Riccardo Fusaroli
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fusaroli.bsky.social
Riccardo Fusaroli
@fusaroli.bsky.social
4K followers 1.7K following 4K posts
Cognitive Science at Aarhus Uni. Curious about social interactions, symbolic behaviors, and meta-science. Focus on stats, computational modeling, machine learning, complex systems, language, exp semiotics and neuropsychiatric conditions. He/They.
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fusaroli.bsky.social
Riccardo Fusaroli @fusaroli.bsky.social · Dec 2
Hello new followers! I am a curious cognitive scientist, with a background in semiotics, a strong focus on quantitative and computational methods and meta-science and scattered interests in how we think, learn and function through conversations.

For a taste of my work, a thread of threads: 1/
fusaroli.bsky.social
Speaker diarization issue: I have long audios automatically diarized (timing and labels of vocalizations) + 5-minute snippets manually diarized. What is the state of the art to assess matches and biases? I wrote a script to get familiar w the issues (1toMany, ManyTo1 matches, etc), so 1/
November 12, 2025 at 3:57 PM
fusaroli.bsky.social
just spotted this while double checking a collaborator's scripts before uploading them to OSF - @solomonkurz.bsky.social :-)
November 12, 2025 at 3:52 PM
Reposted by Riccardo Fusaroli
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
Reposted by Riccardo Fusaroli
wimpouw.bsky.social
Our paper @sarabogels.bsky.social covering our pre-registered multi-year research is now finally out in Cognition. We show that in conversations people reduce their multimodal signals non-linearly; the steeper this non-linear drop-off the more communicative success.

www.wimpouw.com/files/Bogels...
A busy figure showing how reduction of different types of multimodal signals reduces over experimental rounds (with a comparison of how a non-linear signal following a power law can be transformed to a linear slope using a log-transformation).
November 11, 2025 at 4:49 PM
fusaroli.bsky.social
that was 56 mails needing actions, and about 300 that got archived or deleted (probably missing out on some info, but alas...). Good news is that I'll likely send the computer to repairs before being done with all the 56 mail-related task (let alone those who cumulated in the meantime) :-)
fusaroli.bsky.social Riccardo Fusaroli @fusaroli.bsky.social · 8d
The computer has been at the repair shop for three days and with it my access to work email and calendar. I forcefully got it back, still unfixed. I think I need a glass of wine before opening my email (or to put my mind to better things instead)
November 10, 2025 at 3:38 PM
Reposted by Riccardo Fusaroli
elisecutts.bsky.social
Hey complexity and complexity-adjacent people:

What are some of your favorite pop-sci books? Are there any you've had your eye on but haven't had a chance to read yet?

They can be new or old. I'd just love to know what y'all are reading!
November 9, 2025 at 10:12 AM
fusaroli.bsky.social
The computer has been at the repair shop for three days and with it my access to work email and calendar. I forcefully got it back, still unfixed. I think I need a glass of wine before opening my email (or to put my mind to better things instead)
November 7, 2025 at 3:30 PM
Reposted by Riccardo Fusaroli
audunrosslund.bsky.social
Do parents exaggerate the pronunciation of words they believe their infants don’t know yet? Our new paper suggests no. ❌ w/ @julienmayor.bsky.social & @nataliakartushina.bsky.social 🧵 1/ #DevSci #langsky #devpsy
APA PsycNet
dx.doi.org
November 4, 2025 at 3:20 PM
Reposted by Riccardo Fusaroli
christineparsons.bsky.social
Today at 11am @interacting-minds.bsky.social, we have Aaro Tupasela, senior research fellow, Department of Sociology, University of Helsinki coming to give a talk:

Building health data spaces for research in Finland - Some cautionary tales for the EHDS
Building health data spaces for research in Finland - Some cautionary tales for the EHDS
IMC Tuesday Seminar: Talk by Aaro Tupasela, senior research fellow, Department of Sociology, University of Helsinki
interactingminds.au.dk
November 4, 2025 at 7:30 AM
Reposted by Riccardo Fusaroli
avehtari.bsky.social
Now I'm also looking for a research software engineer to implement a pile of research results to R packages loo, posterior, bayesplot, projpred, priorsense, brms or/and Python packages ArviZ, Bambi and Kulprit. Apply by email with no specific deadline (see contact info at users.aalto.fi/~ave/)
avehtari.bsky.social Aki Vehtari @avehtari.bsky.social · 17d
I'm now also looking for a postdoc with strong Bayesian background and interest in developing Bayesian cross-validation theory, methods and software. Apply by email with no specific deadline (see contact information at users.aalto.fi/~ave/).

