Laura Schlingloff-Nemecz
@laurasn.bsky.social
Cognitive scientist, postdoc at iSearch lab (TU Munich), studying how children figure out other people. i have a kid & i like cooking & queer stuff. she/her
Pinned
Do kids prefer to play with helpers? Our paper on children's trait attribution and partner choice is out! doi.org/10.1111/cdev... We wanted to know if kids, after observing other agents' behaviors, spontaneously (!) interpret them in terms of traits and choose cooperation partners accordingly. 🧵...
Reposted by Laura Schlingloff-Nemecz
I always thought preschoolers were too egocentric to do well on communication tasks where they had to talk about novel referents. Old papers reported they'd say stuff like "this one looks like my uncle's hat."
@vboyce.bsky.social shows that this is wrong!
osf.io/preprints/ps...
@vboyce.bsky.social shows that this is wrong!
osf.io/preprints/ps...
February 12, 2026 at 11:38 PM
I always thought preschoolers were too egocentric to do well on communication tasks where they had to talk about novel referents. Old papers reported they'd say stuff like "this one looks like my uncle's hat."
@vboyce.bsky.social shows that this is wrong!
osf.io/preprints/ps...
@vboyce.bsky.social shows that this is wrong!
osf.io/preprints/ps...
Reposted by Laura Schlingloff-Nemecz
📢 New Paper 🚨
Hadza food-sharing is egalitarian, yet offers in giving games have never matched the equitable redistribution seen in real life.
In this study, we allowed people to give *or* take. Lifelike equitable distributions only appeared when people took from peers in surplus.
bit.ly/4kvLOwA
Hadza food-sharing is egalitarian, yet offers in giving games have never matched the equitable redistribution seen in real life.
In this study, we allowed people to give *or* take. Lifelike equitable distributions only appeared when people took from peers in surplus.
bit.ly/4kvLOwA
The “I” in egalitarianism: Hadza hunter-gatherers averse to inequality primarily when personally unfavorable
Abstract. Many economists contend that humans have strong, universal, other-regarding equality preferences with deep evolutionary roots. Indeed, many hunte
academic.oup.com
February 10, 2026 at 4:23 PM
📢 New Paper 🚨
Hadza food-sharing is egalitarian, yet offers in giving games have never matched the equitable redistribution seen in real life.
In this study, we allowed people to give *or* take. Lifelike equitable distributions only appeared when people took from peers in surplus.
bit.ly/4kvLOwA
Hadza food-sharing is egalitarian, yet offers in giving games have never matched the equitable redistribution seen in real life.
In this study, we allowed people to give *or* take. Lifelike equitable distributions only appeared when people took from peers in surplus.
bit.ly/4kvLOwA
Reposted by Laura Schlingloff-Nemecz
🎉 New paper in Nature Communications 🎉
rdcu.be/e24jT
Does our environment influence how likely we are to help others?
rdcu.be/e24jT
Does our environment influence how likely we are to help others?
Humans are more prosocial in poor foraging environments
Nature Communications - People constantly decide whether to stop what they are doing to do something else. Here, the authors show that the quality of available options has a greater influence on...
rdcu.be
February 10, 2026 at 11:27 AM
🎉 New paper in Nature Communications 🎉
rdcu.be/e24jT
Does our environment influence how likely we are to help others?
rdcu.be/e24jT
Does our environment influence how likely we are to help others?
Reposted by Laura Schlingloff-Nemecz
Very happy to see "Pretending not to know reveals a capacity for model-based self-simulation", a collaboration with @chazfirestone.bsky.social and @ianbphillips.bsky.social, out in Psych. Science!
journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177...
🧵
journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177...
🧵
February 10, 2026 at 5:25 PM
Very happy to see "Pretending not to know reveals a capacity for model-based self-simulation", a collaboration with @chazfirestone.bsky.social and @ianbphillips.bsky.social, out in Psych. Science!
journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177...
🧵
journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177...
🧵
Reposted by Laura Schlingloff-Nemecz
This study was an amazing collaborative experience. I'm really really grateful to all the wonderful people who contributed and made this happen.
It's the closest I have ever come to finding something like a "universal" in human cognition.
