Brendan Barrett

prior choice is the only thing that soothes my weary soul.

on that note, see: bsky.app/profile/oliv...

stay tuned in 2026 for some comparative multi-species work and unnecessary matrix algebra where we quantify and fit cognitive models of material selectivity. also more primate archaeology.

and Coiba

In terms of mean dimensions and comparing the posterior popuation distributions from which raw materials and tool were drawn we see differences across most linear dimensions on Jicaron

We looked at four commonly processed resources-- two nuts, hermit crabs, and a freshwater snail

White-faced capuchins (Cebus capucinus imitator) exhibit selectivity for stone tools Over the last few decades, the developing field of primate archaeology has used archaeological methods to reconstruct primate behaviors, especially tool use. We expand the possibilities of primate arc...

Last preprint of the year from our group led by Meredith Carlson of UC Davis, showing white-faced capuchins exhibit material selectivity of hammerstone mass according to material properties www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...

in collaboration with @ctennie.bsky.social and others @mpi-animalbehav.bsky.social [i think the 3 of us are the only ones on bluesky...]

now out, post peer review, led by @ehowaspi.bsky.social: empirically informed ABM suggesting that in orangutans dietary"know-what" requires social learning to develop

🥳64 more days until the start of #Animove at #LaSelva Organization of Tropical Studies in #CostaRica. 22 participants, 6 tutors,2077 plant species,125 mammal species,470 bird species,48 amphibian species,87 reptile species,45 fresh water fish species and 10000 insects, arachnids and other.🐒🦇🦜🐊🦂

Each dyad (a, b) moves through four discrete states over time, represented by coloured circles. The dyad remains in a given state for a certain duration, or "holding time", before transitioning to a new state according to state-specific transition probabilities, indicated by arrows showing all possible (non-zero) transitions. Paintings by Sofia M. Pereira & Judith von Nordheim.

New paper!

We propose a framework to empirically study animal social relationships by modelling social network (SN) data as time-series—that is, without the need to aggregate them over time.

www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

i think one of the biggest values of the course is that this is the only philosophy of science that students get, and the impact of that is less measurable and for which no shortcut exists

but the hope is that there is always a motivated few students who get into it and run with it, and their colleagues ask them for help when they hit a barrier

my concern is that a european phd model isnt well suited towards devoting the effort/time for analysis that is required to do good science--- especially for folks who travel for field research--- and whose advisors either don't care or don't know about the requisite work and just want an answer

i have been thinking about (and asked to) do a PhD level workshop on Bayesian stats and have thought about doing 2 weeks of 4 hour sessions per day, so 40 hours in total.

it seems that every variation is suboptimal for some party, but there are always a few who get really engaged

I taught it at 1/2 speed up til hierarchical models for MS students, and that seemed to work fine. When I did normal speed for PhD students they couldn't all keep up and had too many fieldwork/life obligations to do it over a long period. I have been getting requests for an intensive Bayesian kurs

this was a collaborative effort arising out of multiple conversations and experiences so authorship is in alphabetical order--- don't give me too much credit

with coauthors @kamransafi.bsky.social @safilab.bsky.social @francescafrisoni.bsky.social @zoegoldsborough.bsky.social @animaltracking.bsky.social @livingingroups.bsky.social

Burden of a failed error culture in biologging Driven by technological advancement and low cost, biologging has rapidly transformed the study of animal behaviour and ecology, providing unprecedente…

For your consideration, our paper about how we can build a better error culture around biologging is now out in Animal Behavio(u)r. A collaborative effort between researchers the veterinarians at @mpi-animalbehav.bsky.social

www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...

@culturalevolsoc.bsky.social

Postdoc position in individual-level incentives, social
learning, and payoff-biased imitation shape group-level accuracy in complex prediction and decision-making tasks in Konstanz

files.newsletter2go.com/l3slzozn/s_i...

Global body adopts policy to protect Earth’s old, wise and large animals | Charles Darwin University The International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) has recognised Charles Darwin University-led research into the Earth’s oldest animals with the adoption of the ‘Longevity Conservation’ global...

the IUCN have passed the Longevity Conservation motion put forward to them by @kellerfish.bsky.social and @pili-scotland.bsky.social and based on the paper we wrote on the value of older individuals in animal societies.
www.cdu.edu.au/news/global-...

thanks! in case you are curious rock density covaries across space.

tl;dr Collinearity is a form of lack of information that is appropriately reflected in the output of your statistical model. When collinearity is associated with interpretational difficulties, these difficulties aren’t caused by the collinearity itself. Rather, they reveal that the model was poorly specified (in that it answers a question different to the one of interest), that the analyst overly focuses on significance rather than estimates and the uncertainty about them or that the analyst took a mental shortcut in interpreting the model that could’ve also led them astray in the absence of collinearity. If you do decide to “deal with” collinearity, make sure you can still answer the question of interest.

Was asked about collinearity again, so here's Vahove's 2019 post on why it isn't a problem that needs a solution. Design the model(s) to answer a formal question and free your mind janhove.github.io/posts/2019-0...

Do any stats nerds have a good reference/examples for how to write about Gaussian Processes models and communicate them to readers? I am estimating spatial autocorrelation of things measured in grids and need some inspiration to guide my writing.

The ‘harm hypothesis’ strikes me as being deeply rooted in contemporary WEIRD values rather than being the result of a specific ‘evolved’ or ‘innate’ instinct or psychological mechanism. And indeed the literature cited to support it seems to suggest this. Costello & Acerbi cite 5 papers in the paragraph above to support the model: Stewart-Williams et al., 2024: the sample here consists of Prolific users mostly in the UK. FeldmanHall et al., 2016: the samples were MTurk users in the US and volunteers in the UK. Curry et al., 2004: the sample is convicted offenders in Texas in 1991. Graso et al., 2023: US MTurk users again. Graso & Reynolds, 2024: this is a review paper which does make some cross-cultural claims, but when you check the references you can see some important limitations. For example, they write that “Across cultures, women were perceived as less powerful than men but were seen more positively,” and when you check the reference it goes to Glick et al., 2004, which samples from 16 nations. However, when you read that paper they note in the methods that, “Most samples consisted primarily of college students participating for extra credit.”

I really strongly feel that some fields of research would profit if researchers stopped collecting online data for some time and instead maybe just read a bit outside of their field.

Want to know more about monkeys kidnapping other monkeys?🐒 I had an amazing chat together with @bjjbarrett.bsky.social on @sidedoorpod.bsky.social about the Coiban capuchins and their wild antics. Science really is stranger than fiction! Listen 👂 here: www.si.edu/sidedoor/mon...

I am happy to announce that our project on risk and social learning is now in press at Psychological Review. Several new additions and revisions thanks to detailed feedback from colleagues and anonymous reviewers. osf.io/preprints/so...
@psmaldino.bsky.social @babeheim.bsky.social

Courses

On Wed, Dec 10 I will be offering my comprehensive introduction to regression modeling at a steep discount in an effort to raise funds for World Central Kitchen and United Farm Workers. Details about the course and registration process can be found on my website, betanalpha.github.io/courses/.