@mandolinguist.bsky.social, Jennifer Culbertson, @simonkirby.bsky.social: Participants in a communication game balance production effort and comprehension accuracy (but not always optimally). See evolangconf.github.io/2026/proceed...
Made these (+ pepparkakor) yesterday with my favourite Swedish people - an excellent breakfast today!
Day 1 of maternity leave: no work means plenty of time to do Advent of Code properly!
"properly"...😐
#AdventOfCode
Last day of work before going on maternity leave! 😳 And high on my wishlist for when I return in 2027 is that OSF do another upgrade to fix the previous "upgrade" which has resulted in me being completely unable to access a single page on their website 🙃 sure would be nice to read some preprints...
It is really not ideal!
Any chance I could get a copy of the manuscript? I cannot load a single page on OSF since the "update" 🥲
Today, we published a paper on the strength of language universals (if language has X, it also has Y) given spatial & phylogenetic autocorrelation in @nathumbehav.nature.com ! It is a cool research project, led by the brilliant Annemarie Verkerk at @uni-saarland.de
www.nature.com/articles/s41...
Interacting agents can create shared communication systems without ever knowing if signals are successfully received. The conventionalisation process involves a curious interaction between joint attention and individual behavioural differences. doi.org/10.1371/jour.... Work with Casimir Fisch.
Very cool!
We investigate the influence of two communicative pressures: production favours reuse of more easily articulated sounds, comprehension favours distinctiveness of word forms. Competition between these individual-level mechanisms can give rise to emergent structural properties of language.
⚠️ New paper! Why do words sound so similar? In an agent-based model + communication game, we show that production/comprehension pressures trade off to shape lexicon structure.
In @cognitionjournal.bsky.social w/ @simonkirby.bsky.social & Jenny Culbertson.
www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...
Despite green being my favourite colour, I prefer the white/blue cover
@sheinalew.bsky.social 👀
Thoughts and prayers please: I have reached the stage of pregnancy where I'm having to pirate e-books of books I already physically own because my belly is in the way of holding up a hardback 😭
@maisyhallam.bsky.social Please advise
Well, one thing's for sure: it certainly lived up to the title and abstract 🙄
"Steven Pinker is perhaps the nicest person I know in academia" was truly a bold opening statement. You were doing God's work in the chat!
Fully-funded 4-year #PhD in Cultural Evolution! Join my @erc.europa.eu project exploring how compression & compositionality drive cultural innovation: hmc-lab.com/ERCPhDCultur...
Apply by Nov 12!
Maybe of interest to folks from #COSMOS2025 or @eslr.bsky.social? Please feel free to share! 🙏
Walking down a narrow pavement at peak times with an umbrella is antisocial behaviour, change my mind
I suspect @maisyhallam.bsky.social will agree with this pretty viscerally
New paper in @openmindjournal.bsky.social with @simonkirby.bsky.social, @kennysmithed.bsky.social and Fiona Jordan! Kinship terms overwhelmingly exhibit predictive structure - terms in one part of the system help us predict other terms - a pattern which emerges because it helps us generalise better.
Just to be the exception to this, my husband and I originally got together (when I was 26 and he was 30) by me telling him "I fancy you". You just gotta lay it out very explicitly for some folks, y'know 🤣
The count down starts for #CESRabat! Follow @ces2026.bsky.social and join us May 11-13 next year for an exciting meeting in Rabat, Morocco.
Massive thanks to the #CESRabat organising committee:
Sarah Alami (co-chair)
Mathieu Charbonneau (co-chair)
Zachary Garfield
Edmond Seabright
Durham's Dunagree Lab continues to be the most wonderful workplace. Thank you to @sheinalew.bsky.social, @chimpanzeve.bsky.social, @fhillemann.bsky.social, @amandinevisine.bsky.social and others not on Bluesky for the surprise baby shower today 🥹
@durhampsych.bsky.social current has 5 (FIVE!!) PhD studentships being advertised!
3 to work with me on children as agents of cultural evolution
2 to work with @drboothroyd.bsky.social on examining school-based body image interventions.
Please share and apply!
www.durham.ac.uk/departments/...
Two part photo showing the book cover for More Than Words on the left and a crocheted square on the right that was inspired by the book.
Aislinn Keogh @mandolinguist.bsky.social gave my new book to her mother to help her understand some of Aislinn's research area. Her mother is in a book-crochet group; she loved the book so much that she made a blanket (aka granny) square inspired by the book cover! This is so fantastic and touching!
Oh good, my preprint from nearly a year ago that had still not been post-moderated has now disappeared 🙃
How does speaking a free word order language influence sentence planning and production? Evidence from Pitjantjatjara (Pama‐Nyungan, Australia). New paper by Evan Kidd & al. with Gabriela Garrido Rodríguez
doi.org/10.1111/cogs.70087
This was such a fun conversation about childhood, play, and agency across cultures. Thanks for having @sheinalew.bsky.social & I on the show!
