Michael Pleyer

@symbolicstorage

nerd. cognitive/evolutionary linguist. Assistant Prof at Center for Language Evolution Studies, Nicolaus Copernicus University in Toruń, Poland (he/him) www.michaelpleyer.com @symbolicstorage@scholar.social @symbolicstorage

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Michael Pleyer@symbolicstorage· 23d

Things That Are Awesome About Poland: Going to the Cinema! - I love Cinema City, tickets are cheap (I paid 23.10 zł - around 5,30€ to see the Odyssee on Kinowa Środa/Cinema Wednesday - And they show lots of movies in the original with Polish subtitles

Picture of the Booking Screen for The Odyssey

Michael Pleyer@symbolicstorage· 25d

Don't tell me how to live my life, Duolingo #language #linguistics

Translate this sentence: wino nie jest kolacja. Wine is not dinner

Michael Pleyer@symbolicstorage· 27d

- Mobile data plans give you a lot more data for less money. I get 40 GB for 35 PLN (~8€) + there are often promotions like this one giving me 200 additional GB per month for free. - In Germany, 14% of the country is a grey spot where some networks don't work, and I never had that issue in Poland.

My current internet package with 500 GB mobile data

Michael Pleyer@symbolicstorage· 27d

Things That Are Awesome About Poland: Fast and Cheap Internet and Mobile Data Fibre is everywhere here and it is cheap. - 83% of Polish households have access to fibre. In Germany it is 48.8%, and only half of those actually use fibre connections. - Screenshot is my WiFi in my flat in Toruń.

Screenshot of a WiFi speed test at my flat showing 635 Mbps

Michael Pleyer@symbolicstorage· Jul 13

Things That are Awesome About Poland: Żabka 🐸 . Żabka ("little frog") is a convenience store chain and it is everywhere (There are about 12,500 of them across Poland and they open about five new stores PER DAY).

Michael Pleyer@symbolicstorage· Jul 8

Out now in #OpenAccess in Journal of #Language Evolution: The career of metaphor in pantomime: a motion-capture study of the conventionalization of metaphor. This is the final publication coming out of my POLONEZ BIS fellowship co-funded by the European Commission & @ncn.gov.pl

Michael Pleyer@symbolicstorage· Jul 7

Things that are awesome about Poland: Allegro and Paczkomat parcel lockers everywhere. Allegro is the largest e-commerce online retail platform in Poland (10x bigger than Amazon) and you can basically get everything there and can send it to a Paczkomat of your choice, often with next day delivery.

Holding up a parcel in front of a parcel locker

Michael Pleyer@symbolicstorage· Jul 6

I did an interview with the NCU Toruń Excellence Initiative Podcast on #language acquisition, language evolution, cognition and all interesting things #linguistics! I had a lot of fun and I only had a few "oh no why did I say that?" Moments listening to it! open.spotify.com/episode/6WoM...

The podcast thumbnail with a picture of me

Michael Pleyer@symbolicstorage· Jun 28

I have another entry out in the International Encyclopedia of #Language and #Linguistics that I am super happy about! "Language Evolution and Social Networks" (with @limorraviv.bsky.social) doi.org/10.1016/B978...

the title page Key Points
• Languages adapt to features of social network structure, such as population size, network connectivity and heterogeneity.
• Network structure in ﬂ uences linguistic variability, convergence and rate of change of languages.
• The structure, systematicity and transparency of linguistic systems is also impacted by social network properties.
• Observational, experimental and computational approaches offer important insights into the relationship of language
evolution and social networks.
Abstract
Languages are complex adaptive systems that culturally evolve under different pressures and conditions. Social structure, and
in particular population size, network connectivity, and heterogeneity, play an important role in shaping human language
across multiple levels of analysis. These factors impact evolutionary and communicative dynamics such as the degree of
variability versus uniformity in the linguistic community, and the rate at which innovations spread and languages change.
They also in ﬂ uence the very structure of languages by shaping the degree of systematicity and transparency of grammars.
Synthesizing observational, experimental, and computational approaches, we shed light on the complex relationship
between language evolution and network structure.

