Marius Mercier

"Depressed? Anxious? Insecure? Don’t worry about it. As long as you produce good science, you don’t have to be happy about it. We’ll be happy for you." 🙃

EP #17 | The Anthropology of Leisure Time | Mark Dyble Cognitations · Episode

🎙️ EP #17

Most of us struggle w/ work-life balance. Long before the existence of long commutes and busy calendars, our ancestors lived as hunter-gatherers (HGs). Do HGs have more free time? @adigitaltanay.bsky.social discusses this & much more with Mark Dyble

tinyurl.com/y6hd8ur5

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Over the years, a lot of our guests have recommended various books and/or media relating to various aspects of cognitive science.

A 🧵

EP #1 | @hugoreasoning.bsky.social recommends

Eureka! The brain science behind lightbulb moments Experiences of insight come with a burst of brain activity — and a memory boost.

Nice pop science article on insight:

www.nature.com/articles/d41...

Hi! I'm attending #SBDM2025 conference over the next few days. Come find me at Poster #61 if you're interested in computational models of social cognition!

Looking forward to discussing and meeting new people :)

Wow, beautiful posters!

I presented this paper at the Explaining Culture Conference last week, and I couldn't resist creating a new plot specifically for the talk.

It's definitely not a good time management strategy to create new plot for each talk, but it's a lot of fun!

Very interesting feature of our social cognition!

My first podcast interview is out!

We had the chance to speak with a fascinating guest, and I was especially intrigued by our discussion on the hidden challenges the brain creates when designing hearing aids.

Give it a listen, it’s accessible to non-specialists!

Chimpanzee drumming may give clues to the roots of rhythm Behavior is more complex than scientists realized, could reveal origins of musicality

"Such “drumming” allows chimps to communicate across long distances. Now, two studies show the animals also drum to a distinct beat, which varies across chimp societies."

www.science.org/content/arti...

Very interesting! Congrats Amanda

Thanks for sharing this!

I believe the link for JPSP submission guidelines is wrong. It redirects toward the Journal of Pedagogical Sociology and Psychology and not the Journal of Personality & Social Psychology :)

Our #CogSci2025 paper led by Madeleine Horner (with Adam Moore) explores people's lay conception of empathy.

Main finding: people have a robust expectation that agents who feel empathy are more likely to help, especially when helping is costly.
quillienlab.github.io/Horner%20et%...

Charting the rise of imaginary worlds in history - Humanities and Social Sciences Communications Humanities and Social Sciences Communications - Charting the rise of imaginary worlds in history

The full paper is open access, for those who want to dive deeper into methods, robustness checks, and open datasets. Thanks for reading. Thanks to my co-authors! www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Congrats Edgar !!

Imaginary worlds like Star Wars and Game of Thrones dominate global culture. Are they really a recent phenomenon, or have they always been central to storytelling? In our latest paper, we investigate the historical trajectory of imaginary worlds with new large-scale data.

Oh wow! That's beautiful

I find it fascinating how the way of inducing insight changes based on the culture!

Very cool idea, we didn't consider the string figures but I would love to talk more about it!

If you're interested, the review is in the supplementary materials (sadly, we couldn't put it in the main article): supp.apa.org/psycarticles...

Our paper contributes to a growing literature in which a content's cultural success can be explained by its ability to tap into specific cognitive mechanisms.

Huge thanks to my co‑authors @hugoreasoning.bsky.social and Alexis Garsmeur.

And the answer to the riddle is: humans!

tinyurl.com/29vtsr6w

But there’s more in this paper:

We built a new database from eHRAF World Cultures containing every ethnographic record of riddles we could find.

Surprisingly, after seeing the solution, participants who failed to solve the riddles reported stronger insight than those who'd solved it!

And it works! Participants exposed to high‑insight stimuli wanted to read more riddles & whodunits, and were even more interested in sharing them.

We speculate that the larger effect on sharing is probably because passing on clever content boosts your reputation.

We focus on two popular cultural products: riddles (cross-cultural), and whodunits (Agatha Christie is the best selling author ever).

In 5 studies, we manipulated feelings of insight to test their impact on people's willingness to share and consume these materials.

"What goes on four feet in the morning, two feet at midday, and three feet in the evening?"

This riddle is thousands of years old, but why does it stick with us?

In our new paper, we argue that the feeling of insight might explain the lasting success of some cultural products: tinyurl.com/4j756h9a

This statement from the NSF is insane.

Science is, in essence, designed to separate the true from the false.

Understanding how falsehoods spread is key to the scientific endeavor. It is not a violation of free speech to be proven wrong.

Congrats :)

Super happy to have presented our research at @ehbea.bsky.social !

Thanks!

Hi! Could I be added to the starter pack? 🙂

The site www.randonavigo.fr lists all hikes accessible free of charge with the navigo pass :)