Matthias Allritz
Studies great ape cognition and behavior at Leipzig Zoo.
Themes: metacognition, communication, spatial cognition.
ManyPrimates 3 - Inference by exclusion.
- Reposted by Matthias AllritzOur new paper on overcoming the ‘dyadic default’ is out now in Child Development Perspectives! @patkanngiesser.bsky.social academic.oup.com/cdpers/advan...
- Reposted by Matthias AllritzExcited to share this work done with @alex-primate.bsky.social and Daniel Haun @mpi-eva-leipzig.bsky.social (the first publication from my PhD!), where we found that chimpanzees sustained a collective resource for longer in groups of four compared to dyads rdcu.be/e0qPR
- Reposted by Matthias AllritzNew paper out👂📢🐒! We highlight the remarkable expertise of local field assistants at BCFS (Uganda) in interpreting chimpanzee pant-hoot calls—identifying who is calling, their age, sex, and context—revealing scientific knowledge built through years of experience. doi.org/10.1098/rspb...
- Reposted by Matthias AllritzPeer Review is broken because a generation of Editors were trained that peer review is sacrosanct. Thus we have Editors who are clerks, sending and re-sending manuscripts to reviewers until they are happy. That's not the job. Be an Editor, not a clerk. Use your skill and judgement. Make decisions.
- Reposted by Matthias AllritzFully funded PhD project available at Nottingham Trent University. Linked to a BBSRC funded grant, this project will investigate how primates perceive and respond to infants, combining cutting-edge cognitive testing with behavioural data. See 🧵
- Reposted by Matthias AllritzComparative Thanatology Highlights — 2025 Edition. See the thread below for this year’s standout publications. #comparativethanatology
- Reposted by Matthias AllritzI think this post nails the actual problem, for researchers at least—AI hallucinations would simply not be a problem in academic work if we’d not normalized citation-as-signaling rather than actual engagement—you can only cite a fake paper if you’re not in the habit of reading the papers you cite
- Reposted by Matthias AllritzNew #openaccess paper out now looking at social presence effects during cognitive testing with #chimpanzees, with @aurelfrick.bsky.social and Amanda Seed! This is an important finding for zoo-based projects where visitors can watch and learn about our research. Read more here 👇
- Our paper (with @emmasmcewen.bsky.social and Amanda Seed) on the effects of visitor presence on chimpanzees’ working memory is out. This research was supported by a @leverhulme.ac.uk Early Career Fellowship and could not have been done without the help of @edinburghzoo.bsky.social staff!
- Reposted by Matthias AllritzOur paper (with @emmasmcewen.bsky.social and Amanda Seed) on the effects of visitor presence on chimpanzees’ working memory is out. This research was supported by a @leverhulme.ac.uk Early Career Fellowship and could not have been done without the help of @edinburghzoo.bsky.social staff!
- Reposted by Matthias AllritzDiederik Stapel was a massive watershed moment in psychology. However, he was -- and let's be slightly glib here -- some guy from The Netherlands who wrote social psychology papers. The full accounting of the Eysenck case is approx, at minimum, TWO STAPELS. retractionwatch.com/2025/12/03/n...
- Reposted by Matthias AllritzI am pleased to announce that from Jan 1 2026 I take over as Editor-in-Chief of the journal Biological Theory. My first act, with the support of the editorial team, is to bring the journal to BlueSky from X. Please follow us @biologicaltheory.bsky.social. We will be posting about all our articles.
- Reposted by Matthias Allritz🔔 New paper out on Social evaluation of skill and competence in primates @mariehirel.bsky.social, @williamohearn.bsky.social and @julxf.bsky.social made this happen www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...
- Reposted by Matthias Allritz🚨Job Alert plz RT! Johns Hopkins Psych & Brain Sciences is looking for a new colleague using behavioral or computational approaches to study cognition! We are excited about many areas of (esp higher) cognition in human adults, children, or nonhuman animals Open-rank apply.interfolio.com/178146
- Reposted by Matthias AllritzCome and do a PhD on the development of social cognition across diverse cultures! The successful candidate would be fully funded and have the opportunity to travel to Kenya for data collection. Please contact me if interested. eur03.safelinks.protection.outlook.com?url=https%3A...
- Reposted by Matthias AllritzAre you interested in doing a PhD about what humans infer about animal minds? Check out this opportunity @northumbriapsy.bsky.social with me, @mdconstable.bsky.social and Lee Shepherd! Deadline 23 Jan 2026 www.findaphd.com/phds/project...
