Lightnews — Scholar-powered news

Reposted by Riccardo Fusaroli

Christine Parsons

@christineparsons.bsky.social

Our Tuesday guest speaker @interacting-minds.bsky.social 25th Nov will be @graceqmiao.bsky.social joining us remotely.

All are most welcome in person or online interactingminds.au.dk/events/singl...

Thanks to @fusaroli.bsky.social for organizing

Grace Miao (@graceqmiao.bsky.social)

PhD Student @UCLA | Communication 🗣🗣& Social Neuroscience 🧠🧠 | Research: Multimodal dynamics of human communication and connections | Snowboard enthusiast 🏂

graceqmiao.bsky.social

November 24, 2025 at 3:35 PM

Reposted by Riccardo Fusaroli

Elliot Howard-Spink

@ehowaspi.bsky.social

Our New Paper is out in Nature Human Behaviour: 🚨 Culture is critical in driving orangutan diet development past individual potentials! 🦧 www.nature.com/articles/s41.... See 🧵

Culture is critical in driving orangutan diet development past individual potentials - Nature Human Behaviour

Howard-Spink et al. develop an empirically based model of orangutan diet development, which suggests that social learning is vital for orangutans to acquire varied diets.

www.nature.com

November 24, 2025 at 11:05 AM

Riccardo Fusaroli

@fusaroli.bsky.social

for all of you using the ALIGN library (to measure lexical, syntactic and semantic alignment in conversations), Nick Duran has put together a great refactoring: ALIGN 2.0 (github.com/nickduran/al...), now integrated with Spacy and Bert

GitHub - nickduran/align2-linguistic-alignment: ALIGN 2.0: Modern Python package for multi-level linguistic alignment analysis. Faster, streamlined, and feature-rich while maintaining full compatibili...

ALIGN 2.0: Modern Python package for multi-level linguistic alignment analysis. Faster, streamlined, and feature-rich while maintaining full compatibility with the original ALIGN methodology (Duran...

github.com

November 24, 2025 at 10:17 AM

Riccardo Fusaroli

@fusaroli.bsky.social

A new paper suggests that variance in length of utterance might be a better measure of linguistic skills than mean length of utterance: pubs.asha.org/doi/abs/10.1... I had that thought while working on this: doi.org/10.1016/j.co... but never pursued, yet it seems very persuasive: 1/

Beyond Mean Length of Utterance: Novel Measures for Characterizing the Spoken Language of Autistic Children

Purpose: Mean length of utterance (MLU) is a common measure of expressive language complexity in young children, including autistic children. How...

pubs.asha.org

November 23, 2025 at 8:11 AM

Riccardo Fusaroli

@fusaroli.bsky.social

I remember reading a paper on the causal confounds involved in analyzing only RTs from successful trials, but I can't find it again. Maybe, @dingdingpeng.the100.ci, you mentioned it at a certain point?

November 19, 2025 at 1:02 PM

Riccardo Fusaroli

@fusaroli.bsky.social

Speaker diarization issue: I have long audios automatically diarized (timing and labels of vocalizations) + 5-minute snippets manually diarized. What is the state of the art to assess matches and biases? I wrote a script to get familiar w the issues (1toMany, ManyTo1 matches, etc), so 1/

November 12, 2025 at 3:57 PM

Riccardo Fusaroli

@fusaroli.bsky.social

just spotted this while double checking a collaborator's scripts before uploading them to OSF - @solomonkurz.bsky.social :-)

November 12, 2025 at 3:52 PM

Reposted by Riccardo Fusaroli

Mark A. Hanson

@hansonmark.bsky.social

We wrote the Strain on scientific publishing to highlight the problems of time & trust. With a fantastic group of co-authors, we present The Drain of Scientific Publishing:

a 🧵 1/n

Drain: arxiv.org/abs/2511.04820
Strain: direct.mit.edu/qss/article/...
Oligopoly: direct.mit.edu/qss/article/...

A table showing profit margins of major publishers. A snippet of text related to this table is below.

