How do children learn new words? Do they simply track word-object co-occurrences across contexts, or do they also use information about what speakers know and intend? With @mzettersten.bsky.social and @drbarner.bsky.social, I tackled this question in our new preprint! 1/🧵👇 osf.io/preprints/ps...

If you study number and want a more standardized and convenient version for Give-N, consider using a digital task! New preprint 🚨 (with Kenyee Liu, Daniel Hyde and @drbarner.bsky.social): a digital Give-N task shows high knower level agreement with a physical version. 1/ osf.io/preprints/ps...

New paper with @mohitmukherji.bsky.social, Mona Lebrun, and @marjorierhodes.bsky.social @JEP:G! Did you ever wonder whether saying things like “boys can wear dresses too” is effective at reducing stereotypical inferences? We find that they’re probably not—check out more here: doi.org/10.1037/xge0...

Kids compute scalar implicatures at a younger age than previously found, when they can form their own interpretation first before we present them with irrelevant alternatives! Another case of task pragmatics masking kids’ early competence 🤔

Ebru Evcen@ebruevcen.bsky.social · 2mo ago

New preprint w/ @drbarner.bsky.social, and probably the most fun project I've worked on!! Past studies find kids fail to compute scalar implicatures. Do those tasks test spontaneous interpretation, or do they proffer worlds kids would never consider? 🧵 osf.io/preprints/ps...

Languages like English distinguish between mass nouns (e.g., water) and count nouns (e.g., cat). One way these nouns differ that count nouns quantify over individuals, while mass nouns supposedly do not. But what about mass nouns like "furniture", which often seem to quantify by number?

Our department is hiring an Assistant Teaching Professor!! This is a joint-appointed position with Computational Social Sciences (css.ucsd.edu). It's 75+ degrees F and sunny today, just thought I'd mention apol-recruit.ucsd.edu/JPF04461

Assistant Teaching Professor in Computational Social Science and Cognitive Science

University of California, San Diego is hiring. Apply now!

apol-recruit.ucsd.edu

Check out my new paper with @drbarner.bsky.social in JECP! We asked whether mutual exclusivity inferences involve epistemic reasoning about what a speaker knows, and whether children can infer speakers' knowledge of words from linguistic conventionality. (1/7) www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...

The role of epistemic reasoning in mutual exclusivity inferences

When encountering a novel word, adults and children as young as 12 months old often reason that it refers to a novel object rather than one with an ex…

sciencedirect.com

it's wild that R, the ubiquitous statistical computing language, was co-created by a Māori prof (Ross Ihaka) — and yet the vast majority of scientists who use R don't know this is like inventing the toaster. possibly the largest impact of a single member of an indigenous community on modern science

We are currently conducting interviews with jsPsych users to help us shape long-term project goals. We are interested in speaking with folks with all levels of comfort with jsPsych. The interviews are happening over the next four weeks. Each session is 20-30 minutes. We are paying participants $20.

New preprint by the phenomenal @ebruevcen.bsky.social with @drbarner.bsky.social revealing that people interpret conditionals pragmatically, initially treating them as biconditionals! So excited to see where this work goes next, especially for children’s acquisition of conditionals!

David Barner@drbarner.bsky.social · 2y ago

This new project by the 🎉fantastic🎉 @ebruevcen.bsky.social shows in 4 studies that people’s first understanding of conditionals is pragmatic - using RT data, then with a cognitive load task. This is contrary to what’s found for other pragmatic inferences w/ interesting implications for acquisition.

notes on citing R and R Packages #rstats www.tjmahr.com/r-package-ci...

Notes on Citing R and R Packages

Who, what, where, when and which

tjmahr.com

Another paper w/ @urvi.bsky.social, showing that Hindi kids learn yesterday/tomorrow earlier than English kids, despite Hindi expressing these with just one word 'kal'. We argue this is evidence for the priority of tense information (over associations with events). osf.io/preprints/os...

Happy to share this paper led by the fabulous @urvi.bsky.social. Turns out that children's struggle to understand temporal language may be partly because the things we refer to in tests of knowledge are not actually in the past or future & rely on hypothetical reasoning about imaginary timelines.

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

New preprint w @drbarner.bsky.social!TL;DR: even 3yos comprehend yesterday & tomorrow when tested on consecutive days, 1-2 years earlier than in other studies! BUT still struggle w hypothetical events. Tasks in which time actually passes maybe more sensitive to early time concepts! osf.io/gs3r4/

New preprint with Rose Schneider & @drbarner.bsky.social on children's learning of number concepts! osf.io/preprints/ps... TL;DR: Learning to count large sets may be necessary, but not enough for understanding that numbers represent exact quantities 🧠🔢 (1/4)