Olivier Morin

@oliviermorin.bsky.social

650 followers 340 following 35 posts

Researcher at Ecole Normale Supérieure / CNRS in Paris. Culture, cognition, things in between. https://linktr.ee/oliviermorin

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Psychology 28%

Sociology 19%

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Olivier Morin @oliviermorin.bsky.social · Feb 19

🚨 New paper! 🚨 by Yoolim Kim, @helenamiton.bsky.social, Marc Allassonnière Tang, & myself, in Journal of Memory and Language. We tried to do for letter shapes what phonologists did for speech sounds. doi.org/10.1016/j.jm... A 🧵 (1/14)

Reposted by Richard S.J. Tol, Dorothy Bishop, Brigitte Nerlich , and 8 more Richard S.J. Tol, Dorothy Bishop, Brigitte Nerlich, Richard McElreath, Martin Tomko, Peter Campbell, Andrew Livingstone, Olivier Morin, Zen Faulkes, John R. Kerr, David Spurrett

Smut Clyde, X-Ray Haruspex @smutclyde.bsky.social · 20h

Rate your score on Factor Fexcectorn.

Well done, Scientific Reports. pubpeer.com/publications...

Reposted by Simon J. Greenhill, Olivier Morin

laserhedvig.bsky.social @laserhedvig.bsky.social · 10d

Today, we published a paper on the strength of language universals (if language has X, it also has Y) given spatial & phylogenetic autocorrelation in @nathumbehav.nature.com ! It is a cool research project, led by the brilliant Annemarie Verkerk at @uni-saarland.de
www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Enduring constraints on grammar revealed by Bayesian spatiophylogenetic analyses - Nature Human Behaviour

Despite their great diversity, human languages are shaped by recurring grammatical universals. Verkerk et al. show that about one-third of the proposed universals hold cross-linguistically through ana...

www.nature.com

Reposted by Hugo Mercier, Olivier Morin

Marius Mercier @mariusmercier.bsky.social · 13d

🎉 New preprint: Bayesian Competence Inference guides Knowledge Attribution and Information search

If someone knows that Venus is the only planet in the Solar System that rotates clockwise, will they also know what Earth’s only natural satellite is? What about which planets have no moons at all?

Olivier Morin @oliviermorin.bsky.social · 15d

thanks!

Olivier Morin @oliviermorin.bsky.social · 15d

Interesting! Curious to know what
@docteur-drey.bsky.social thinks.

Ricard Solé @ricardsole.bsky.social · 15d

How “intelligent” is a slime mold? When it solves mazes, it might not be thinking:it’s obeying physics. Our new paper with
@jordiplam.bsky.social shows how it follows a least action principle,letting physics do the job arxiv.org/pdf/2511.08531
@drmichaellevin.bsky.social @docteur-drey.bsky.social

Reposted by Olivier Morin

Ricard Solé @ricardsole.bsky.social · 15d

Olivier Morin @oliviermorin.bsky.social · 21d

Too bad — and in it makes sense, in hindsight, given the weaknesses of cognitive dissonance reduction as a theory. Still, on literary merits alone, When prophecy fails remains a gem of a book.

Nathanael Larigaldie @nathlarigaldie.bsky.social · 21d

Ok, just wow. If the content of this article is right, this is depressing. We're slowly reaching the point where ~100% of what I was taught in Social Psych was either innocently wrong or plainly frauded

onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1...

Debunking “When Prophecy Fails”

In 1954, Dorothy Martin predicted an apocalyptic flood and promised her followers rescue by flying saucers. When neither arrived, she recanted, her group dissolved, and efforts to proselytize ceased....

onlinelibrary.wiley.com

Reposted by Dorothy Bishop, David Lazer, Scott L. Greer , and 10 more Dorothy Bishop, David Lazer, Scott L. Greer, Paolo Crosetto, Caroline T. Schroeder, Jacob T. Levy, Olivier Morin, Jens Rydgren, Zen Faulkes, Juanjo Medina, Peter Gratton, Annette Yoshiko Reed, Olúfẹ́mi Táíwò

