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Morten H. Christiansen

@mh-christiansen.bsky.social
1.7K followers 252 following 123 posts

Cognitive scientist interested in the processing, acquisition and evolution of language; statistical learning; computational modeling. Lab website: csl-lab.psych.cornell.edu

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Morten H. Christiansen @mh-christiansen.bsky.social · 06/10/2026
👉 The Social Tinkering paper with Nick Chater is now out in an issue of BBS. We highlight the importance of bottom-up and socially-oriented factors in cultural evolution 1/4 www.cambridge.org/core/journal...
cambridge.org
Social tinkering: The social foundations of cultural complexity | Behavioral and Brain Sciences | Cambridge Core
Social tinkering: The social foundations of cultural complexity - Volume 49
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Morten H. Christiansen @mh-christiansen.bsky.social · 20/09/2026
👉 New paper with Cris Rivera in Cognitive Science providing preliminary evidence that although chunking across multiple levels of linguistic representation is important to overcoming the Now-or-Never bottleneck, there is no unitary chunking ability 1/2 onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1...
onlinelibrary.wiley.com
Is Chunking Ability Unitary Across Levels of Linguistic Representation?
Much like with statistical learning, there is a tendency in the cognitive and language science literature to treat chunking as a unitary, domain-general ability that operates fairly similarly across ...
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Morten H. Christiansen @mh-christiansen.bsky.social · 13/09/2026
📣 I'm recruiting a new grad student at Cornell for F27, so please share the word with possible candidates interested in conversation as it intersects with language processing, evolution, and/or statistical learning, approached using computational and/or behavioral methods. 👉 Email me if interested
Illustration showing two people conversing with each other, with  interpretation through pattern recognition involving the integration of multiple cues, including social cues (pointing), the visual environment, what they know about the person they’re talking with, knowledge about the world, prior discourse, cultural expectations, and communicative goals.
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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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Open Encyclopedia of Cognitive Science bot @oecs-bot.bsky.social · 17/08/2026
Reconstructing the origins of language requires navigating a fossil record that doesn't exist, shifting the focus from biological adaptation to… Language Evolution by Morten H. Christiansen doi.org/10.21428/e2759450.34857b04 #CognitiveScience
Open Encyclopedia of Cognitive Science: "Language Evolution" by Morten H. Christiansen. The study of language evolution aims to uncover why language is the way it is and how it came to be that way. Answering these questions is difficult because the typical methods for studying the evolut
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Morten H. Christiansen @mh-christiansen.bsky.social · 06/08/2026
For my Danish 🇩🇰 friends: Here's an article on @videnskab.dk with @madsrt.bsky.social about the implications of findings from a new study showing that people have been talking less and less with each other over the past decade and half. 1/2 @textculture.bsky.social videnskab.dk/kultur-samfu...
videnskab.dk
Vi taler mindre med hinanden: På femten år har vi mistet 1,8 millioner ord
Vi ved endnu ikke, hvilken betydning kunstig intelligens får for vores samtaler med andre mennesker.
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Morten H. Christiansen @mh-christiansen.bsky.social · 12/06/2026
Noam Siegelman delivers the Early Career Talk as the final presentation at the 2026 conference on Interdisciplinary Advances in Statistical Learning, promising everyone that we’ll still have the statistical learning conference in 20 years time 😊
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Morten H. Christiansen @mh-christiansen.bsky.social · 12/06/2026
@noranewcombe.bsky.social is heading off the last day of the conference on Interdisciplinary Advances in Statistical Learning with her keynote on the Development of the Experience-Expectant Mind #IASL26
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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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Morten H. Christiansen @mh-christiansen.bsky.social · 11/06/2026
Starting off Day 2 of the conference on Interdisciplinary Advances in Statistical Learning we have Pierre-Yves Oudeyer giving his keynote on curiosity in human statistical learning #IASL26
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Cognitive Science of Language Lab @csl-lab.bsky.social · 10/06/2026
CSL lab member Kate Constant presenting her excellent honors thesis work on the effect of head trauma on statistical learning at the SL conference #IASL26 in San Sebastián
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Cognitive Science of Language Lab @csl-lab.bsky.social · 10/06/2026
CSL lab member Cris Rivera presenting his work showing that there’s not a single uniform statically-based chunking mechanism at the SL conference in San Sebastián #IASL26
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Morten H. Christiansen @mh-christiansen.bsky.social · 10/06/2026
Statistical learning mini cupcakes at the statistical learning conference #IASL26
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Morten H. Christiansen @mh-christiansen.bsky.social · 10/06/2026
Jenny Saffran is kicking off the SL conference talking about what we know about statistical learning after 30 years of work #StatLearnBCBL
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Morten H. Christiansen @mh-christiansen.bsky.social · 10/06/2026
Beautiful morning before the start of the 6th conference on Interdisciplinary Advances in Statistical Learning in San Sebastián #StatLearnBCBL
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Basque Center on Cognition, Brain and Language (BCBL) @bcbl.bsky.social · 19/05/2026
📣 We are looking for talent! 📣 At #BCBL we have a Postdoctoral researcher position available to work on our Brain Rhythms and Cognition research group. 📅 Application deadline: 10/06/2026 +info👇 www.bcbl.eu/es/unete-a-n...
