Mike Frank
@mcxfrank.bsky.social
Cognitive scientist at Stanford. Open science advocate. Symbolic Systems Program director. Bluegrass picker, slow runner, dad. http://langcog.stanford.edu
Reposted by Mike Frank
Change over time is often depicted as a trendline. But what does shape a trendline? Which forces? Our new paper presents a method allowing to “decompose” trendlines into constituent forces. Also, we tackle an old puzzle: Does culture change “one funeral at a time”? 🧵(1/8) doi.org/10.1098/rspb...
February 5, 2025 at 2:53 PM
Change over time is often depicted as a trendline. But what does shape a trendline? Which forces? Our new paper presents a method allowing to “decompose” trendlines into constituent forces. Also, we tackle an old puzzle: Does culture change “one funeral at a time”? 🧵(1/8) doi.org/10.1098/rspb...
post a perfect album from the 90s that isn't nirvana, pearl jam, soundgarden, or alice in chains
December 29, 2025 at 6:13 AM
post a perfect album from the 90s that isn't nirvana, pearl jam, soundgarden, or alice in chains
Reposted by Mike Frank
Finally out: a really cool paper led by Abdel Elouatiq @mpi-nl.bsky.social on what parents do when they have to teach their infants a language that doesn't need vowels to form words (Tashlhiyt Berber, spoken in Morocco)
doi.org/10.1177/0142...
Invite Abdel for a talk, he's got so much more data!
doi.org/10.1177/0142...
Invite Abdel for a talk, he's got so much more data!
December 27, 2025 at 5:25 PM
Finally out: a really cool paper led by Abdel Elouatiq @mpi-nl.bsky.social on what parents do when they have to teach their infants a language that doesn't need vowels to form words (Tashlhiyt Berber, spoken in Morocco)
doi.org/10.1177/0142...
Invite Abdel for a talk, he's got so much more data!
doi.org/10.1177/0142...
Invite Abdel for a talk, he's got so much more data!
Reposted by Mike Frank
Maybe there are two distinct kinds of belief: they either represent facts (It's rainy) or express identity (My son is the best). We find instead that many beliefs simultaneously represent facts and express identity (but few beliefs do neither).
December 22, 2025 at 2:13 AM
Maybe there are two distinct kinds of belief: they either represent facts (It's rainy) or express identity (My son is the best). We find instead that many beliefs simultaneously represent facts and express identity (but few beliefs do neither).
Reposted by Mike Frank
New book! I have written a book, called Syntax: A cognitive approach, published by MIT Press.
This is open access; MIT Press will post a link soon, but until then, the book is available on my website:
tedlab.mit.edu/tedlab_websi...
This is open access; MIT Press will post a link soon, but until then, the book is available on my website:
tedlab.mit.edu/tedlab_websi...
tedlab.mit.edu
December 24, 2025 at 7:55 PM
New book! I have written a book, called Syntax: A cognitive approach, published by MIT Press.
This is open access; MIT Press will post a link soon, but until then, the book is available on my website:
tedlab.mit.edu/tedlab_websi...
This is open access; MIT Press will post a link soon, but until then, the book is available on my website:
tedlab.mit.edu/tedlab_websi...
Very excited to share the first empirical paper from LEVANTE: we describe the LEVANTE core tasks, a set of nine open source tasks for measuring learning and development in kids ages 5-12 years.
osf.io/preprints/ps...
🧵
osf.io/preprints/ps...
🧵
December 18, 2025 at 10:20 PM
Very excited to share the first empirical paper from LEVANTE: we describe the LEVANTE core tasks, a set of nine open source tasks for measuring learning and development in kids ages 5-12 years.
osf.io/preprints/ps...
🧵
osf.io/preprints/ps...
🧵
Reposted by Mike Frank
A common problem w/ studies testing non-WEIRD groups is they compare multiple groups using the same WEIRD measure. How can we compare groups w/ apples-apples measures w/o distorting cross-cultural differences? We explore this in this new paper! onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/...
The Development of Morality and Conventionality Across Cultures: Implementing a Two‐Stage Model for Cross‐Cultural Research
Establishing a shared sense of right and wrong is an essential milestone for human cooperation, raising the question of whether a universal set of moral intuitions exists. However, tests of universa.....
onlinelibrary.wiley.com
December 16, 2025 at 6:11 AM
A common problem w/ studies testing non-WEIRD groups is they compare multiple groups using the same WEIRD measure. How can we compare groups w/ apples-apples measures w/o distorting cross-cultural differences? We explore this in this new paper! onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/...
Reposted by Mike Frank
Our paper on the ☀️ "summer slide" 🛝 is out now @pnas.org!
www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/...
