Publications

Alberto Acerbi (2025). Tecnopanico. Il Mulino.

Alberto Acerbi, Benôit De Courson (2025). Weak individual preferences stabilize culture. In Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences USA, 122 (8), e2412380122.

Chiara Bonacchi, Marta Krzyzanska, Alberto Acerbi (2025). Positive sentiment and expertise predict the diffusion of archaeological content on social media. In Scientific Reports, 15, 2031.

Sacha Altay, Alberto Acerbi (2024). People believe misinformation is a threat because they assume others are gullible. In New Media & Society, 26, 11.

Levin Brinkmann, Fabian Baumann, Jean-François Bonnefon, Maxime Derex, Thomas F. Müller, Anne-Marie Nussberger, Agnieszka Czaplicka, Alberto Acerbi, Thomas L. Griffiths, Joseph Henrich, Joel Z. Leibo, Richard McElreath, Pierre-Yves Oudeyer, Jonathan Stray, Iyad Rahwan (2023). Machine Culture. In Nature Human Behaviour, 7 (11).

Alberto Acerbi, Joseph Stubbersfield (2023). Large language models show human-like content biases in transmission chain experiments. In Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences USA, 120 (44), e2313790120.

Mason Youngblood, Joseph Stubbersfield, Olivier Morin, Ryan Glassman, Alberto Acerbi (2023). Negativity bias in the spread of voter fraud conspiracy theory tweets during the 2020 US election. In Humanities and Social Sciences Communications, 10, 573.

Alberto Acerbi, Sacco Pier Luigi (2023). Self-Interest, prosociality, and the moral cognition of markets: A comparative analysis of the Theory of Moral Sentiments and the Wealth of Nations. In Rationality and Society, 35 (4).

Alberto Acerbi, John Burns, Unal Cabuk, Jakub Kryczka, Bethany Trapp, John Joseph Valletta, Alex Mesoudi (2023). Sentiment analysis of the Twitter response to Netflix's Our Planet documentary. In Conservation Biology, e14060.

Alberto Acerbi (2023). Digital Culture. In Tehrani, J. et al. (Eds.), The Oxford Handbook of Cultural Evolution, Oxford University Press, pp. C41S1 - C41S10.

Sacha Altay, Manon Berriche, Alberto Acerbi (2023). Misinformation on Misinformation: Conceptual and Methodological Challenges. In Social Media + Society, 9 (1).

Alberto Acerbi, William Daniel Snyder, Claudio Tennie (2022). The method of exclusion (still) cannot identify specific mechanisms of cultural inheritance. In Scientific Reports, 12.

Alberto Acerbi, Sacco Pier Luigi (2022). The self-control vs. self-indulgence dilemma. A culturomic analysis of 20th century trends. In Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Economics, 101.

Alberto Acerbi, Alex Mesoudi, Marco Smolla (2022). Individual-based models of cultural evolution. A step-by-step guide using R. New York, Routledge.

Alberto Acerbi (2022). From storytelling to Facebook. Content biases when retelling or sharing a story. In Human Nature, 33 (2).

Alberto Acerbi, Sacha Altay, Hugo Mercier (2022). Research note: Fighting misinformation or fighting for information?. In Harvard Kennedy School Misinformation Review, 1 (3).

Alberto Acerbi, Mathieu Charbonneau, Helena Miton, Thom Scott-Phillips (2021). Culture without copying or selection. In Evolutionary Human Sciences, e50 (3), 1 – 17.

Alberto Acerbi (2021). Review of Joseph Henrich, The Weirdest People in the World. In Evolutionary Studies in Imaginative Culture, 5 (1).

Olivier Morin, Pierre Olivier Jacquet, Krist Vaesen, Alberto Acerbi (2021). Social information use and social information waste. In Philosophical Transactions of Royal Society B, 376, 20200052.

Fredrik Jansson, Elliot Aguilar, Alberto Acerbi, Magnus Enquist (2021). Modelling cultural systems and selective filters. In Philosophical Transactions of Royal Society B, 376, 20200045.

