or just read co-lead author @esranur.bsky.social's lovely summary :) bsky.app/profile/esra...

Esra Nur Turan-Küçük@esranur.bsky.social · 2mo ago

1/ New paper with Stephanie Alderete, Fei Xu and Melissa Kibbe @levelsof.bsky.social!! osf.io/preprints/ps...

Now out online! Why do kids sometimes bomb possibility reasoning tasks and other times totally nail it? We review the lit and show how differences in a set of common ancillary cognitive demands in these tasks "push around" the age at which children succeed - psycnet.apa.org/doiLanding?d...

Melissa Kibbe@levelsof.bsky.social · 2mo ago

How do ancillary cognitive demands systematically shape young children's behaviors in a range of possibility reasoning tasks? Find out in our new paper, now in press at Developmental Psychology!

New from me and Jessica Applin! We find that infants' behavior in a cracker choice task is impacted by an agent’s partial knowledge of object quantity: infants choose based on the agent's (inaccurate) representation rather than their own 🤯 Now in press at JECP, preprint: osf.io/preprints/ps...

Why do estimates of when kids can reason about multiple possibilities vary so widely? We argue it’s partly because common possibility reasoning tasks pile on ancillary demands that mask true possibility reasoning ability. psycnet.apa.org/record/2028-...

Esra Nur Turan-Küçük@esranur.bsky.social · 2mo ago

1/ New paper with Stephanie Alderete, Fei Xu and Melissa Kibbe @levelsof.bsky.social!! osf.io/preprints/ps...

Children’s representations of possibility: Uncertainty about “what” is easier than uncertainty about “where” 
‼️From Esra Nur Turan-Küçük & Melissa M. Kibbe

Children’s Representations of Possibility: Uncertainty About “What” Is Easier Than Uncertainty About “Where”

Abstract. Young children struggle in situations involving mere possibility, such as when a target object could be in one of two possible locations. This difficulty is often interpreted as a general li...

doi.org

Now out in an issue! Children find it easier to represent uncertainty about *what* an object is than *where* an object is, with interesting implications for both early possibility reasoning and object representations ~~ Check it out 👉 direct.mit.edu/opmi/article...

Children’s Representations of Possibility: Uncertainty About “What” Is Easier Than Uncertainty About “Where”

Abstract. Young children struggle in situations involving mere possibility, such as when a target object could be in one of two possible locations. This difficulty is often interpreted as a general li...

direct.mit.edu

Esra Nur Turan-Küçük@esranur.bsky.social · 4mo ago

New paper in Open Mind! 2-to-4-year-olds find it easier to reason about an object's possible identity than its possible location, and we argue this asymmetry traces back to the architecture of early object representations. 🧵

Children’s Representations of Possibility: Uncertainty About “What” Is Easier Than Uncertainty About “Where”

Children’s Representations of Possibility: Uncertainty About “What” Is Easier Than Uncertainty About “Where”

Abstract. Young children struggle in situations involving mere possibility, such as when a target object could be in one of two possible locations. This difficulty is often interpreted as a general…

direct.mit.edu

How do ancillary cognitive demands systematically shape young children's behaviors in a range of possibility reasoning tasks? Find out in our new paper, now in press at Developmental Psychology!

Esra Nur Turan-Küçük@esranur.bsky.social · 2mo ago

1/ New paper with Stephanie Alderete, Fei Xu and Melissa Kibbe @levelsof.bsky.social!! osf.io/preprints/ps...

1/ New paper with Stephanie Alderete, Fei Xu and Melissa Kibbe @levelsof.bsky.social!! osf.io/preprints/ps...

Can infants or other animals represent "mutually exclusive possibilities"? In a new paper in JEP:G, we argue for specifying: in thinking or seeing? We show that in object perception (shared with infants and many animals), the answer is yes. (w Peter Mazalik & Roman Feiman) osf.io/preprints/ps... /1

New paper in Open Mind! 2-to-4-year-olds find it easier to reason about an object's possible identity than its possible location, and we argue this asymmetry traces back to the architecture of early object representations. 🧵

🥁Now announcing the winner of the 2026 Stanton Prize: Congratulations, Melissa Kibbe @levelsof.bsky.social! ⭐️ ⭐️ ⭐️ ⭐️ ⭐️ This honor will be celebrated at the upcoming meeting of the SPP

This is going to be an incredible event celebrating Alan Leslie's amazing career. Speakers include Susan Carey, Lisa Feigenson, Randy Gallistel, Ori Friedman, Zsuzsa Káldy, Ágnes Kovács, Sydney Levine, Sandeep Prasada, Brian Scholl, Luca Surian (and me!) Join in person at Rutgers or livestream

Jenny Wang 👶 🧮@jinjingjenny1.bsky.social · last yr.

