Just wrote a new blogpost trying to summarize my thoughts on the question of how and whether to use AI for research in psychology and cognitive science: babieslearninglanguage.blogspot.com/2026/04/usin...
“we found substantial positive correlations between nonsocial tasks. In contrast, tasks measuring social cognition were not correlated either with each other or with nonsocial measures”
🙏 to the great team behind this work
@christophvoelter.bsky.social Daniel Hanus, Nico Eisbrenner, Johanna Eckert, Jana Holtmann & @dbmhaun.bsky.social
@leuphana.bsky.social @mpi-eva-leipzig.bsky.social
@unileipzig.bsky.social
Earlier work: www.nature.com/articles/s41...
Next up: development!
New 🦍 💭 paper in @psychscience.bsky.social
We continue to ask simple questions that are hard to answer
"Individual Differences in Great Ape Cognition Across Time and Domains: Stability, Structure, and Predictability"
Bonus: Rasch models in the supplement 🤓
journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/...
Thank you so much tor inviting me to represent @manyprimates.bsky.social at #ehbea2026. A bit intimidating but very enjoyable to give my first talk as network co-coordinator.
What are children's *naturalistic* everyday experiences like?
Nele's paper presents a crucial resource (100+h of 🎥 w/ annotations) that will help us to build the tools we need to study what it's like to be a child in the wild.
🙏to @jacobsfoundation.bsky.social @maxplanck.de @dfg.de for funding!
Great tit perched on a branch, with beak slightly open. Photo credit: Alizée Vernouillet
📢Fully-funded #PhD opportunity with us:
🐦 Quantifying (social) learning and social behaviour in an urbanised world 🐦
Position at @ceec-research.bsky.social
📆29th May deadline
More info: tinyurl.com/yz28s96x
Apply: tinyurl.com/2wpkb64y
#cognition #socialbehaviour #fieldwork #birds
🙏Please Share
I am excited to share my first publication in Behavior Research Methods! 🚀
We’ve released ChildLens: 109 hours of open-access, annotated egocentric video/audio from children (ages 3–5).
Paper: rdcu.be/fdfAI
We are offering two 4-year PhD positions in our new SNF project "The Evolutionary Roots of Altercentrism"
I'm hiring! 📢 Fully funded 4-year PhD position in Language Evolution using Communication Games at @mpi-nl.bsky.social. Come work with me on how different social pressures shape the evolution of new communication systems in the lab! Deadline for application is May 18th! share.google/fGTKbFS4v4Gb...
It took 3 years to complete this paper and it was difficult(!) but I think both @ctennie.bsky.social and I are grateful for the varied perspectives we gained as a result of this collaboration. If you work on ape culture, hopefully you'll feel the same
doi.org/10.1017/ehs....
[Opens in a new window]
“Everyday experiences – playing with friends, eating a meal, reading a book, spending time alone – have an impact on development.”
@elmanubohn.bsky.social explains how different experiences foster learning in different cultural contexts. #ChildDevelopment
boldscience.org/how-do-child...
New paper alert with Stephan Kaufhold, Mia Borzello and David Kirsh!
How well does cognition studied in the lab reflect cognition in the real world?
Much of what we think we know about cognition rests on methodological assumptions that have become so established that they often go unexamined.
📢 PhD position in Developmental Language Modelling
(PLZ RT)
What can human language acquisition teach us about training language models? Join us as a PhD!
mpi.nl/career-education/vacancies/vacancy/fully-funded-4-year-phd-position-developmental-language @carorowland.bsky.social
@mpi-nl.bsky.social
Open PhD/Postdoc position (start: Oct 2026). Topic: AI/LLMs and child language/communicative/cognitive development. The exact project will be shaped with the candidate. Join our team @univ-amu.fr at the intersection of computer and cognitive science (& right next to the Calanques!). Send me your CV!
Leipzig U and the MPI for Evolutionary Anthropology (MPI-EVA) have an open faculty position (W2) in evolutionary population genetics! This position is tenured and comes with generous core funding. We are eager to welcome a new colleague! Deadline March 11.
www.uni-leipzig.de/en/newsdetai...
📣📣📣
Applications for the 2026 Diverse Intelligences Summer Institute (DISI) are now open!!
Are you interested in intelligence, mind, and cognition in all its forms? Early-career scholars from any discipline—and storytellers in any medium—are encouraged to apply!
