Research graph
References from Young children can infer what speakers know based on their causal influence over listeners. Local targets link to admitted publications; unresolved targets remain external evidence.
Rational quantitative attribution of beliefs, desires and percepts in human mentalizing
10.1038/s41562-017-0064 · 2017 · External reference
Accessing the unsaid: The role of scalar alternatives in children’s pragmatic inference
10.1016/j.cognition.2010.10.010 · 2011 · External reference
The pervasive role of pragmatics in early language
10.1146/annurev-devpsych-121318-085037 · 2019 · External reference
Pragmatics as social inference about intentional action
10.1162/opmi_a_00191 · 2025 · External reference
Evidence for “rose-colored glasses”: An examination of the positivity bias in young children’s personality judgments
10.1111/j.1750-8606.2010.00149.x · 2010 · External reference
Mechanism-based causal reasoning in young children
10.1111/j.1467-8624.2011.01646.x · 2011 · External reference
Theory of minds: early understanding of interacting minds
10.1146/annurev-devpsych-111323-115032 · 2025 · External reference
Children’s understanding of how noise disrupts verbal communication
10.1093/chidev/aacag011 · 2026 · External reference
Unresolved reference
1996 · External reference
The rational speech act framework
10.1146/annurev-linguistics-031220-010811 · 2023 · External reference
Relations between false belief understanding and executive function in early childhood: A meta-analysis
10.1111/cdev.12237 · 2014 · External reference
When being right is not enough: Four-year-olds distinguish knowledgeable informants from merely accurate informants
10.1177/0956797611416998 · 2011 · External reference
Six-month-old infants use cross-modal synchrony to identify novel communicative signals
10.1038/s41598-024-78801-9 · 2024 · External reference
Communicative signals support abstract rule learning by 7-month-old infants
10.1038/srep25434 · 2016 · External reference
What the [beep]? Six-month-olds link novel communicative signals to meaning
10.1016/j.cognition.2015.09.020 · 2016 · External reference
Predicting pragmatic reasoning in language games
10.1126/science.1218633 · 2012 · External reference
Counterfactual simulation in causal cognition
10.1016/j.tics.2024.04.012 · 2024 · External reference
A counterfactual simulation model of causal judgments for physical events.
10.1037/rev0000281 · 2021 · External reference
The development of human causal learning and reasoning
10.1038/s44159-024-00300-5 · 2024 · External reference
Pragmatic language interpretation as probabilistic inference
10.1016/j.tics.2016.08.005 · 2016 · External reference
Logic and conversation
1975 · External reference
Inferential social learning: Cognitive foundations of human social learning and teaching
10.1016/j.tics.2021.07.008 · 2021 · External reference
Order matters: Children’s evaluation of underinformative teachers depends on context
10.1111/cdev.12825 · 2018 · External reference
16-Month-olds rationally infer causes of failed actions
10.1126/science.1204493 · 2011 · External reference
Planning with theory of mind
10.1016/j.tics.2022.08.003 · 2022 · External reference
Theory of mind as inverse reinforcement learning
10.1016/j.cobeha.2019.04.010 · 2019 · External reference
Children understand that agents maximize expected utilities.
10.1037/xge0000345 · 2017 · External reference
Fourteen-to eighteen-month-old infants use explicit linguistic information to update an agent’s false belief
10.3389/fpsyg.2019.02508 · 2019 · External reference
The trajectory of counterfactual simulation in development.
10.1037/dev0001140 · 2021 · External reference
Causal superseding
10.1016/j.cognition.2015.01.013 · 2015 · External reference
“Who can help me fix this toy?” the distinction between causal knowledge and word knowledge guides preschoolers’ selective requests for information.
10.1037/a0031649 · 2013 · External reference
The acquisition of modal concepts
10.1016/j.tics.2019.11.004 · 2020 · External reference
Minimal representations of possibility at age 3
10.1073/pnas.2207499119 · 2022 · External reference
Do six-month-old infants perceive causality?
10.1016/s0010-0277(87)80006-9 · 1987 · External reference
The privileged status of knowing mechanistic information: An early epistemic bias
10.1111/cdev.13246 · 2019 · External reference
A longitudinal assessment of the relation between executive function and theory of mind at 3, 4, and 5 years
10.1016/j.cogdev.2014.07.001 · 2015 · External reference
Understanding the abstract role of speech in communication at 12 months
10.1016/j.cognition.2011.12.003 · 2012 · External reference
Unresolved reference
1963 · External reference
Children’s understanding of second-order mental states.
10.1037/a0016854 · 2009 · External reference
Three-year-olds express suspense when an agent approaches a scene with a false belief
10.1111/desc.12310 · 2016 · External reference
Young children’s yes bias: How does it relate to verbal ability, inhibitory control, and theory of mind?
10.1177/0142723708092413 · 2008 · External reference
Do face-to-face interactions support 6-month-olds’ understanding of the communicative function of speech?
10.1111/infa.12507 · 2023 · External reference
Toddlers’ expressions indicate that they track agent–object interactions but do not detect false object representations
10.1016/j.jecp.2023.105639 · 2023 · External reference
The development of the counterfactual imagination
10.1111/cdep.12348 · 2019 · External reference
Mature counterfactual reasoning in 4-and 5-year-olds
10.1016/j.cognition.2018.10.027 · 2019 · External reference
When do children exhibit a “yes” bias?
10.1111/j.1467-8624.2009.01416.x · 2010 · External reference
Young children infer preferences from a single action, but not if it is constrained
10.1016/j.cognition.2016.07.004 · 2016 · External reference
Counterfactual reasoning: From childhood to adulthood
10.1016/j.jecp.2012.10.010 · 2013 · External reference
Foundations of theory of mind and its development in early childhood
10.1038/s44159-022-00037-z · 2022 · External reference
Unresolved reference
2025 · External reference
The perception of causality in infancy
10.1016/j.actpsy.2006.05.005 · 2006 · External reference
A rational account of pedagogical reasoning: Teaching by, and learning from, examples
10.1016/j.cogpsych.2013.12.004 · 2014 · External reference
Can an agent’s false belief be corrected by an appropriate communication? Psychological reasoning in 18-month-old infants
10.1016/j.cognition.2008.08.008 · 2008 · External reference
Unresolved reference
1986 · External reference
Force dynamics in language and cognition
10.1207/s15516709cog1201_2 · 1988 · External reference
Communicative mind-reading in preverbal infants
10.1038/s41598-018-27804-4 · 2018 · External reference
Variability of signal sequences in turn-taking exchanges induces agency attribution in 10.5-mo-olds
10.1073/pnas.1816709116 · 2019 · External reference
Co-dependency of exchanged behaviors is a cue for agency attribution in 10-month-olds
10.1038/s41598-021-97811-5 · 2021 · External reference
Do 6-month-olds understand that speech can communicate?
10.1111/desc.12170 · 2014 · External reference
Twelve-month-old infants recognize that speech can communicate unobservable intentions
10.1073/pnas.1121057109 · 2012 · External reference
On the relation between theory of mind and executive functioning: A developmental cognitive neuroscience perspective
10.3758/s13423-018-1459-0 · 2018 · External reference
Representing causation
10.1037/0096-3445.136.1.82 · 2007 · External reference
