Bill Thompson

Putting together this whole special issue has been an adventure, but one of the most rewarding parts has been the opportunity to write with one of my very favorite cognitive anthropologists - I'll let @schrisomalis.bsky.social sell it for us below!

Are humans really the only rational animals? Our NEW PAPER 🎉 out in @science.org suggests otherwise! In a large collaboration led with my joint first author @hanna-schleihauf.bsky.social, we show that “Chimpanzees rationally revise their beliefs” 🧵

Our paper in annual review of dev psych is out! It's a big-picture look at the development of social cognition from a computational perspective: compdevlab.yale.edu/docs/2025/an...

I'm recruiting grad students!! 🎓 The CoDec Lab @ NYU (codec-lab.github.io) is looking for PhD students (Fall 2026) interested in computational approaches to social cognition & problem solving 🧠 Applications through Psych (tinyurl.com/nyucp) are due Dec 1. Reach out with Qs & please repost! 🙏

Children can solve a difficult sorting task by spontaneously discovering efficient sorting algorithms. Older children outperform younger children, showing developmental growth in strategy use and problem-solving. @hw-yang.bsky.social‬‬ @celestekidd.bsky.social www.nature.com/articles/s41...

🤖After a fantastic debut in 2025, the Theory of Mind in AI workshop at AAAI is back for 2026! We invite submissions on ToM in artificial & biological intelligence—across comp sci, cog sci, comp psych, psychiatry & more. CFP 👉 tom4ai.github.io/AAAI2026/cal... 2025 procs 👉 arxiv.org/abs/2505.03770

Excited to share our new paper "Towards Human-Like Emergent Communication via Utility, Informativeness, and Complexity" direct.mit.edu/opmi/article... @rplevy.bsky.social And looking forward to speaking about this line of work tomorrow at @nyudatascience.bsky.social!

I'm looking for a PhD Student at the intersection of Machine Learning and Developmental Psychology. We study everyday experiences in children from 🇰🇪🇩🇪🇹🇷 and use ML models to quantify interactions. 4 years, fully funded, great team, beautiful location. Please share and apply! tinyurl.com/2mafdyh4

We often assume that specialized roles improve performance in multi-agent systems, but when does specialization emerge based on a given task and environment? 🧵👇 ⭐️ New preprint w/ Ruaridh Mon-Williams, @neilbramley.bsky.social, Chris Lucas, @natvelali.bsky.social & @cocoscilab.bsky.social

This year marks 360 years since the first edition of #PhilosophicalTransactions, launching the world’s longest-running scientific journal. Join us as we take a 360° view of publishing, exploring its history, reflecting on its present impact, and imagining its future. royalsociety.org/journals/pub...

We are excited to advertise the Asian Cultural Evolution (ACE) seminar series! It's organized by Kenji Itao, Xinyue Pan & Wataru Toyokawa, and seminars will take place on the third Tuesday of odd-numbered months at 19:00 JST (18:00 Perth/Singapore/Beijing, 19:00 Tokyo/Seoul, 20:00 Sydney).

🚀COSMOS is BACK!!!💫 The Computational School on Modeling Social and collective behavior (COSMOS) will take place in RIKEN, Tokyo, between 29 Sept - 3 Oct, organised by me and fantastic @thecharleywu.bsky.social ! Application deadline: 25th April. For more details see 👉️ cosmossummerschool.github.io

US version. thank you very much @vikingbooks.bsky.social. I like the black cover more!

We are please to release Transmissions Ep 1, featuring Dr Cristina Moya @hyperadapthyrax.bsky.social in conversation with Feryl Badiani @ferylbadiani.bsky.social Cristina and Feryl chat about Cristina's work in Peru and discuss CE in human and non-human societies: youtu.be/2otT0PkhPkw?...

There are currently three open faculty positions (all levels) in my department (Psychology) Oslo is a lovely city, modestly sized (600k) but a capital, surrounded by forest and the fjord We're also a stable democracy with high support of and trust in science www.sv.uio.no/english/abou...

Join us in Durham Anthropology - we’re hiring an Assistant Prof in Anthropology of Data Science. durham.taleo.net/careersectio...