Others, please share
avehtari.bsky.social Aki Vehtari @avehtari.bsky.social · Oct 6
I'm looking for a doctoral student with Bayesian background to work on Bayesian workflow and cross-validation (see my publication list users.aalto.fi/~ave/publica... for my recent work) at Aalto University.

Apply through the ELLIS PhD program (dl October 31) ellis.eu/news/ellis-p...
November 3, 2025 at 11:13 AM
Reposted by Riccardo Fusaroli
scientificdiscovery.dev
This year Demis Hassabis predicted AI could cure all disease in a decade.

But other scientists like Claus Wilke & Derek Lowe say biology is far more complex, or progress will be limited by clinical trials & economics.

In a new 4hr podcast episode of *Hard Drugs*, we answer: Will AI solve medicine?
Will AI solve medicine?
spotify.link
October 29, 2025 at 2:11 PM
Reposted by Riccardo Fusaroli
ctennie.bsky.social
Just out - "Art Beyond Cognition: Reframing Neanderthal art through social connectivity and cultural transmission" by Straffon & Tennie
Art Beyond Cognition: Reframing Neanderthal art through social connectivity and cultural transmission | Evolutionary Human Sciences | Cambridge Core
Art Beyond Cognition: Reframing Neanderthal art through social connectivity and cultural transmission
www.cambridge.org
October 27, 2025 at 4:59 PM
fusaroli.bsky.social
Silly 2012 me visiting a village in New Mexico that had been inhabited continuously for 1000 years: err, is that impressive? My not so impressive hometown is at least 2000 year old...
that was idiotic, but I now discovered that the oldest hominin remains in my hometown are 800000 year old 1/
October 30, 2025 at 7:58 AM
fusaroli.bsky.social
italian pools: take a shower before the pool. NO NAKED SHOWERS!
scandinavian pools: take a shower before the pool. ONLY NAKED SHOWERS!
japanese onsen: the personnel will chase you if you try to cover yourself your nakedness with the tiny towel provided and inform you it's only for the head
October 29, 2025 at 3:57 AM
Reposted by Riccardo Fusaroli
psmaldino.bsky.social
Revision posted! An evolutionary model of identity signaling with nested/overlapping/intersectional identities, complex multidimensional signaling capabilities, and a primer on ancient Mesopotamia. What more could you ask for?
osf.io/preprints/so...
psmaldino.bsky.social Paul Smaldino @psmaldino.bsky.social · Jul 1
New preprint w/ Nathan Gabriel & @avbell.bsky.social: The Evolution of Identity Signals for Coordination in Diverse Societies

The model tackles multiple nested/overlapping identities and complex signaling structure. Recovers lots of old results and adds several new ones osf.io/preprints/so...
Individual social identities indicate group affiliations and are typically associated with 3 group-typical preferences, signals that indicate group membership, and the propensity to condition actions on the social signals of others, resulting in group-differentiated interaction norms. Past work modeling identity signaling and coordination has typically assumed that individuals belong to one of a discrete set of groups. Yet individuals can simultaneously belong to multiple groups, which may be nested within larger groupings. Here, we introduce the generalized Bach or Stravinsky game, a coordination game with ordered preferences, which allows us to construct a model that captures the overlapping and hierarchical nature of social identity. Our model unifies several prior results into a single framework, including results related to coordination, minority disadvantage, and cross-cultural competence. Our model also allows agents to express complex social identities through multidimensional signaling, which we use to explore a variety of complex group structures. Our consideration of intersectional identities exposes flaws in naive measures of group structure, illustrating how empirical studies may overlook some social identities if they do not consider the behaviors that those identities function to afford.
October 27, 2025 at 8:09 PM
Reposted by Riccardo Fusaroli
psmaldino.bsky.social
Re-posting this because I really like it and I think we need to understand identity from a functionalist perspective more than ever.
osf.io/preprints/ps...
psmaldino.bsky.social Paul Smaldino @psmaldino.bsky.social · Jun 2
I wrote a chapter on a functionalist account of social identity.

