Whether bilingualism confers non-linguistic cognitive advantages continues to generate both interest and debate in the psychological sciences. In response to mixed reports and methodological critiques, researchers have embraced more rigorous practices when investigating bilingual effects, including those in the domain of cognitive control. Despite considerable advances, one significant issue persists: the assumption that task performance remains stable over time. To address this, the present study investigated the relationship between bilingual language experience and Simon task performance modeled as a continuous function of time. In a sample of Mandarin-English bilingual young adults, we identified distinct patterns of results across both conventional and time-sensitive performance trajectory measures with each supporting a different relationship between language experience and cognitive control. Results suggest that reliance on conventional performance measures may be partially responsible for mixed results, necessitating reevaluation of how bilingual effects on cognitive control manifest and which analysis methods best support their identification.

The transformation of the Birnirk culture into the Thule culture is essential in reconstructing the emergence of modern Inuit across Alaska and the larger Bering Strait. To this end, two adjacent semi-subterranean houses of late Birnirk and early Thule affiliation, respectively, at the Rising Whale (KTZ-304) site at Cape Espenberg were recently excavated and dated by radiocarbon and tree-ring measurements. We present the Bayesian analysis of the resulting large series of dates, demonstrating the lack of contemporaneity between the two features: the Birnirk house was occupied in the late twelfth to early thirteenth centuries AD, whereas the occupation of the Thule house occurred in the second half of the thirteenth into the early fourteenth century. With the increased precision made possible by coupling dendrochronology with radiocarbon, our results place the Birnirk-Thule transition more that 200 years later than the generally accepted date of AD 1000. A transition in the second half of the thirteenth century has major implications for the timing of Thule presence along the coast of Alaska and for their migration into the Alaska interior. It aligns with a thirteenth-century migration into the western Canadian Arctic and farther east and a brief early or “initial” Thule period.

We seek to understand the factors that drive mortality in the contiguous United States using data that are indexed by county and year and grouped into 18 different age bins. We propose a model that adds two important contributions to existing mortality studies. First, we treat age as a random effect. This is an improvement over previous models because it allows the model in one age group to borrow information from other age groups. Second, we utilize Gaussian Processes to create nonlinear covariate effects for predictors such as unemployment rate, race, and education level. This allows for a more flexible relationship to be modeled between mortality and these predictors. Understanding that the United States is expansive and diverse, we allow for many of these effects to vary by location. The flexibility in how predictors relate to mortality has not been used in previous mortality studies and will result in a more accurate model and a more complete understanding of the factors that drive mortality. Both the multivariate nature of the model as well as the spatially varying non-linear predictors will advance the study of mortality and will allow us to better examine the relationships between the predictors and mortality.

We present a dataset of 1,119 radiocarbon dates and their contexts for Oaxaca, Mexico, a best effort to include all published dates, plus hundreds of unpublished samples. We illustrate its potential and limitations with five examples: (1) dated stratigraphy in stream cutbanks show how aggradation, downcutting, and stability responded to global climate and human activities; (2) 14C samples from Late/Terminal Formative contexts allow interregional comparisons of temple and palace construction, use, and abandonment; (3) new 14C dates provide better understanding of events during the Late Classic/Epiclassic, a problematic time in the ceramic chronology; (4) individual Classic/Postclassic residential contexts had long durations—several hundred years; and (5) model constraints from other data permit refinement at times of calibration curve deviation, as during AD 1400–1600. We recommend further chronological refinement with best-practice standards, new samples, existing collections, and statistical modeling.

Understanding the developmental and occupational histories of Ancestral Maya settlements is crucial for interpreting their roles in broader social, political, and economic dynamics. This article presents 62 new accelerator mass spectrometry (AMS) 14C dates from residential groups in the outlying settlement zone at Alabama, a major inland Ancestral Maya center in East-Central Belize. Alabama is a rare example of a “boomtown” in the Maya lowlands, experiencing rapid development primarily during the 8th and 9th century CE, corresponding to the Late to Terminal Classic periods. Using Bayesian stratigraphic sequence models, we construct detailed developmental and occupational histories for the townsite, clarifying the timing of its development, occupation, and abandonment. Our analysis reveals complex residential histories, confirming a rapid tempo of Late and Terminal Classic settlement growth and indicating continuities in occupation into the 10th century CE and beyond. Furthermore, we identify two separate periods of occupation during the Early Classic (cal AD 345–545) and the Late Postclassic (cal AD 1325–1475), demonstrating that parts of the settlement were inhabited at different intervals over many centuries. These results offer the first detailed deep-history perspective for the East-Central Belize region, establishing a framework that addresses challenges in chronology-building posed by poor pottery preservation and the complexities of earthen-core architecture at the site and enabling future chronological modeling in this lesser-known frontier of the eastern Maya lowlands.