String figures have been part of human culture for millennia, perhaps since the Pleistocene. But why do we find them so captivating? What explains their universal appeal? Just one of the topics discussed in our latest episode, w/ @roope.bsky.social! Listen: manyminds.libsyn.com/string-theor...

New paper in Psychological Review! In "Causation, Meaning, and Communication" Ari Beller (cicl.stanford.edu/member/ari_b...) develops a computational model of how people use & understand expressions like "caused", "enabled", and "affected". 📃 osf.io/preprints/ps... 📎 github.com/cicl-stanfor... 🧵

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

Amazing opportunity to explore social learning and cultural evolution within a beautiful team & lab at the @ki.se in Stockholm! You can contact me (or @bjornlindstrom.bsky.social directly) if you have any questions!

Fellowships for non-UK scientists who want to work in the UK for a spell: royalsociety.org/grants/newto...

check this out: new postdoc program for AI-related research in Catalunya! our group is looking to hire within this program, ideally to work on topics related to RL theory. in case you're interested, pls DM or email me. (retweets appreciated!) ramonllull-aira.eu/application

New episode!! 🎙️🎙️ A conversation w/ @tanialombrozo.bsky.social about "learning by thinking." We often learn from others or from the outside world. But other times new understanding bubbles up from inside our own minds. When does this happen? And how does it work? Listen: disi.org/a-paradox-of...

An incredible opportunity for the right person: The Santa Fe Institute is seeking applications for full-time resident faculty positions at all academic levels For me, this has been the best possible job ever. More info here: santafe.edu/about/jobs/r...

Researchers in France! 🇫🇷 @ucberkeleyofficial.bsky.social France Fund is calling for proposals for seed money! All fields are welcome to apply. There are so many opportunities for collaboration that such grants can open!

If you're interested in working on multimodal understanding and generation — including things like understanding or generating figures with text — and work with my awesome collaborator Ishita Dasgupta & others, check out this job! boards.greenhouse.io/deepmind/job...

We have extended the deadline for this position to January 31st. Also, the start date is pretty flexible; if you're graduating next spring/summer and interested in the role, apply!

Even though the Social RL lab only got started ~1 year ago, I’m super excited to announce that we have 10 people from the lab presenting their work at #NeurIPS2024. Delighted to officially introduce our lab: socialrl.cs.washington.edu! Thread with all our NeurIPS work below 👇

CogSci2025 poster has landed, in both “wow the future looks bright for CogSci” mode, and also “our theories will make you think and possibly write poetry mode”. @neilbramley.bsky.social @carenwalker.bsky.social @cogscisociety.bsky.social

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...

If you want to do work at the intersection of deep learning from raw sound and linguistic theory, apply to our PhD program and be part of our lab! Finding symbolic representations in deep learning models trained on speech is a lot of fun! Deadline: December 1!

We have a postdoc position available in my lab at UC Berkeley, 2 years+, flexible start date, research focus is social reasoning and cultural evolution from a computational perspective. Deadline = November 29th. aprecruit.berkeley.edu/JPF04639

Prospective graduate students interested in biological and artificial language! 🧠🐳🤖 Apply to Berkeley PhD (Linguistics or CS program) Berkeley is awesome (see photo) Also: amazing connections with neuroscience, CS, CogSci, linguistics, great fieldwork program and much more

Remember, you have until 10/31 to apply to the Assistant/Associate search at Berkeley Psychology—Culture, Context, and Diversity Influences on Psychopathology and Mental Health. See link below for details (including salary range). I look forward to reviewing your app! aprecruit.berkeley.edu/JPF04093

Hi all! A bit late to the Bluesky game, but spreading the word that we have 4 open faculty positions at Ohio State University Psychology Department! Initial deadlines are today, but late applications are still welcome. #psychscisky #academicsky #neuroskyence psychology.osu.edu/current_facu...

Updated ESLR jobs board! Big highlights: 10 PhD positions in bioacoustics + AI (bioacousticai.eu), 6 postdocs in human/earth systems at U of Cologne, (imfess.uni-koeln.de/hescor/posit...), complexity fellows at SFI (apply-sfi.smapply.org/prog/complex...) 🦜🌍💻 bit.ly/ESLR-Jobs