Denmark

**Author(s):** Sebire, I; Camargo, C; &lt;br&gt;&lt;br&gt;Introduction: Popular media plays a significant role in shaping and reflecting culture and society. In this paper, we investigate patterns in the use of recurring storytelling devices, i.e. common tropes, in popular media. Examples of tropes include the &quot;mad scientist&quot;, &quot;villain wearing a dark palette&quot;, or even &quot;melancholic song playing during sad moment&quot;. Using a database of media tropes, we compare clusters of tropes with actual genre classifications, and study the differences in media through geography and time. &lt;br&gt;Methods: This study uses a dataset collected from TVTropes, a wiki-format crowdsourced website describing tropes in popular media. We apply approaches from cultural evolution along with data science methods such as topic modelling, sentence embedding, and stochastic block models, to simultaneously cluster tropes and the works they feature in. # &lt;br&gt;Results &amp; Discussion: We show the applicability of the nonparametric stochastic block model-based topic model topSBM to identify a hierarchy of genres and subgenres, as well a hierarchy of storytelling tropes present in the data over time. We end by discussing the strengths and limitations of machine learning in cultural evolution.

Cultural Evolution Society 2022

Genres, subgenres, and storytelling tropes: a data science approach

tropes; cultural analytics; stylometry; genre; topic modelling; natural language processing; data science; network science;

It is my great pleasure and honor to welcome you to the 64th Annual Meeting of the Association for Computational Linguistics (ACL 2026), held in San Diego, California, USA, July 2–7, 2026. ACL 2026 continues our fields tradition of excellence in scholarship, innovation, and inclusivity, and I am deeply grateful to the many volunteers who have worked tirelessly to bring this event to life.

It is exciting to see the many developments in the field reflected at our conference, such as the advancement of large language models (born out of our community) into many application directions. This is not without challenges, partly due to unsolved problems, and partly due to misuse of the technology. All this is reflected well at ACL 2026. The conference also reflects that the field is not only about advancing technology, but also the science of fundamentally understanding language and how it is use by many different speaker communities. 
[Full Message from General Chair Philipp Koehn](https://drive.google.com/file/d/1QiJFOmMjvDgsDo3i1XzlQnImxe3RU_Cy/view?usp=sharing) 
<html><button style="display: inline-flex; align-items: center; justify-content: center; white-space: nowrap; border-radius: 9999px; font-weight: bold; background: #7c3aed; color: white; font-family: 'Space Grotesk', sans-serif; height: 40px; font-size: 16px; padding: 0 20px; border: none; cursor: pointer" onclick="window.open('https://drive.google.com/file/d/1QiJFOmMjvDgsDo3i1XzlQnImxe3RU_Cy/view?usp=sharing')">Conference Handbook</button></html>

To access this event page, you need to log in with the **email address you registered with**. Access credentials will be sent to your email from Underline - subject line "Welcome to ACL 2026". Please be sure to check your spam email folder if you do not see an email confirmation right away.

To access this event page, you are required to register.
Please complete your registration to continue.

We recommend reading [**the registration information**](https://2026.aclweb.org/registration/) first.

Registration Required

ACL 2026

The 64th Annual Meeting of the Association for Computational Linguistics (ACL 2026) will take place in San Diego, California, from July 2 - 7, 2026.

**Author(s):** Sebire, I; Camargo, C; Introduction: Popular media plays a significant role in shaping and reflecting culture and society. In this paper, we investigate patterns in the use of recurring storytelling devices, i.e. common tropes, in popular media. Examples of tropes include the "mad scientist", "villain wearing a dark palette", or even "melancholic song playing during sad moment". Using a database of media tropes, we compare clusters of tropes with actual genre classifications, and study the differences in media through geography and time. Methods: This study uses a dataset collected from TVTropes, a wiki-format crowdsourced website describing tropes in popular media. We apply approaches from cultural evolution along with data science methods such as topic modelling, sentence embedding, and stochastic block models, to simultaneously cluster tropes and the works they feature in. # Results & Discussion: We show the applicability of the nonparametric stochastic block model-based topic model topSBM to identify a hierarchy of genres and subgenres, as well a hierarchy of storytelling tropes present in the data over time. We end by discussing the strengths and limitations of machine learning in cultural evolution.

technical paper

### Welcome to the fourth Cultural Evolution Society Conference, CES2022! 

As last year, Underline will support the online component of the conference. The ongoing COVID-19 pandemic is causing a great deal of uncertainty for all of us. Therefore, we seek to offer a hybrid format that will hopefully allow some folks to travel to Aarhus, others to meet up locally or regionally in CES hub-lets, and other yet to participate online. The field of cultural evolution is growing in size and scope; its theories, methods and applications - both academic and applied - are getting ever more robust. Do join us in what promises to be an exciting exchange of ideas and a celebration of our field.