It's the closest I have ever come to finding something like a "universal" in human cognition.
Children around the world process #gaze in similar ways. Large cross-cultural study led by @elmanubohn.bsky.social & @dbmhaun.bsky.social finds common 'processing signature' of gaze following. @mpi-eva-leipzig.bsky.social @leuphana.bsky.social tinyurl.com/278wxka3 & academic.oup.com/chidev/advan...
Children around the world process gaze in similar ways
Large cross-cultural study finds common 'processing signature' of gaze following despite differences in accuracy and development
tinyurl.com
February 9, 2026 at 12:32 PM
This study was an amazing collaborative experience. I'm really really grateful to all the wonderful people who contributed and made this happen.
It's the closest I have ever come to finding something like a "universal" in human cognition.
It's the closest I have ever come to finding something like a "universal" in human cognition.
Reposted by Laura Schlingloff-Nemecz
Very excited that this paper is out!
www.science.org/doi/full/10....
Led by the fabulous @dorsaamir.bsky.social with invaluable contributions from many awesome collaborators.
www.science.org/doi/full/10....
Led by the fabulous @dorsaamir.bsky.social with invaluable contributions from many awesome collaborators.
The emergence of cooperative behaviors, norms, and strategies across five diverse societies
Children’s cooperative behaviors and norms develop along distinct cultural pathways shaped by local norms.
www.science.org
February 6, 2026 at 10:25 PM
Very excited that this paper is out!
www.science.org/doi/full/10....
Led by the fabulous @dorsaamir.bsky.social with invaluable contributions from many awesome collaborators.
www.science.org/doi/full/10....
Led by the fabulous @dorsaamir.bsky.social with invaluable contributions from many awesome collaborators.
Reposted by Laura Schlingloff-Nemecz
Great apes may use playful teasing to learn about their social relationships. In a new paper, Erica Cartmill & I propose a bond-testing hypothesis for ape teasing. Out today in Phil Trans Biology: royalsocietypublishing.org/rstb/article...
Does playful teasing help great apes learn about social relationships?
Abstract. Understanding social relationships is critical to succeeding in primate societies. In species with complex social networks (including humans), co
royalsocietypublishing.org
February 6, 2026 at 6:37 PM
Great apes may use playful teasing to learn about their social relationships. In a new paper, Erica Cartmill & I propose a bond-testing hypothesis for ape teasing. Out today in Phil Trans Biology: royalsocietypublishing.org/rstb/article...
Reposted by Laura Schlingloff-Nemecz
By age 6, many children in the US believe that numbers are infinite, despite initially representing counting as a meaningless & finite chain of words. In a new paper w/ Jess Sullivan & @drbarner.bsky.social, we explored the basis for this conceptual change. 1/n
www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...
www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...
Counting without end: A cross-linguistic exploration of infinity beliefs in English and Hindi learners
Recent studies (Cheung et al., 2017; Chu et al., 2020; Sullivan et al., 2023) argue that children may infer the existence of infinite magnitudes throu…
www.sciencedirect.com
February 6, 2026 at 3:44 PM
By age 6, many children in the US believe that numbers are infinite, despite initially representing counting as a meaningless & finite chain of words. In a new paper w/ Jess Sullivan & @drbarner.bsky.social, we explored the basis for this conceptual change. 1/n
www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...
www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...
Reposted by Laura Schlingloff-Nemecz
Imagination in bonobos!
I am thrilled to share a new paper w/ Amalia Bastos, out now in @science.org
We provide the first experimental evidence that a nonhuman animal can follow along a pretend scenario & track imaginary objects. Work w/ Kanzi, the bonobo, at Ape Initiative
youtu.be/NUSHcQQz2Ko
I am thrilled to share a new paper w/ Amalia Bastos, out now in @science.org
We provide the first experimental evidence that a nonhuman animal can follow along a pretend scenario & track imaginary objects. Work w/ Kanzi, the bonobo, at Ape Initiative
youtu.be/NUSHcQQz2Ko
Apes Share Human Ability to Imagine
YouTube video by Johns Hopkins University
youtu.be
February 5, 2026 at 7:18 PM
Imagination in bonobos!