- Reposted by Matthias AllritzThere's still time left to apply to join us for the 2026 field season! Deadline: Dec 1 👇🏝️🏕️📊👥
- #CrowCoG is hiring🚨MULTIPLE PAID RESEARCH ASSISTANT POSITIONS 🚨for our 2026 field season (May - Sep)! Field and aviary-based positions - come help us study the remarkable tool-making New Caledonian crows. Apply here: bit.ly/3WlxxHE
- Reposted by Matthias AllritzCome and join our lab! We have TWO fully funded PhD positions AND a paid field assistant opportunity in our Behavioral Ecology group @uni-goettingen.de & @primatenzentrum.bsky.social. Projects will be part of @rtg2906-curiosity.bsky.social & @sfb1528.bsky.social!! Details in thread. Please re-post!
- Reposted by Matthias AllritzNew paper, led by our former PhD student Victoria Lee. Wild jackdaws recognise the contact calls of their mate: link.springer.com/article/10.1... @uniexecec.bsky.social @guillmcivor.bsky.social
- Reposted by Matthias AllritzI used to enjoy impressing people by identifying birds from a faint call in a wood. Now, thanks to the phenomenal success of the Merlin app, many people are telling me about the birds they have heard. Interesting to read the story of the Merlin app here - www.birds.cornell.edu/home/the-mag...
- Reposted by Matthias Allritz📢Two fully-funded #PhD opportunities to work with us: Topic: Social monitoring & manipulation UK-domiciled black-heritage scheme: tinyurl.com/aja54nr6 NERC DLTP: tinyurl.com/4jfy47pp Cosupervisors: #PatrickKennedy @ljnbrent.bsky.social @bristolbiosci.bsky.social #bioacoustics #mammals #fieldwork
- Reposted by Matthias Allritz🚨 Come join the fantastic long-tailed tit team 🚨 🐦We are recruiting a field technician to collect behavioural data on a long-term studied population of wild long-tailed tits (passerine birds). 🪶20 months contract in Sheffield, UK. 🌲Deadline: 23/11/2025. jobsite.sheffield.ac.uk/job/Technici...
- Reposted by Matthias Allritz⚠️ New Postdoc or PhD position open (3 years+) ⚠️ 🚩Developmental milestones across cultures 🌍 Based @leuphana.bsky.social , in collaboration with @mpi-eva-leipzig.bsky.social Please share/apply! Link: tinyurl.com/58dsn43u
- Reposted by Matthias AllritzPhD scholarship alert! Are you interested in cognitive evolution? Do you want to know how development influences cognitive traits? Do you love hanging out with birds in the forest? If the answer to these questions is yes, please apply to work with us! 1/2 🧪 www.wgtn.ac.nz/scholarships...
- Reposted by Matthias AllritzFully funded #PhDposition in Comparative Cultural Psychology @mpi-eva-leipzig.bsky.social. We will use touchscreen experiments & eyetracking to study mental simulations in nonhuman apes & human children across different cultures. All info here: www.eva.mpg.de/career/posit... Please share / apply!🙏
- Reposted by Matthias AllritzHappened to me: anonymous reviewer requested (the only comment!) some not-directly-relevant refs co-authored by ... the editor. The same was visible in several *publicly available* anonymous reviews under the same editor. After raising this with the publisher's ethics team the editor lost the gig.
- Reposted by Matthias Allritz[This post could not be retrieved]
- Reposted by Matthias Allritz#PhD position! Comparing #foraging and #cognition in #hummingbirds and #bumblebees Fieldwork in the Canadian Rockies, lab experiments at @newcastleuni.bsky.social, and ecological modelling at @uniofstandrews.bsky.social Details (including my email) here: iapetus.ac.uk/studentships...
- Reposted by Matthias AllritzMSc internship / Field Assistant position available in our group! Impact of urbanisation on avian reproduction 🐦🏙️ 🌳 Deadline: 7 Nov 2025 All details 👉 www.uni-bielefeld.de/fakultaeten/... Please share it around!
- Reposted by Matthias AllritzWe have an open position for a PhD student or postdoc in our group (iSearch Lab with Azzurra Ruggeri at TU Munich): portal.mytum.de/jobs/wissens... Application deadline is Nov 23, start date early next year.
