Journal Articles
Ozlu, A., Sehl, C., Denison, S., & Friedman, O. (in press). Do infants recognize relationships indirectly? Behavioral and Brain Sciences. Commentary on Thomas (same issue).
Barlow, M., Doan, T., Friedman, O., & Denison, S. (2025). Probability matching and statistical naïveté. Judgment and Decision Making, 20, e37.
Aboody, R., Lu, J., Denison, S., & Jara‐Ettinger, J. (2025). Six‐year‐olds, but not younger children, consider the probability of being right by chance when inferring others' knowledge. Child Development, 96(5), 1765–1776.
Doan, T., Denison, S., & Friedman, O. (2025). Doing things intentionally: Probability raising and control. New Ideas in Psychology, 78, 1–8.
Sehl, C.G., Denison, S. & Friedman, O. (2025). Not just social networks: How people infer relations from mutual connections. Psychonomic Bulletin & Review, 32, 1264-1273.
Pawsey, H., Denison, S., & Friedman, O. (2025). Children use proximity and ability to infer distinct kinds of counterfactual closeness. Developmental Psychology, 61(3), 572–578.
Chung, A. M., Kim, T., Friedman, O. & Denison, S. (2025). Who Peeked? Children Infer the Likely Cause of Improbable Success. Developmental Science, 28: e13598.
Doan, T., Denison, S., & Friedman, O. (2024). Up and down: counterfactual closeness is robust to direction of comparison. Cognition and Emotion, 39(6), 1301–1311.
Sehl, C. G., Denison, S., & Friedman, O. (2024). Doing things efficiently: Testing an account of why simple explanations are satisfying. Cognitive Psychology, 154, 101692.
Sehl, C. G., Friedman, O., & Denison, S. (2024). Emotions before actions: When children see costs as causal. Cognition, 247, 105774–105774.
Doan, T., Denison, S., & Friedman, O. (2024). Close counterfactuals and almost doing the impossible. Psychonomic Bulletin & Review, 31(1), 187–195.
Howard, A., Sehl, C., Denison, S., & Friedman, O. (2024). Sunk cost predictions as theory of mind. Judgment and Decision Making, 19, e20.
Sehl, C. G., Denison, S., & Friedman, O. (2023). Local or foreign? Flexibility in children’s preference for similar others. Developmental Psychology, 59(12), 2333–2341.
Doan, T., Friedman, O., & Denison, S. (2023). Calculated Feelings: How Children Use Probability to Infer Emotions. Open Mind: Discoveries in Cognitive Science, 7, 879–893.
Doan, T., Denison, S., & Friedman, O. (2023). Two kinds of counterfactual closeness. Journal of Experimental Psychology: General, 152(6), 1787–1796.
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.
Ericson, S. R., Denison, S., Turri, J., & Friedman, O. (2023). Probability and intentional action. Cognitive Psychology, 141, 1–12.
Sehl, C. G., Tran, E., Denison, S., & Friedman, O. (2022). Novelty preferences depend on goals. Psychonomic Bulletin & Review, 29(6), 2293–2301.
Doan, T., Stonehouse, E., Denison, S., & Friedman, O. (2022). The odds tell children what people favor. Developmental Psychology, 58(9), 1759–1766.
Gualtieri, S., Attisano, E., & Denison, S. (2022). Young children’s use of probabilistic reliability and base-rates in decision-making. PLoS ONE, 17(5), Article e0268790.
English, S. D., Denison, S., & Friedman, O. (2022). Expectations of how machines use individuating information and base-rates. Judgment and Decision Making, 17(3), 628–645.
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.
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, 12, Article 636601.
Doan, T., Friedman, O., & Denison, S. (2021). Oh … so close! Children’s close counterfactual reasoning and emotion inferences. Developmental Psychology, 57(5), 678–688.
Doan, T., Friedman, O., & Denison, S. (2021). Toddlers and preschoolers understand that some preferences are more subjective than others. Child Development, 92(3), 853–861.
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.
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, 55, Article 100925.
Nancekivell, S. E., Ho, V., & Denison, S. (2020). Who knows what? Preschoolers appreciate the link between ownership and knowledge. Developmental Psychology, 56(5), 880–887.
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.
Attisano, E., & Denison, S. (2020). Infants’ reasoning about samples generated by intentional versus non‐intentional agents. Infancy, 25(1), 110–124.
Denison, S., & Xu, F. (2019). Infant statisticians: The origins of reasoning under uncertainty. Perspectives on Psychological Science, 14, 499-509.
Doan, T., Friedman, O., & Denison, S. (2018). Beyond belief: The probability-based notion of surprise in children. Emotion, 18(8), 1163–1173.
Gualtieri, S., & Denison, S. (2018). The development of the representativeness heuristic in young children. Journal of Experimental Child Psychology, 174, 60–76.
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). Twelve- to fourteen-month-old infants can predict single-event probability with large set sizes. Developmental Science, 13(5), 798-803.
Denison, S., & Xu, F. (2010). Integrating physical constraints and statistical inference by 11-month-old infants. Cognitive Science, 34(5), 885-908.
Xu, F., & Denison, S. (2009). Statistical inference and sensitivity to sampling in 11-month-olds. Cognition, 112(1), 97-104.
Proceedings Papers
Lapidow, E., & Denison, S. (2025). Disposition or Disruption: How do young learners explain inconsistent causal evidence? Proceedings of the Annual Meeting of the Cognitive Science Society, 47.