Nathanael Larigaldie @nathlarigaldie.bsky.social · 21d

Debunking “When Prophecy Fails”

onlinelibrary.wiley.com

Reposted by Kori Schake, Joanna Bryson, Meredith Broussard , and 47 more Kori Schake, Joanna Bryson, Meredith Broussard, Katharine Hayhoe, Christian Odendahl, Suresh Venkatasubramanian, Richard S.J. Tol, Brendan Nyhan, Richard J. Butler, Steve Peers, Steven French, Melissa Terras, Simon J. Greenhill, Harvey J. Miller, Philippe Huneman, Simon Otjes, Dustin Mulvaney, Martin Tomko, Mirco Tonin, Janne Tukiainen, Paul Matthews, Rachel C. Nethery, Lilian Edwards, Julia Lynch, Caroline T. Schroeder, Bessma Momani, Brian Keegan, Olivier Morin, Peter D. Howe, José Antonio Noguera, Alberto Corsín Jiménez, Lex Heerma van Voss, Catherine J. Frieman, Mauro Gatti, Anthony Burke, Jack Stilgoe, Raúl Pacheco-Vega, Brooke Harrington, Christopher Zorn, Alexander Woywodt, James A. Benn, Charles T. Mathewes, Seth Frey, Jani Erola, Aidan O’Sullivan, Catherine Spooner, Will M. Gervais, David Spurrett, José Pina-Sánchez, Valeria Mazza

Dr Selena Wisnom @lswisnom.bsky.social · 24d

Academics in Assyria in the 7th c BC complain that admin is preventing them from doing research and teaching

Reposted by Hugo Mercier, Olivier Morin

Edgar Dubourg @edgardubourg.bsky.social · 27d

Excited to see our research highlighted in @psychscience.bsky.social Observer!
With @oliviermorin.bsky.social , @hugoreasoning.bsky.social , and Thomas Dheilly, we explored how people infer others’ knowledge: even from a single answer, they can estimate how much someone knows about a topic!

Unearthing the Nature of Knowing

Research reveals how people process information, how they acquire—and sometimes reject—knowledge, and how that compares to artificial intelligence systems’ abilities to do the same.

www.psychologicalscience.org

Reposted by Olivier Morin

Ariel Edwards-Levy @aedwardslevy.bsky.social · 27d

i never saw two trunkless legs
i never hope to see 'em
but i can tell you, anyhow,
i'd rather see than be 'em

Charles Louis Richter @richterscale.bsky.social · 27d

Now Ozymandias was from the Himalayas, where a cold wind howls and blows.
Why he left his home in the peaks to roam 'round the sands, God only knows.
His statue fell down, the desert's boundless and completely bare;
Though it's still scrawled on his pedestal that "ye Mighty should despair!"

Jeannie Prinsen @jeannieprinsen.bsky.social · 27d

The sun did not shine.
It was too wet to play.
And the lone, level sands
Stretched far, far away.

Reposted by Ruth Mace, Olivier Morin

Claudio Tennie @ctennie.bsky.social · Oct 27

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

Reposted by Olivier Morin

Richard McElreath 🐈‍⬛ @rmcelreath.bsky.social · Oct 14

"Dunbar's Number" is a zombie that lives forever in the science press it seems. Estimates of Dunbar's Number with 95% intervals, for a range of model specifications (from doi.org/10.1098/rsbl... ):

Reposted by Olivier Morin

James Winters @replicatedtypo.bsky.social · Oct 14

My favourite book by Mokyr is A Culture of Growth: press.princeton.edu/books/paperb.... Here, Mokyr draws on cultural evolutionary theory to develop some his key ideas about the evolution of science, technology and the origins of modern economic growth. Really accessible and packed with ideas!

A Culture of Growth

Why Enlightenment culture sparked the Industrial Revolution

press.princeton.edu

Olivier Morin @oliviermorin.bsky.social · Sep 25

Huge congratulations to @alexeykoshevoy.bsky.social l who defended his PhD thesis today!! with his co-supervisor @sblldtrch.bsky.social and jury members @simonkirby.bsky.social @gboleda.bsky.social Paula Rubio Fernandez & Benjamin Spector.

Olivier Morin @oliviermorin.bsky.social · Sep 16

also with @kakapitan.bsky.social @sobchuk.bsky.social @artjomshl.bsky.social @hugoreasoning.bsky.social & many others

Alberto Acerbi @acerbialberto.com · Sep 12

Looking forward to be in Paris for the launch of the CultureLab!

Jean-Baptiste Camps @jbcamps.bsky.social · Sep 12

We're officially launching the new PSL CultureLab in 10 days !
If you're interested in the research of a collective bridging Computational Humanities, Social Sciences and Cultural Evolution, you can check our programme (and come to our event, if you're in Paris 22 September):
psl.eu/agenda/collo...

Reposted by Ruth Mace, Olivier Morin

Alberto Acerbi @acerbialberto.com · Sep 12

Looking forward to be in Paris for the launch of the CultureLab!