- Reposted by Matthias AllritzCordyceps—the fungus featured in The Last of Us—is actually real😱 and oh so spooky!🍄 Shout out to @blackforager.bsky.social for knowing all the fungi facts and keeping us safe😂 What’s your favorite spooky animal (or fungi)? #cordyceps #thelastofus #fungi #zombieantfungus #scicomm
- Reposted by Matthias AllritzThe deadline for Evolang 2026, the International Conference on the Evolution of Language, has been extended to November 3rd. Do consider submitting, it's my favourite conference and will take place in Plovdiv, Bulgaria, the age-old "city of the seven hills"! #language #linguistics
- Reposted by Matthias Allritz#CrowCoG is hiring🚨MULTIPLE PAID RESEARCH ASSISTANT POSITIONS 🚨for our 2026 field season (May - Sep)! Field and aviary-based positions - come help us study the remarkable tool-making New Caledonian crows. Apply here: bit.ly/3WlxxHE
- Reposted by Matthias AllritzTOP AI IN EDUCATION FAILS ... so far:
- Reposted by Matthias AllritzWe’re looking for a motivated & curious researcher to join our team as a PhD candidate! You’ll work with Prof. Bridget Waller, Dr. Annika Bremhorst, & me at the Dog Cognition Centre, UoP. Are you fascinated by the dog–human bond & dog-human communication? 🐶 Interested? Get in touch with me.
- Reposted by Matthias Allritz[This post could not be retrieved]
- Reposted by Matthias AllritzAbstract submission for #CO32026 is now open, join us next April in Montreal 🎉🍁🦫 Submit for a symposium by November 14th, or for an individual talk or poster by December 12th. Information on the conference and a link to the member portal where you can submit: comparativecognition.org/conference.php
- Reposted by Matthias AllritzSocial relationships are powerful predictors of fitness across social animals. But *why*? In our new @cp-trendsecolevo.bsky.social paper, we outline testable predictions for why relationship quality and quantity adaptively vary across socio-ecological contexts. tinyurl.com/55dnkeh7
- Reposted by Matthias Allritz🐦 Exciting news! Our new paper is out in PLOS Biology: “A large-scale study across the avian clade identifies ecological drivers of neophobia.” Led by the #ManyBirds Project - 129 researchers, 82 institutions, 24 countries 🌍 🔗 journals.plos.org/plosbiology/... @themanybirds.bsky.social
- Reposted by Matthias AllritzThe following universities are delaying implementing a pay rise: Dundee Kent Brunel Coventry Swansea The following have yet to make a decision on the matter: Aberdeen Bangor Bournemouth Bradford Buckingham Cumbria Lincoln Plymouth Marjon #UKHE
- Reposted by Matthias Allritz⭐PhD position available!⭐ Come join us @imprs-qbee.bsky.social to study communication and collective behavior in animal groups! We're looking for someone excited to use computational approaches to tackle biological questions, using our full-group tracking datasets imprs-qbee.mpg.de/121465/analy...
- Reposted by Matthias AllritzAnnouncing the new Animal History Group seminar series for the 2025-26 academic year! - All seminars held online at 8pm UK time. 🎉 The details are here: animalhistorygroup.org/seminar-seri... And here is a list for your calendar! 🧵💚
- Reposted by Matthias AllritzOpenAI's VP for education recently said the company wanted to become "core infrastructure" for schools and universities. Any infrastructure, though, always depends on habituating users to its technical affordances - so I've been trying to track how it's doing that 🧵 www.nytimes.com/2025/06/07/t...
- Reposted by Matthias AllritzJob Alert! Come and join our team at our field site CRP Simenti in Senegal. Julia Fischer @julxf.bsky.social (@primatenzentrum.bsky.social) is recruiting a #Research_Manager. Work with the wonderful lovely Guinea baboons and manage our long-term data collection. 👉 www.dpz.eu/karriere/ste...
- Reposted by Matthias AllritzHeartening to see so many students sign our open letter openletter.earth/open-letter-...
- Reposted by Matthias Allritz**PhD POSITIONS** I am recruiting 1-2 PhD students to work on sociality and cognition in Monk Parakeets, starting Fall 2026. Full ad is here: hobsonresearch.com/index.php/20... (please help spread the word!)
- Reposted by Matthias AllritzFollowing the news of ChatGPT Edu at Oxford, I woke up to the news of free access to Google AI Pro for our students. Funny how there's never any faculty input sought about the challenges of teaching (and education) when this is being actively promoted top down.
- Reposted by Matthias AllritzPostDoc job requirements are getting truly ridiculous. What's the rejection letter for this one going to look like? ... "sorry we had to reject your application because both your parents were human"
- Reposted by Matthias AllritzPlease share!🙏 🚨 PhD Oportunity in Avian Behavioural Ecology in Spain The BirdBond Project (MNCN & IREC) studies how pair bonds form, change & affect reproduction/survival in the spotless starling 🐦
- Reposted by Matthias AllritzTiny dinosaur in the form of a long-tailed tit early in the blueish morning #photography #birds
- Reposted by Matthias AllritzThe MIT Consciousness Club will have a Zoom option for those who would like to join online. First session Friday, Sept 19, 12pm-1:30pm. For more, see: sites.google.com/view/mit-con.... You can register to the email list here: docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1F....
