Oleg Sobchuk 🇺🇦

Out in Evolutionary Human Sciences! With @mikekestemont.bsky.social, @jbcamps.bsky.social, @remcosleiderink.bsky.social & Anne Chao

New work on unseen species models for cult heritage to the question: how many stories were _shared_ between medieval French and Dutch literature?

lnkd.in/exyAWtir

Happy to see our second study testing the "drunk hypothesis" published in PNAS 🎉

After analyzing the role of alcohol in the rise of sociopolitical complexity on a global scale
www.nature.com/articles/s41...

we have now focused on the role of kava in Oceania
www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/...

Written English has barely changed in 300 years. If you can read Harry Potter, you can read Robinson Crusoe (1719).

On the eve of the 4th anniversary of Russia’s full-scale war, we raise the Ukrainian flag at our headquarters.

So it can fly proudly at the heart of our Union, where it belongs.

One day Ukraine will be safe.

Ukraine will be free.

Ukraine will be part of our European family.

Four years have passed since Russia's full scale invasion of Ukraine. Russia was supposed to win in three days. Instead, Ukraine reinvented modern warfare, built a drone industry, and can destroy a thousand Russian soldiers in a day. Ukraine can win.

Matching sounds to shapes: Evidence of the bouba-kiki effect in naïve baby chicks Humans across multiple languages spontaneously associate the nonwords “kiki” and “bouba” with spiky and round shapes, respectively, a phenomenon named the bouba-kiki effect. To explore the origin of t...

“Humans across multiple languages spontaneously associate the nonwords kiki & bouba with spiky & round shapes, respectively...We tested the bouba-kiki effect in baby chickens. Similar to humans, they spontaneously chose a spiky shape when hearing a kiki sound & a round shape when hearing a bouba.”😲🧪

A cool opportunity to do PhD with Olivier Morin in Paris! I was supervised by Olivier in the past, and it was extremely interesting and productive. Don't miss!

Generating units of cultural analysis with large language models: methods and validation for scalable cross-cultural research Abstract. We present a transparent, human-in-the-loop framework that uses large language models (LLMs) to transform ethnographic texts into binary, structu

Doing *robust* LLM-based annotation may be challenging. So we need more papers like this one, developing reproducible pipelines for various kinds of data royalsocietypublishing.org/rsos/article...

Congrats!

Gradience as a cognitive principle for evaluating numerical notations | PNAS More than 100 historically, archaeologically and ethnographically attested numerical notations have been used over the past 5,000 y; however, becau...

OK, it finally happened! My new article, "Gradience as a cognitive principle for evaluating numerical notations", is now out today in @pnas.org. By focusing on numerals' use for communication instead of arithmetic, we have a new tool to assess their efficiency.
www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/...

📣 NEW! I’ve just released the BIGGEST and perhaps most creative project I’ve ever worked on!

“Searching for Birds” searchingforbirds.visualcinnamon.com 🐤

A project, an article, an exploration that dives into the data that connects humans with birds, by looking at how we search for birds.

I will start using this comic to remind the skeptics that birds are dinosaurs

Why did consciousness evolve at all? A superb special issue of @royalsocietypublishing.org brings together experts across disciplines to explore the functions of consciousness and why it emerged in some species but not others. @tecumsehfitch.bsky.social royalsocietypublishing.org/rstb/issue/3...

Been thinking exactly this!

Ha, I didn't know about this difference

Cannot think of anything else. The bases are covered!

Not including the good old subset() ?

Demographic shifts, inter-group contact and environmental conditions drive language extinction and diversification.
#linguistics

I was always confused by the name filter(). It always implied (to me) this negative selection. So they are finally doing it right 😁

Huge congrats! I really like the title of your professorship too 🔥

May I have one too? Would be great to try this out!

A colleague at MPI asked how to get better at math. My vote is Thompson and Gardner's classic *Calculus Made Easy* (originally published in 1910!) I've uploaded my own (almost complete) worked problem sets from this classic book. A few thoughts.../

The case against efficiency: friction in social media - npj Complexity npj Complexity - The case against efficiency: friction in social media

A neat paper I worked on, begun over 2 years ago when our concerns were more myopic, was just published today. It came out an excellent set of workshops at the Santa Fe Institute, led by the indefatigable Joshua Garland. The gist: sometimes inefficiency is good for you www.nature.com/articles/s44...

...early career researchers. I'm pretty sure they are doing a good job. But there clearly are ones that don't. I think it's a problem w/ this model of a journal in general: you cannot expect even quality when you have 1000+ editors.

I'm not surprised at the large N of ppl on the editorial board. It's the same "mega journal" model as in Frontiers, PLOS, Scientific Reports, etc. And my impression is that quality varies a lot within those journals. Both MPI-EVA ppl on the board are my good colleagues, both are...

📆 Mark your calendars: the 7th edition of CHR will take place 5–8 January 2027 in Manchester, UK, organized by the Center for Digital Humanities, Culture and Media at The University of Manchester.

We hope it’s the perfect way to beat the post-Christmas and New Year blues. See you at #CHR2027!

Simulation-based inference with deep learning suggests speed climbers combine innovation and copying to improve performance Abstract. In the Olympic sport of speed climbing, athletes compete to reach the top of a 15 m wall as quickly as possible. Since the standardization of the

Proc B with @sampassmore.bsky.social! We used simulations to explore the innovation strategies of speed climbers 🧗‍♀️ Innovation is higher among slower athletes and lower when the population size is larger, and the overall balance of innovation and copying appears to be suboptimal 🔗 bit.ly/499QjZM

⚡ 16th European Summer University in Digital Humanities will happen in Besançon, from July 6 – July 18, 2026! ⚡

Save the dates; dm me for any questions; if you'd want to teach at ESU, we will open call for workshops very soon as well!

previous year: esudh.github.io/esubesancon/

The social AI author: modeling creativity and distinction in simulated cultural fields - AI & SOCIETY This article examines generative AI models as sociocultural actors, focusing on how they reproduce and constrain notions of authorship and identity within the contemporary U.S. literary field. Through...

New paper in AI & Society w/ @hoytlong.bsky.social + @teddyroland.bsky.social! We simulated 101 "AI authors" to see how LLMs imagine creativity & cultural distinction + compared them to real historical authors. What do AI authors want & how do they pursue success? link.springer.com/article/10.1...

It's wonderful to know that you are liking our paper, Ted! ☺️