Ralf Kurvers

Transmission networks of long-term and short-term knowledge in a foraging society Abstract. Cultural transmission across generations is key to cumulative cultural evolution. While several mechanisms—such as vertical, horizontal, and obli

💙New paper!💙

How is knowledge transmitted across generations in a foraging society?

With @danielredhead.bsky.social
we found: In BaYaka foragers, long-term skills pass in smaller, sparser networks, while short-term food info circulates broadly & reciprocally

academic.oup.com/pnasnexus/ar...

We are really looking forward welcoming you!!

Are you studying animal sociality? Confused about the "non-independence" of social network data: what on earth are they? are they threatening your results? should you attempt to get rid of them?

A thread summarising a part of our new paper (ecoevorxiv.org/repository/v...).

Photo by cottonbro studio: https://www.pexels.com/photo/photo-of-people-using-their-smartphones-8088445/

🌍 Join us for #HACID Webinar #4: Gender & Diversity in Hybrid Collective Intelligence 🧠🤖
🗓 Sept 29, 2025 | ⏰ 18:00 CEST

Register here: events.teams.microsoft.com/event/71775f...

graphical abstract of the paper

Important preprint by @pietronickl.bsky.social @msultan.bsky.social Caedyn Stinson, @fstock.bsky.social Ralph Hertwig @anaskozyreva.bsky.social,

touching so many points to move the misinfo discussion forward, like feedback-loops, systemic factors and rhetoric, great work!

osf.io/preprints/so...

New in TiCS w @dgrand.bsky.social @gordpennycook.bsky.social

It’s been ~10yrs since misinfo research exploded but our paradigms are stuck in the post-2016 “fake news” model

Time for new approaches:
o True/False → Content that misleads
o Belief → Behavior
o Eval interventions in ambiguous settings

Can we turn a science fiction thought experiment into an actual experiment?

Check out our new @nature.com paper on the "Science Fiction Science" method (summarized by @jfbonnefon.bsky.social below)

Applications are open for SFI's 2026 Complexity Postdoctoral Fellowships

If you’ve recently earned a Ph.D. in any scientific field and want to pursue independent, transdisciplinary research, consider applying.

Deadline: October 1, 2025
Apply here: santafe.edu/sfifellowship

Reward is enough for social learning Adaptive behaviour relies on selective social learning, yet the mechanisms underlying this capacity remain debated. A new account demonstrates that key strategies can emerge through reward-based learning of social features, explaining the widely observed flexibility of social learning and illuminating the cognitive basis of cultural evolution.

Online Now: Reward is enough for social learning

Thrilled that our paper on the mechanisms underlying social learning strategies is out! First big paper from my @erc.europa.eu & @kawresearch.bsky.social funded group. More to come! I'm currently looking to recruit two post docs, get in touch if you find this line of research interesting.

The call for a fellowship at the College for Life Sciences @wiko-berlin.bsky.social is now open. That's an academic paradise! Apply: call.wiko-berlin.de/procedure/52...

Abstract: Speed–accuracy trade-offs are a fundamental aspect of decision-making, requiring individuals to balance collecting more information against making faster decisions. Although speed–accuracy trade-offs have been studied at the individual level, their role in human decision-making in social settings remains poorly understood—even though faster, and possibly more error-prone, decisions often have more social influence than slower decisions. We examined how individual differences in speed–accuracy trade-off preferences shape decision-making in pairs, using an interactive online experiment and drift–diffusion modelling. Participants first performed a perceptual task alone, allowing us to estimate their individual drift rates and decision thresholds, the key cognitive determinants of speed–accuracy trade-off preferences. They then performed the task in pairs, sharing decisions in real-time. Pair accuracy depended on the faster (and thus more error-prone) member, and not on the slower (but more accurate) member. Social decisions were not worse than individual ones because faster members increased their thresholds in the social condition and became more accurate, while slower members incorporated less social information. These findings show that individuals adjusted their social information use to the speed–accuracy trade-off preferences of their partners, highlighting the importance of such individual differences for understanding social behaviour.

"Individual differences in speed–accuracy trade-off influence social decision-making in dyads"

🚨Our paper has been published in Proceedings of the Royal Society B doi.org/10.1098/rspb...

w/ Alan Tump @alantump.bsky.social, Ralf Kurvers @ralfkurvers.bsky.social

@royalsocietypublishing.org

1/ 🧵👇

🚀Join our team @tuda.bsky.social ! 🚀
I'm looking for 3 PhDs & 1 Postdoc for my @erc.europa.eu project “C4: Compositional Compression in Cognition and Culture” to study learning across individuals, teams, and cultural timescales
👉 PhD: hmc-lab.com/ERC_PhDs.html
👉 Postdoc: hmc-lab.com/ERC_Postdoc....

(1/4) Ever wondered what tech policy might look like if it were informed by research on collective intelligence and complex systems? 🧠🧑‍💻

Join @jbakcoleman.bsky.social, @lukethorburn.com, and myself in San Diego on Aug 4th for the Collective Intelligence x Tech Policy workshop at @acmci.bsky.social!

