Recent Posts

Cultural traditions can be supported in many ways.
6 min read

Focusing on making reliable information more trusted and engaging could be better.
5 min read

Public outrages against social media companies may not fulfil their goals.
6 min read

Learn cultural evolution individual-based modelling starting from a basic knowledge of R.
3 min read

How La Repubblica, a major Italian newspaper, spreads misinformation.
5 min read
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Research

Recent Publications

Cultural evolution researchers use transmission chain experiments to investigate which content is more likely to survive when …
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A wealth of interventions have been devised to reduce belief in fake news or the tendency to share such news. By contrast, …
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Typical examples of cultural phenomena all exhibit a degree of similarity across time and space at the level of the population. As …
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Alarmist narratives about online misinformation continue to gain traction despite evidence that its prevalence and impact are …
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During the 2020 US presidential election, conspiracy theories about large-scale voter fraud were widely circulated on social media …
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Recent & Upcoming Talks

In my talk, I will discuss how cultural evolution can provide a useful framework to understand how information is produced, …
May 19, 2022 2:00 PM — 3:00 PM Centre for Cultural Evolution, Stockholm University, Sweden
Slides

May 7, 2022 9:30 AM — 5:30 PM Universita' La Sapienza, Roma, Italy
Video

In my talk, I will explore how cultural evolution can provide a convenient framework to understand how information is produced, …
May 4, 2022 1:00 PM — May 5, 2022 2:00 PM IAST, Toulouse, France
Slides

A current widespread narrative states that misinformation is abundant on social media, it has a relative advantage with respect to true …
Apr 27, 2022 1:00 PM — 2:00 PM Oxford, United Kingdom
Slides

I have been invited at the 2021 meeting of the Cognition, Behavior & Evolution Network, where I will present some of my research on …
Nov 18, 2021 10:00 AM — Nov 19, 2021 8:00 PM Tilburg University
Slides
See all talks

Selected media

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Se battre contre la désinformation ou pour l’information?

An article on Futura Science (in French) on our model showing that focusing on engagment with true news is more productive than …

Should we spend less time fighting misinformation and more time fighting for information?

Nieman Lab reports on our model on fighting misinformation VS fighting for information.

Populisme, vaccination. Pourquoi surestime-t-on le phenomene des Fake News

An article from Les Echos on online misinformation and its overestimation.

The Dissenter - Cultural Evolution in the Digital Age

I have been interviewed in the podcast ‘The Dissenter’ on my research.

Cultural Evolution in the Digital Age interview

An interview for Cultured Scene, the magazie of the Early Career Social Learning Researcher’s Society.

Heaven knows pop’s miserable now

The Times covers our research on cultural evolution of emotions in song lyrics.

Tout ce que vous pensiez savoir d’Internet est (sans doute) faux

An excellent review (in french) of Cultural Evolution in the Digital Age.

Why are pop songs getting sadder than they used to be?

A piece for Aeon on our research on the cultural evolution of emotion in pop song lyrics.

How digital’s defining culture

Press release of Brunel University for the publication of Cultural Evolution in the Digital Age.

Les vraies raisons du succès des infox

An article on my research on cognitive attraction and misinformation (in french).

Perché le fake news ci attraggono? Un contributo dall’antropologia cognitiva ed evoluzionistica

A summary of my research on cognitive attraction and misinformation (in italian).

Dedicated Followers (After a Fashion)

I have been interviewed by a marketing magazine about fake followers and similar. I am sceptical about their effects.

The Trouble with Cultural Evolution

Philosopher Massmio Pigliucci discusses our If we are all cultural darwinians, what is the fuss about? on Plato’s Footnotes.

How much is that doggie from the movie?

The New York Times reports on our research on the effect of movies on dog breeds popularity.

The Lassie effect. Movies drive our preference for certain dog breeds

Our paper on how movies impact on dog breeds popularity is featured in Science.

Why hard times make for miserable books

CNN on our Books average previous decade of economic misery.

Information is power

An interview (in italian) with Radio3 Scienza (I start around min. 18). Click to download the podcast.

Literature gloom mirrors economic misery, study finds

The Guardian reports on our research on economy and emotions in books.

The History of Our Emotions in Millions of Books

I wrote a piece for the Huffington Post on our paper on emotions in 20th century books.

Text mining uncovers British reserve and US emotion

Nature features our paper The expression of emotions in 20th century books.

Aiuto, i nostri romanzi hanno perso le emozioni

Our research on emotions in 20th century books featured by la Repubblica (in italian).

Planck, Elusive Giant Squid, Emotive words

I have been interviewed by Adam Rutherford for BBC4 Material world on our research on emotions in 20th century books.

Teaching

I am currently (2021/2022) involved in the following modules (material at the links available only to Brunel staff/students!):

CV

Here is my CV.

Contact