Summer slide is a replicable phenomenon across diverse datasets that's more than "forgetting" school material in vacation months, but effects of socioeconomic inequality are ➡️ 7x bigger! ⬅️
#PsychSciSky #DevPsy
🧵👇
www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/...
Summer slide is a replicable phenomenon across diverse datasets that's more than "forgetting" school material in vacation months, but effects of socioeconomic inequality are ➡️ 7x bigger! ⬅️
#PsychSciSky #DevPsy
🧵👇
December 16, 2025 at 5:56 PM
Our paper on the ☀️ "summer slide" 🛝 is out now @pnas.org!
www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/...
Summer slide is a replicable phenomenon across diverse datasets that's more than "forgetting" school material in vacation months, but effects of socioeconomic inequality are ➡️ 7x bigger! ⬅️
#PsychSciSky #DevPsy
🧵👇
www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/...
Summer slide is a replicable phenomenon across diverse datasets that's more than "forgetting" school material in vacation months, but effects of socioeconomic inequality are ➡️ 7x bigger! ⬅️
#PsychSciSky #DevPsy
🧵👇
Reposted by Mike Frank
Now in press at Topics in Cognitive Science! We review children's understanding of different kinds of visual media across contexts, and argue that this work has important implications for childhood learning and assessment tools @cogscisociety.bsky.social
onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/...
onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/...
December 13, 2025 at 1:58 AM
Now in press at Topics in Cognitive Science! We review children's understanding of different kinds of visual media across contexts, and argue that this work has important implications for childhood learning and assessment tools @cogscisociety.bsky.social
onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/...
onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/...
Reposted by Mike Frank
Big thanks to the Symbolic Systems Program (if you don't know it, check it out!), @mcxfrank.bsky.social & the Wasow Scholar program for having me.
symsys.stanford.edu
symsys.stanford.edu
December 4, 2025 at 11:21 PM
Big thanks to the Symbolic Systems Program (if you don't know it, check it out!), @mcxfrank.bsky.social & the Wasow Scholar program for having me.
symsys.stanford.edu
symsys.stanford.edu
Reposted by Mike Frank
How I contributed to rejecting one of my favorite papers of all times, Yes, I teach it to students daily, and refer to it in lots of papers. Sorry. open.substack.com/pub/kording/...
How I contributed to rejecting one of my favorite papers of all time
I believe we should talk about the mistakes we make.
open.substack.com
December 2, 2025 at 1:27 AM
How I contributed to rejecting one of my favorite papers of all times, Yes, I teach it to students daily, and refer to it in lots of papers. Sorry. open.substack.com/pub/kording/...
Can we use VLMs to quantify multimodal alignment in children's experiences? We analyze a large corpus of headcam videos to find out!
New preprint from our BabyView project, led by @alvinwmtan.bsky.social and Jane Yang: arxiv.org/abs/2511.18824
New preprint from our BabyView project, led by @alvinwmtan.bsky.social and Jane Yang: arxiv.org/abs/2511.18824
December 1, 2025 at 6:05 PM
Can we use VLMs to quantify multimodal alignment in children's experiences? We analyze a large corpus of headcam videos to find out!
New preprint from our BabyView project, led by @alvinwmtan.bsky.social and Jane Yang: arxiv.org/abs/2511.18824
New preprint from our BabyView project, led by @alvinwmtan.bsky.social and Jane Yang: arxiv.org/abs/2511.18824
Reposted by Mike Frank
Happy to share this new entry on numerical cognition for the OECS. Thanks to @hbaum.bsky.social and @mcxfrank.bsky.social for making this happen! Apologies if your work isn’t cited! Had to limit cites!!! oecs.mit.edu/pub/rek9756r...
Numerical Cognition
oecs.mit.edu
November 20, 2025 at 9:15 PM
Happy to share this new entry on numerical cognition for the OECS. Thanks to @hbaum.bsky.social and @mcxfrank.bsky.social for making this happen! Apologies if your work isn’t cited! Had to limit cites!!! oecs.mit.edu/pub/rek9756r...
Reposted by Mike Frank
What do kids choose to do when they think that someone will help them? What about when no one will help?
New paper: "Young children strategically adapt to unreliable social partners" - led by Kat Shannon, with @hyogweon.bsky.social and Willem Frankenhuis.
osf.io/preprints/ps...
New paper: "Young children strategically adapt to unreliable social partners" - led by Kat Shannon, with @hyogweon.bsky.social and Willem Frankenhuis.
osf.io/preprints/ps...
November 12, 2025 at 6:27 PM
What do kids choose to do when they think that someone will help them? What about when no one will help?
New paper: "Young children strategically adapt to unreliable social partners" - led by Kat Shannon, with @hyogweon.bsky.social and Willem Frankenhuis.
osf.io/preprints/ps...
