Lightnews — Scholar-powered news

Manuel Anglada-Tort @manuelangladatort.bsky.social · Sep 4

This is incredible, well done!!

Reposted by Manuel Anglada-Tort

Harin Lee @harinlee.info · Jun 4

Big cities are vibrant hubs of culture, but why exactly is that? Now out in @natcomms.nature.com, we analysed music listening patterns of over 2.5 million people and demographics to examine mechanisms driving cultural diversity. With @researchdeezer.bsky.social @norijacoby.bsky.social

Highlights ⬇

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Reposted by Manuel Anglada-Tort

Eline Van Geert @elinevg.bsky.social · May 5

It was an honor to be interviewed about my doctoral research by @bdalile.bsky.social for #KarakterCast! This interview happened on the occasion of me receiving the ASL research award for Human Sciences for my PhD work.

Check it out on Spotify: open.spotify.com/episode/07Zu...

Image showing the title of the podcast episode "In the eye of the beholder? How the viewer and context shape the visual experience" and pictures of podcast host Dr. Boushra Dalile and podcast guest Dr. Eline Van Geert

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Reposted by Manuel Anglada-Tort

COCOCOlab @co3lab.bsky.social · Apr 29

We are recruiting postdocs! Want to grow your own social networks to study creativity, cultural evolution & decision-making? We are hiring a funded postdoc at Cornell in collaboration with UC Davis, CUNY, & Princeton. Apply here: academicjobsonline.org/ajo/jobs/28959

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Reposted by Manuel Anglada-Tort

Ted Underwood @tedunderwood.com · Apr 29

Tag yourself. I’m “puzzled-misinformed.”

The image presents three panels (A, B, and C) summarizing a study of prosodic patterns in speech and their association with communicative functions.
• Panel A: A horizontal stacked bar chart showing how different prosodic function labels (e.g., “Intrigued-Surprised,” “Routine-Mundane,” “Aroused-Opinionated”) are distributed across clusters of intonation units (IUs). Each row represents a cluster (labeled c1, c2, etc.), and colored segments within each row represent the proportion of IUs labeled with specific functions (e.g., F1, F2, F3), along with a legend of attitude labels aligned to the right.
• Panel B: A series of pitch contour plots overlaid on waveform segments of the word “yeah,” showing five types of intonational contours: “affirmation,” “weighty agreement,” “newsmark,” “surprised newsmark,” etc. These are differentiated by F0 (pitch) in semitones.
• Panel C: A longer time-series showing pitch (F0 in semitones) and waveforms for various spoken phrases (e.g., “oh really,” “no,” “great,” “sure,” “yeah,” “right”). These are categorized into three groups: “animated newsmark,” “excitement expression,” and “strong agreement,” with rising and falling pitch contours corresponding to expressive intent.

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Reposted by Manuel Anglada-Tort

John McBride @johnmcbride4lyf.bsky.social · Apr 17

Work with Steven Brown and Elizabeth Phillips: They annotated by ear an impressive set of ~400 scales from vocal music across the world. I used algorithms to get accurate estimates of scale degrees in cents. Cool stuff!

Data is all available here:
zenodo.org/records/1060...

Will release code later

Musical scales optimize pitch spacing: a global analysis of traditional vocal music - Humanities and Social Sciences Communications

Humanities and Social Sciences Communications - Musical scales optimize pitch spacing: a global analysis of traditional vocal music

www.nature.com

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Manuel Anglada-Tort @manuelangladatort.bsky.social · Mar 17

Excited to announce our next Whitehead Lecture by @harinlee.info on Understanding Music in the Age of Machine Learning. Join us online or in person: Wednesday, 4pm (see link). @goldsmithsuol.bsky.social #MusicCognition #BigData

Harin Lee will talk on "Understanding music in the age of machine learning"

Harin leverages big data to explore music from diverse cultures worldwide and investigates the psychological foundations of human music perception.

www.gold.ac.uk

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Manuel Anglada-Tort @manuelangladatort.bsky.social · Mar 12

🎶Join us tomorrow for a talk on 𝗺𝘂𝘀𝗶𝗰𝗮𝗹𝗶𝘁𝘆 𝗶𝗻 𝗮𝘂𝘁𝗶𝘀𝗺 by Prof Pam Heaton (details in link). Pam's research has shaped the cross-disciplinary study of developmental disorders and its relation to music cognition. #AutismResearch #MusicCognition

Professor Pam Heaton: Approaches to understanding musicality in autism

Professor Pam Heaton, Emerita Professor of Psychology, Goldsmiths, will present her research on A re-evaluation of approaches to understanding musicality in autism

www.gold.ac.uk

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Manuel Anglada-Tort @manuelangladatort.bsky.social · Mar 10

I would love to see this animal in the wild!

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Manuel Anglada-Tort @manuelangladatort.bsky.social · Mar 8

very nice to see this out, congrats!

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Reposted by Manuel Anglada-Tort

Ben Sheldon @sheldonbirds.bsky.social · Mar 7

New paper on the demographic drivers of cultural evolution in Great Tit song published today - epic work led by @nilomr.bsky.social with help from @andreaestandia.bsky.social Ella Cole & Sara Keen. Why did we do this, and what did we find? 🧵 follows: 1/n
www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...

