Andrew Shtulman
@andrewshtulman.bsky.social
Professor, cognitive developmental psychologist, and author of SCIENCEBLIND (Basic) and LEARNING TO IMAGINE (Harvard). I love academic bureaucracy and sarcasm.
New article w/ M Pabla & @orifriedman.bsky.social
onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/...
When children claim an unexpected event is impossible they also claim it's never happened, even for immoral events, suggesting their judgments reflect beliefs about what could happen & not merely what should.
onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/...
When children claim an unexpected event is impossible they also claim it's never happened, even for immoral events, suggesting their judgments reflect beliefs about what could happen & not merely what should.
October 24, 2025 at 5:00 PM
New article w/ M Pabla & @orifriedman.bsky.social
onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/...
When children claim an unexpected event is impossible they also claim it's never happened, even for immoral events, suggesting their judgments reflect beliefs about what could happen & not merely what should.
onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/...
When children claim an unexpected event is impossible they also claim it's never happened, even for immoral events, suggesting their judgments reflect beliefs about what could happen & not merely what should.
New article in Cognition! www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...
Children are able to differentiate fake news from real news even before exposure to fake news on social media. This ability improves with age & even more so with cognitive reflection or the disposition to question an initial intuition.
Children are able to differentiate fake news from real news even before exposure to fake news on social media. This ability improves with age & even more so with cognitive reflection or the disposition to question an initial intuition.
September 2, 2025 at 4:14 PM
New article in Cognition! www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...
Children are able to differentiate fake news from real news even before exposure to fake news on social media. This ability improves with age & even more so with cognitive reflection or the disposition to question an initial intuition.
Children are able to differentiate fake news from real news even before exposure to fake news on social media. This ability improves with age & even more so with cognitive reflection or the disposition to question an initial intuition.
Oooh, the Spanish translation of Learning to Imagine is pretty!
August 28, 2025 at 4:57 PM
Oooh, the Spanish translation of Learning to Imagine is pretty!
The archive also includes the thousands of mollusks he gathered, described, and classified when he was just a teenager.
June 26, 2025 at 2:44 PM
The archive also includes the thousands of mollusks he gathered, described, and classified when he was just a teenager.
I’m honored to be a keynote speaker at the 5th Jean Piaget Conference at the University of Geneva. A highlight of the conference waa a tour of the Jean Piaget archives, which includes 80,000 documents currently being organized and systemized. 10,000 of those documents are experimental protocols!
June 26, 2025 at 2:42 PM
I’m honored to be a keynote speaker at the 5th Jean Piaget Conference at the University of Geneva. A highlight of the conference waa a tour of the Jean Piaget archives, which includes 80,000 documents currently being organized and systemized. 10,000 of those documents are experimental protocols!
Is there a tradeoff between the breadth and depth of moral concern? Not at the level of individual perception. @joshrottman.bsky.social finds that people who are concerned about strangers as much as friends also show deeper concern for both. #SPP2025
(I never miss a Josh Rottman talk!)
(I never miss a Josh Rottman talk!)
June 21, 2025 at 6:56 PM
Is there a tradeoff between the breadth and depth of moral concern? Not at the level of individual perception. @joshrottman.bsky.social finds that people who are concerned about strangers as much as friends also show deeper concern for both. #SPP2025
(I never miss a Josh Rottman talk!)
(I never miss a Josh Rottman talk!)
Infants have been shown to individuate objects before people in a visual occlusion task. Why? @brandonwoo.bsky.social, @ashleyjthomas.bsky.social, et al. find that engagement matters. Infants *do* individuate people who actively engage with them.
June 21, 2025 at 3:47 PM
Infants have been shown to individuate objects before people in a visual occlusion task. Why? @brandonwoo.bsky.social, @ashleyjthomas.bsky.social, et al. find that engagement matters. Infants *do* individuate people who actively engage with them.
Is learning always good? Zoe Jenkin argues that it’s not; learners are often worse off when they misapply newfound knowledge and need to recognize the superficiality of their understanding to make progress toward genuine expertise. #SPP2025
June 21, 2025 at 3:22 PM
Is learning always good? Zoe Jenkin argues that it’s not; learners are often worse off when they misapply newfound knowledge and need to recognize the superficiality of their understanding to make progress toward genuine expertise. #SPP2025
Day 3 of #SPP2025. Marina Bedny shares fascinating evidence that congenitally blind people use the same intuitive theories of color as sighted people to predict and explain object coloration even when they disagree about what color an object tends to be.
June 21, 2025 at 2:35 PM
Day 3 of #SPP2025. Marina Bedny shares fascinating evidence that congenitally blind people use the same intuitive theories of color as sighted people to predict and explain object coloration even when they disagree about what color an object tends to be.