Manvir Singh, Alberto Acerbi, Christine A. Caldwell, Étienne Danchin, Guillaume Isabel, Lucas Molleman, Thom Scott-Phillips, Monica Tamariz, Pieter Van Den Berg, Edwin J. C. Van Leeuwen, Maxime Derex (2021). Beyond social learning. In Philosophical Transactions of Royal Society B, 376, 20200050.

Federico Pianzola, Alberto Acerbi, Simone Rebora (2020). Cultural Accumulation and Improvement in Online Fan Fiction. In Karsdorp, F. et al. (Eds.), Proceedings of the Workshop on Computational Humanities Research, CEUR-WS, pp. 2 - 11.

Alberto Acerbi, Daphne Kerhoas, Amanda Webber, Grainne McCabe, Russell Mittermeier, Christoph Schwitzer (2020). The impact of the “World’s 25 Most Endangered Primates” list on scientific publications and media. In Journal for Nature Conservation, 54, 125794.

Alberto Acerbi (2019). Cultural evolution in the digital age. Oxford University Press.

Charlotte Brand, Alberto Acerbi, Alex Mesoudi (2019). Cultural evolution of emotional expression in 50 years of song lyrics. In Evolutionary Human Sciences, 1, e11.

Olivier Morin, Alberto Acerbi, Oleg Sobchuk (2019). Why people die in novels: Testing the ordeal simulation hypothesis. In Palgrave Communications, 5, 62.

Alberto Acerbi (2019). Cognitive attraction and online misinformation. In Palgrave Communications, 5, 15.

Thomas J. H. Morgan, Alberto Acerbi, Edwin J. C. Van Leeuwen (2019). Copy-the-majority of instances or individuals? Two approaches to the majority and their consequences for conformist decision-making. In PLOS ONE, 14(1), e0210748.

Alberto Acerbi, Jamshid J. Tehrani (2018). Did Einstein really say that? Testing content versus context in the cultural selection of quotations. In Journal of Cognition and Culture, 18 (3-4), 293-311.

Alberto Acerbi, Edwin J. C. Van Leeuwen, Daniel B. M. Haun, Claudio Tennie (2018). Reply to ‘Sigmoidal Acquisition Curves are Good Indicators of Conformist Transmission’. In Scientific Reports, 8, 14016.

Alberto Acerbi, Pier Luigi Sacco (2018). Folk-economic beliefs as “evidential fiction”: Putting the economic public discourse back on track. In Behavioral and Brain Sciences, 41, e159.

Damian Ruck, R. Alexander Bentley, Alberto Acerbi, Philip Garnett, Daniel J. Hruschka (2017). Role of Neutral evolution in word turnover during centuries of English word popularity. In Advances in Complex Systems, 20 (6-7), 1750012.

Alberto Acerbi, Jeremy Kendal, Jamshid J. Tehrani (2017). Cultural complexity and demography: the case of folktales. In Evolution and Human Behavior, 38 (4), 474-480.

Olivier Morin, Alberto Acerbi (2017). Birth of the cool: a two-centuries decline in emotional expression in Anglophone fiction. In Cognition and Emotion, 31 (8), 1663-1675.

Alberto Acerbi (2017). Review of Tim Lewens, Cultural Evolution: Conceptual Challenges. In Philosophy of Science, 84 (1).

Alberto Acerbi (2016). A cultural evolution approach to digital media. In Frontiers in Human Neuroscience, 10, 636.

Edwin J. C. Van Leeuwen, Alberto Acerbi, Rachel L. Kendal, Claudio Tennie, Daniel B. M. Haun (2016). A reappreciation of “conformity”. In Animal Behaviour, 122, e5-e10.

Alberto Acerbi, Edwin J. C. Van Leeuwen, Daniel B. M. Haun, Claudio Tennie (2016). Conformity cannot be identified based on population-level signatures. In Scientific Reports, 6, 36086.

Alberto Acerbi, Claudio Tennie, Alex Mesoudi (2016). Social learning solves the problem of narrow-peaked search landscapes: experimental evidence in humans. In Royal Society Open Science, 3(9), 160215.

Alberto Acerbi, Claudio Tennie (2016). The role of redundant information in cultural transmission and cultural stabilization. In Journal of Comparative Psychology, 130(1), 62-70.