Michael Pleyer@symbolicstorage· Jun 27

Very happy that this is now officially out in the International Encyclopedia of #Language and #Linguistics! "Animal Cognition and Language Evolution" (with @elizabethqingzhang.bsky.social). doi.org/10.1016/B978...

The title page

Key Points
• The evolution of human language is underpinned by domain-general cognitive mechanisms shared broadly across species.
• Category learning and statistical learning, essential to human linguistic abilities, are also demonstrated widely in
nonhuman animals.
• Comparative research on memory, particularly long-term and working memory, suggests critical evolutionary continuities
and distinctions relevant to language evolution.
• Investigating animal cognition beyond communication systems provides essential insights into the evolutionary founda-
tion of the human language-ready brain.
Abstract
Animal cognition has important implications for the study of language evolution. Language is supported by domain-general
cognitive mechanisms such as category learning, statistical learning, memory, and relational reasoning. These foundational
cognitive abilities predate language and are found across diverse species, indicating evolutionary continuity. Evidence from
nonhuman animals shows analogous cognitive and neural mechanisms supporting these abilities, reinforcing their role in
language readiness. Comparative psychology highlights the evolutionary continuity of these shared cognitive capacities
which underlie language in humans.

Michael Pleyer@symbolicstorage· Jun 26

Super honoured to have received the Award of the Rector of Nicolaus Copernicus University in Toruń for Individual Scientific Achievements in 2025 (First Degree)!

A photo of me at the award ceremony with NCU rector Andrzej Tretyn (to my left) and Vice Rector for Research Adam Kola (to my right).

Michael Pleyer@symbolicstorage· Jun 5

Did they make extensions in line with the predictions of conceptual metaphor theory? In some cases yes! Sometimes it was less straightforward. Ones that were particularly salient were SAD IS DOWN and ANGER IS FIRE, HAPPY IS UP. 11/

A correlation matrix showing which extensions were made by participants

Michael Pleyer@symbolicstorage· Jun 5

After having learned the "alien language" they had to communicate with an alien about novel concepts, for which they had no words. 10/

Michael Pleyer@symbolicstorage· Jun 5

Participants first learned "alien language words" for concrete concepts, e.g. up, down, fire. 9/

Michael Pleyer@symbolicstorage· Jun 5

Smith et al. showed that when participants had first agreed on colour associations of colourless geometric shapes, they could successfully use these associations to use the same shapes to communicate about objects (e.g. the shape that had come to mean yellow to mean banana) 6/

Michael Pleyer@symbolicstorage· Jun 5

But how does polysemy emerge? From historical linguistics we know that one key process is metaphor. For example speaking of someone with a "sunny personality" is due to the conceptual metaphor Happiness is Light. 3/

Michael Pleyer@symbolicstorage· Jun 5

Polysemy, when words have multiple related meanings, is ubiquitous in language. It is one of the communicative strategies that over time have enabled the vast expressiveness of human language. 2/

Meme from Miss Congeniality. Q: "Describe your perfect date." A: "That's a tough one. I'd have to say April 25th, because it's not too hot, not too cold. All you need is a light jacket."

Michael Pleyer@symbolicstorage· Jun 5

🚨 New Publication Alert!🚨 Polysemy and metaphorical extension in an artificial language learning experiment (w/ @elizabethqingzhang.bsky.social & Marek Placiński). Out now in #OpenAcess in Language and Cognition. 🧵1/ #language #linguistics doi.org/10.1017/lang...

Michael Pleyer@symbolicstorage· Apr 24

More universities should have university-themed macarons!

Michael Pleyer@symbolicstorage· Apr 24

Proceedings of the AI in Language Evolution workshop at Evolang XVI, ed. by Bart de Boer, are now online (pdf) #language #linguistics ai.vub.ac.be/~bart/AI_in_...