Sehl, C. G, Denison, S., & Friedman, O. (2025). Evaluating actions: Do young children prefer actions completed efficiently over those completed inefficiently? Proceedings of the Annual Meeting of the Cognitive Science Society, 47.
Rubie, C., & Denison, S. (2025). Can children represent and compute over mixed sets with the Approximate Number System? Proceedings of the Annual Meeting of the Cognitive Science Society, 47.
Lapidow, E., & Denison, S. (2025). Maybe She'll Say Yes: How Young Learners Acquire and Apply Knowledge about Inconsistent Causal Relationships from Different Domains. Proceedings of the Annual Meeting of the Cognitive Science Society, 47.
Sehl, C. G, Denison, S., & Friedman, O. (2024). Do children predict the sunk cost bias if prompted to consider effort and emotion? Proceedings of the Annual Meeting of the Cognitive Science Society, 46.
Sehl, C. G, Friedman, O., & Denison, S. (2024). Inferences about social networks using domain-general reasoning. Proceedings of the Annual Meeting of the Cognitive Science Society, 46.
Andreuccioli, L., Mazor, S., Begus, K., Bonawitz, E., Denison, S., & Walker, C. M. (2024). Young children adapt their search behavior for necessary versus merely possible outcomes. Proceedings of the Annual Meeting of the Cognitive Science Society, 46.
Sehl, C. G, Friedman, O., & Denison, S. (2023). Do children think others should avoid wasting resources? Proceedings of the Annual Meeting of the Cognitive Science Society, 45.
Sehl, C. G, Denison, S., & Friedman, O. (2023). Who feels more sad? Children reason about sunk costs to infer emotions. Proceedings of the Annual Meeting of the Cognitive Science Society, 45.
Sehl, C. G, Denison, S., & Friedman, O. (2022). Using efficiency to infer the quality of machines. Proceedings of the Annual Meeting of the Cognitive Science Society, 44.
Doan, T., Friedman, O., & Denison, S. (2022). Choices are treated as probabilistic when the outcome is unknown. Proceedings of the Annual Meeting of the Cognitive Science Society, 44.
Sehl, C. G, Friedman, O., & Denison, S. (2022). Inferring friendships from mutual connections. Proceedings of the Annual Meeting of the Cognitive Science Society, 44.
English, S., Denison, S., & Friedman, O. (2021). The computer judge: Expectations about algorithmic decision-making. Proceedings of the Annual Meeting of the Cognitive Science Society, 43.
Sehl, C. G, Friedman, O., & Denison, S. (2021). Children's Novelty Preferences Depend on Information-Seeking Goals. Proceedings of the Annual Meeting of the Cognitive Science Society, 43.
Lu, J., Doan, T., & Denison, S. (2021). Can Children use Numerical Reasoning to Compare Odds in Games? Proceedings of the Annual Meeting of the Cognitive Science Society, 43.
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.
Attisano, E., Denison, S., & Nancekivell, S. (2020). How children learn non-obvious conceptual information from caregivers innaturalistic settings. Proceedings of the Annual Meeting of the Cognitive Science Society, 42.
Doan, T., Friedman, O., & Denison, S. (2020). Can preschoolers use probability to infer others desires? Proceedings of the Annual Meeting of the Cognitive Science Society, 42.
Sehl, C., Friedman, O., & Denison, S. (2020). Young Children Do Not Anticipate That Sunk Costs Lead to Irrational Choices. Proceedings of the Annual Meeting of the Cognitive Science Society, 42.
Gualtieri, S., & Denison, S. (2020). Examining Developmental Change in Children’s Information Use. Proceedings of the Annual Meeting of the Cognitive Science Society, 42.
Nancekivell, S. E, Denison, S., & Friedman, O. (2020). Preschoolers recognize that losses loom larger than gains. Proceedings of the Annual Meeting of the Cognitive Science Society, 42.
Gualtieri, S., & Denison, S. (2019). A comprehensive examination of preschoolers’ probabilistic reasoning abilities. Proceedings of the Annual Meeting of the Cognitive Science Society, 41.
Doan, T., Friedman, O., & Denison, S. (2018). Children Use Probability to Infer Other People’s Happiness. Proceedings of the Annual Meeting of the Cognitive Science Society, 40.
Gualtieri, S., & Denison, S. (2016). The development of heuristics in children: Base-rate neglect and representativeness. Proceedings of the Annual Meeting of the Cognitive Science Society, 38.
Doan, T., Denison, S., Lucas, C. G, & Gopnik, A. (2015). Learning to reason about desires: An infant training study. Proceedings of the Annual Meeting of the Cognitive Science Society, 37.
Denison, S., Reed, C., & Xu, F. (2011). The emergence of probabilistic reasoning in very young infants. Proceedings of the Annual Meeting of the Cognitive Science Society, 33.
Bonawitz, E., Denison, S., Chen, A., Gopnik, A., & Griffiths, T. (2011). A Simple Sequential Algorithm for Approximating Bayesian Inference. Proceedings of the Annual Meeting of the Cognitive Science Society, 33.
Denison, S., Bonawitz, E. B, Gopnik, A., & Griffiths, T. L. (2010). Preschoolers sample from probability distributions. Proceedings of the Annual Meeting of the Cognitive Science Society, 32.
Denison, S., Garcia, V., Konopczynski, K., & Xu, F. (2006). Probabilistic Reasoning in Preschoolers: Random Sampling and Base Rate. Proceedings of the Annual Meeting of the Cognitive Science Society, 28.
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).