Ben Ambridge
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ambridge.bsky.social
Ben Ambridge
@ambridge.bsky.social
480 followers 250 following 50 posts
Prof of Psychology/Child Language, University of Manchester. Author of PSY-Q and Are You Smarter than a Chimpanzee?
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Reposted by Ben Ambridge
hansonmark.bsky.social
We wrote the Strain on scientific publishing to highlight the problems of time & trust. With a fantastic group of co-authors, we present The Drain of Scientific Publishing:

a 🧵 1/n

Drain: arxiv.org/abs/2511.04820
Strain: direct.mit.edu/qss/article/...
Oligopoly: direct.mit.edu/qss/article/...
A table showing profit margins of major publishers. A snippet of text related to this table is below. 1. The four-fold drain 1.1 Money Currently, academic publishing is dominated by profit-oriented, multinational companies for whom scientific knowledge is a commodity to be sold back to the academic community who created it. The dominant four are Elsevier, Springer Nature, Wiley and Taylor & Francis, which collectively generated over US$7.1 billion in revenue from journal publishing in 2024 alone, and over US$12 billion in profits between 2019 and 2024 (Table 1A). Their profit margins have always been over 30% in the last five years, and for the largest publisher (Elsevier) always over 37%. Against many comparators, across many sectors, scientific publishing is one of the most consistently profitable industries (Table S1). These financial arrangements make a substantial difference to science budgets. In 2024, 46% of Elsevier revenues and 53% of Taylor & Francis revenues were generated in North America, meaning that North American researchers were charged over US$2.27 billion by just two for-profit publishers. The Canadian research councils and the US National Science Foundation were allocated US$9.3 billion in that year. A figure detailing the drain on researcher time. 1. The four-fold drain 1.2 Time The number of papers published each year is growing faster than the scientific workforce, with the number of papers per researcher almost doubling between 1996 and 2022 (Figure 1A). This reflects the fact that publishers’ commercial desire to publish (sell) more material has aligned well with the competitive prestige culture in which publications help secure jobs, grants, promotions, and awards. To the extent that this growth is driven by a pressure for profit, rather than scholarly imperatives, it distorts the way researchers spend their time. The publishing system depends on unpaid reviewer labour, estimated to be over 130 million unpaid hours annually in 2020 alone (9). Researchers have complained about the demands of peer-review for decades, but the scale of the problem is now worse, with editors reporting widespread difficulties recruiting reviewers. The growth in publications involves not only the authors’ time, but that of academic editors and reviewers who are dealing with so many review demands. Even more seriously, the imperative to produce ever more articles reshapes the nature of scientific inquiry. Evidence across multiple fields shows that more papers result in ‘ossification’, not new ideas (10). It may seem paradoxical that more papers can slow progress until one considers how it affects researchers’ time. While rewards remain tied to volume, prestige, and impact of publications, researchers will be nudged away from riskier, local, interdisciplinary, and long-term work. The result is a treadmill of constant activity with limited progress whereas core scholarly practices – such as reading, reflecting and engaging with others’ contributions – is de-prioritized. What looks like productivity often masks intellectual exhaustion built on a demoralizing, narrowing scientific vision. A table of profit margins across industries. The section of text related to this table is below: 1. The four-fold drain 1.1 Money Currently, academic publishing is dominated by profit-oriented, multinational companies for whom scientific knowledge is a commodity to be sold back to the academic community who created it. The dominant four are Elsevier, Springer Nature, Wiley and Taylor & Francis, which collectively generated over US$7.1 billion in revenue from journal publishing in 2024 alone, and over US$12 billion in profits between 2019 and 2024 (Table 1A). Their profit margins have always been over 30% in the last five years, and for the largest publisher (Elsevier) always over 37%. Against many comparators, across many sectors, scientific publishing is one of the most consistently profitable industries (Table S1). These financial arrangements make a substantial difference to science budgets. In 2024, 46% of Elsevier revenues and 53% of Taylor & Francis revenues were generated in North America, meaning that North American researchers were charged over US$2.27 billion by just two for-profit publishers. The Canadian research councils and the US National Science Foundation were allocated US$9.3 billion in that year. The costs of inaction are plain: wasted public funds, lost researcher time, compromised scientific integrity and eroded public trust. Today, the system rewards commercial publishers first, and science second. Without bold action from the funders we risk continuing to pour resources into a system that prioritizes profit over the advancement of scientific knowledge.
November 11, 2025 at 11:52 AM
ambridge.bsky.social
Blows my mind how much people will spend on unproven health gimmicks but won’t get a proven vaccine
sailorrooscout.bsky.social Chise @sailorrooscout.bsky.social · 6d
Well now, would you look at that?