New paper: "Young children strategically adapt to unreliable social partners" - led by Kat Shannon, with @hyogweon.bsky.social and Willem Frankenhuis.
osf.io/preprints/ps...
Reposted by Mike Frank
Hello bsky! Excited to share this paper as my very first post / repost :-) We show that children are sensitive to whether an adult offered promised help, and strategically consider this to decide what task to pursue (easy or hard?) and whether to explore vs. seek help!
What do kids choose to do when they think that someone will help them? What about when no one will help?
New paper: "Young children strategically adapt to unreliable social partners" - led by Kat Shannon, with @hyogweon.bsky.social and Willem Frankenhuis.
osf.io/preprints/ps...
New paper: "Young children strategically adapt to unreliable social partners" - led by Kat Shannon, with @hyogweon.bsky.social and Willem Frankenhuis.
osf.io/preprints/ps...
November 12, 2025 at 8:31 PM
Hello bsky! Excited to share this paper as my very first post / repost :-) We show that children are sensitive to whether an adult offered promised help, and strategically consider this to decide what task to pursue (easy or hard?) and whether to explore vs. seek help!
What do kids choose to do when they think that someone will help them? What about when no one will help?
New paper: "Young children strategically adapt to unreliable social partners" - led by Kat Shannon, with @hyogweon.bsky.social and Willem Frankenhuis.
osf.io/preprints/ps...
New paper: "Young children strategically adapt to unreliable social partners" - led by Kat Shannon, with @hyogweon.bsky.social and Willem Frankenhuis.
osf.io/preprints/ps...
November 12, 2025 at 6:27 PM
What do kids choose to do when they think that someone will help them? What about when no one will help?
New paper: "Young children strategically adapt to unreliable social partners" - led by Kat Shannon, with @hyogweon.bsky.social and Willem Frankenhuis.
osf.io/preprints/ps...
New paper: "Young children strategically adapt to unreliable social partners" - led by Kat Shannon, with @hyogweon.bsky.social and Willem Frankenhuis.
osf.io/preprints/ps...
Reposted by Mike Frank
Feeling so proud of my 14!!! research assistants this week. Four submitted abstracts to MPA, our regional conference, yesterday and tomorrow 10 of them are joining me for a quarterly book club on @mcxfrank.bsky.social and colleagues’ fantastic Experimentology text (Chapters 1-4). What a good group.
November 6, 2025 at 4:45 PM
Feeling so proud of my 14!!! research assistants this week. Four submitted abstracts to MPA, our regional conference, yesterday and tomorrow 10 of them are joining me for a quarterly book club on @mcxfrank.bsky.social and colleagues’ fantastic Experimentology text (Chapters 1-4). What a good group.
Reposted by Mike Frank
#BUCLD50 Symposium: “Innateness is not a dirty word: Reframing the origins of language development”, by Shanley Allen, Marisa Casillas, Alejandrina Cristia, Michael C. Frank, Caroline Rowland, Leher Singh, and Paul Bloom!
Learn more at:
www.bu.edu/bucld/
#Innateness #LLM #LanguageDevelopment
Learn more at:
www.bu.edu/bucld/
#Innateness #LLM #LanguageDevelopment
October 19, 2025 at 9:25 PM
#BUCLD50 Symposium: “Innateness is not a dirty word: Reframing the origins of language development”, by Shanley Allen, Marisa Casillas, Alejandrina Cristia, Michael C. Frank, Caroline Rowland, Leher Singh, and Paul Bloom!
Learn more at:
www.bu.edu/bucld/
#Innateness #LLM #LanguageDevelopment
Learn more at:
www.bu.edu/bucld/
#Innateness #LLM #LanguageDevelopment
Reposted by Mike Frank
1/
Alright, this one’s been sitting in my drawer for a year now, after @mcxfrank.bsky.social and I got turned down for a public commentary.
But before I forget about it completely, here’s the preprint:
Can we harvest insights for rice theory from two state farms in China?
osf.io/preprints/ps...
Alright, this one’s been sitting in my drawer for a year now, after @mcxfrank.bsky.social and I got turned down for a public commentary.
But before I forget about it completely, here’s the preprint:
Can we harvest insights for rice theory from two state farms in China?
osf.io/preprints/ps...
October 22, 2025 at 5:18 PM
1/
Alright, this one’s been sitting in my drawer for a year now, after @mcxfrank.bsky.social and I got turned down for a public commentary.
But before I forget about it completely, here’s the preprint:
Can we harvest insights for rice theory from two state farms in China?
osf.io/preprints/ps...
Alright, this one’s been sitting in my drawer for a year now, after @mcxfrank.bsky.social and I got turned down for a public commentary.
But before I forget about it completely, here’s the preprint:
Can we harvest insights for rice theory from two state farms in China?
osf.io/preprints/ps...
