Publications

Journal Articles

Doan, T., Friedman, O., & Denison, S. (in press). Calculated Feelings: How Children Use Probability to Infer Emotions. Open Mind: Discoveries in Cognitive Science

Sehl, C. G., Denison, S., & Friedman, O. (in press). Local or foreign? Flexibility in children’s preference for similar others. Developmental Psychology

Doan, T., Friedman, O., & Denison, S. (2023). Close Counterfactuals and Almost Doing the Impossible. Psychonomic Bulletin and Review

Sehl, C. G., Friedman, O., & Denison, S. (2023). The social network: How people infer relationships from mutual connections. Journal of Experimental Psychology: General, 152(4), 925 - 934.

Doan, T., Denison, S., & Friedman, O. (2023). Two kinds of counterfactual closeness. Journal of Experimental Psychology: General, 152(6), 1787-1796.

Ericson, S.R., Denison, S., Turri, J., & Friedman, O. (2023). Probability and intentional action. Cognitive Psychology, 141, 101551.

Sehl, C. G., Tran, E., Denison, S., & Friedman, O. (2022). Novelty preferences depend on goals. Psychonomic Bulletin & Review, 1-9.

Doan, T., Stonehouse, E. E., Denison, S., & Friedman, O. (2022). The odds tell children what people favor. Developmental Psychology, 58(9), 1759–1766. https://doi.org/10.1037/dev0001395.

Gualtieri, S., & Denison, S. (2022). Developmental change in the use of base-rates and individuating information. Journal of Experimental Psychology: General, 151(5):973-985.

English, S. D., Denison, S., & Friedman, O. (2022). Expectations of how machines use individuating information and base-rates. Judgment and Decision Making, 17, 626-645.

Gualtieri, S., Attisano, E., & Denison, S. (2022). Exploring children’s ability to integrate reliability with probability. PLoS ONE 17(5): e0268790. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0268790

Attisano, E., Nancekivell, S.E., Tran, S., & Denison, S., (2022). So, what is it? Examining parent-child interactions while talking about artifacts in a museum. Early Childhood Research Quarterly, 60, 187-200. 

Sehl, C.G., Friedman, O., & Denison, S., (2021). Blind to bias? Young children do not anticipate that sunk costs lead to irrational choices. Cognitive Science, 45(11).

Attisano, E., Nancekivell, S. E., & Denison, S. (2021). Components and mechanisms: How children talk about machines in museum exhibits. Frontiers in Psychology. 
Doan, T., Friedman, O., & Denison, S. (2021). Toddlers and preschoolers understand that some preferences are more subjective than others. Child Development. [open data] [postprint]
Doan, T., Friedman, O., & Denison, S. (2021). Oh…So close! Children’s close counterfactual reasoning and emotion inferences. Developmental Psychology, 57(5), 678–688. [open data] [postprint]
Doan, T., Castro, A., Bonawitz, E., & Denison, S. (2020). “Wow, I did it!”: Unexpected success increases preschoolers’ exploratory play on a later task. Cognitive Development. [open data] [postprint]

Nancekivell, S., Ho, V., & Denison, S. (2020). Who knows what? Preschoolers appreciate the link between ownership and knowledge. Developmental Psychology, 56(5), 880–887. [open data] [preprint] 

Attisano, E., & Denison, S. (2020). Infants’ reasoning about samples generated by intentional versus non‐intentional agents. Infancy 25, 110–124. [open data] [preprint]

Doan, T., Friedman, O., & Denison, S. (2020). Young children use probability to infer happiness and the quality of outcomes. Psychological Science 31(2):149-159. [open data] [postprint ]

Gualtieri, S., Buchsbaum, D., & Denison, S. (2020). Exploring information use in children's decision-making: Base-rate neglect and trust in testimony. Journal of Experimental Psychology: General, 149 (8), 1527-1536.[open data] [preprint]

Denison, S., & Xu, F. (2019). Infant statisticians: The origins of reasoning under uncertainty. Perspectives on Psychological Science, 14, 499-509