Peer grading is an educational system in which students assess each other’s work. It is commonly applied under Massive Open Online Course (MOOC) and offline classroom settings. With this system, instructors receive a reduced grading workload, and students enhance their understanding of course materials by grading others’ work. Peer grading data have a complex dependence structure, for which all the peer grades may be dependent. This complex dependence structure is due to a network structure of peer grading, where each student can be viewed as a vertex of the network, and each peer grade serves as an edge connecting one student as a grader to another student as an examinee. This article introduces a latent variable model framework for analyzing peer grading data and develops a fully Bayesian procedure for its statistical inference. This framework has several advantages. First, when aggregating multiple peer grades, the average score and other simple summary statistics fail to account for grader effects and, thus, can be biased. The proposed approach produces more accurate model parameter estimates and, therefore, more accurate aggregated grades by modeling the heterogeneous grading behavior with latent variables. Second, the proposed method provides a way to assess each student’s performance as a grader, which may be used to identify a pool of reliable graders or generate feedback to help students improve their grading. Third, our model may further provide insights into the peer grading system by answering questions such as whether a student who performs better in coursework also tends to be a more reliable grader. Finally, thanks to the Bayesian approach, uncertainty quantification is straightforward when inferring the student-specific latent variables as well as the structural parameters of the model. The proposed method is applied to two real-world datasets.

This article is the first to quantify the interindividual effects of different major life events (MLEs) on retrospective perceptions of individual-level linguistic change across the adult lifespan. In this cross-sectional study, 701 German-speaking participants from Austria completed an online survey measuring the extent to which MLEs in the educational, occupational, and personal domain are associated with perceived changes in productive and affective-attitudinal aspects of the sociolinguistic repertoire. Bayesian modeling revealed that events such as beginning a tertiary degree, entry into the workforce, and retirement were perceived to impact participants’ varietal use. Overall, however, affective-attitudinal factors such as dialect identity appear to be more readily susceptible to perceived MLE-related change. These results help pave a new path for variationist agendas that approach lifespan linguistic change not as a result of chronological age, but rather as a phenomenon influenced by individual experiential factors complexly intertwined with the process of aging.

This paper presents the radiocarbon context of the megalithic monument El Amarejo 1, situated in the corridor of Almansa in the southern region of La Meseta in Spain. The monument was constructed using small and medium-sized masonry, comprising a short corridor and two separate chambers in which burials were carried out. The results of the 14C analyses of each of the 11 individuals documented indicate that the monument was in use between approximately 1900 and 1200 cal BC. Bayesian modeling of the radiocarbon dates allows for the proposition of hypotheses regarding the construction, utilisation dynamics, and abandonment of the monument. The combination of these new data with the analysis of the 14C dating of other burials from the Bronze Age of La Mancha reveals a complex and heterogeneous panorama. The evidence presented and analyzed in this paper suggests that burial practices associated with fortified settlements and their domestic areas shared space and time with the construction of megalithic monuments located near settlements.

Missing values at the end of a test typically are the result of test takers running out of time and can as such be understood by studying test takers’ working speed. As testing moves to computer-based assessment, response times become available allowing to simulatenously model speed and ability. Integrating research on response time modeling with research on modeling missing responses, we propose using response times to model missing values due to time limits. We identify similarities between approaches used to account for not-reached items (Rose et al. in ETS Res Rep Ser 2010:i–53, 2010) and the speed-accuracy (SA) model for joint modeling of effective speed and effective ability as proposed by van der Linden (Psychometrika 72(3):287–308, 2007). In a simulation, we show (a) that the SA model can recover parameters in the presence of missing values due to time limits and (b) that the response time model, using item-level timing information rather than a count of not-reached items, results in person parameter estimates that differ from missing data IRT models applied to not-reached items. We propose using the SA model to model the missing data process and to use both, ability and speed, to describe the performance of test takers. We illustrate the application of the model in an empirical analysis.

Iroquoian groups inhabiting the St. Lawrence Valley in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries AD practiced agriculture and supplemented their diet with fish and a variety of wild plants and terrestrial animals. Important gaps remain in our knowledge of Iroquoian foodways, including how pottery was integrated to culinary practices and the relative importance of maize in clay-pot cooking. Lipid analyses carried out on 32 potsherds from the Dawson site (Montreal, Canada) demonstrate that pottery from this village site was used to prepare a range of foodstuffs—primarily freshwater fish and maize, but possibly also other animals and plants. The importance of aquatic resources is demonstrated by the presence of a range of molecular compounds identified as biomarkers for aquatic products, whereas the presence of maize could only be detected through isotopic analysis. Bayesian modeling suggests that maize is present in all samples and is the dominant product in at least 40% of the potsherds analyzed. This combination of analytical techniques, applied for the first time to Iroquoian pottery, provides a glimpse into Iroquoian foodways and suggests that sagamité was part of the culinary traditions at the Dawson site.

