publications

2025

1. Social learning preserves both useful and useless theories by canalizing learners’ exploration

   Maxime Derex, Jean-François Bonnefon, Robert Boyd, and 2 more authors

   Proceedings B, 2025

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2. Studying long-term evolutionary processes over short timescales: Methods in cumulative cultural evolution

   Maxime Derex and Charlotte Brand

   In The Oxford Handbook of Approaches to Language Evolution, 2025

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2024

1. Do institutions evolve like material technologies?

   Catherine Molho, Jorge Peña, Manvir Singh, and 1 more author

   Current Opinion in Psychology, 2024

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2. Network Connectivity And Repeated Interactions In An Information Sharing Dilemma

   Andrea Guido, Maxime Derex, and Rustam Romaniuc

   Annals of Economics and Statistics, 2024

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3. When LLMs Play the Telephone Game: Cumulative Changes and Attractors in Iterated Cultural Transmissions

   Jérémy Perez, Corentin Léger, Grgur Kovač, and 5 more authors

   arXiv preprint arXiv:2407.04503, 2024

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4. Trade-offs, control conditions, and alternative designs in the experimental study of cultural evolution

   Maxime Derex, Pierce Edmiston, Gary Lupyan, and 1 more author

   Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 2024

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2023

1. The Cultural Transmission of Technological Skills

   Maxime Derex and Thomas J. H. Morgan

   In The Oxford Handbook of Cultural Evolution, 2023

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2. Machine culture

   Levin Brinkmann, Fabian Baumann, Jean-François Bonnefon, and 8 more authors

   Nature Human Behaviour, 2023

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2022

1. Human cumulative culture and the exploitation of natural phenomena

   Maxime Derex

   Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B, 2022

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2. Understanding hunter–gatherer cultural evolution needs network thinking

   Javier Fernández-López Pablo, Valéria Romano, Maxime Derex, and 6 more authors

   Trends in Ecology & Evolution, 2022

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2021

1. Beyond social learning

   Manvir Singh, Alberto Acerbi, Christine A Caldwell, and 8 more authors

   Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B, 2021

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2020

1. Cumulative cultural evolution within evolving population structures

   Maxime Derex and Alex Mesoudi

   Trends in Cognitive Sciences, 2020

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2. Technical reasoning alone does not take humans this far

   Maxime Derex and Robert Boyd

   Behavioral and Brain Sciences, 2020

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3. Convergence of knowledge in a stochastic cultural evolution model with population structure, social learning and credibility biases

   Sylvain Billiard, Maxime Derex, Ludovic Maisonneuve, and 1 more author

   Mathematical Models and Methods in Applied Sciences, 2020

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2019

1. Competition for novelty reduces information sampling in a research game-a registered report

   Leonid Tiokhin and Maxime Derex

   Royal Society Open Science, 2019

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2. Causal understanding is not necessary for the improvement of culturally evolving technology

   Maxime Derex, Jean-François Bonnefon, Robert Boyd, and 1 more author

   Nature Human Behaviour, 2019

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2018

1. Divide and conquer: intermediate levels of population fragmentation maximize cultural accumulation

   Maxime Derex, Charles Perreault, and Robert Boyd

   Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences, 2018

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2. Social information can potentiate understanding despite inhibiting cognitive effort

   Maxime Derex and Robert Boyd

   Scientific Reports, 2018

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3. Cumulative improvements in iterated problem solving

   Pierce Edmiston, Maxime Derex, and Gary Lupyan

   In Proceedings of the 40th Annual Meeting of the Cognitive Science Society, 2018

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2016

1. Partial connectivity increases cultural accumulation within groups

   Maxime Derex and Robert Boyd

   Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 2016

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2. Understanding cumulative cultural evolution

   Joseph Henrich, Robert Boyd, Maxime Derex, and 6 more authors

   Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 2016

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2015

1. Social learning and the replication process: an experimental investigation

   Maxime Derex, Romain Feron, Bernard Godelle, and 1 more author

   Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences, 2015

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2. The foundations of the human cultural niche

   Maxime Derex and Robert Boyd

   Nature communications, 2015

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2014

1. How does competition affect the transmission of information?

   Maxime Derex, Bernard Godelle, and Michel Raymond

   Evolution and Human Behavior, 2014

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2. Group size and cultural complexity (Derex et al. reply)

   Maxime Derex, Marie-Pauline Beugin, Bernard Godelle, and 1 more author

   Nature, 2014

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2013

1. Social learners require process information to outperform individual learners

   Maxime Derex, Bernard Godelle, and Michel Raymond

   Evolution, 2013

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2. Experimental evidence for the influence of group size on cultural complexity

   Maxime Derex, Marie-Pauline Beugin, Bernard Godelle, and 1 more author

   Nature, 2013

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2010

1. Support for a role of colour vision in mate choice in the nocturnal European treefrog (Hyla arborea)

   Doris Gomez, Christina Richardson, Thierry Lengagne, and 5 more authors

   Behaviour, 2010

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