1. The four-fold drain
1.1 Money
Currently, academic publishing is dominated by profit-oriented, multinational companies for
whom scientific knowledge is a commodity to be sold back to the academic community who
created it. The dominant four are Elsevier, Springer Nature, Wiley and Taylor & Francis,
which collectively generated over US$7.1 billion in revenue from journal publishing in 2024
alone, and over US$12 billion in profits between 2019 and 2024 (Table 1A). Their profit
margins have always been over 30% in the last five years, and for the largest publisher
(Elsevier) always over 37%.
Against many comparators, across many sectors, scientific publishing is one of the most
consistently profitable industries (Table S1). These financial arrangements make a substantial
difference to science budgets. In 2024, 46% of Elsevier revenues and 53% of Taylor &
Francis revenues were generated in North America, meaning that North American
researchers were charged over US$2.27 billion by just two for-profit publishers. The
Canadian research councils and the US National Science Foundation were allocated US$9.3
billion in that year.

A figure detailing the drain on researcher time.

1. The four-fold drain

1.2 Time
The number of papers published each year is growing faster than the scientific workforce,
with the number of papers per researcher almost doubling between 1996 and 2022 (Figure
1A). This reflects the fact that publishers’ commercial desire to publish (sell) more material
has aligned well with the competitive prestige culture in which publications help secure jobs,
grants, promotions, and awards. To the extent that this growth is driven by a pressure for
profit, rather than scholarly imperatives, it distorts the way researchers spend their time.
The publishing system depends on unpaid reviewer labour, estimated to be over 130 million
unpaid hours annually in 2020 alone (9). Researchers have complained about the demands of
peer-review for decades, but the scale of the problem is now worse, with editors reporting
widespread difficulties recruiting reviewers. The growth in publications involves not only the
authors’ time, but that of academic editors and reviewers who are dealing with so many
review demands.
Even more seriously, the imperative to produce ever more articles reshapes the nature of
scientific inquiry. Evidence across multiple fields shows that more papers result in
‘ossification’, not new ideas (10). It may seem paradoxical that more papers can slow
progress until one considers how it affects researchers’ time. While rewards remain tied to
volume, prestige, and impact of publications, researchers will be nudged away from riskier,
local, interdisciplinary, and long-term work. The result is a treadmill of constant activity with
limited progress whereas core scholarly practices – such as reading, reflecting and engaging
with others’ contributions – is de-prioritized. What looks like productivity often masks
intellectual exhaustion built on a demoralizing, narrowing scientific vision.

A table of profit margins across industries. The section of text related to this table is below:

1. The four-fold drain
1.1 Money
Currently, academic publishing is dominated by profit-oriented, multinational companies for
whom scientific knowledge is a commodity to be sold back to the academic community who
created it. The dominant four are Elsevier, Springer Nature, Wiley and Taylor & Francis,
which collectively generated over US$7.1 billion in revenue from journal publishing in 2024
alone, and over US$12 billion in profits between 2019 and 2024 (Table 1A). Their profit
margins have always been over 30% in the last five years, and for the largest publisher
(Elsevier) always over 37%.
Against many comparators, across many sectors, scientific publishing is one of the most
consistently profitable industries (Table S1). These financial arrangements make a substantial
difference to science budgets. In 2024, 46% of Elsevier revenues and 53% of Taylor &
Francis revenues were generated in North America, meaning that North American
researchers were charged over US$2.27 billion by just two for-profit publishers. The
Canadian research councils and the US National Science Foundation were allocated US$9.3
billion in that year.

The costs of inaction are plain: wasted public funds, lost researcher time, compromised
scientific integrity and eroded public trust. Today, the system rewards commercial publishers
first, and science second. Without bold action from the funders we risk continuing to pour
resources into a system that prioritizes profit over the advancement of scientific knowledge.

November 11, 2025 at 11:52 AM

Reposted by Riccardo Fusaroli

wimpouw

@wimpouw.bsky.social

Our paper @sarabogels.bsky.social covering our pre-registered multi-year research is now finally out in Cognition. We show that in conversations people reduce their multimodal signals non-linearly; the steeper this non-linear drop-off the more communicative success.

www.wimpouw.com/files/Bogels...

A busy figure showing how reduction of different types of multimodal signals reduces over experimental rounds (with a comparison of how a non-linear signal following a power law can be transformed to a linear slope using a log-transformation).