The information criterion AIC was introduced to extend the method of maximum likelihood to the multimodel situation. It was obtained by relating the successful experience of the order determination of an autoregressive model to the determination of the number of factors in the maximum likelihood factor analysis. The use of the AIC criterion in the factor analysis is particularly interesting when it is viewed as the choice of a Bayesian model. This observation shows that the area of application of AIC can be much wider than the conventional i.i.d. type models on which the original derivation of the criterion was based. The observation of the Bayesian structure of the factor analysis model leads us to the handling of the problem of improper solution by introducing a natural prior distribution of factor loadings.

While recent genomic and isotopic information show that migration has been pervasive along human history, southern Andean archaeology has largely overlooked its importance in shaping human trajectories of sociocultural change. Building on previous isotopic research that identified the presence of migrant farmers in the Uspallata Valley (Mendoza, Argentina), we present chronological and bioarchaeological results that help to characterize the timing and mode of human migrations in the southern Andes. The burials with migrants show the representation of the different age classes, including a high abundance of children, as well as both men and women, suggesting that family groups were likely involved. The Bayesian modeling of 16 direct dates for migrants indicates that these migrations started between 1210–1275 CE (median 1255 CE) and finished at 1320–1425 CE (median 1360 CE), indicating that there is nearly no overlap between the commencement of this migration phase and the southwards expansion of the Inka Empire. The model defines a diachronic process that lasted between 55 and 195 years, implying that migration to Uspallata was a multi-generational process that involved between two and eight generations (median of four generations). Our contextual, bioarchaeological and chronological evidence indicates that the conditions fostering migration to Uspallata were sustained through time, inviting to explore persisting push-pull dynamics acting during this period. 87Sr/86Sr results show that migration occurred across the daily territories of these groups and may have involved movement across social or ethnic frontiers.

We present experimental results from a web-based study on the speech act of giving advice in French. 86 L1 speakers of French had to continue short and written fictitious interactions we created, in which we manipulated the adviser’s level of experience (explicitly experienced, explicitly inexperienced, or no precision) and the hierarchical relationship between adviser and advisee (top-down, bottom-up, and equals). Participants had to choose between four types of continuations, from indirect strategies to direct prototypical imperative strategies, with variations of the face-threatening value in some continuations, as per Brown and Levinson’s politeness theory. Main results from Bayesian regression analyses indicate an overall preference for indirect strategies in French, but also suggest influences from the level of experience and hierarchical relationship. These results will allow for a better understanding of advice as a speech act and contribute to a growing body of work in experimental pragmatics.

The chronology of the Inka Empire is poorly resolved, with most scholars utilizing a post hoc ethnohistoric reconstruction of imperial expansion as a common reference point. Radiocarbon-based analyses can now accomplish sufficient resolution for meaningful independent estimates of Inka chronology, however, and it is incumbent upon archaeologists to develop such appraisals. Here we produce a Bayesian analysis of radiocarbon data from the Upper Loa River area of northern Chile to estimate the timing of Inka incorporation of this region. In order to accurately associate samples with Inka rule, only radiocarbon dates from Inka sites without prior occupations are used (n = 34), producing a model for the onset of Inka rule of AD 1401–1437 (95% hpd) with a median date of AD 1420. This estimate is further used as a point of comparison for understanding diachronic imperial processes in the region. Site-level models of a variety of site types indicate that the Inka rapidly founded several administrative/mining bases at the onset, followed by the addition of smaller infrastructure components during a second pulse of activity near the middle of the 15th century. Date assemblages at the agricultural sites of Topaín and Paniri also indicate a decline in activity at the former and an increase in activity at the latter from early on in Inka rule. These results provide a high-resolution data point for reconstructing Inka imperial chronology, and expanding such studies will be essential to understanding processes of Inka imperialism at larger scales.

This study aims to determine the chronological sequence of the collective burials in the hypogea of the prehistoric cemetery of La Beleña (Cabra, Córdoba) through Bayesian analyses of 14C dates obtained from human remains. The data from this site are not only key to grasping the phenomenon of the introduction and spread of hypogea throughout the western Mediterranean, but to gain insight into multi-stage funerary practices during the Late Neolithic/Chalcolithic. The dataset comprises 14C dates of 71 of the 79 individuals placed in five of La Beleña’s six hypogea. The findings suggest: (i) La Beleña is one of the oldest assemblages of hypogea in Iberia, (ii) that this type of collective burial spread rapidly throughout the western Mediterranean area, (iii) that La Beleña is marked by two main phases of funerary activity interspersed by brief burial surges, (iv) funerary intensity at La Beleña increased between cal BC 3400–2900 (2σ), and (v) the cemetery saw a very brief surge of burials potentially related to a catastrophic event. The results of this analysis thus shed light on the little-known chronological sequence of prehistoric hypogea or rock-cut tombs in Iberia, their spread, and their relation to other Late Neolithic collective burials in western Europe.