More info: disi.org
Lunch Lectures Entwicklungspsychologie!
📅 10.03.2026
⏰ 12:00 Uhr
via Zoom
Wir freuen uns auf den Vortrag von Prof. Louisa Kulke (Universiät Bremen; @loukulke.bsky.social ) zum Thema:
Social development – Insights from infants, robots and videochats
Details: drive.google.com/file/d/1gfrH...
🎓 Die Fachgruppe Entwicklungspsychologie (DGPs) vergibt derzeit bis zu 4 MiniGrants à 1.500 € zur Förderung von Vernetzung und Laborbesuchen in frühen Karrierephasen. Die Grants ermöglichen Einblicke in neue Arbeitsgruppen, Methoden und Forschungsprozesse durch Aufenthalte.
CALL: a PhD grant (3 years) to do a PhD with me at @cognitionens.bsky.social on the evolution of graphic codes. euraxess.ec.europa.eu/jobs/410213
#Postdoc #Job opportunity in #AnimalBehaviour with Jorg Massen at @utrechtuniversity.bsky.social. Check out the position here: www.uu.nl/en/organisat...
Language learning as ontogenetic adaptation
Opinion by Manuel Bohn (@elmanubohn.bsky.social) & Marisa Casillas
tinyurl.com/48pdbv5b
We are recruiting a Lecturer in Psychology: mss.port.ac.uk/ce0732li_web... and a Teaching Fellow: mss.port.ac.uk/ce0732li_web.... Come and join the Centre for Comparative and Evolutionary Psychology 🐶🐵🐴🐘🕷️🧒 www.port.ac.uk/research/res...
Mean life satisfaction in the survey years 2010, 2015 and 2023, separately for female and male gender. In general, girls have lower scores but in 2023, they are drifting even further down
The city of Leipzig in Germany conducts large-scale school surveys of adolescents in secondary education schools. Following the regular surveys in 2010 and 2015, the 2020 survey had to be rescheduled to 2023 due to the COVID-19 pandemic. In this latest survey wave, the gender gap in general life satisfaction has significantly grown. While in 2010 and 2015 girls were somewhat less satisfied than boys (0.26 to 0.33 SD), in 2023 this gender gap had doubled (with girls 0.57 SD less satisfied). Why? Here, we probe various explanations, aiming to provide a template for researchers who are asking reverse causal questions (“What caused this?”). First, we find that the widening of the gender gap is much more pronounced among students with a migration background. This could plausibly be explained by a shift in the composition of the underlying population, with a strong increase of Syrian students, and a relative decrease of Vietnamese ones. Second, among students without a migration background, part of the increasing gender gap could potentially be attributed to survey mode: In 2023, for the first time, the survey was conducted on tablets—and unexpectedly, girls (but not boys) reported significantly lower satisfaction when surveyed on tablet rather than on paper. Third, beyond these two patterns, we still find significantly widening gender gaps in satisfaction with leisure time activities and relationships to friends. Thus, there may be a substantive increase in the gender gap in satisfaction in those two domains that is not readily attributable to changes in population and survey mode.
New preprint 🥳
The city of Leipzig conducts large-scale surveys of adolescents. In 2023, the gender gap in life satisfaction has significantly widened, with girls declining more steeply than boys. What's up with that?>
(work with @rmcelreath.bsky.social and @gregork.bsky.social)
The Lise Meitner Excellence Programme is designed to attract and specifically promote exceptionally qualified female scientists.
A position with prospects! We offer excellent researchers again the possibility to apply for a position as a Leader of a Lise Meitner Research Group in all areas of #science. Applications are possible between February 11th and April 15th, 2026. www.mpg.de/lise-meitner... #lisemeitnergroups
I think the assumptions going into this task are - relatively speaking - not unreasonable and we tested and validated the task elsewhere. I can understand that you would have liked a more thorough discussion of the point that you made specifically.
Yes, but then we qualify and discuss them further and say how we interpret them in light of our model.
Oh ok, no, we are not mentioning the assumptions you listed explicitly (and we didn't get a chance to respond to your review directly back then). I'm saying that similar assumptions - and sometimes perhaps more far-reaching ones - are quite common in dev psy.
Fair enough - having pure and direct measurement of a psychological process is difficult. Interestingly enough, in dev psychology it is often difficult to find tasks that track ANYTHING reliably is difficult.