Francesco Pugliese, Alberto Acerbi, Davide Marocco (2015). Emergence of Leadership in a Group of Autonomous Robots. In PLOS ONE, 10(9), e0137234.

Alberto Acerbi, Alex Mesoudi (2015). If we are all cultural Darwinians what’s the fuss about? Clarifying recent disagreements in the field of cultural evolution. In Biology & Philosophy, 30(4), 481-503.

Stefano Ghirlanda, Alberto Acerbi, Harold Herzog (2014). Dog Movies Stars and Dog Breed Popularity: A Case Study in Media Influence on Choice. In PLOS ONE, 9(9), e106565.

Alberto Acerbi, R. Alexander Bentley (2014). Biases in cultural transmission shape the turnover of popular traits. In Evolution and Human Behavior, 35(3), 228 – 236.

R. Alexander Bentley, Alberto Acerbi, Paul Ormerod, Vasileios Lampos (2014). Books average previous decade of economic misery. In PLOS ONE, 9(1), e83147.

Alberto Acerbi, Stefano Ghirlanda, Magnus Enquist (2014). Regulatory traits: Cultural Influences on Cultural Evolution. In Cagnoni, S. et al. (Eds.), Evolution, Complexity, and Artificial Life, Springer, pp. 135 – 147.

Alberto Acerbi, Vasileios Lampos, R. Alexander Bentley (2013). Robustness of emotion extraction from 20th century English books. In IEEE BigData 2013 Proceedings, pp. 1 – 8.

Stefano Ghirlanda, Alberto Acerbi, Harold Herzog, James A. Serpell (2013). Fashion vs. Function in Cultural Evolution: The Case of Dog Breed Popularity. In PLOS ONE, 8(9), e74770.

Alberto Acerbi, Vasileios Lampos, Philip Garnett, R. Alexander Bentley (2013). The expression of emotions in 20th century books. In PLOS ONE, 8(3), e59030.

Alberto Acerbi, Stefano Ghirlanda, Magnus Enquist (2012). Old and Young Individuals’ Role in Cultural Change. In Journal of Artificial Societies and Social Simulations, 15 (4).

Francesco Pugliese, Alberto Acerbi, Orazio Miglino, Davide Marocco (2012). Emergence of Leadership in a Group of Autonomous Robots. In Proceedings of the Post-Graduate Conference on Robotics and Development of Cognition, pp. 36 – 39.

Alberto Acerbi, Pierre O. Jacquet, Claudio Tennie (2012). Behavioral constraints and the evolution of faithful social learning. In Current Zoology, 58 (2), pp. 307 – 318.

Alberto Acerbi, Stefano Ghirlanda, Magnus Enquist (2012). The Logic of Fashion Cycles. In PLOS ONE, 7(3), e32541.

Alberto Acerbi, Stefano Ghirlanda, Magnus Enquist (2012). Regulatory Traits in Cultural Evolution. In Cagnoni, S. et al. (Eds.), Proceedings of the Italian Workshop on Artificial Life and Evolutionary Computation, University of Parma, pp. 1 – 9.

Alberto Acerbi, Claudio Tennie, Charles L. Nunn (2011). Modeling imitation and emulation in constrained search spaces. In Learning & Behavior, 39 (2), pp. 104 – 114.

Alberto Acerbi, Charles L. Nunn (2011). Predation and the phasing of sleep: an evolutionary individual-based model. In Animal Behaviour, 81 (4), pp. 801 – 811.

Stefano Ghirlanda, Alberto Acerbi, Magnus Enquist, Mayuko Makamaru (2010). The Sometimes Evitable Route to Conservatism and Persuasiveness. A Reply to Xue and Costopoulos. In Current Anthropology, 51 (2), pp. 269 – 270.

Alessandro Lutri, Alberto Acerbi, Sabrina Tonutti (2009). Umano troppo umano. Riflessioni sull’opposizione natura/cultura in antropologia. Firenze, SEID.

Alberto Acerbi, Magnus Enquist, Stefano Ghirlanda (2009). Cultural evolution and individual development of openness and conservatism. In Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, USA, 106 (45), pp. 18931 – 18935.