##### ***For SoMe interaction and live tweeting please tag @CulturalEvolSoc and use #CESconf2022***


#### The CES 2022 local organising committee
* Luseadra Joy McKerracher
* Jesper Sørensen 
* Niels Nørkjær Johannsen 
* Benjamin Grant Purzycki 
* Mette Løvschal 
* Felix Riede
* Iza Romanowska 
* Karsten Olsen

Please click on the button bellow if you want to watch the videos

The field of cultural evolution is growing in size and scope; its theories, methods and applications - both academic and applied - are getting ever more robust. Do join us in what promises to be an exciting exchange of ideas and a celebration of our field.

**Author(s):** Erben Johansson, Niklas; Cronhamn, Sandra Intuitive, iconic associations between sound and meaning in grammaticalized linguistic units are poorly understood. Relatedly, the grammatical classification of nouns cross-linguistically involves semantic categories, e.g. sex, animacy and physical properties, which are usually iconic. This study investigates vocal iconicity in nominal classification systems in half of the world’s language families, consisting of 210 non-agreeing (e.g. classifier) and 151 agreeing (e.g. grammatical gender) systems. By analyzing the semantic scopes of the nominal classes and contained speech sounds through Bayesian mixed models, we assessed which sounds were overrepresented in which class meanings. The strongest overrepresentations were found in shape and size categories, but iconic effects were restricted to non-agreeing systems. Consequently, vocal iconicity is present on a grammatical level cross-linguistically, but only in semantically transparent nominal classes. These results indicate that the fundamental semantic properties of nouns can iconically influence how linguistic structure develops over time and help explain how language users categorize and conceptualize the world.

Vocal iconicity in nominal classification: How semantic properties can influence linguistic structure

**Author(s):** Sheard, C; Bowern, C; Jordan, F M Introduction: Human kinship systems, or how different cultural groups use language to classify family members, show remarkable global diversity, but they also seem to be constrained by social and cognitive limits. It is common within anthropology, for example, for kinship systems to be categorised into a mere six typologies, based on a few axes of variation in cousin terms. Despite the importance of kinship in structuring human society, however, there has been little work examining the cross-cultural drivers of, and constraints on, this diversity, and most of this scholarship has been limited to a handful of well-documented language families. Materials and Methods: Here, we present a survey of kinship systems in 71 Pama-Nyungan languages, representing all major branches of the largest Australian language family. We first describe the macroevolutionary dynamics of Pama-Nyungan kinship and test for evidence of stable kinship typologies. We then test hypotheses related to how social practice and spatial variables shape kinship systems. Results: We find only weak support for any clustering of languages by kinship system or for specific holes within the observed volume of kinship space, instead demonstrating that these ethnolinguistic groups’ kinship systems have evolved steadily over the past ~ 6,000 years. We find that community marriage norms, but not post-marital residency, correlate with kinship system. Furthermore, though we find evidence of spatial autocorrelation in the data above and beyond the effect of shared phylogenetic history, we find that spatial similarity in kinship systems is better explained by a correlation between kinship and the physical environment. Conclusions: By applying modern phylogenetic comparative methods to the study of language-culture coevolution, we thus demonstrate the importance of moving beyond traditional typological comparisons in the study of kinship, as well as caution against assuming the universal applicability of cultural evolution trends across all geographic and linguistic contexts.

Social practice and physical environment shape Pama-Nyungan kinship macroevolution, but not into stable typologies

**Author(s):** Hong, Ze; Chen, Yuqi Introduction: The study of rhetoric and argumentation has a long history in the western intellectual tradition, yet relatively less attention has been paid to its relationship between other cognitive themes such as reasoning and epistemology, as well as cultural and historical variation in persuasion practices in non-western contexts. Methods: We used keyword searches to identify persuasion episodes (763 total) in the official dynastic histories in China to systematically examine various rhetorical/argumentation strategies (e.g., argument by analogy, argument by authority, etc.) used in the past two millennia. Results: We found that early dynasties tend to have higher recorded persuasion success with the notable exception of the Ming dynasty, and there appears to be a temporal decline in the frequency in rhetorical strategies associated with persuasion failures (e.g., analogy and the use of auspicious/inauspicious signs). Conclusion: We found some support for adaptive cultural change in the type of arguments that people use. This study highlights the possibility of using rhetoric/argumentation as a tool to investigate reasoning and epistemology, as well as testing cultural evolutionary hypothesis using historical data.