November 11, 2025 at 4:49 PM

Riccardo Fusaroli

@fusaroli.bsky.social

that was 56 mails needing actions, and about 300 that got archived or deleted (probably missing out on some info, but alas...). Good news is that I'll likely send the computer to repairs before being done with all the 56 mail-related task (let alone those who cumulated in the meantime) :-)

Riccardo Fusaroli @fusaroli.bsky.social · 18d

The computer has been at the repair shop for three days and with it my access to work email and calendar. I forcefully got it back, still unfixed. I think I need a glass of wine before opening my email (or to put my mind to better things instead)

November 10, 2025 at 3:38 PM

Reposted by Riccardo Fusaroli

Elise Cutts

@elisecutts.bsky.social

Hey complexity and complexity-adjacent people:

What are some of your favorite pop-sci books? Are there any you've had your eye on but haven't had a chance to read yet?

They can be new or old. I'd just love to know what y'all are reading!

November 9, 2025 at 10:12 AM

Riccardo Fusaroli

@fusaroli.bsky.social

The computer has been at the repair shop for three days and with it my access to work email and calendar. I forcefully got it back, still unfixed. I think I need a glass of wine before opening my email (or to put my mind to better things instead)

November 7, 2025 at 3:30 PM

Reposted by Riccardo Fusaroli

Audun Rosslund

@audunrosslund.bsky.social

Do parents exaggerate the pronunciation of words they believe their infants don’t know yet? Our new paper suggests no. ❌ w/ @julienmayor.bsky.social & @nataliakartushina.bsky.social 🧵 1/ #DevSci #langsky #devpsy

APA PsycNet

dx.doi.org

November 4, 2025 at 3:20 PM

Reposted by Riccardo Fusaroli

Christine Parsons

@christineparsons.bsky.social

Today at 11am @interacting-minds.bsky.social, we have Aaro Tupasela, senior research fellow, Department of Sociology, University of Helsinki coming to give a talk:

Building health data spaces for research in Finland - Some cautionary tales for the EHDS

Building health data spaces for research in Finland - Some cautionary tales for the EHDS

IMC Tuesday Seminar: Talk by Aaro Tupasela, senior research fellow, Department of Sociology, University of Helsinki

interactingminds.au.dk

November 4, 2025 at 7:30 AM

Reposted by Riccardo Fusaroli

Aki Vehtari

@avehtari.bsky.social

Now I'm also looking for a research software engineer to implement a pile of research results to R packages loo, posterior, bayesplot, projpred, priorsense, brms or/and Python packages ArviZ, Bambi and Kulprit. Apply by email with no specific deadline (see contact info at users.aalto.fi/~ave/)

Aki Vehtari @avehtari.bsky.social · 27d

I'm now also looking for a postdoc with strong Bayesian background and interest in developing Bayesian cross-validation theory, methods and software. Apply by email with no specific deadline (see contact information at users.aalto.fi/~ave/).

Others, please share

Aki Vehtari @avehtari.bsky.social · Oct 6

I'm looking for a doctoral student with Bayesian background to work on Bayesian workflow and cross-validation (see my publication list users.aalto.fi/~ave/publica... for my recent work) at Aalto University.

Apply through the ELLIS PhD program (dl October 31) ellis.eu/news/ellis-p...

November 3, 2025 at 11:13 AM

Reposted by Riccardo Fusaroli

Saloni

@scientificdiscovery.dev

This year Demis Hassabis predicted AI could cure all disease in a decade.

But other scientists like Claus Wilke & Derek Lowe say biology is far more complex, or progress will be limited by clinical trials & economics.

In a new 4hr podcast episode of *Hard Drugs*, we answer: Will AI solve medicine?