The demographic drivers of cultural evolution in bird song

Social learning can give rise to shared behavioral patterns that persist as culture within animal communities,1,2 such as bird and whale songs and cet…

www.sciencedirect.com

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Manuel Anglada-Tort @manuelangladatort.bsky.social · Feb 11

This sounds like a dream: Barcelona + Cognitive Modelling!

alexhyafil.bsky.social @alexhyafil.bsky.social · Jan 30

Our Barcelona-based summer school, BAMB! (bambschool.org) just opened applications! Come join us: 15-24th July, to learn how to model behavioral data using RL, Bayesian, latent variable models, RNNs, DDMs & more! #BAMB2025

BAMB!

Course philosophy Our goal is to teach advanced techniques in model-based analysis of behavior (humans and other animals) to cognitive and computational neuroscientists at PhD and early career levels...

bambschool.org

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Reposted by Manuel Anglada-Tort

Jonas Obleser @jonasobleser.bsky.social · Feb 11

I hope you enjoy some of the ideas I put forward in “Metacognition in the listening brain”: Trends in Neurosciences www.cell.com/trends/neuro... — out now.

Metacognition in the listening brain

How do you know you have heard right? Metacognition, the ability to assess and monitor one’s own cognitive state, is key to understanding human communication in complex environments. However, the foun...

www.cell.com

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Reposted by Manuel Anglada-Tort

Mason Youngblood @masonyoungblood.bsky.social · Feb 6

Andy Whiten and I wrote a @science.org perspective about a cool new study from @inbalarnon.bsky.social @simonkirby.bsky.social @ellengarland.bsky.social et al! They found humpback whale song has language-like statistical structure, using methods inspired by infant language learning 🐋🎶 Links below ⬇️

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Reposted by Manuel Anglada-Tort

Mason Youngblood @masonyoungblood.bsky.social · Feb 8

5-yr position in computational humanities with @oliviermorin.bsky.social and @jbcamps.bsky.social in Paris! Original deadline has passed but search is ongoing. Details here: cognition.ens.fr/en/job/junio...

Offers: Junior Excellence Chairs in Computational Humanities (five years) at PSL university (Paris) - CultureLab team | DEC Département d'études cognitives

Postdoc : Position

cognition.ens.fr

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Manuel Anglada-Tort @manuelangladatort.bsky.social · Dec 9

The final speaker of the term will be Oliver Durcan on "Exploring the Dynamics of Flow State Episodes" — those moments of heightened absorption, effortless control, and increased enjoyment during skilled activities like music making. Join us in person this Thursday (12-1PM) or DM for an online link.

Exploring the dynamics of flow state episodes

Oliver Durcan

www.musicmindbrain.com

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Manuel Anglada-Tort @manuelangladatort.bsky.social · Dec 3

This Thursday Young-Jin Hur (University of Arts London) will be presenting recent work on the psychology of fashion and everyday clothing choices at @goldsmithsuol.bsky.social. Feel free to join! This is part of our SCAPA seminars (Science of the Creative and Performing Arts).

From the sublime to everyday clothing choices

Young-Jin Hur

www.musicmindbrain.com

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Manuel Anglada-Tort @manuelangladatort.bsky.social · Dec 3

this is such an interesting use of AI. Getting into classical music is such a pain, especially if only relying on google/ Spotify, as available information tends to be too generic. I can imagine audio streaming services offering text-to-music recommendations very soon...

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Manuel Anglada-Tort @manuelangladatort.bsky.social · Nov 23

nice! It will be so interesting to see how all these perceptions change over time as AI models improve and humans adapt too. I was very impressed by the audio quality of the voices generated by the podcast feature in NotebookLM already: notebooklm.google

Sign in - Google Accounts

notebooklm.google.com

Manuel Anglada-Tort @manuelangladatort.bsky.social · Nov 22

If we repeated the study today, we’d add a new condition: AI-generated music.

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Manuel Anglada-Tort @manuelangladatort.bsky.social · Nov 17

this is great, congrats!!

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Reposted by Manuel Anglada-Tort

Psyche Loui @psycheloui.bsky.social · Nov 17

Delighted to share that our edited volume, The Science Music Borderlands, won the 2024 Ruth Solie Award from the American Musicological Society! Thank you to all who helped on the project.

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Reposted by Manuel Anglada-Tort

Alex Mesoudi @alexmesoudi.com · Sep 21

Starter packs seem all the rage so here’s a cultural evolution one

go.bsky.app/6mZJyQq

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Reposted by Manuel Anglada-Tort

Alex Mesoudi @alexmesoudi.com · Nov 15

Announcement! The next @culturalevolsoc.bsky.social CES conference will be at UM6P in Rabat, Morocco, provisional dates 11-13th May 2026! Hosted by Mathieu Charbonneau, @sarahalami.bsky.social, @zhgarfield.com & @edseabright.bsky.social. Save the dates!

culturalevolutionsociety.org/news-and-eve...

Cultural Evolution Society 2026 Conference Announced - Cultural Evolution Society

culturalevolutionsociety.org

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Reposted by Manuel Anglada-Tort

Simon Schug @smonsays.bsky.social · Nov 13

To help find people at the intersection of neuroscience and AI. Of course let me know if I missed someone or you’d like to be added 🧪 🧠

#neuroskyence

go.bsky.app/CAfmKQs

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