I am a cognitive scientist studying how evolved motivations shape culture.https://bsky.app/profile/edgardubourg.bsky.socialhttps://bsky.app/profile/edgardubourg.bsky.social/post/3muchku5pvc2rMany studies of AI and learning ask what people can still do once AI is removed. I believe this is only half the question, and maybe not the most interesting half. https://edgardubourg.substack.com/p/is-ai-making-us-stupid-we-wont-find?r=461ka&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web&showWelcomeOnShare=true30 Aug 2026 13:08 +0000at://did:plc:dspkrtmkf65btqljxyvg4imd/app.bsky.feed.post/3muchku5pvc2rhttps://bsky.app/profile/edgardubourg.bsky.social/post/3mt7a54vwfd2tEveryone seems to agree that Instagram and TikTok destroyed our attention spans. Meanwhile the biggest film in the world right now, Nolan's Odyssey, asks three hours of our time and people keep showing up (it is by now the biggest release of Nolan's career). https://edgardubourg.substack.com/p/attention-is-not-scarce-it-is-expensive16 Aug 2026 12:52 +0000at://did:plc:dspkrtmkf65btqljxyvg4imd/app.bsky.feed.post/3mt7a54vwfd2thttps://bsky.app/profile/edgardubourg.bsky.social/post/3mox44lsccs2aNew paper with @sachaltay.bsky.social! A lot of people think AI can only make science worse. We argue agentic AI can actually be a great tool to do it better! [contains quote post or other embedded content]23 Jun 2026 09:38 +0000at://did:plc:dspkrtmkf65btqljxyvg4imd/app.bsky.feed.post/3mox44lsccs2ahttps://bsky.app/profile/edgardubourg.bsky.social/post/3mnc3njwqzk2sNew commentary with Nicolas Baumard in Behavioral and Brain Sciences, on Ko & Neuberg's target article: https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/behavioral-and-brain-sciences/article/distinguishing-regulatory-variables-and-ecological-affordances-prioritizing-goals-versus-implementing-action/ED776F5AE3E0B66E0F63F49864411E67 We argue for distinguishing two kinds of ecological input…02 Jun 2026 07:38 +0000at://did:plc:dspkrtmkf65btqljxyvg4imd/app.bsky.feed.post/3mnc3njwqzk2shttps://bsky.app/profile/edgardubourg.bsky.social/post/3mlaumv4v4227New in Trends in Cognitive Sciences ( @cp-trendscognsci.bsky.social)👇 Why do people who love abstract art or imaginary worlds 🎨 also tend to get vaccinated 💉, support redistribution 💸, endorse animal rights 🐥, and try novel foods 🫐?07 May 2026 09:10 +0000at://did:plc:dspkrtmkf65btqljxyvg4imd/app.bsky.feed.post/3mlaumv4v4227https://bsky.app/profile/edgardubourg.bsky.social/post/3mkkc5krlws2pReally proud to have contributed to this review. It feels like a step toward validating an idea that is still underexplored: video games are a rich and largely untapped resource for cognitive and behavioral scientists. [contains quote post or other embedded content]28 Apr 2026 09:40 +0000at://did:plc:dspkrtmkf65btqljxyvg4imd/app.bsky.feed.post/3mkkc5krlws2phttps://bsky.app/profile/edgardubourg.bsky.social/post/3mfu2d6a6gk2tMy first Substack post asks a question that has followed me since I started thinking within an evolutionary framework: how do ultimate motivations connect to the everyday things we choose to do? https://open.substack.com/pub/edgardubourg/p/ultimate-motivations-and-the-strange?r=461ka&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web&showWelcomeOnShare=true27 Feb 2026 15:41 +0000at://did:plc:dspkrtmkf65btqljxyvg4imd/app.bsky.feed.post/3mfu2d6a6gk2thttps://bsky.app/profile/edgardubourg.bsky.social/post/3mdd2s4a7us23What is it about some stories and situations that make them more effective at evoking fear? One way to answer this is to reverse engineer the emotion of fear 😱 ➡️ A short blogpost on the HBES website about our recent article with Coltan Scrivner. https://www.hbes.com/engineering-fear-protagonist-vulnerability-and-the-evolutionary-design-of-horror/26 Jan 2026 10:44 +0000at://did:plc:dspkrtmkf65btqljxyvg4imd/app.bsky.feed.post/3mdd2s4a7us23https://bsky.app/profile/edgardubourg.bsky.social/post/3masrgue3522iTrès heureux de participer à cette émission ! [contains quote post or other embedded content]25 Dec 2025 12:23 +0000at://did:plc:dspkrtmkf65btqljxyvg4imd/app.bsky.feed.post/3masrgue3522ihttps://bsky.app/profile/edgardubourg.bsky.social/post/3m7s7t4ftls23Why is Pennywise (It) more terrifying than the Joker (Batman)? Why is It categorized as horror while Batman isn’t—even though Pennywise and the Joker look similar and share equally malicious intentions?12 Dec 2025 13:43 +0000at://did:plc:dspkrtmkf65btqljxyvg4imd/app.bsky.feed.post/3m7s7t4ftls23https://bsky.app/profile/edgardubourg.bsky.social/post/3m4umiruhvc2cGlad to see Psychology Today feature our work on how curiosity flexibly adapts to the world around us. https://www.psychologytoday.com/gb/blog/evolutionary-social-cognition/202511/the-ecology-of-curiosity https://www.edgardubourg.fr/_files/ugd/9c54f0_8cd61966fab1401ea8d2ebad8be17ab3.pdf05 Nov 2025 08:20 +0000at://did:plc:dspkrtmkf65btqljxyvg4imd/app.bsky.feed.post/3m4umiruhvc2chttps://bsky.app/profile/edgardubourg.bsky.social/post/3m4ieo2mmlk2tExcited to see our research highlighted in @psychscience.bsky.social Observer! With @oliviermorin.bsky.social , @hugoreasoning.bsky.social , and Thomas Dheilly, we explored how people infer others’ knowledge: even from a single answer, they can estimate how much someone knows about a topic! https://www.psychologicalscience.org/publications/observer/unearthing-nature-knowing.html31 Oct 2025 11:27 +0000at://did:plc:dspkrtmkf65btqljxyvg4imd/app.bsky.feed.post/3m4ieo2mmlk2thttps://bsky.app/profile/edgardubourg.bsky.social/post/3lymvyyemqs2pMerci Le Monde des Livres pour cette lecture attentive et cette belle critique de mon livre…12 Sep 2025 09:08 +0000at://did:plc:dspkrtmkf65btqljxyvg4imd/app.bsky.feed.post/3lymvyyemqs2phttps://bsky.app/profile/edgardubourg.bsky.social/post/3lw73vr7gt22fToday’s popular fictions can be extremely far from reality: The Lord of the Rings, Avatar, The Legend of Zelda, Avengers: Endgame. But has this always been the case?12 Aug 2025 10:26 +0000at://did:plc:dspkrtmkf65btqljxyvg4imd/app.bsky.feed.post/3lw73vr7gt22fhttps://bsky.app/profile/edgardubourg.bsky.social/post/3lt5nmjbmuk2pI’ve long wanted to explore horror, and I did it with the very person who helped crack the paradox of horror… We looked at what makes horror scary. Vulnerability and the computational logic of fear: insights from the horror genre [contains quote post or other embedded content]04 Jul 2025 16:22 +0000at://did:plc:dspkrtmkf65btqljxyvg4imd/app.bsky.feed.post/3lt5nmjbmuk2phttps://bsky.app/profile/edgardubourg.bsky.social/post/3lqmp3tlh3226We often have to judge who is knowledgeable—precisely when we are not. Can humans really do that? Our new paper in Psychological Science shows that, surprisingly, we can. https://drive.google.com/file/d/1b15EQDO84EDFdvIRbZtorSJ1GsINGDrp/view02 Jun 2025 11:42 +0000at://did:plc:dspkrtmkf65btqljxyvg4imd/app.bsky.feed.post/3lqmp3tlh3226https://bsky.app/profile/edgardubourg.bsky.social/post/3lpvmmu3q5s2d24 May 2025 07:27 +0000at://did:plc:dspkrtmkf65btqljxyvg4imd/app.bsky.feed.post/3lpvmmu3q5s2dhttps://bsky.app/profile/edgardubourg.bsky.social/post/3loax24thxk2dA great opportunity for a PhD Scolarship at the new CultureLab (Paris), at the intersection of the humanities, the computational sciences, and cultural evolution!03 May 2025 08:42 +0000at://did:plc:dspkrtmkf65btqljxyvg4imd/app.bsky.feed.post/3loax24thxk2dhttps://bsky.app/profile/edgardubourg.bsky.social/post/3lnxcl4idrs27Imaginary worlds like Star Wars and Game of Thrones dominate global culture. Are they really a recent phenomenon, or have they always been central to storytelling? In our latest paper, we investigate the historical trajectory of imaginary worlds with new large-scale data.29 Apr 2025 12:42 +0000at://did:plc:dspkrtmkf65btqljxyvg4imd/app.bsky.feed.post/3lnxcl4idrs27https://bsky.app/profile/edgardubourg.bsky.social/post/3lknmh7dvxc2aEt vous pouvez tester votre profile de gamers ici 👉 www.the-deepmodel.fr 👈 [contains quote post or other embedded content]18 Mar 2025 11:57 +0000at://did:plc:dspkrtmkf65btqljxyvg4imd/app.bsky.feed.post/3lknmh7dvxc2ahttps://bsky.app/profile/edgardubourg.bsky.social/post/3lj5mhsnzvk2pFrom Tetris to Zelda, to Elden Ring and League of Legends… our new paper with @valerian-chambon.bsky.social, published in Entertainment Comuting delves into the diversity of video games and gamers' preferences 🎮. We present a cognitive framework for understanding this diversity. ⬇️27 Feb 2025 09:49 +0000at://did:plc:dspkrtmkf65btqljxyvg4imd/app.bsky.feed.post/3lj5mhsnzvk2phttps://bsky.app/profile/edgardubourg.bsky.social/post/3liorjawhdk2n👏 [contains quote post or other embedded content]21 Feb 2025 12:09 +0000at://did:plc:dspkrtmkf65btqljxyvg4imd/app.bsky.feed.post/3liorjawhdk2nhttps://bsky.app/profile/edgardubourg.bsky.social/post/3li5eywftvs2fTimely indeed 😍🧸 [contains quote post or other embedded content]14 Feb 2025 14:10 +0000at://did:plc:dspkrtmkf65btqljxyvg4imd/app.bsky.feed.post/3li5eywftvs2f