A massive study of NEARLY 300,000 people in the United States found that receiving an updated 2024-2025 mRNA COVID-19 vaccine REDUCED people’s risk of severe disease AND death in ALL age groups, REGARDLESS of immunity from prior infection or vaccination.
November 8, 2025 at 3:06 PM
ambridge.bsky.social
Hi everyone just another reminder/plea to give my band a spin on Spotify - for fans of Mogwai, Explosions in the Sky, Slowdrive and general guitar-based instrumental miserabilism!

open.spotify.com/track/1fgpu3...
Group Stage Exit
open.spotify.com
November 8, 2025 at 1:21 PM
ambridge.bsky.social
New release today for my post-rock instrumental band Advances in Mathematics

open.spotify.com/track/1fgpu3...
Group Stage Exit
open.spotify.com
October 31, 2025 at 1:06 PM
Reposted by Ben Ambridge
danlewer.bsky.social
We wrote an article explaining why you shouldn't put several variables into a regression model and report which are statistically significant - even as exploratory research. bmjmedicine.bmj.com/content/4/1/.... How did we do?
A "methods primer" article in the journal "BMJ Medicine", titled "Factors associated with: problems of using exploratory multivariable regression to identify causal risk factors"
October 27, 2025 at 5:39 PM
Reposted by Ben Ambridge
dingdingpeng.the100.ci
This is an excellent point that generalizes.
Researchers often defend suboptimal practices by referring to future studies with better designs.

But: Why would anybody run those studies when you can just throw a bunch of variables into a regression and make sweeping "preliminary" claims?
Defences of factors associated with studies Results are exploratory or hypothesis generating Researchers might accept that limitations exist in a “factors associated with” analysis, but argue that the results give a useful initial indication of potential risk factors. Researchers might say that the results are hypothesis generating and can inform confirmatory studies with a more focused study design. But how often has an important hypothesis been generated for the first time from a “factors associated with” study, and then confirmed to be true? We have yet to identify an example. If readers can identify examples, which we would like to hear about, we wonder if these justify the waste from the large number of “factors associated with studies that are done each year.
October 28, 2025 at 11:22 AM
ambridge.bsky.social
Wild that this even needs saying! @evfedorenko.bsky.social @spiantado.bsky.social
Title of a journal article: Language is primarily a tool for communication rather than thought
October 24, 2025 at 1:24 PM
ambridge.bsky.social
And sorry to be that guy, but my book www.amazon.co.uk/Stories-Your... has a chapter on why nudges won’t work for climate change - they rely on a boring Sacrifice narrative - we need a thrilling Hero Saves The World one!!
October 13, 2025 at 4:50 PM
ambridge.bsky.social
In fact, the conclusion is clearer than the rather conservative title suggests. "No evidence" is what you say when your null effect is inconclusive. A Bayes Factor of 66 for the null would seem to constitute "Positive evidence for ineffectiveness...". Time to give up and try something stronger!
jrgptrs.bsky.social Jörg Ankel-Peters @jrgptrs.bsky.social · Oct 9
New DP @i4replication.bsky.social: Meta-analysis on green nudges correcting for publication bias. "Behavioral interventions on households and individuals are unlikely to deliver material climate benefits." www.econstor.eu/bitstream/10...
October 13, 2025 at 3:06 PM
ambridge.bsky.social
This really winds me up - vaccines, masks, air purification? Nah don’t bother - just get covid first then we’ll give you counselling
October 1, 2025 at 2:40 PM
Reposted by Ben Ambridge
rmcelreath.bsky.social
Was asked about collinearity again, so here's Vahove's 2019 post on why it isn't a problem that needs a solution. Design the model(s) to answer a formal question and free your mind janhove.github.io/posts/2019-0...
tl;dr Collinearity is a form of lack of information that is appropriately reflected in the output of your statistical model. When collinearity is associated with interpretational difficulties, these difficulties aren’t caused by the collinearity itself. Rather, they reveal that the model was poorly specified (in that it answers a question different to the one of interest), that the analyst overly focuses on significance rather than estimates and the uncertainty about them or that the analyst took a mental shortcut in interpreting the model that could’ve also led them astray in the absence of collinearity. If you do decide to “deal with” collinearity, make sure you can still answer the question of interest.
October 1, 2025 at 5:29 AM
Reposted by Ben Ambridge
gboleda.bsky.social
New paper! 🚨 I argue that LLMs represent a synthesis between distributed and symbolic approaches to language, because, when exposed to language, they develop highly symbolic representations and processing mechanisms in addition to distributed ones.
arxiv.org/abs/2502.11856
Sigmoid function. Non-linearities in neural network allow it to behave in distributed and near-symbolic fashions.
September 30, 2025 at 1:16 PM
Reposted by Ben Ambridge
k2mey.bsky.social
My research group ❤️. Reposts welcome - we’re looking for little scientists to come and help us research what makes them tick
childstudycentre.bsky.social University of Manchester Child Study Centre @childstudycentre.bsky.social · Aug 7
This is a public service announcement...
Allow us to reintroduce ourselves...
#jayz #childdevelopment #research #signup #littlescientistswanted
September 30, 2025 at 11:59 AM
ambridge.bsky.social
pluralistic.net/2025/09/27/e... When you think about it, there a quite a few technologies that are kinda useful but just can’t be made to work economically- makes sense that “AI” would be in that category
Pluralistic: The real (economic) AI apocalypse is nigh (27 Sep 2025) – Pluralistic: Daily links from Cory Doctorow
pluralistic.net
September 28, 2025 at 9:02 AM
Reposted by Ben Ambridge
mehr.nz
I screen out Frontiers emails so hadn't seen a colleague's invite to their editorial board. so the colleague emailed me directly to ask again (we're friendly w/ each other)