📢 Come join us on Sunday, November 9th for the Rutgers Symposium of Learning with an amazing list of speakers and great company! More details: sites.rutgers.edu/symposium-le...

Children’s reasoning about possible outcomes of events in the present and the future 📣 Work by Esra N. Turan-Küçük & Melissa M. Kibbe

You can access the paper from our website as well www.bu.edu/cdl/files/20...

New from me and @esranur.bsky.social! In two exps with 3-4-year-olds, we find no differences in kids' reasoning about possible outcomes of an event in different temporal contexts; kids perform the same under physical and epistemic uncertainty psycnet.apa.org/record/2026-... #devpsy #psychscisky

Come check out work from my lab at @socphilpsych.bsky.social SPP 2025!

Hey, people who have kids, can you please share some info about staying in academia (job search mode) + being a mom? Thanks!

Check out my personal website: www.esraturankucuk.com/about

Paper w/ Gergely Csibra now out in Psych Review! Work in CogDev often assumes that infant object representations are perceptual/spatial in origin. There is a ton of beautiful work showing that this is not always the case — e.g. they represent objects that they are only told about (1/4) (links below)

If you/ your students are interviewing for PhD psych programs in US (especially social psych), check out the resource page on my website. There are guides prepped by grad students + questions to ask faculty etc. Good luck! www.pbandjlab.com/resources

You might think that having just one word for "yesterday" and "tomorrow" would make learning harder, but we find the opposite - that children learning the Hindi word "kal" understand its use to refer to past & future events earlier than English-speaking kids understand "yesterday" and "tomorrow".

Urvi Maheshwari ツ@urvi.bsky.social · 2y ago

Out now! @drbarner.bsky.social & I find that Hindi kids learn yesterday & tomorrow earlier than English kids, despite having only word 'kal' to reference both the past and future. We argue that kids rely on tense info (over associations w/ events) to learn. onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/...

SPP 2025 will be at Cornell, June 18-21!

Boston University Philosophy Dept welcomes applications for Findlay Visiting Professorship (Assoc or Full) for a semester or year beginning Fall 2025 or Spring 2026. AOS Open. Applicant will be expected to offer 1 course & give 1 public lecture. Deadline April 7, 2025 #philsci #philsky

📣🚨From Esra Nur Turan-Küçük & Melissa M. Kibbe: Three- and four-year-old children represent mutually exclusive possible identities

Three- and four-year-old children represent mutually exclusive possible identities

How do children think about and plan for possible outcomes of events that could happen in the future? Previous work that has investigated children’s a…

sciencedirect.com

The official version is now online! You can access it here: www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti... or on our website: www.bu.edu/cdl/developi... #devpsych #psychscisky #cogpsych #cogdev

Three- and four-year-old children represent mutually exclusive possible identities

How do children think about and plan for possible outcomes of events that could happen in the future? Previous work that has investigated children’s a…

sciencedirect.com

Esra Nur Turan-Küçük@esranur.bsky.social · 2y ago

🎉Our paper "Three- and Four-Year-Old Children Represent Mutually Exclusive Possible Identities" has been accepted for publication in the Journal of Experimental Child Psychology! You can read the preprint here: osf.io/rx4h9 (1/5)

New work from my lab, lead by superstar @esranur.bsky.social!! 🌟

Esra Nur Turan-Küçük@esranur.bsky.social · 2y ago

🎉Our paper "Three- and Four-Year-Old Children Represent Mutually Exclusive Possible Identities" has been accepted for publication in the Journal of Experimental Child Psychology! You can read the preprint here: osf.io/rx4h9 (1/5)

Example #23,498 of developmental work being adorable & touching: When kids weren't sure who was going to eat snack, they prepped the favorite foods of both possible agents, b/c kids are amazing. Lovely work by @esranur.bsky.social & @levelsof.bsky.social: osf.io/preprints/ps... #DevPsyc

🎉Our paper "Three- and Four-Year-Old Children Represent Mutually Exclusive Possible Identities" has been accepted for publication in the Journal of Experimental Child Psychology! You can read the preprint here: osf.io/rx4h9 (1/5)

Do infants represent collision events that violate Newtonian constraints on elastic collisions as causal? I tested this in my new paper with Susan Carey, "Infants' representation of Michottean triggering events", out today. www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti... #CogSciSky #PsychSciSky #CogSci

Infants' representations of michottean triggering events

The classic Michottean ‘launching’ event is consistent with a real-world Newtonian elastic collision. Previous research has shown that adult humans di…

sciencedirect.com