Moving towards informative and actionable social media research Social media is nearly ubiquitous in modern life, and concerns have been raised about its putative societal impacts, ranging from undermining mental health and exacerbating polarization to fomenting v...

New preprint with @jbakcoleman.bsky.social @lewan.bsky.social @randomwalker.bsky.social @orbenamy.bsky.social @lfoswaldo.bsky.social where we argue for a complex-system perspective to understand the causal effects of social media on society and for a triangulation of methods
arxiv.org/abs/2505.09254

Trump proposes unprecedented budget cuts to US science Huge reductions, if enacted, could have ‘catastrophic’ effects on US competitiveness and the scientific pipeline, critics say.

US President Donald Trump’s proposed budget for fiscal year 2026 calls for unprecedented cuts to scientific agencies that, if enacted, would deal a devastating blow to US science, policy specialists say.

https://go.nature.com/4jYv3IP

Great to see our new paper on increasing experimental approaches in movement ecology out today in
@camphilsoc.bsky.social!

Conceived at a Gordon Research Conference and brilliantly led by Whitney Hansen 🐟🦌📡

@jack-brand.bsky.social

👉 onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1...

🧠🎮People adapt their learning strategies dynamically. Researchers @scioi.bsky.social @arc-mpib.bsky.social
@unituebingen.bsky.social, New York University
use the video game Minecraft to study social learning: www.mpib-berlin.mpg.de/press-releas...

🙌 Hot off the presses @natcomms.nature.com! We created a custom #Minecraft environment to study a long-standing puzzle in cognitive science:
How do humans flexibly adapt their individual and social learning strategies in dynamic, realistic situations? Check it out 👉 www.nature.com/articles/s41... 🧵👇

Great new paper by Stagnaro & Amsalem in NatComm:
Detailed fact-based informational module about gun control leads to persistent reductions in polarization (attitudes move towards midpoint). Seeing the evidence cited by other side makes opinions more moderate www.nature.com/articles/s41...

We still have 5 more days to the deadline!! Submit a brief cover letter, cv, and one reference letter! #COSMOSTOKYO2025

The demographic drivers of cultural #evolution in #bird song Merino Recalde et al. analyze over 100,000 great tit songs to study how demographic factors and processes like turnover, immigration, and age structure shape vocal culture. Their findings reveal complex interactions between these processes, advancing our understanding of how population dynamics influence cultural evolution in animal communities.

The demographic drivers of cultural #evolution in #bird song CurrentBiology

During COVID, mRNA vaccines saved millions of lives worldwide.

Today, Minnesota republicans proposed a bill stating that "whoever knowingly manufactures, acquires, possesses, or makes readily available to another mRNA injections or products" can be sentenced to 20 years in prison.

Deadline extended to 28th April!! Summer School in Computational Social Cognition with fantastic keynotes by Matthew Rushworth, @dianatamir.bsky.social and @davidamodio.bsky.social. Come & learn more about computational modelling, make new friends, & explore the UK's 2nd largest city 🙂👇. Please RT!

NSF halts grant awards while staff do second review Action comes after DOGE team arrives at science agency

BREAKING:The National Science Foundation (NSF) has put a cork in its grantmaking pipeline after billionaire Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) set up shop at the agency this week. | Science | AAAS www.science.org/content/arti...

UvA ends English-language bachelor’s degree in psychology

The University of Amsterdam ends English-degree in Psychology. A ridiculous act of advance compliance with far-right extremism.

www.folia.nl/en/actueel/1...

Do you want to analyse multidimensional large scale foraging data?

I have a postdoc opening. Postdoc will be part of an HSFP grant ‘”Neurometabolic mechanisms underlying social foraging” with Robert Froemke (NYU) and Jee Hyun Choi (KIST).

Details: stellen.uni-konstanz.de/jobposting/8...

A group of six people sits around a large wooden table working collaboratively with laptops, tablets, smartphones, and notebooks. The screens display a presentation slide titled “Discussion Outline.” The table also has coffee mugs, notebooks with handwritten notes, and small potted plants, suggesting a casual but focused team meeting or brainstorming session.

🚨🤖👥
Webinar "Collective Intelligence in the era of LLMs"
April 24 5-6pm CET
www.hacid-project.eu/hacid-webina...

Register
nesta.zoom.us/meeting/regi...

Speakers:
- Jason Burton, Copenhagen Business School
- Lucie Flek, University of Bonn
- Nikolas Zöller, Max Planck Institute for Human Development

Social tolerance and role model diversity increase tool use learning opportunities across chimpanzee ontogeny - Communications Biology Social attention patterns suggest that wild chimpanzees learn from their mothers but also from many other tolerant group members across protracted development. This likely enables chimpanzees to learn...

New paper alert 📢📢: study from @taichimpproject.bsky.social shows that young chimpanzees peer more at individuals performing more complex food extraction and they peer more at those who are knowledgeable. Chimpanzees learn from others about extracting their food ...
www.nature.com/articles/s42...

The evolution of online news headlines - Humanities and Social Sciences Communications Humanities and Social Sciences Communications - The evolution of online news headlines

Very happy supervisor with the publication of Pietro Nickl's article on global trends in online headlines:

www.nature.com/articles/s41...