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Cognitive Science Society @cogscisociety.bsky.social · 05/05/2026
We're inviting nominations for the next Executive Editor of Topics in Cognitive Science (TopiCS). This role helps shape the journal's direction, guiding editorial priorities, policies, and the broader agenda of the field. Learn more and nominate at: cognitivesciencesociety.org/topics-journal/
Promotional graphic with teal background reading “We are seeking an Executive Editor for TopiCS.” The words “Executive Editor” are large and bright green. On the right, a stylized magnifying glass highlights a simple user icon, suggesting a search for a candidate.
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Morten H. Christiansen @mh-christiansen.bsky.social · 03/05/2026
Many thanks to @laserhedvig.bsky.social & Daniel Midgley for having @yngwienielsen.bsky.social & me on @becauselanguage.com to talk about our NHB paper where we show priming of non-hierarchical linguistic structure. It was so much fun to do a deep dive into the nature of linguistic representations
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Cognitive Science of Language Lab @csl-lab.bsky.social · 01/05/2026
🥳 Congrats to CSL Lab member, Kate Constan, who presented her excellent Cognitive Science honors project "The Impacts of Impact: Head Trauma’s Relationship to Statistical Learning" at the Cornell Undergraduate Research Board's Spring Symposium. 👏 Next, Kate will present her work at #IASL26 in June
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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 signsMultimodality 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 · 24/04/2026
To my Danish 🇩🇰 speaking friends: @madsrt.bsky.social and I wrote an op-ed about what the current use of social media and LLMs means for what it means to be literate. Here's brief summary in English: www.linkedin.com/posts/center... www.kristeligt-dagblad.dk/debat/profes...
kristeligt-dagblad.dk
Professorer: Det har aldrig været mere relevant at tænke over fremtidens læsning
kronik | Måden, vi læser på, forandrer sig radikalt i disse år på grund af kunstig intelligens, lyd, digitalisering og bredt medieudbud. Det stiller nye krav til, hvordan vi skal lære at læse i fremti...
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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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Morten H. Christiansen @mh-christiansen.bsky.social · 06/04/2026
Just out: A nice write-up in Phys.org about our Proc B paper (includes a link to the paper itself OA): phys.org/news/2026-04...
phys.org
Alignment during conversations is highly situation-dependent, study finds
When people are talking, they can start to unconsciously mirror each other, for instance, in the words they use, their sentence structures and even hand gestures. This tendency to mirror others can le...
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Morten H. Christiansen @mh-christiansen.bsky.social · 18/03/2026
📣 New paper out in the Proceedings of the Royal Society B in which we investigated whether conversational alignment — the tendency to reuse each other's words, syntactic constructions, topics, sounds and gestures — can be used as a reliable individual trait. It cannot! 🧵 1/4 doi.org/10.1098/rspb...
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Morten H. Christiansen @mh-christiansen.bsky.social · 10/03/2026
📣 New BBS paper with @dr-severinehex.bsky.social @erin-isbilen.bsky.social and Dan Rubenstein. We aim to unify parallel threads of inquiry in both the human and non-human communication literatures on the role of multimodality in communication 🧵 1/2 👇 www.cambridge.org/core/journal...
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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Morten H. Christiansen @mh-christiansen.bsky.social · 26/02/2026
🚨🚨 The deadline for submitting your abstract to the International Conference on Interdisciplinary Advances in Statistical Learning (#StatLearnBCBL) has been extended to March 8! Submit your work and join us for an exciting conference on statistical learning June 10-12 in San Sebastian, Spain
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Nora Newcombe @noranewcombe.bsky.social · 24/02/2026
Come to San Sebastián! I’m really looking forward to being there.