Persuading the Emperors: A Quantitative Historical Analysis of Political Rhetoric in Traditional China

 Transient diversity in a cooperative group involves the maintenance of diverse solutions while the group attempts to reach a consensus. I argue that any mechanism that slows diffusion and delays consensus will increase the quality of solution at the cost of increased time to reach it. I further argue that this is a general principle analogous to the role of positive assortment in the evolution of cooperation. Several processes facilitate the evolution of cooperation—kin selection, direct reciprocity, indirect reciprocity, group structure, partner choice—but all these do so by directing the benefits of cooperation toward cooperative individuals. I review specific mechanisms that facilitate transient diversity, synthesizing evidence from both empirical studies and diverse formal models—multi-armed bandits, NK landscapes, cultural attractors, cumulative innovation models, and evolutionary transmission models—to support my argument. Apparent exceptions this principle occur only when problems are sufficiently simple that they can be solved by mere trial and error. This work has implications for the cultural evolution of teams, population structures, and the accumulation of innovations.

Maintaining transient diversity is a general principle for improving collective problem solving

**Author(s):** Lightner, AD; Heckelsmiller, C; Hagen, EH Religious specialists invoke the supernatural while healing illnesses. We investigated such specialists in two studies. Study 1 analyzed medicinal specialists in 47 cultures in the Human Relations Area Files. We found specialists with supernatural theories in 74% of texts, often fulfilling practical, transactional roles for a clientele whose patronage hinges on expectations of efficacious treatment. Study 2 interviewed Tanzanian Maasai medicinal specialists and their clientele (N=84). We found that in the event of illness clients mainly selected specialists based on efficacy and religious identity. Participants also explained how medicinal plants work with highly abstract concepts that were not conspicuously supernatural. We review these findings and propose that, in many cases, (1) supernatural theories of disease are useful, abstract falsehoods that help explain complex and uncertain processes, such as illness; (2) specialists use these falsehoods to assist their clientele in a mutually beneficial exchange of services for resources; and (3) “religious” clients defer to specialists in a market, where patronage is conditional on effective solutions to uncertain and serious problems.

Supernatural theories of disease: Useful falsehoods in a market for specialists

**Author(s):** Atkinson, Q D; Bouckaert, R B; Gray, R D; Jones, K; Kyritsis, T; Redding, D; Sheehan, O Introduction: Since Darwin it has been recognized that global linguistic diversity is the product of millennia of cultural evolution. Over half of the world’s ~6-7000 languages are now threatened with extinction, yet we know little about the drivers of language diversification or its relationship to language threat. Methods: Here, we use Bayesian phylogenetic inference techniques to generate a supertree of all extant human languages that integrates prior knowledge and uncertainty about linguistic diversification around the globe. Results: We show that lower diversification rates (and hence higher evolutionary distinctness) are linked to very high or low population density and landscape traversability, as well as to cultures that are reliant on foraging and lack political links beyond the local community. Evolutionary distinctness is also associated with greater extinction risk. Conclusions: Our findings provide insight into the forces shaping language evolution, indicate more of the evolutionary history of languages is at risk than expected under a random threat distribution, and provide cross-cultural researchers with a supertree or the world’s languages.

Global language diversification rates are linked to socio-ecology and extinction risk

**Author(s):** Jansson F; Aguilar E; Acerbi A; Buskell A; Enquist M Introduction: Cultural traits are embedded in webs of relations and sequentially acquired and evaluated – filtered – in light of previously acquired traits. Incorporating multiple traits and their relations is needed to understand the organisation, dynamics, and emergent products of cultural evolution. Approach: We introduce a modelling framework of individual filtering of interdependent traits and explore the effects on cultural transmission and emergent phenomena, through mathematical treatment and simulations. Findings: Sequential acquisition of compatible traits leads to culturally evolved filters. These organise culture into mostly consistent and stable systems. Depending on the structure of trait relations, they modulate rates of cultural change, exhibit path dependence and punctuated equilibria, and can generate convergent transmission, clustering and polarisation. Discussion: A systems view of culture can give a fuller understanding of the source and character of emergent phenomena. It increases the scope of cultural evolution, whereby faithful transmission, self-organisation and filters can be accounted for by systems dynamics without strong assumptions on innate machinery.

