Abstract In typical statistical learning studies, researchers define sequences in terms of the probability of the next item in the sequence given the current item (or items), and they show that high probability sequences are treated as more familiar than low probability sequences. Existing accounts of these phenomena all assume that participants represent statistical regularities […]

Abstract The current studies (N = 255, children ages 4–5 and adults) explore patterns of age‐related continuity and change in conceptual representations of social role categories (e.g., “scientist”). In Study 1, young children’s judgments of category membership were shaped by both category labels and category‐normative traits, and the two were dissociable, indicating that even young children’s conceptual […]

Abstract Human vision supports social perception by efficiently detecting agents and extracting rich information about their actions, goals, and intentions. Here, we explore the cognitive architecture of perceived animacy by constructing Bayesian models that integrate domain‐specific hypotheses of social agency with domain‐general cognitive constraints on sensory, memory, and attentional processing. Our model posits that perceived […]