I am thrilled to share a new paper w/ Amalia Bastos, out now in @science.org
We provide the first experimental evidence that a nonhuman animal can follow along a pretend scenario & track imaginary objects. Work w/ Kanzi, the bonobo, at Ape Initiative
youtu.be/NUSHcQQz2Ko
I am thrilled to share a new paper w/ Amalia Bastos, out now in @science.org
We provide the first experimental evidence that a nonhuman animal can follow along a pretend scenario & track imaginary objects. Work w/ Kanzi, the bonobo, at Ape Initiative
youtu.be/NUSHcQQz2Ko
Reposted by Laura Schlingloff-Nemecz
Why do otherwise rational people disagree about the same evidence? Our new paper finds that group membership is a deeply rooted influence on how we form beliefs, leading even preschoolers to bias their evidential standards and form inaccurate beliefs.
www.nature.com/articles/s41...
www.nature.com/articles/s41...
February 5, 2026 at 4:56 PM
Why do otherwise rational people disagree about the same evidence? Our new paper finds that group membership is a deeply rooted influence on how we form beliefs, leading even preschoolers to bias their evidential standards and form inaccurate beliefs.
www.nature.com/articles/s41...
www.nature.com/articles/s41...
Reposted by Laura Schlingloff-Nemecz
1/7 Can infants recognise the world around them? 👶🧠 As part of the FOUNDCOG project, we scanned 134 awake infants using fMRI. Published today in Nature Neuroscience, our research reveals 2-month-old infants already possess complex visual representations in VVC that align with DNNs.
February 2, 2026 at 4:00 PM
1/7 Can infants recognise the world around them? 👶🧠 As part of the FOUNDCOG project, we scanned 134 awake infants using fMRI. Published today in Nature Neuroscience, our research reveals 2-month-old infants already possess complex visual representations in VVC that align with DNNs.
Reposted by Laura Schlingloff-Nemecz
With most psychedelic drugs, you never know what you're going to get. But this mysterious mushroom from China - without fail - causes users to hallucinate tiny people: crawling up walls, popping out from under furniture and marching under doors. www.bbc.com/future/artic...
'They saw them on their dishes when eating': The mushroom making people hallucinate dozens of tiny humans
Only recently described by science, the mysterious mushrooms are found in different parts of the world, but they give people the same exact visions.
www.bbc.com
January 22, 2026 at 5:31 PM
With most psychedelic drugs, you never know what you're going to get. But this mysterious mushroom from China - without fail - causes users to hallucinate tiny people: crawling up walls, popping out from under furniture and marching under doors. www.bbc.com/future/artic...
Reposted by Laura Schlingloff-Nemecz
"The relationship between childhood exploration and population-level innovation in cultural evolution" with @ndersen.bsky.social @sheinalew.bsky.social @felixthehauskat.bsky.social out in Proc B
royalsocietypublishing.org/rspb/article...
royalsocietypublishing.org/rspb/article...
The relationship between childhood exploration and population-level innovation in cultural evolution
Abstract. The societal effects of children’s learning in cultural evolution have been underexplored. Here, we investigate using agent-based models how a pr
royalsocietypublishing.org
January 22, 2026 at 1:01 PM
"The relationship between childhood exploration and population-level innovation in cultural evolution" with @ndersen.bsky.social @sheinalew.bsky.social @felixthehauskat.bsky.social out in Proc B
royalsocietypublishing.org/rspb/article...
royalsocietypublishing.org/rspb/article...
Reposted by Laura Schlingloff-Nemecz
I just created a series of seven deep-dive videos about AI, which I've posted to youtube and now here. 😊
Targeted to laypeople, they explore how LLMs work, what they can do, and what impacts they have on learning, well-being, disinformation, the workplace, the economy, and the environment.
Targeted to laypeople, they explore how LLMs work, what they can do, and what impacts they have on learning, well-being, disinformation, the workplace, the economy, and the environment.
Part 1: How do LLMs work?
YouTube video by Andrew Perfors
www.youtube.com
January 22, 2026 at 12:45 AM
I just created a series of seven deep-dive videos about AI, which I've posted to youtube and now here. 😊
Targeted to laypeople, they explore how LLMs work, what they can do, and what impacts they have on learning, well-being, disinformation, the workplace, the economy, and the environment.