The highlight of Day 2 was @tamarkushnir.bsky.social singing “Pure Imagination” at a restaurant in Ithaca—a song by she dedicated to me. 😊
June 21, 2025 at 1:50 AM
The highlight of Day 2 was @tamarkushnir.bsky.social singing “Pure Imagination” at a restaurant in Ithaca—a song by she dedicated to me. 😊
@shannonspaulding.bsky.social delivers the 2025 Stanton Prize address, explicating the tools we use to understand other minds and how they lead to systematic types of mistakes. #SPP2025
June 20, 2025 at 8:26 PM
@shannonspaulding.bsky.social delivers the 2025 Stanton Prize address, explicating the tools we use to understand other minds and how they lead to systematic types of mistakes. #SPP2025
Do children use counterevidence to change their mind if changing their mind means disagreeing with their ingroup? No! Zoe Finiasz, @tamarkushnir.bsky.social, et al. find that children will refrain from revising their beliefs if their ingroup is defined by that belief. #SPP2025
June 20, 2025 at 4:27 PM
Do children use counterevidence to change their mind if changing their mind means disagreeing with their ingroup? No! Zoe Finiasz, @tamarkushnir.bsky.social, et al. find that children will refrain from revising their beliefs if their ingroup is defined by that belief. #SPP2025
Josep Sommer and Tania Lombrozo uncover inconsistencies in belief with a clever question-asking paradigm with items like:
1. Do whales have hair? (No!)
2. Are whales mammals? (Yes!)
3. Do all mammals have hair? (Yes! Wait a minute…)
#SPP2025
1. Do whales have hair? (No!)
2. Are whales mammals? (Yes!)
3. Do all mammals have hair? (Yes! Wait a minute…)
#SPP2025
June 20, 2025 at 3:48 PM
Josep Sommer and Tania Lombrozo uncover inconsistencies in belief with a clever question-asking paradigm with items like:
1. Do whales have hair? (No!)
2. Are whales mammals? (Yes!)
3. Do all mammals have hair? (Yes! Wait a minute…)
#SPP2025
1. Do whales have hair? (No!)
2. Are whales mammals? (Yes!)
3. Do all mammals have hair? (Yes! Wait a minute…)
#SPP2025
Kristin Andrew’s makes the case for using conceptual analysis to decide questions about shared mental traits in comparative psychology. #SPP2025
June 20, 2025 at 3:10 PM
Kristin Andrew’s makes the case for using conceptual analysis to decide questions about shared mental traits in comparative psychology. #SPP2025
Where do core cognitive skills come from? Justin Wood argues that space-time fitting to the statistics of environmental input can explain a lot of early emerging abilities. #SPP2925
June 20, 2025 at 2:44 PM
Where do core cognitive skills come from? Justin Wood argues that space-time fitting to the statistics of environmental input can explain a lot of early emerging abilities. #SPP2925
Day 2 of #SPP2025 begins with a fascinating talk by @chriskrupenye.bsky.social on whether chimpanzees and bonobos have a theory of mind. Krupenye’s studies show that our ape cousins track others’ knowledge not just to obtain food but also for a seemingly intrinsic love of drama!
June 20, 2025 at 1:36 PM
Day 2 of #SPP2025 begins with a fascinating talk by @chriskrupenye.bsky.social on whether chimpanzees and bonobos have a theory of mind. Krupenye’s studies show that our ape cousins track others’ knowledge not just to obtain food but also for a seemingly intrinsic love of drama!
Are evil acts always wrong? No! Ryan Wheat & Geoffrey Goodwin find that judgments of evil are qualitatively distinct from judgments of wrongdoing and seem to depend on disdain more than harm or injustice. #SPP2025
June 19, 2025 at 8:28 PM
Are evil acts always wrong? No! Ryan Wheat & Geoffrey Goodwin find that judgments of evil are qualitatively distinct from judgments of wrongdoing and seem to depend on disdain more than harm or injustice. #SPP2025
Is complexity a unitary concept? Tal Boger & @chazfirestone.bsky.social show that we see complex shapes, dot arrays, melodies, words, and equations as sharing a deep feature even though they vary in their superficial features, & this perception is transferable, automatic, and consequential. #SPP2025
June 19, 2025 at 7:33 PM
Is complexity a unitary concept? Tal Boger & @chazfirestone.bsky.social show that we see complex shapes, dot arrays, melodies, words, and equations as sharing a deep feature even though they vary in their superficial features, & this perception is transferable, automatic, and consequential. #SPP2025
Julia Staffel argues, in the #SPP2025 symposium on rationality, that epistemic akrasia, or the state of holding incompatible lower-order and higher-order attitudes, is rational when forming one’s attitudes in the midst of deliberation.
June 19, 2025 at 3:48 PM
Julia Staffel argues, in the #SPP2025 symposium on rationality, that epistemic akrasia, or the state of holding incompatible lower-order and higher-order attitudes, is rational when forming one’s attitudes in the midst of deliberation.
In the #SPP2025 invited symposium on rationality, Lael Schooler points out the intriguing correspondence between memory and the environment: forgetting curves map onto frequency of encounters over time for many types of encounters.
June 19, 2025 at 3:16 PM
In the #SPP2025 invited symposium on rationality, Lael Schooler points out the intriguing correspondence between memory and the environment: forgetting curves map onto frequency of encounters over time for many types of encounters.
@levelsof.bsky.social finds that discrepancies in young children’s ability to simulate multiple outcomes may stem from the architectural properties of object representation such that locations are represented mandatorily but identities are not.
June 18, 2025 at 7:57 PM
@levelsof.bsky.social finds that discrepancies in young children’s ability to simulate multiple outcomes may stem from the architectural properties of object representation such that locations are represented mandatorily but identities are not.
@jsphillips.bsky.social shows that the “modal distance” of a possible action—i.e., its distance from better, more quickly accessed options—predicts judgments of whether that action was necessary to take.
June 18, 2025 at 6:39 PM
@jsphillips.bsky.social shows that the “modal distance” of a possible action—i.e., its distance from better, more quickly accessed options—predicts judgments of whether that action was necessary to take.