IMO, thinking about identity in an instrumental way helps explain a lot of behavior that seems otherwise baffling.
osf.io/preprints/ps...
This chapter focuses on how people use identity categories for adaptive decision making and how they strategically apply signals of identity. Adopting a functional view of identity for communication and behavior allows us to focus on the forces that shape their use. I will first make it clear that signals of social identity often encode meaningful information for decision making. I will then review specific perspectives on how selection by consequences has shaped the use of identity signals to more adaptively facilitate social learning, partner choice, and coordination, followed by a consideration of how those uses have changed in a world characterized by diversity, anonymity and the Internet, and political polarization. Identity is constructed for functional purposes, and is therefore only essential insofar as forming categories and legible cultural artifacts are essential features of human activity.
October 27, 2025 at 8:11 PM
fusaroli.bsky.social
I happened to (re)read an autobiography of an Italian ethnographer, Fosco Maraini, amazing (biased) character. His childhood and ebullient youth climbing mountains meshing with intellectuals, his trips to Tibet and Japan, the japanese prison camp for being an anti-fascist and much more. BUT 1/
October 24, 2025 at 1:13 PM
Reposted by Riccardo Fusaroli
carlbergstrom.com
1. We ( @jbakcoleman.bsky.social, @cailinmeister.bsky.social, @jevinwest.bsky.social, and I) have a new preprint up on the arXiv.

There we explore how social media companies and other online information technology firms are able to manipulate scientific research about the effects of their products.
Three schematic diagrams. The first illustrates selective publishing of internal resection, the second selective causal focus, and the third selective access and funding for researchers.
October 24, 2025 at 12:47 AM
fusaroli.bsky.social
It never gets old, does it?
October 24, 2025 at 8:18 AM
Reposted by Riccardo Fusaroli
jbakcoleman.bsky.social
Great piece on the absurdity of brute force multiverse analyses.

www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/...
Robustness is better assessed with a few thoughtful models than with billions of regressions | PNAS
Robustness is better assessed with a few thoughtful models than with billions of regressions
www.pnas.org
October 22, 2025 at 5:29 PM
Reposted by Riccardo Fusaroli
thecharleywu.bsky.social
Fully-funded 4-year #PhD in Cultural Evolution! Join my @erc.europa.eu project exploring how compression & compositionality drive cultural innovation: hmc-lab.com/ERCPhDCultur...
Apply by Nov 12!
Maybe of interest to folks from #COSMOS2025 or @eslr.bsky.social? Please feel free to share! 🙏
ERC funded PhD position on Cultural Evolution
ERC funded PhD position on Cultural Evolution posted on October 16, 2025 We are currently seeking a highly motivated individual for a ful...
hmc-lab.com
October 20, 2025 at 9:32 AM
Reposted by Riccardo Fusaroli
jumelet.bsky.social
🌍Introducing BabyBabelLM: A Multilingual Benchmark of Developmentally Plausible Training Data!

LLMs learn from vastly more data than humans ever experience. BabyLM challenges this paradigm by focusing on developmentally plausible data

We extend this effort to 45 new languages!
October 15, 2025 at 10:53 AM
Reposted by Riccardo Fusaroli
nelmqvist.bsky.social
Thinking of your academic paper as less your magnum opus and more as a line of dialogue in a greater conversation can take the pressure off scientific publishing. Here are my most recent thoughts on "Science as a Conversation":

niklaselmqvist.medium.com/science-as-a...
Science as a Conversation
When do you know that your paper has done enough?
niklaselmqvist.medium.com
October 15, 2025 at 11:15 AM
Reposted by Riccardo Fusaroli
marlijnterbekke.bsky.social
Happy with this popular science article about our work (with @lindadrijvers.bsky.social and @judithholler.bsky.social), showing that listeners use co-speech hand gestures to predict upcoming meaning ✋ www.medscape.com/viewarticle/...
What Using Our Hands While Speaking Reveals About Our Brains
Researchers now have fascinating insights into how our brains function while we communicate — and our hand gestures hold the key.
www.medscape.com
October 15, 2025 at 8:12 AM
fusaroli.bsky.social
Conversational turn-taking feels effortless, but it's a complex dance. We find social context—who you're talking to and what you're talking about—fundamentally changes conversational dynamics in both autistic & TD children. 1/

onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/... w @chrismmcox.bsky.social
Social Context Matters for Turn‐Taking Dynamics: A Comparative Study of Autistic and Typically Developing Children
Engaging in fluent conversation is a surprisingly complex task that requires interlocutors to promptly respond to each other in a way that is appropriate to the social context. In this study, we dise...
onlinelibrary.wiley.com
October 15, 2025 at 9:28 AM