Reposted by Mike Frank
The Causality in Cognition Lab at Stanford University is recruiting PhD students this cycle!
We are a supportive team who happened to wear bluesky appropriate colors for the lab photo (this wasn't planned). 💙
Lab info: cicl.stanford.edu
Application details: psychology.stanford.edu/admissions/p...
We are a supportive team who happened to wear bluesky appropriate colors for the lab photo (this wasn't planned). 💙
Lab info: cicl.stanford.edu
Application details: psychology.stanford.edu/admissions/p...
October 17, 2025 at 5:43 PM
The Causality in Cognition Lab at Stanford University is recruiting PhD students this cycle!
We are a supportive team who happened to wear bluesky appropriate colors for the lab photo (this wasn't planned). 💙
Lab info: cicl.stanford.edu
Application details: psychology.stanford.edu/admissions/p...
We are a supportive team who happened to wear bluesky appropriate colors for the lab photo (this wasn't planned). 💙
Lab info: cicl.stanford.edu
Application details: psychology.stanford.edu/admissions/p...
Reposted by Mike Frank
#statstab #434 Exposing omitted moderators: Explaining why effect sizes differ in the social sciences
Thoughts: Maybe our models are too simple to makdle the generalisable claims we want.
#bias #moderator #causalinference #heterogeneity #effect
doi.org/10.1073/pnas...
Thoughts: Maybe our models are too simple to makdle the generalisable claims we want.
#bias #moderator #causalinference #heterogeneity #effect
doi.org/10.1073/pnas...
Exposing omitted moderators: Explaining why effect sizes differ in the social sciences | PNAS
Policymakers increasingly rely on behavioral science in response to global challenges,
such as climate change or global health crises. But applicat...
doi.org
October 9, 2025 at 7:19 PM
#statstab #434 Exposing omitted moderators: Explaining why effect sizes differ in the social sciences
Thoughts: Maybe our models are too simple to makdle the generalisable claims we want.
#bias #moderator #causalinference #heterogeneity #effect
doi.org/10.1073/pnas...
Thoughts: Maybe our models are too simple to makdle the generalisable claims we want.
#bias #moderator #causalinference #heterogeneity #effect
doi.org/10.1073/pnas...
Reposted by Mike Frank
Reposted by Mike Frank
Happy to share that our BBS target article has been accepted: “Core Perception”: Re-imagining Precocious Reasoning as Sophisticated Perceiving
With Alon Hafri, @veroniqueizard.bsky.social, @chazfirestone.bsky.social & Brent Strickland
Read it here: doi.org/10.1017/S014...
A short thread [1/5]👇
With Alon Hafri, @veroniqueizard.bsky.social, @chazfirestone.bsky.social & Brent Strickland
Read it here: doi.org/10.1017/S014...
A short thread [1/5]👇
October 9, 2025 at 3:51 PM
Happy to share that our BBS target article has been accepted: “Core Perception”: Re-imagining Precocious Reasoning as Sophisticated Perceiving
With Alon Hafri, @veroniqueizard.bsky.social, @chazfirestone.bsky.social & Brent Strickland
Read it here: doi.org/10.1017/S014...
A short thread [1/5]👇
With Alon Hafri, @veroniqueizard.bsky.social, @chazfirestone.bsky.social & Brent Strickland
Read it here: doi.org/10.1017/S014...
A short thread [1/5]👇
Science fiction science, by the ever-thoughtful Iyad Rahwan: www.nature.com/articles/s41...
The science fiction science method - Nature
The ‘science fiction science’ method simulates future technologies and collects quantitative data on the attitudes and behaviours of participants in various future scenarios, with the aim of predicting impacts of future technologies before they arrive.
www.nature.com
October 9, 2025 at 8:06 PM
Science fiction science, by the ever-thoughtful Iyad Rahwan: www.nature.com/articles/s41...
How do you measure early language development in languages where you don't have word lists?
New paper: Measuring children’s early vocabulary in low-resource languages using a Swadesh-style word list - led by @kachergis.bsky.social and @alvinwmtan.bsky.social
osf.io/njm7d_v1
New paper: Measuring children’s early vocabulary in low-resource languages using a Swadesh-style word list - led by @kachergis.bsky.social and @alvinwmtan.bsky.social
osf.io/njm7d_v1
October 9, 2025 at 3:34 PM
How do you measure early language development in languages where you don't have word lists?
New paper: Measuring children’s early vocabulary in low-resource languages using a Swadesh-style word list - led by @kachergis.bsky.social and @alvinwmtan.bsky.social
osf.io/njm7d_v1
New paper: Measuring children’s early vocabulary in low-resource languages using a Swadesh-style word list - led by @kachergis.bsky.social and @alvinwmtan.bsky.social
osf.io/njm7d_v1