Targeted to laypeople, they explore how LLMs work, what they can do, and what impacts they have on learning, well-being, disinformation, the workplace, the economy, and the environment.
Reposted by Laura Schlingloff-Nemecz
Out in @cognitionjournal.bsky.social with @jaeminhwang.bsky.social, David Sobel (@candmlab.bsky.social), and @jessicas.bsky.social! Most studies of infants’ fairness expectations focus on resource distribution, but in everyday life, we engage in many different kinds of resource exchanges.
January 21, 2026 at 4:32 PM
Out in @cognitionjournal.bsky.social with @jaeminhwang.bsky.social, David Sobel (@candmlab.bsky.social), and @jessicas.bsky.social! Most studies of infants’ fairness expectations focus on resource distribution, but in everyday life, we engage in many different kinds of resource exchanges.
Reposted by Laura Schlingloff-Nemecz
New paper with Marina Bedny out in eLife (elifesciences.org/articles/101...). Main takeaway: Different kinds of causal knowledge are supported by different semantic brain networks - consistent with the "intuitive theories" framework from developmental psychology. 1/
Animacy semantic network supports causal inferences about illness
Making causal inferences about illness, compared to making causal inferences about mechanical breakdown and reading causally unconnected sentences, activates a semantic brain network implicated in the conceptual representation of animate entities (e.g. people, animals).
elifesciences.org
November 20, 2025 at 10:15 PM
New paper with Marina Bedny out in eLife (elifesciences.org/articles/101...). Main takeaway: Different kinds of causal knowledge are supported by different semantic brain networks - consistent with the "intuitive theories" framework from developmental psychology. 1/
Reposted by Laura Schlingloff-Nemecz
So excited to share this new paper, out in JEP:G with the incredible @jamieamemiya.bsky.social, Gail Heyman, and @carenwalker.bsky.social! We tested how children and adults reason about disparate impact policies: formally neutral laws or rules that are indirectly discriminatory. (1/7)
January 14, 2026 at 3:03 PM
So excited to share this new paper, out in JEP:G with the incredible @jamieamemiya.bsky.social, Gail Heyman, and @carenwalker.bsky.social! We tested how children and adults reason about disparate impact policies: formally neutral laws or rules that are indirectly discriminatory. (1/7)
Reposted by Laura Schlingloff-Nemecz
With some trepidation, I'm putting this out into the world:
gershmanlab.com/textbook.html
It's a textbook called Computational Foundations of Cognitive Neuroscience, which I wrote for my class.
My hope is that this will be a living document, continuously improved as I get feedback.
gershmanlab.com/textbook.html
It's a textbook called Computational Foundations of Cognitive Neuroscience, which I wrote for my class.
My hope is that this will be a living document, continuously improved as I get feedback.
January 9, 2026 at 1:27 AM
With some trepidation, I'm putting this out into the world:
gershmanlab.com/textbook.html
It's a textbook called Computational Foundations of Cognitive Neuroscience, which I wrote for my class.
My hope is that this will be a living document, continuously improved as I get feedback.
gershmanlab.com/textbook.html
It's a textbook called Computational Foundations of Cognitive Neuroscience, which I wrote for my class.
My hope is that this will be a living document, continuously improved as I get feedback.
Reposted by Laura Schlingloff-Nemecz
🧵New preprint: Adults often agree with their ingroup even when evidence says otherwise. Why?
To find out, we studied kids, who show the same tendency but *before* political identities take hold. With developmental data, we can see the basic psychological ingredients.
doi.org/10.31234/osf...
1/11
To find out, we studied kids, who show the same tendency but *before* political identities take hold. With developmental data, we can see the basic psychological ingredients.
doi.org/10.31234/osf...
1/11
OSF
doi.org
January 6, 2026 at 3:03 PM
🧵New preprint: Adults often agree with their ingroup even when evidence says otherwise. Why?
To find out, we studied kids, who show the same tendency but *before* political identities take hold. With developmental data, we can see the basic psychological ingredients.
doi.org/10.31234/osf...
1/11
To find out, we studied kids, who show the same tendency but *before* political identities take hold. With developmental data, we can see the basic psychological ingredients.
doi.org/10.31234/osf...