Modelling Cultural Systems and Selective Filters

**Author(s):** Salali, GD; Uysal MS; Akpinar, E; Aksu, A; Bozyel, G Introduction: Studies to date have shown a strong correlation between belief in conspiracies and vaccine hesitancy. In this study, we go a step further and examine the pathway underlying the relationship between belief in health conspiracies and scepticism towards vaccines. We propose that conspiracy beliefs are deeply rooted in our tendency to form cultural groups, which throughout human evolution, has facilitated large-scale cooperation. We put forward the hypothesis that mistrust in outgroup members is the main driver of belief in conspiracies leading to vaccine hesitancy. Methods: In a demographically representative cross-cultural survey with over 4500 participants from the UK, US and Turkey, we tested this hypothesis and controlled for several psychological and demographic variables including psychological reactance, belief in science, general mistrust, political orientation, religiosity, sex, age, education and financial satisfaction. Results: Outgroup mistrust was the strongest predictor of belief in health (COVID-19-related) conspiracies across all countries, followed by psychological reactance- intolerance of others telling one what to do and being sceptical of consensus views. Control variables, including belief in science and general mistrust, had much weaker associations with the endorsement of health conspiracies compared to outgroup mistrust. There were considerable differences in the predictors of general conspiracy mentality and health-specific conspiracy beliefs, suggesting that distinct conspiracy beliefs have different psychological pathways. Our mediation analysis revealed that outgroup mistrust contributed to vaccine hesitancy through its association with health conspiracies. Participants in Turkey and the US scored higher on belief in health conspiracies, vaccine hesitancy and outgroup mistrust compared to the participants in the UK. The association between outgroup mistrust - but not reactance and belief in science- and health conspiracies held across countries. Discussion: These findings suggest that cultures exhibiting higher outgroup mistrust are more inclined to believe in health conspiracies and in turn exhibit higher levels of vaccine hesitancy. Considering these findings, we suggest ways to tackle conspiracy beliefs and vaccine hesitancy.

Outgroup mistrust drives the link between health conspiracy beliefs and vaccine hesitancy across cultures

**Author(s):** Hagen, RV; Scelza, BA; Barrett, HC Introduction: Patriarchy likely has its roots in an evolutionary history of sexual conflict, but variation in women's interests in gender norms today is often overlooked. We consider whether women themselves can sometimes benefit from unequal gender norms, such as through gains from alliances with high-status men or benefits to male offspring. Also, younger women may experience higher costs than older women. We test whether these hypothesized interests are reflected in stated gender attitudes. Methods: We use survey data from China (n = 4126), Taiwan (2024), Japan (2660) and South Korea (1051) and Bayesian multi-level regression models to test predictions. Findings: In most countries, women’s views grow more patriarchal with age at a rate faster than for men (Taiwan: β = -.07, P(β < 0) = .88, China: β = -.10, P(β < 0) = .99, Japan: β = 0.0, P(β < 0) = .52, S Korea: β = -.06, P(β < 0) = .76), suggesting this is not due to generational norm changes alone. The predicted SES-effect was only found in Taiwan (β = -.28, P(β < 0) = .93). In China (β = -.09, P(β < 0) = .95) and S Korea (β = -. 22, P(β < 0) = .94) a higher ratio of sons to daughters is linked with more unequal gender views, and this is mostly driven by an item representing son preference. Discussion: Some of the variation in people’s attitudes to gender norms may be explained through their varying interests in such norms. The costs women experience from unequal norms likely decrease with age. Having more sons is associated with a stronger son-preference, but does not affect other norms tested in this study.

Understanding women's support for patriarchal gender norms in four East Asian countries

Demonstrating how individual-level cultural transmission scales up to produce population-level social norms is one of cultural evolution’s evergreen challenges. Spoiler: This talk does not solve that challenge. Happily, even small steps towards understanding the interplay between micro and macro scales are useful. I focus my discussion on kinship terminologies, which are the patterns of words that languages have for denoting and referring to family members. Our systems of reckoning relatives vary cross-culturally, and the structural features of these norms persist and recur across the globe. In some languages, siblings are distinguished by age; in others by gender; by both aspects; or not at all. The women I call my ‘aunty’ in one society might be called ‘mother’ in another. I present collaborative work from a team project that explores terminologies as a product of cultural evolutionary processes shaped by cognitive and interactional constraints. Observations from Datooga-speaking children and their families demonstrates the contexts of individual transmission and learning of kinship terms, while phylogenetic analyses explore functional explanations for the persistence of patterned structural systems across languages. Reconciling these scales might be too grandiose an aim, but the effort helps us consider the relationship between language and culture, as well as the status of “shared ancestry” as an explanation.

Premium content

Downloads

Next from Cultural Evolution Society 2022

Vocal iconicity in nominal classification: How semantic properties can influence linguistic structure

Similar lecture

Beyond Genre Categories: How Narrative Pattern Coherence and Spanning Distance Shape Film Success