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Morten H. Christiansen @mh-christiansen.bsky.social · 22/02/2026
📣 You only have one week left to submit your 200-word abstract for the 2026 installment of the International Conference on Interdisciplinary Advances in Statistical Learning (#StatLearnBCBL), which will take place in San Sebastian, Spain June 10-12 #IASL26 www.bcbl.eu/events/stati...
bcbl.eu
Statistical Learning 2026
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Morten H. Christiansen @mh-christiansen.bsky.social · 27/01/2026
Two more weeks to prepare and submit a proposal for a commentary on my BBS target article with Nick Chater about Social Tinkering as the social foundations of cultural complexity. We'd love to hear what you think. 🗓️ Feb 10 www.cambridge.org/core/journal...
Abstract:
How has human culture become so complex? We argue that a key process is social tinkering: the gradual accumulation of ad hoc innovations to the social rules that coordinate behavior in response to immediate challenges. Momentary innovations provide precedents that can be reused, entrenched, adapted and recombined to handle future challenges. Interactions between these social rules create rich cultural systems (languages, ethics, political organization) of increasing complexity through processes of spontaneous order, not deliberate design. To explain the historical emergence of cumulative cultural complexity, we distinguish between six overlapping and interacting stages: (1) non-social tinkering to solve problems in the natural world; (2) learning and copying from the tinkering of others; (3) social tinkering involving jointly agreeing on momentary conventions to coordinate interactions, typically for mutual benefit; (4) creating communicative conventions (language) to support more complex social interactions; (5) social tinkering of linguistically-formulated cultural rules leading to laws, organizations, institutions, etc.; and (6) tinkering with linguistically-formulated non-social knowledge, allowing for the creation of science and technology. The rich interplay of innovation across the six stages is crucial for explaining increasing cultural and organizational complexity and our collective mastery of the natural world. Because social and non-social tinkering require two different kinds of learning, this analysis has important implications for the understanding of human learning and cognition, including moral and evolutionary psychology, theory of mind, and the view of the child-as-scientist. Social tinkering also has substantial implications for current theories of cultural evolution.
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Morten H. Christiansen @mh-christiansen.bsky.social · 21/01/2026
I'm very excited about this paper with @yngwienielsen.bsky.social just out in @nathumbehav.nature.com in which we provide evidence for the mental representation of non-hierarchical linguistic structure in language use. 🧵 1/4 Read the paper here: rdcu.be/eZ26u
rdcu.be
Evidence for the representation of non-hierarchical structures in language
Nature Human Behaviour - Language is often thought to be represented through hierarchically structured units. Nielsen and Christiansen find that non-hierarchical structures are present across...
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Morten H. Christiansen @mh-christiansen.bsky.social · 10/01/2026
If the idea of a bottom-up social interaction account of cultural evolution (with implications for the nature human cognition) piques your interest, consider proposing a peer commentary on my BBS paper with Nick Chater. 🗓️ Deadline: Feb 10, 2026 Details: www.cambridge.org/core/journal... 1/2
cambridge.org
Call for Commentary Proposals - Social Tinkering: The Social Foundations of Cult
Call for Commentary Proposals - Social Tinkering: The Social Foundations of Cultural Complexity
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Morten H. Christiansen @mh-christiansen.bsky.social · 01/01/2026
A quick read to start off 2026…
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Manuel Pulido @manuel-pulido.bsky.social · 22/12/2025
Why do some advanced L2 learners process grammar in real time—and others don’t? 🤔 New paper w López-Beltrán, Dussias & @mh-christiansen.bsky.social We find that chunking ability -not working memory- predicts online sensitivity to L2 morphosyntax. 📄 doi.org/10.1177/0267... (Open Access)
doi.org
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Morten H. Christiansen @mh-christiansen.bsky.social · 09/12/2025
For those of you who read Danish 🇩🇰, here's an article based on an interview I did about language evolution and LLMs. We discuss how LLMs are forcing language scientists to rethink biological constraints on language (despite differences between humans and LLMs) blog.minlaering.dk/blogindlaeg/...
blog.minlaering.dk
AI gør op med myten om vores indre
Er menneskets unikke kommunikationsevne en evolutionær biologisk gave eller kulturelt opbygget over tid?
