📣 So happy to share with you the results of my main PhD study, where two human predators worked together to hunt a human prey in Minecraft, and had their brains scanned simultaneously using fNIRS 🎮🧠

We find that the brains of the predators are synchronised in the prefrontal cortex during hunting! 💡

Our new paper is out! @antoniahamilton.bsky.social

🧠 New paper alert! 🌆
Excited to share the first paper out of my PhD, now published in Psychological Research: rdcu.be/e6zEc. The joint outcome of work with Natalie Sebanz and Günther Knoblich. @sombylab.bsky.social

looks v relevant to @hugospiers.bsky.social too

Toddlers expect ingroup loyalty to override personal preferences when outgroups are present | PNAS When outgroups are present, adults may endorse ingroup choices that are at odds with their personal preferences, in an outward show of ingroup loya...

An exciting advance in developmental psychology! Toddlers expect ingroup loyalty to override personal preferences when outgroups are present | PNAS www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/...

BBS article on mechanisms of group cohesion in primates (Robin Dunbar), with our commentary proposing facial expression as one of those key mechanisms! @eithnekavanagh.bsky.social @jamiewhitehouse.bsky.social

www.cambridge.org/core/journal...

Check out our brilliant PhD student Hanlu He's @hanluhe.bsky.social 1st paper on heart-rate synchrony in real-world urban environments, replicated across 3 datasets recorded in NYC! HR sync is enhanced by social proximity, familiarity, social context, and better acoustic conditions. 🧵👇

No-one writes a paper like Polly Wiessner. Here's her on conversations among the Ju/'Hoansi, contrasting daytime and nighttime talk.

Proper quant research. Proper anthropology.

www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/...

This is now out in Cerebral Cortex.

Open Access: academic.oup.com/cercor/artic...

@antoniahamilton.bsky.social @gabriellavigliocco.bsky.social Uzair Hakim @paola182.bsky.social Danny Thompkings @fdi55.bsky.social

In 2021 we reported that live learning outperformed recorded learning. In a new preregistered analysis, my first senior-author paper led by Stan de Visser (pre-print), we find that this benefit does not increase with interactivity. The potential to interact may be enough to boost learning. A thread:

macaques can synchronize to a subjective beat in real music and even spontaneously do so over alternative strategies.

Haven’t read the full article yet, but this is a big deal if true!
www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...

Continuous dynamics of cooperation and competition in social decision-making - Communications Psychology Using a continuous social foraging game, this study shows that human pairs adopt stable cooperative, competitive, or mixed strategies. A computational model predicts dyadic choices and links these str...

This study shows that human pairs adopt stable cooperative, competitive, or mixed strategies. A computational model predicts dyadic choices and links these strategies to interaction dynamics, payoffs, and cost of cooperation.
@violapriesemann.bsky.social
www.nature.com/articles/s44...

A busy figure showing some time series and timing distributions movement versus speech

Team science (all shared authorship), pre-registered, diamond open access paper now accepted at Open Mind: "Foreign Language Learners Show a Kinematic Accent in Their Co-speech Hand Movements".

with Bosker, Marieke Hoetjes, Doenja Hustin, Lieke van Maastricht

www.wimpouw.com/files/POSTPR...

New preprint !

Baby steps in conscious experiences

- I explain why every single step matters when we climb the mountain of our embodied conscious life

Check it out : it involves also drinking red wine versus seeing red wine 🍷

And thomas Nagel versus my grandma 😎😅

osf.io/preprints/ps...

Dynamic neural processing of self-other synchronisation error in interpersonal coordination The human capacity to produce precisely synchronised actions with others is critical for everyday cooperative activities. Such interpersonal coordinat…

Dynamic neural processing of self-other synchronisation error in interpersonal coordination
sciencedirect.com/science/arti...

We replicated one of the oldest experiments in Psychology (Triplett, 1898) as a registered report. Children completed a task faster in pairs than when they were alone.
www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Visual statistical learning and social attention in neurotypical, minimally speaking and speaking autistic preschoolers - Scientific Reports Scientific Reports - Visual statistical learning and social attention in neurotypical, minimally speaking and speaking autistic preschoolers

"Our findings point to previously unknown strengths in autistic children who are minimally speaking across statistical learning and social attention, suggesting that spoken language differences in this population might be unrelated to these domains" www.nature.com/articles/s41... free

Reformation of science publishing: the Stockholm Declaration | Royal Society Open Science Science relies on integrity and trustworthiness. But scientists under career pressure are lured to purchase fake publications from ‘paper mills’ that use AI-generated data, text and image fabrication....

Here's the link

nice work but would the results be the same if this was a live social interaction (rather than watching a video)?

The effect of ostensive communication on immediate and delayed memory of novel and familiar action patterns - Memory & Cognition Actions are often learnt incidentally by observing other individuals. How aspects inherent to the social context in which an action is seen affect action learning remains poorly understood. Here we st...

🚨new article with C. Galusca & L. Bonatti @springernature.com
Learning is best when a teacher engages directly with the learner, e.g., by routinely gazing toward them. Is social engagement always beneficial for learning? If not, when?
Full story in open access 👉 link.springer.com/article/10.3...

I found this article super-interesting: Why more social interactions lead to more polarization in societies | PNAS www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/...

Preserved spontaneous mentalizing amid reduced intersubject variability in autism during a movie narrative. Paper by Margot Mangnus & al. with Peter Hagoort
doi.org/10.1016/j.bpsc.2024.10.007

New blogpost on @elife.bsky.social's new Replication study type deevybee.blogspot.com/2025/10/prob.... tldr = I think it's doomed.
#Replication #Publishing #Reproducibility

Cardiac synchrony remains stable across repeated intergenerational encounters but is enhanced during high stakes collaboration Intergenerational social programs provide opportunities for people of all ages to form new relationships. Furthermore, existing qualitative and behavioural evidence from such programs points to health...

🫀🖼️🫀What can 732 co-created drawings and heart rates from 61 dyads teach us about intergenerational relationship development and collaboration?

doi.org/10.1101/2025...
@escross.bsky.social @lucanaudszus.bsky.social

Fundamental features of social environments determine rate of social affiliation www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/...

Longitudinal intergenerational hyperscanning reveals indices of relationship formation and loneliness Loneliness is globally acknowledged as a severe and burgeoning health risk, fuelling interest in helping people of all ages form meaningful social connections. One promising approach consists of inter...

What happens in the brain as people become less lonely? Intergenerational community programs can reduce loneliness, the underlying mechanisms remain unknown. We collected and analysed 732 🧠-scans to find out!

www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...
@introspection.bsky.social + @escross.bsky.social

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...

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

New paper! - I was wrong! We checked and checked again we were definitely wrong.

And I couldn't be happier that we are able to publish these findings at QJEP - Satchell, Hall & Jones 🧵

osf.io/preprints/ps...

The science fiction science method - Nature The ‘science fiction science’ method simulates future technologies and collects quantitative data on the attitudes and behaviours of participants in various future scenarios, with the aim of predicting impacts of future technologies before they arrive.

Science fiction science, by the ever-thoughtful Iyad Rahwan: www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Congratulations. 🥳🎉