Determining calendar ages for radiocarbon dates, or ordered sequences of radiocarbon dates, that intersect with a plateau on the radiocarbon calibration curve can be problematic since, without additional prior constraints, the calendar age ranges determined will tend to spread across the plateau, yielding wide and less than useful calendar age probability densities and age ranges. Where possible, modeling analysis should seek to identify informative priors that act to restrict the otherwise poorly controlled spread of probability across plateaus. Such additional information may be available, among other sources, from the stratigraphy, the context, or the samples themselves. The recent dating of ordered sequences of radiocarbon dates on sections of branches of the same olive (Olea europaea) shrub from Therasia (southern Aegean) associated with the Minoan eruption of the Thera (Santorini) volcano (Pearson et al. 2023), which intersect with the plateau in the radiocarbon calibration curve ca. 1620–1540 BC, offers an example of the problem. A re-analysis adding some plausible informative priors offers a substantially better defined likely dating range and different conclusions. Instead of finding an inconclusive probability range “encompassing the late 17th and entire 16th century BC” followed by arguments for “indications of increased probabilities for a mid-16th century BC date for the eruption,” a re-analysis incorporating appropriate informative priors identifies the likely date range as falling between the late 17th to early 16th centuries BC.

This article discusses the absolute chronology of burials from the 3rd and 2nd millennia BC discovered under the mounds of three barrows in the Kordyshiv cemetery in western Ukraine. Its aim is to create a chronological model of the burials by modeling 27 AMS 14C dates obtained from 21 individuals buried in single and collective graves. Dietary analysis of stable carbon (δ13C) and nitrogen (δ15N) isotope values are presented. The Bayesian modeling of the 14C dates from the three Kordyshiv barrows revealed the extremely important role of these monuments as long-term objects used for ritual purposes. At the end of the 3rd millennium BC, the epi-Corded Ware Culture (epi-CWC) community erected a mound over the central burial in Barrow 2, then interred the graves of three additional deceased. After several hundred years Barrow 2 was reused by Komarów Culture (KC) communities from the Middle Bronze Age (MBA) who interred their deceased in the existing mound. The oldest monument with MBA burials was Barrow 3, in which the dead were buried in a two-stage sequence before and after the mid-2nd millennium BC. The youngest dated grave was Burial 1 in Barrow 1, comprising a collective burial that was interred between 1400 and 1200 BC. The additional analyses of carbon and nitrogen isotopes show significant differences in the diet of epi-CWC individuals buried in Barrow 2 from the individuals representing the KC.

Carbon credits from the reducing emissions from deforestation and degradation (REDD+) projects have been criticized for issuing junk carbon credits due to invalid ex-ante baselines. Recently, the concept of ex-post baseline has been discussed to overcome the criticism, while ex-ante baseline is still necessary for project financing and risk assessment. To address this issue, we propose a Bayesian state-space model that integrates ex-ante baseline projection and ex-post dynamic baseline updating in a unified manner. Our approach provides a tool for appropriate risk assessment and performance evaluation of REDD+ projects. We apply the proposed model to a REDD+ project in Brazil and show that it may have had a small, positive effect but has been overcredited. We also demonstrate that the 90% predictive interval of the ex-ante baseline includes the ex-post baseline, implying that our ex-ante estimation can work effectively.

This paper offers a temporal analysis of the megalithic group of La Lora in the context of northern Iberian Plateau megalithism. For this purpose, 67 accelerator mass spectrometry radiocarbon (AMS 14C) dates were obtained on human bone from the minimum number of individuals recovered from nine tombs. This is the first systematic dating project carried out in this dolmen group and has enabled the chronology of the main funerary series to be updated. The results reveal that the actual funerary use dates mainly to the 4th millennium BC, although, as deduced from the archaeological material, some tombs were reused in later periods. Additionally, the significant architectural polymorphism of the group, consisting mainly of simple dolmens and large corridor tombs, suggested a temporal evolution to monumentality. However, the dating shows a more complex reality, since it is likely that the large tombs functioned as funerary pantheons during the 4th millennium BC, characterized by a cyclical and recurrent use. In contrast, the simpler structures were preferred to be of shorter use and restricted to the first half of the 4th millennium.