Alberto Acerbi, Davide Marocco (2009). Orienting learning by exploiting sociality: an evolutionary robotics simulations. In IJCNN 2009 Conference Proceedings, Piscataway, NJ, IEEE Press, pp. 20 – 27.

Alberto Acerbi (2009). Naturalmente differenti. Spiegazioni naturalistiche e variabilità culturale. In Lutri A. et al. (Eds.), Umano troppo umano. Riflessioni sull’opposizione natura/cultura in antropologia, Firenze, SEID, pp. 1 – 1.

Alberto Acerbi (2009). Modelli evoluzionistici della cultura. In Rivista Italiana di Filosofia del Linguaggio, 0, pp. 2 – 19.

Alberto Acerbi, Davide Marocco (2008). Trasmissione sociale di comportamenti in una popolazione di robot autonomi. In Sistemi Intelligenti, 20 (2), pp. 259 – 247.

Alberto Acerbi, Davide Marocco, Paul Vogt (2008). Social learning in embodied agents. In Connection Science, 20 (2-3), pp. 69 – 72.

Alberto Acerbi, Patrick McNamara, Charles L. Nunn (2008). To sleep or not to sleep: the ecology of sleep in artificial organisms. In BMC Ecology, 6 (10), pp. 1 – 12.

Alberto Acerbi (2008). Le trasmissioni della cultura. In Lutri A. (Ed.), Modelli della mente e processi di pensiero: il dibattito antropologico contemporaneo, Catania, ED.IT, pp. 139 – 157.

Alberto Acerbi (2007). La natura della cultura. Modelli simulativi dell'apprendimento sociale. PhD Thesis.

Alberto Acerbi, Domenico Parisi (2007). The evolution of pain. In Almeida e Costa, F. et al. (Eds.), Advances in Artificial Life. Proceedings of ECAL 2007, Berlin, Springer, 816 – 824.

Alberto Acerbi, Davide Marocco, Stefano Nolfi (2007). Social Facilitation on the Development of Foraging Behaviors in a Population of Autonomous Robots. In Almeida e Costa, F. et al. (Eds.), Advances in Artificial Life. Proceedings of ECAL 2007, Berlin, Springer, pp. 625 – 634.

Alberto Acerbi, Stefano Nolfi (2007). Social Learning and Cultural Evolution in Embodied and Situated Agents. In Proceedings of the First IEEE Symposium on Artificial Life, IEEE Press, Piscataway, NJ, pp. 333 – 340.

Davide Marocco, Alberto Acerbi (2007). Adaptation and Social Facilitation in a Population of Autonomous Robots. In Berthouze, L. et al. (Eds.), Proceedings of the 7th International Conference on Epigenetic Robotics, Lund, LUCS, pp. 85 – 91.

Alberto Acerbi, Domenico Parisi (2006). Cultural transmission between and within generations. In Journal of Artificial Societies and Social Simulations, 9 (1).

Alberto Acerbi, Stefano Nolfi (2006). Trasmissibilità culturale di tratti discreti e continui. In Greco A. et al. (Eds.), Scienze cognitive e robotica: Atti del Terzo Convegno Nazionale AISC, Genova, Erga Edizioni, pp. 159 – 164.

Alberto Acerbi (2006). Antropologia cognitiva e modularità della mente: il caso della folkbiology. In Ferretti F., Marraffa M. (Eds.), L’architettura della mente: saggi sulla modularità, Catanzaro, Abramo Editore, pp. 189 – 212.

Alberto Acerbi (2005). Antropologia cognitiva: uno stato dell'arte. In Sistemi Intelligenti, 17 (3), pp. 469 – 48.

Alberto Acerbi (2005). La mente nella cultura: cognizione ed analisi dei fatti culturali. In XXIV Annali della Facoltà di Lettere e filosofia dell’Università di Siena, pp. 207 – 230.

Alberto Acerbi (2005). Esiste una folkanthropology? E, se esiste, a chi interessa?. In Solinas P. G. (Ed.) Memorie, Relazioni, Senso Comune, Dipartimento di Filosofia e Scienze Sociali, Università di Siena, pp. 85 – 94.