Michael Pleyer@symbolicstorage· Apr 17

And the award for best paper title and abstract in 2026 so far goes to @futrell.bsky.social & @kmahowald.bsky.social and their response to commentaries in Behavioral and Brain Sciences arxiv.org/pdf/2604.09501

You Can’t Fight in Here! This is BBS!
This is an accepted response to commentaries on Futrell and Mahowald’s Behavioral and Brain Sciences
target article “How Linguistics Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Language Models.”
Richard Futrell and Kyle Mahowald1
April 1, 2026
Richard Futrell
University of California Irvine, USA rfutrell@uci.edu
Kyle Mahowald
The University of Texas at Austin, USA kyle@utexas.edu
Abstract
Norm, the formal theoretical linguist, and Claudette, the computational language scientist, have a lovely time
discussing whether modern language models can inform important questions in the language sciences. Just as
they are about to part ways until they meet again, 25 of their closest friends show up—from linguistics,
neuroscience, cognitive science, psychology, philosophy, and computer science. We use this discussion to
highlight what we see as some common underlying issues: the String Statistics Strawman (the mistaken idea that
LMs can’t be linguistically competent or interesting because they, like their Markov model predecessors, are
statistical models that learn from strings) and the As Good As it Gets Assumption (the idea that LM research as it
stands in 2026 is the limit of what it can tell us about linguistics). We clarify the role of LM-based work for
scientific insights into human language and advocate for a more expansive research program for the language
sciences in the AI age, one that takes on the commentators’ concerns in order to produce a better and more
robust science of both human language and of LMs.
1 Introduction
Our position is: language models do not replace linguistic theo

Michael Pleyer@symbolicstorage· Apr 14

Thanks to @acwiek.bsky.social for capturing me in my element at #EvolangXVI

Michael Pleyer@symbolicstorage· Apr 14

This is work based on our recent paper in @cp-trendscognsci.bsky.social linkinghub.elsevier.com/retrieve/pii/S1364661325002797

Michael Pleyer@symbolicstorage· Apr 14

w/ mperlman.bsky.social, @glupyan.bsky.social Koen de Reus & @limorraviv.bsky.social we presented work on going "Beyond Hockett's Design Features" evolang.org/2026/proceed...

Michael Pleyer@symbolicstorage· Apr 14

Tobias Ungerer, Michael Pleyer, Theresa Matzinger, Stefan Hartmann, Blair C. Armstrong: "The role of social biases in linguistic innovation: An artificial language learning study" evolang.org/2026/proceed...

Michael Pleyer@symbolicstorage· Apr 14

Przemysław Żywiczyński et al. had a talk on "How bodily affordances shape the evolution of a novel communication system: A motion-capture study of pantomime and gesture" evolang.org/2026/proceed...

Michael Pleyer@symbolicstorage· Apr 14

Jonas Nölle & colleagues had a number of other great talks too! "The pan-simian geocentric bias revisited: Novel spatial communication systems show a sagittal egocentric bias" evolang.org/2026/proceed... "Folk dance as an ancient semiotic system and cultural replicator" evolang.org/2026/proceed...

Michael Pleyer@symbolicstorage· Apr 14

Chen Zhou, Przemysław Żywiczyński, Jonas Nölle talked about "A field-based framework to model multimodal value-governed exchange in human social interaction" evolang.org/2026/proceed...

Michael Pleyer@symbolicstorage· Apr 14

Had an amazing time at #EvolangXVI, the 16. International Conference on the Evolution of Language in Plovdiv, Bulgaria! Our lab the Center for Language Evolution Studes at Nicolaus Copernicus University in Toruń was out in full force, a short summary thread of our work 🧵⬇️ #language #linguistics

Michael Pleyer@symbolicstorage· Apr 11

The Hurford Prize is named after the great Jim Hurford, a co-founder of EVOLANG. Jim is retired now and is not active in academia anymore but the prize is a great way to honour his amazing contribution to language evolution research and to spotlight great work by young researchers!