I don't like saying 'no' to service for good colleagues, but one must act on principle against bad publishers. here's my reply
email screenshot: Dear XX, thanks for thinking of me. Unfortunately I need to decline — I am one of those people who feels that Frontiers and big-money-OA is corrupting the scientific enterprise beyond repair, so I don't submit, review, or edit for their journals. I feel the same for journals like Scientific Reports, Communications Psychology, MDPI journals, and the like. In my opinion the only way to improve scientific publishing is to vote with our feet and our grant dollars. Sorry that I don't have a more positive response....! best from NZ Sam
September 23, 2025 at 10:20 AM
ambridge.bsky.social
Can I please waste a few moments of your time to complain about @ariessystems.bsky.social Editorial Manager. Because of the way it interacts with journals' own pages (it's always editorialmanager.com/nameofjournal), password managers assume the same username+password FOR EVERY BLOODY JOURNAL 1/5
September 16, 2025 at 9:14 AM
Reposted by Ben Ambridge
kmahowald.bsky.social
📣@futrell.bsky.social and I have a BBS target article with an optimistic take on LLMs + linguistics. Commentary proposals (just need a few hundred words) are OPEN until Oct 8. If we are too optimistic for you (or not optimistic enough!) or you have anything to say: www.cambridge.org/core/journal...
How Linguistics Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Language Models
How Linguistics Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Language Models
www.cambridge.org
September 15, 2025 at 3:46 PM
Reposted by Ben Ambridge
sophieehill.bsky.social
So, this study linking sweeteners to cognitive decline:

🚩 confuses correlation + causation
🚩 has no theory
🚩 shows evidence of p-hacking
🚩 reports inconsistent CIs / p-values
🚩 measures diet only once
🚩 has a big missing data problem
🚩 adjusts outcome opaquely

www.theguardian.com/food/2025/se...
Sweeteners can harm cognitive health equivalent to 1.6 years of ageing, study finds
Researchers say low- and no-calorie sweeteners appear to affect thinking and memory in middle age
www.theguardian.com
September 5, 2025 at 4:46 PM
ambridge.bsky.social
What a surprise! The AI overview completely misinterprets the findings of the study! Word order is LESS reliable than case-marking, not more. Read the correct version at psycnet.apa.org/fulltext/202...
September 1, 2025 at 1:44 PM
ambridge.bsky.social
A good argument for using Effect Size and Confidence Intervals over p values. In some sense we already know as a field this is the right thing to do as it’s what we already (mainly) do for meta analysis

www.facebook.com/share/p/19Sz...
Redirecting...
www.facebook.com
August 28, 2025 at 9:35 AM
Reposted by Ben Ambridge
reilly-coglab.com
Many updates to our psycholinguistic database page. You terrific people have been busy distributing open source data including lexical databases for BSL, French, German sign. LMK if I've missed anything www.reilly-coglab.com/data
Psycholinguistic Databases, Stimuli, Utilities — Concepts & Cognition Laboratory
www.reilly-coglab.com
August 24, 2025 at 1:40 PM
Reposted by Ben Ambridge
drkoraly.bsky.social
My lab has an open post-doc position!

We will begin reviewing applications as they come in.

The post-doc will work with a vibrant research team at Penn State in the Department of Psychology and the Child Study Center.

psu.wd1.myworkdayjobs.com/PSU_Academic...

1/3
Postdoctoral Research Scholar, The Cognition, Affect, and Temperament Lab, College of the Liberal Arts, Department of Psychology-2
APPLICATION INSTRUCTIONS: CURRENT PENN STATE EMPLOYEE (faculty, staff, technical service, or student), please login to Workday to complete the internal application process. Please do not apply here, a...
psu.wd1.myworkdayjobs.com
August 22, 2025 at 8:06 PM
Reposted by Ben Ambridge
chelseaparlett.bsky.social
Recently finished @rfkuang.bsky.social Babel, and Karen Hao’s @karenhao.bsky.social Empire of AI.

Incredibly interesting parallels on the colonization of language/text. The people who make these technologies possible are considered disposable and get considerably less benefit than the creators.
The cover of the book « babel » by RF Kuang The cover of Empire of AI by Karen Hao
August 14, 2025 at 8:37 PM
Reposted by Ben Ambridge
lakens.bsky.social
An abbreviation (ABB) in a journal article (JA) or Grant Application (GA) is rarely worth the words it saves. Every ABB requires cognitive resources (CR) and at my age by the time I'm halfway through a JA or GA I no longer have the CR to remember what your ABB stood for.
August 15, 2025 at 9:39 AM
Reposted by Ben Ambridge
mcxfrank.bsky.social
Our position paper is now out: "Learning Variability Network Exchange (LEVANTE): A Global Framework for Measuring Children's Learning Variability Through Collaborative Data Sharing".

srcd.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/...
(preprint: osf.io/preprints/ps...)

What is LEVANTE? 🧵
Screenshot of paper title
August 13, 2025 at 6:09 PM