Jean-Baptiste Camps @jbcamps.bsky.social · Sep 12

Colloque inaugural du Grand programme de recherche CultureLab | PSL

Recherche, CultureLab inaugure ses travaux le 22 septembre 2025 au Campus Condorcet avec une journée consacrée aux sciences humaines et sociales computationnelles et à l’évolution culturelle. , Le Gra...

psl.eu

Reposted by Hugo Mercier, Alberto Acerbi, Olivier Morin

Jean-Baptiste Camps @jbcamps.bsky.social · Sep 12

Colloque inaugural du Grand programme de recherche CultureLab | PSL

psl.eu

Olivier Morin @oliviermorin.bsky.social · Sep 4

Amazing Oleg!

Oleg Sobchuk 🇺🇦 @sobchuk.bsky.social · Sep 4

Great news from the @erc.europa.eu today: I received an ERC Starting Grant to study the cultural evolution of literature 🔥

www.eva.mpg.de/press/news/a...

Charting the evolution of European literature

Oleg Sobchuk has received an ERC Starting Grant to study 200 years of European literary evolution

www.eva.mpg.de

Reposted by Olivier Morin

Oleg Sobchuk 🇺🇦 @sobchuk.bsky.social · Sep 4

Great news from the @erc.europa.eu today: I received an ERC Starting Grant to study the cultural evolution of literature 🔥

www.eva.mpg.de/press/news/a...

Charting the evolution of European literature

Oleg Sobchuk has received an ERC Starting Grant to study 200 years of European literary evolution

www.eva.mpg.de

Reposted by Olivier Morin

Gold Yoshi @goldyoshi.bsky.social · Sep 4

enshittification definition covered in ads

Reposted by Olivier Morin

James Winters @replicatedtypo.bsky.social · Aug 15

🚨🚨 New preprint 📜 with Mathieu Charbonneau (@matcharbonneau.bsky.social‬): Modelling the emergence of open-ended technological evolution (arxiv.org/abs/2508.04828). Feedback welcomed! #Evolution #Technology #Culture #OpenEnded #TechnologicalEvolution #CulturalEvolution 🧵: 1/29

Modelling the emergence of open-ended technological evolution

Humans stand alone in terms of their potential to collectively and cumulatively improve technologies in an open-ended manner. This open-endedness provides societies with the ability to continually exp...

arxiv.org

Olivier Morin @oliviermorin.bsky.social · Aug 15

I'd join the class action if I were US-based.

Ruth EJ Booth (she/they) @ruthejbooth.bsky.social · Aug 14

"If your books were uploaded to LibGen/fed into the LLMs, add your name to the potential class action lawsuit by tomorrow." Details:

LibDem database: www.theatlantic.com/technology/a...

Attorney form: www.lieffcabraser.com/anthropic-au...

(This information comes via a reliable Discord source.)

Search LibGen, the Pirated-Books Database That Meta Used to Train AI

Millions of books and scientific papers are captured in the collection’s current iteration.

www.theatlantic.com

Reposted by Charles West, Philip Nel, Melanie C. Green , and 5 more Charles West, Philip Nel, Melanie C. Green, Julia Lynch, Olivier Morin, Mary E. Stuckey, Larry W. Hunter, Philip Bell

Ruth EJ Booth (she/they) @ruthejbooth.bsky.social · Aug 14

Search LibGen, the Pirated-Books Database That Meta Used to Train AI

Millions of books and scientific papers are captured in the collection’s current iteration.

www.theatlantic.com

Reposted by Olivier Morin

Hugo Mercier @hugoreasoning.bsky.social · Aug 11

From ancient Greece to the Arabic golden age, scholars have been driven by their curiosity to investigate astronomy, history, philosophy, and sundry other disciplines. Is there a structure to that curiosity? Are astronomers as likely to also be historians or to also be philosophers?

Reposted by Olivier Morin

Oleg Sobchuk 🇺🇦 @sobchuk.bsky.social · Feb 27

Rohan Kapitany launches a fun pop sci podcast: about games & behavioral sciences. In one of the later episodes @oliviermorin.bsky.social & myself will be discussing our recent paper on monsters 👹

Really cool idea – and very well executed! Great work for our community and beyond

Not that other guy, that's for sure @neogliberal.bsky.social · Feb 27

Excited to announce Mind Games. A podcast where insufferable D&D/TTRPG fandom intersects with psychological and behavioral science. Please subscribe to get our episodes as they drop.

www.mindgamespodcast.com

iTunes: podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/m...

Spotify: open.spotify.com/show/7I5F3qu...

Reposted by Hugo Mercier, Olivier Morin, Jean‐Baptiste André

Edgar Dubourg @edgardubourg.bsky.social · Jun 2

We often have to judge who is knowledgeable—precisely when we are not. Can humans really do that? Our new paper in Psychological Science shows that, surprisingly, we can. drive.google.com/file/d/1b15E...