supervisor @hugoreasoning.bsky.social I will be presenting the paper in Rio for CogSci2026, happy to chat :) doi.org/10.31234/osf...

doi.org

OSF

151

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

Participants were still accurate in their prediction, but they did not attribute higher competence in the Fast condition. One possible explanation is that the time limit was not diagnostic enough to change participants’ predictions (they were already accurate). Curious to hear what you think!

120

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

In a second study, we wanted to test whether participants could integrate speed with accuracy cues. We provided them with additional information that the other person solved the question under a time limit of 20s (Fast condition) or 40s (Slow condition, within-subjects).

110

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

Participants had to predict the questions someone could solve, given the information that this person solved (or not) another question. Their predictions were highly accurate compared to our benchmark data and matched those of an optimal Bayesian model. Even participants bad at math were accurate!

111

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...

22112

Marius Mercier @mariusmercier.bsky.social · 20/05/2026

Very cool, thanks for sharing as a preprint !

000

Reposted by Marius Mercier

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.

1104

Reposted by Marius Mercier

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

24726

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!

091

Marius Mercier @mariusmercier.bsky.social · 01/05/2026

Thanks for the recommendations Rob :)

010

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

Nice! Thanks Thomas, I will have a look

010

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?

210

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.

170

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...

071

Reposted by Marius Mercier

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...

212945

Marius Mercier @mariusmercier.bsky.social · 02/04/2026

Only heard the french version 😄

010

Reposted by Marius Mercier

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

213162

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

The same Bayesian framework explains information search. Participants flexibly queried new information in ways that match an optimal information-theoretic search model.

110

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

A Bayesian model best explains these inferences. Participants’ judgments are best captured by a model that rationally integrates new evidence with prior expectations about others’ competence.

111

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

Key findings: 1. People can accurately predict what others know from very limited information. From a single observed answer, participants could predict the probability that someone would know another trivia question with striking accuracy!

110

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

After seeing an individual’s performance on a trivia question, participants had to either: (a) predict the individual’s ability to answer other trivia questions from the same theme, or (b) select which information would be most diagnostic for inferring an individual’s competence

110

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

In this paper, we examine how people infer others’ competence from sparse evidence, and the computational principles underlying these judgments. We tested participants’ inferences on two tasks requiring fine-grained estimations.

110

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

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? It turns out people are remarkably good at figuring this out.

110

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

35825

Marius Mercier @mariusmercier.bsky.social · 21/03/2026

Thanks for the thread, I was suspicious seeing the headlines but hadn’t got the time to dig in. Also, the posts I saw about the report use a strong causal wording for the relationship between social media and wellbeing, is it the same for the WHR or are they more cautious?

121

Reposted by Marius Mercier

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.

222

Reposted by Marius Mercier

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

24118

Reposted by Marius Mercier

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 🧵

172

Reposted by Marius Mercier

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%)

34216

Marius Mercier @mariusmercier.bsky.social · 24/11/2025

Hi, many thanks for sharing this! I've tested across several device (pc with low quality camera and a recent iphone). On the iphone it works well, but on the pc it works only on Firefox but it doesn't work on Brave (I tried several times). I don't understand why

110

Reposted by Marius Mercier

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.

13759224