Will AI solve medicine?

spotify.link

October 29, 2025 at 2:11 PM

Reposted by Riccardo Fusaroli

Claudio Tennie

@ctennie.bsky.social

Just out - "Art Beyond Cognition: Reframing Neanderthal art through social connectivity and cultural transmission" by Straffon & Tennie

Art Beyond Cognition: Reframing Neanderthal art through social connectivity and cultural transmission | Evolutionary Human Sciences | Cambridge Core

Art Beyond Cognition: Reframing Neanderthal art through social connectivity and cultural transmission

www.cambridge.org

October 27, 2025 at 4:59 PM

Riccardo Fusaroli

@fusaroli.bsky.social

Silly 2012 me visiting a village in New Mexico that had been inhabited continuously for 1000 years: err, is that impressive? My not so impressive hometown is at least 2000 year old...
that was idiotic, but I now discovered that the oldest hominin remains in my hometown are 800000 year old 1/

October 30, 2025 at 7:58 AM

Riccardo Fusaroli

@fusaroli.bsky.social

italian pools: take a shower before the pool. NO NAKED SHOWERS!
scandinavian pools: take a shower before the pool. ONLY NAKED SHOWERS!
japanese onsen: the personnel will chase you if you try to cover yourself your nakedness with the tiny towel provided and inform you it's only for the head

October 29, 2025 at 3:57 AM

Reposted by Riccardo Fusaroli

Paul Smaldino

@psmaldino.bsky.social

Revision posted! An evolutionary model of identity signaling with nested/overlapping/intersectional identities, complex multidimensional signaling capabilities, and a primer on ancient Mesopotamia. What more could you ask for?
osf.io/preprints/so...

Paul Smaldino @psmaldino.bsky.social · Jul 1

New preprint w/ Nathan Gabriel & @avbell.bsky.social: The Evolution of Identity Signals for Coordination in Diverse Societies

The model tackles multiple nested/overlapping identities and complex signaling structure. Recovers lots of old results and adds several new ones osf.io/preprints/so...

Individual social identities indicate group affiliations and are typically associated with 3 group-typical preferences, signals that indicate group membership, and the propensity to condition actions on the social signals of others, resulting in group-differentiated interaction norms. Past work modeling identity signaling and coordination has typically assumed that individuals belong to one of a discrete set of groups. Yet individuals can simultaneously belong to multiple groups, which may be nested within larger groupings. Here, we introduce the generalized Bach or Stravinsky game, a coordination game with ordered preferences, which allows us to construct a model that captures the overlapping and hierarchical nature of social identity. Our model unifies several prior results into a single framework, including results related to coordination, minority disadvantage, and cross-cultural competence. Our model also allows agents to express complex social identities through multidimensional signaling, which we use to explore a variety of complex group structures. Our consideration of intersectional identities exposes flaws in naive measures of group structure, illustrating how empirical studies may overlook some social identities if they do not consider the behaviors that those identities function to afford.

October 27, 2025 at 8:09 PM

Reposted by Riccardo Fusaroli

Paul Smaldino

@psmaldino.bsky.social

Re-posting this because I really like it and I think we need to understand identity from a functionalist perspective more than ever.
osf.io/preprints/ps...

Paul Smaldino @psmaldino.bsky.social · Jun 2

I wrote a chapter on a functionalist account of social identity.

IMO, thinking about identity in an instrumental way helps explain a lot of behavior that seems otherwise baffling.
osf.io/preprints/ps...

This chapter focuses on how people use identity categories for adaptive decision making and how they strategically apply signals of identity. Adopting a functional view of identity for communication and behavior allows us to focus on the forces that shape their use. I will first make it clear that signals of social identity often encode meaningful information for decision making. I will then review specific perspectives on how selection by consequences has shaped the use of identity signals to more adaptively facilitate social learning, partner choice, and coordination, followed by a consideration of how those uses have changed in a world characterized by diversity, anonymity and the Internet, and political polarization. Identity is constructed for functional purposes, and is therefore only essential insofar as forming categories and legible cultural artifacts are essential features of human activity.

October 27, 2025 at 8:11 PM

Riccardo Fusaroli

@fusaroli.bsky.social

I happened to (re)read an autobiography of an Italian ethnographer, Fosco Maraini, amazing (biased) character. His childhood and ebullient youth climbing mountains meshing with intellectuals, his trips to Tibet and Japan, the japanese prison camp for being an anti-fascist and much more. BUT 1/

October 24, 2025 at 1:13 PM

Reposted by Riccardo Fusaroli

Carl T. Bergstrom

@carlbergstrom.com

1. We ( @jbakcoleman.bsky.social, @cailinmeister.bsky.social, @jevinwest.bsky.social, and I) have a new preprint up on the arXiv.

There we explore how social media companies and other online information technology firms are able to manipulate scientific research about the effects of their products.