Michael Pleyer

Many years ago @hartmast and I got a paper rejection because we tried to cram too much information on Cognitive Linguistics and Language Evolution into one paper. One of the reviewers ended their review with: “…or the authors should write a book.” It took a while, but we did!

New paper out in eLife! 🎉 Old age variably impacts chimpanzee engagement and efficiency in stone tool use elifesciences.org/articles/105411 (including videos of wild elderly chimpanzees using tools! 🪨🌰)

This is really sad news. Sapiens was a fantastic medium to share, promote and diversify anthropological research and insights and the platform where many people (like me) learnt and developed skills in science communication. Times are tough, but Sapiens’ niche is now left empty☹️

me too, predatory journal, me too...

📢 I'm looking for a postdoc to join my lab at NYU! Come work with me on a principled, theory-driven approach to studying language, learning, and reasoning, in humans and AI agents. Apply here: apply.interfolio.com/170656 And come chat with me at #CogSci2025 if interested!

You can watch all the highlights of our @isgs2025 conference on our utube channel m.youtube.com/watch?v=EcIRzk…

A fascinating podcast with Sheina Lew-Levy and Dorsa Amir about childhood across cultures, very insightful ideas about how contemporary Western parents could learn from forager childhoods, especially the importance of peer culture (read the Opies!). podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/var…

Analysing Sociolinguistic Variation by Sali A. Tagliamonte A user's manual for analysing variation using the R programming language, including practical exercises, checklists, and insider tips. 📚 cup.org/44QKXiJ

Probably my favourite slide from this year's @iclc17 #ICLC17. Cultural differences in categorization mean for US-Americans this is a Chicken Sandwich, whereas in many other parts of the world (UK, Quebec, Europe) it is a Chicken Burger. Cool talk by Sarah MacDougall!

Short but very informative entry about language evolution in the Open Encyclopedia of Cognitive Science by @MH_Christiansen oecs.mit.edu/pub/18miikqb/r…

Super looking forward to @AliceRGaby's plenary @iclc17 #ICLC17 on biases in language, cognition and linguists

Are you a Polish native speaker with a laptop now? Help us with a quick 3-min pilot study! 📖 Read Polish sentences 🧠 Group them + do a Go/No-Go task Super easy — thank you! 🙏 research.sc/participant/lo…

Although people sometimes talk over each other, we are capable of effective turn-taking in conversation. A unique human trait? Not really, @kaylakolff & @evol_of_com write—other animals do so, too, like chimpanzees while grooming: buff.ly/1Br2CFS

I am advertising 2 positions in language evolution with my group at @Radboud_Uni: 📢 Fully-funded PhD position (Robotics/AI 🤖) ru.nl/en/working-at/… 📢 Postdoc position (Virtual Reality 🎮) ru.nl/en/working-at/… Deadline for applications is August 14th. Please RT! :)

The wait is over: tomorrow, the 17th ICLC will begin! Let’s recap who are the plenary speakers 👇🏼📖

I'm offering a 3-year PhD position with benefits at the University of Stuttgart (1-year extension possible). Research topic is open but broadly in incremental sentence comprehension. If you're into eye-tracking, even better! No teaching obligations until Summer 2027, some light…

Really interesting article on problems with the use of "AI Sign #language Interpreters" in China. Technological limitations in capturing the aspects important for sign language, & "absence of Deaf perspectives & blindspots in the developers’ approach" sixthtone.com/news/1017316

📢 Attention, the Book of Abstracts is now available! At the end of the document, you’ll find not only the full programme, but also practical information to help you navigate the conference days. 👇🏼 drive.google.com/file/d/1_NutK9…

🚨Second PhD chapter is out today! We show that elephants gesture intentionally to ask humans for food using many different gesture types! Check it out 👉 tinyurl.com/elephant-intent 🧵TLDR 1/16

Really awesome study by Kenny Smith, @JosieBowerman & @AndrewDMSmith out now in Cognition: Semantic extension in a novel communication system is facilitated by salient shared associations sciencedirect.com/science/articl…

Here is a recent paper from our lab on how spatial metaphors of time elicit temporal gestures in a second language! The study was led by my fabulous former graduate student Emir! @PennywiseDerler link.springer.com/10.1007/s10339…