Gualtieri, S., & Denison, S. (2018). The development of the representativeness heuristic in young children. Journal of Experimental Child Psychology, 174, 60-76. [open data] [preprint]

Doan, T., Friedman, O., & Denison, S. (2018). Beyond belief: The probability-based notion of surprise in children. Emotion, 18(8), 1163. [open data] [postprint]

Tecwyn, E.C., Denison, S., Messer, E.J.E. & Buchsbaum, D. (2017). Intuitive probabilistic inference in capuchin monkeys. Animal Cognition, 20, 243-256

Yeung, H. H., Denison, S., & Johnson, S. P. (2016). Infants' looking to surprising events: When eye-tracking reveals more than looking time. PLoS ONE, 11(12), e0164277

Pesowski, M., Denison, S., & Friedman, O. (2016). Young Children infer preferences from a single action, but not if it is constrained. Cognition, 155, 168-175

Bonawitz, E., Denison, S., Griffiths, T.L., & Gopnik, A. (2014). Probabilistic models, learning algorithms, response variability: sampling in cognitive development. Trends in Cognitive Sciences, 18(10), 497-500.

Bonawitz, E., Denison, S., Gopnik, A., & Griffiths, T.L. (2014). Win-Stay, Lose-Sample: A simple sequential algorithm for approximating Bayesian inference. Cognitive Psychology, 74, 35-65.

Denison, S., Trikutam, P., & Xu, F. (2014). Probability versus representativeness in infancy: Can infants use naïve physics to adjust population base rates in probabilistic inference? Developmental Psychology, 50, 2009-2019.

Denison, S., & Xu, F. (2014). The origins of probabilistic inference in human infants. Cognition, 130(3), 335-347.

Denison, S., Bonawitz, E.B., Gopnik, A., & Griffiths, T.L. (2013). Rational variability in children’s causal inferences: The  sampling hypothesis. Cognition, 126(2), 285-300.

Denison, S., Reed, C., & Xu, F. (2013). The emergence of probabilistic reasoning in very young infants: Evidence from 4.5- and 6-month-olds. Developmental Psychology, 49(2), 243-249.

Denison, S., & Xu, F. (2010). Integrating physical constraints and statistical inference by 11-month-old infants. Cognitive Science, 34(5), 885-908.

Denison, S., & Xu, F. (2010). Twelve- to fourteen-month-old infants can predict single-event probability with large set sizes. Developmental Science, 13(5), 798-803.

Xu, F., & Denison, S. (2009). Statistical inference and sensitivity to sampling in 11-month-olds. Cognition, 112(1), 97-104. 

Proceedings Papers

Sehl, C. G.,Friedman, O., & Denison, S. (2022). Using efficiency to infer the quality of machines. In J. Culbertson, A. Perfors, H. Rabagliati, & V. Ramenzoni (Eds.), Proceedings of the 44th Annual Meeting of the Cognitive Science Society. Cognitive Science Society.

English, S. D., Denison, S., & Friedman, O. (2021) The Computer Judge: Expectations About Algorithmic Decision-Making. In T. Fitch, C. Lamm, H. Leder, & T. Tessmar-Raible (Eds.), Proceedings of the 43rd Annual Meeting of the Cognitive Science Society. Cognitive Science Society.

Sehl, C. G., Friedman, O., & Denison, S. (2021). Children’s novelty preferences depend on information-seeking goals. In T. Fitch, C. Lamm, H. Leder, & T Tessmar-Raible (Eds.), Proceedings of the 43rd Annual Meeting of the Cognitive Science Society. Cognitive Science Society.
Lu, J., Doan, T., Denison, S. (2021). Can Children use Numerical Reasoning to Compare Odds in Games? In T. Fitch, C. Lamm, H. Leder, & T Tessmar-Raible (Eds.), Proceedings of the 43rd Annual Meeting of the Cognitive Science Society. Cognitive Science Society.
Aboody, R., Denison, S., & Jara-Ettinger, J., (2021). Children consider the probability of random success when evaluating knowledge. Accepted and presented but declined to appear in the Proceedings of the 43rd Annual Conference of the Cognitive Science Society.