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Radim Lacina @radlacina.bsky.social · 08/12/2025
Sepsal recenzi na popularizační knihu The Language Game od Chatera a Christiansena @mh-christiansen.bsky.social. Je zdařilý úvod, který bere náhled evoluce a komunikace a kontrastuje s chomskyánským Jazykovým instinktem od Pinkera. Doporučuji pro výuku úvodů! digilib.phil.muni.cz/sites/defaul...
digilib.phil.muni.cz
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Morten H. Christiansen @mh-christiansen.bsky.social · 28/11/2025
📣 Very happy to announce a new BBS target article with Nick Chater in which we propose a new theory of cultural evolution, highlighting the importance of bottom-up social interaction in explaining the emergence of cultural complexity 🧵 1/8 www.cambridge.org/core/journal...
cambridge.org
Social Tinkering: The Social Foundations of Cultural Complexity | Behavioral and Brain Sciences | Cambridge Core
Social Tinkering: The Social Foundations of Cultural Complexity
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Riccardo Fusaroli @fusaroli.eurosky.social · 26/11/2025
CogSci in Aarhus is hiring, open rank (assi, asso or full prof). We want somebody working on and teaching computational modelling of cognitive processes and/or social processes. Students are amazing, work/life balance very satisfactory, and colleagues are nice! international.au.dk/about/profil...
international.au.dk
Assistant Professor, Associate Professor or Full Professor of Cognitive Science - Vacancy at Aarhus University
Vacancy at School of Communication and Culture - Linguistics, Cognitive Science and Semiotics, Dept. of, Aarhus University
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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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Morten H. Christiansen @mh-christiansen.bsky.social · 08/11/2025
I am very saddened to see Cornell comply with the Trump administration’s dictatorial demands. @cornellaaup.bsky.social provides a careful analysis of the potential dire consequences of this capitulation
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Riccardo Fusaroli @fusaroli.eurosky.social · 15/10/2025
Conversational turn-taking feels effortless, but it's a complex dance. We find social context—who you're talking to and what you're talking about—fundamentally changes conversational dynamics in both autistic & TD children. 1/ onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/... w @chrismmcox.bsky.social
onlinelibrary.wiley.com
Social Context Matters for Turn‐Taking Dynamics: A Comparative Study of Autistic and Typically Developing Children
Engaging in fluent conversation is a surprisingly complex task that requires interlocutors to promptly respond to each other in a way that is appropriate to the social context. In this study, we dise...
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Morten H. Christiansen @mh-christiansen.bsky.social · 12/10/2025
Human language acquisition and use is fundamentally interactive. By contrast, LLMs are generally assumed to be passive learners that merely soak up vast amounts of data, like a sponge. In this opinion piece, we argue that the picture is more nuanced 1/2 www.degruyterbrill.com/document/doi...
degruyterbrill.com
LLMs highlight the importance of interaction in human language learning
Recent years have seen large language models (LLMs) achieve impressive performance with core linguistic abilities. This can be taken as a demonstration that, contrary to long-held assumptions about in...
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Ercenur Ünal @ercenurunal.bsky.social · 08/10/2025
Know someone whose excellence in research and contributions to the CogSci community should be recognized? Nominate them to be a Fellow of the Cognitive Science Society! Deadline: Nov 1 More info: cognitivesciencesociety.org/fellows/
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Morten H. Christiansen @mh-christiansen.bsky.social · 03/09/2025
Come see Cris Rivera's poster tomorrow at #AMLaP2025 👇
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BogaertsLab @bogaertslab.bsky.social · 12/08/2025
3️⃣ 2️⃣ 1️⃣ Just three days left to submit your nomination for the Early Career Talk at the #IASL26 conference. 🔗 ugent.qualtrics.com/jfe/form/SV_...
ugent.qualtrics.com
Qualtrics Survey | Qualtrics Experience Management
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Morten H. Christiansen @mh-christiansen.bsky.social · 30/07/2025
Check out the two posters from @csl-lab.bsky.social at #CogSci2025 on Friday and Saturday in Salon 8.
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Morten H. Christiansen @mh-christiansen.bsky.social · 28/07/2025
Just in time for the @cogscisociety.bsky.social conference and the Rumelhart 25th Anniversary Event, the 2023 Rumelhart Prize Issue Honoring Nick Chater is out in TopiCS in Cognitive Science, edited by Mike Oaksford and me: onlinelibrary.wiley.com/toc/17568765... 🧵 1/3
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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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BogaertsLab @bogaertslab.bsky.social · 21/07/2025
🏅 💬 At the '22 edition of our conference, we launched the Early Career Talk, giving a platform to an outstanding early-career scientist. We are now seeking nominations for the Early Career Talk at the #IASL26 edition. The deadline for nominations is August 15, 2025. Instructions in the thread.
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Morten H. Christiansen @mh-christiansen.bsky.social · 18/07/2025
📣 Save the date 🗓️ to present your exciting statistical learning research at the 6th Interdisciplinary Advances in Statistical Learning Conference June 10-12 2026 in San Sebastián 🇪🇸 Keynotes by @jennysaffran.bsky.social @noranewcombe.bsky.social @pyoudeyer.bsky.social More info to follow #IASL26
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