1/11
Reposted by Laura Schlingloff-Nemecz
a project I really like, now officially out!
"Shape Guides Visual Pretense"
by Qian and me
paper link: direct.mit.edu/opmi/article...
I'll walk through a quick version here
To get a sense of it, first consider:
Would it make more sense to pretend that this block is a car, or a strawberry?
"Shape Guides Visual Pretense"
by Qian and me
paper link: direct.mit.edu/opmi/article...
I'll walk through a quick version here
To get a sense of it, first consider:
Would it make more sense to pretend that this block is a car, or a strawberry?
January 6, 2026 at 2:34 PM
a project I really like, now officially out!
"Shape Guides Visual Pretense"
by Qian and me
paper link: direct.mit.edu/opmi/article...
I'll walk through a quick version here
To get a sense of it, first consider:
Would it make more sense to pretend that this block is a car, or a strawberry?
"Shape Guides Visual Pretense"
by Qian and me
paper link: direct.mit.edu/opmi/article...
I'll walk through a quick version here
To get a sense of it, first consider:
Would it make more sense to pretend that this block is a car, or a strawberry?
Reposted by Laura Schlingloff-Nemecz
1/ Romantic kissing 👨❤️💋👨 is common across cultures—but NOT universal.
Of note, societies with little contact seem to “reinvent” it.
We argue this is b/c kissing sits in a cultural basin of attraction carved by our early‑emerging understanding of intimacy. 🧵
www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...
Of note, societies with little contact seem to “reinvent” it.
We argue this is b/c kissing sits in a cultural basin of attraction carved by our early‑emerging understanding of intimacy. 🧵
www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...
Abstract core knowledge may shape the basins of cultural attraction: romantic kissing as a case study
Romantic kissing is prevalent across human societies, yet far from universal—a puzzling pattern given it also appears to have been invented independen…
www.sciencedirect.com
January 3, 2026 at 11:15 AM
1/ Romantic kissing 👨❤️💋👨 is common across cultures—but NOT universal.
Of note, societies with little contact seem to “reinvent” it.
We argue this is b/c kissing sits in a cultural basin of attraction carved by our early‑emerging understanding of intimacy. 🧵
www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...
Of note, societies with little contact seem to “reinvent” it.
We argue this is b/c kissing sits in a cultural basin of attraction carved by our early‑emerging understanding of intimacy. 🧵
www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...
Reposted by Laura Schlingloff-Nemecz
Check out our new paper on the #development of #gaze-following in wild #chimpanzees, led by @kris-sabbi.bsky.social, @zeppypearl.bsky.social, & Isabelle Monroe!
onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10....
onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10....
January 2, 2026 at 1:41 PM
Check out our new paper on the #development of #gaze-following in wild #chimpanzees, led by @kris-sabbi.bsky.social, @zeppypearl.bsky.social, & Isabelle Monroe!
onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10....
onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10....
Reposted by Laura Schlingloff-Nemecz
A fascinating new paper by Amanda Royka and colleagues explores why monkeys fail false belief tasks.
A natural explanation would be that monkeys wrongly assume that other agents share their own knowledge.
Royka et al. find that this is NOT the case...
www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...
A natural explanation would be that monkeys wrongly assume that other agents share their own knowledge.
Royka et al. find that this is NOT the case...
www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...
Exploring the evolutionary roots of theory of mind: Primate errors on false belief tasks reveal representational limits
Human adults flexibly reason about others' unobservable mental states, a capacity known as Theory of Mind (ToM). Unfortunately, the roots of this capa…
www.sciencedirect.com
January 2, 2026 at 5:21 PM
A fascinating new paper by Amanda Royka and colleagues explores why monkeys fail false belief tasks.
A natural explanation would be that monkeys wrongly assume that other agents share their own knowledge.
Royka et al. find that this is NOT the case...
www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...
A natural explanation would be that monkeys wrongly assume that other agents share their own knowledge.
Royka et al. find that this is NOT the case...
www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...
Reposted by Laura Schlingloff-Nemecz
now out in Decision! 🎉 awspntest.apa.org/manuscript/2...
December 29, 2025 at 6:16 PM
now out in Decision! 🎉 awspntest.apa.org/manuscript/2...