Gualtieri, S. & Denison, S. (2020). Examining developmental change in children’s information use.  In S. Denison., M. Mack, Y. Xu, & B.C. Armstrong (Eds.), Proceedings of the 42nd Annual Conference of the Cognitive Science Society (pp. 2173-2178). Cognitive Science Society.

Nancekivell, S.E., Denison, S., & Friedman, O. (2020). Preschoolers recognize that losses loom larger than gains. In S. Denison., M. Mack, Y. Xu, & B.C. Armstrong (Eds.), Proceedings of the 42nd Annual Conference of the Cognitive Science Society (pp. 1283-1288). Cognitive Science Society.

Gualtieri, S. & Denison, S. (2019). A comprehensive examination of preschoolers’ probabilistic reasoning abilities. In A. K. Goel, C. M. Seifert, & C. Freksa (Eds.), Proceedings of the 41st Annual Conference of the Cognitive Science Society (pp. 380-386). Montreal, QB: Cognitive Science Society.

Doan, T., Friedman, O., & Denison, S. (2018). Children use probability to infer other people’s happiness. In T.T. Rogers, M. Rau, X. Zhu, & C. W. Kalish (Eds.), Proceedings of the 40th Annual Conference of the Cognitive Science Society (pp. 1628-1632). Madison, WI: Cognitive Science Society.

Gualtieri, S. & Denison, S. (2016). The development of heuristics in children: Base-rate neglect and representativeness. In Papafragou, A., Grodner, D., Mirman, D., & Trueswell, J.C. (Eds.) Proceedings of the 38th Annual Conference of the Cognitive Science Society. Austin, TX: Cognitive Science Society. (pp. 2117-2122).

Doan, T., Denison, S., Lucas, C., & Gopnik, A. (2015). Learning to reason about desires: An infant training study. In D.C. Noelle, R. Dale, A.S. Warlaumont, J. Yoshimi, T. Matlock, C.D. Jennings, & P.P. Maglio (Eds.), Proceedings of the 37th Annual Conference of the Cognitive Science Society. Austin, TX: Cognitive Science Society (pp. 578-583).

Bonawitz, E.B., Denison, S., Chen, A., Gopnik, A., & Griffiths,T.L (2011). A simple sequential algorithm for approximating Bayesian inference. In L. Carlson, C. Holscher, & T.F. Shipley (Eds.) Proceedings of the 33rd annual conference of the Cognitive Science Society (pp. 885-890).

Denison, S., Reed, C., & Xu, F. (2011). The emergence of probabilistic reasoning in very young infants. In L. Carlson, C. Holscher, & T.F. Shipley (Eds.) Proceedings of the 33rd annual conference of the Cognitive Science Society (pp.1287-1295).

Denison, S., Bonawitz, E.B., Gopnik, A., & Griffiths, T.L (2010). Preschoolers sample from probability distributions. In R. Camtrabone & S. Ohlsson (Eds.) Proceedings of the 32nd annual conference of the Cognitive Science Society (pp. 2272-2277).

Book Chapters

Bonawitz, E.B., Gopnik, A., Denison, S., & Griffiths, T.L. (2012). Rational randomness: The role of sampling in an algorithmic account of preschooler’s causal learning. In J. B. Benson (Serial Ed.) & F. Xu & T. Kushnir (Vol. Eds.), Advances in child development and behavior: Rational constructivism in cognitive development. Waltham, MA: AcademicPress. (pp. 161–192).

Denison, S., & Xu, F. (2012). Probabilistic Inference in Human Infants. In J. B.Benson (Serial Ed.) & F. Xu & T. Kushnir (Vol. Eds.), Advances in child development and behavior: Rational constructivism in cognitive development. Waltham, MA: AcademicPress. (pp. 27–58).