Journal Publications
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Chu, J. & Schulz, L.E. (2023) Not playing by the rules: Exploratory play, rational action, and efficient search. Open Mind 1-24. doi: 10.1162/opmi_a_00076 [open access][OSF]
Pelz, M.C., Allen, K.R., Tenenbaum, J.B., & Schulz, L.E. (2022). Foundations of intuitive power analyses in children and adults. Nature Human Behavior. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41562-022-01427-2 [pdf]
Wu, Y., Schulz, L. E., Frank, M. C., & Gweon, H. (2021). Emotion as information in early social learning. Current Directions in Psychological Science. Advance Online Publication. https://doi.org/10.1177/09637214211040779 [pdf] [psyarxiv]
Siegel, M., Pelz, M., Magid, M., Tenenbaum, J.B., & Schulz, L.E., (2021). Intuitive psychophysics: Children’s exploratory play tracks the discriminability of hypotheses. Nature Communications, 12, 3598. [pdf]
Chu, J., & Schulz, L.E., (2021). Children selectively endorse speculative conjectures. Child Development. [pdf]
Leonard, J. A., Duckworth, A., Schulz, L.E., & Mackey, A., (2021). Leveraging cognitive science to foster children’s persistence. Trends in Cognitive Sciences, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.tics.2021.05.005 [pdf]
Levine, S., Kleiman-Weiner, M., Schulz, L.E., Cushman, F., & Tenenbaum, J.B. (2020). The logic of universalization guides moral judgment. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 117(42), 26158-26169. [pdf]
Sheskin, et al., (2020). Online developmental science to foster innovation, access, and impact. Trends in Cognitive Science 24(9) 675-678. [open access]
Chu, J. & Schulz, L.E. (2020). Play, Curiosity, and Cognition. Annual Reviews of Developmental Psychology. [pdf]
Jara-Ettinger, J. Floyd, S. Huey, Tenenbaum, J.B., & Schulz, L. E. (2019). Social pragmatics: Preschoolers rely on commonsense psychology to resolve referential underspecification. Child Development. [pdf]
Leonard, J. & Schulz, L. E. (2019). Practice what you preach: How adults’ actions, outcomes and testimony affect preschoolers’ persistence. Child Development. [pdf]
Wu, Y. & Schulz, L. E. (2019). Understanding social display rules: Using one person's emotional expressions to infer the desires of another. Child Development. [open access]
Gweon, H., & Schulz, L.E. (2019). From exploration to instruction: Children learn from exploration and tailor their demonstrations to observers. Child Development. [pdf]
Gweon, H., Shafto, P., & Schulz, L.E. (2018). Development of children’s sensitivity to over-informativeness in learning and teaching. Developmental Psychology, 54(11), 2113-2125. [pdf]
Jara-Ettinger, J., Sun, F., Schulz, L.E., & Tenenbaum, J. (2018). Sensitivity to the sampling process emerges from the principle of efficiency. Cognitive Science, 42(S1), 270-286. [pdf]
Muentener, P., Herrig, E., & Schulz, L.E. (2018). The efficiency of infants’ exploratory play is related to longer-term cognitive development. Frontiers in Psychology. [open access]
Magid, R., de Pascale, M., & Schulz, L.E. (2018). Four and five-year-olds infer differences in relative ability and appropriately allocate roles to achieve cooperative, competitive and prosocial goals. Open Mind, 1(4), 194-207. [open access]
Leonard, J.A., Lee, Y., & Schulz, L.E. (2017). Infants make more attempts to achieve a goal when they see adults persist. Science, 357(6357), 1290-1294. [pdf]
Wu, Y., Muentener, P., & Schulz, L. E. (2017). One- to four-year-olds connect diverse positive emotional vocalizations to their probable causes. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 114(45), 11896-11901. [pdf]
Magid, R., Yan, P., Siegel, M., Tenenbaum, J., & Schulz, L.E. (2017). Changing minds: Children's inferences about third party belief revision. Developmental Science. [pdf]
Wu, Y. & Schulz, L.E. (2017). Inferring beliefs and desires from emotional reactions to anticipated and observed events. Child Development. [pdf]
Kline, M., Schulz, L.E., & Gibson, T. (2017). Partial Truths: Adults choose to mention agents and patients in proportion to informativity, even if it doesn't fully disambiguate the message. Open Mind, 1(3), 123-135. [pdf]
Wu, Y., Baker, L.C., Tenenbaum, J., & Schulz, L.E. (2017). Rational inference of beliefs and desires from emotional expressions. Cognitive Science. [pdf]
Jara-Ettinger, J., Floyd, S., Tenenbaum, J., & Schulz, L.E. (2017). Children understand that agents maximize expected utilities. Journal of Experimental Psychology: General, 146(11), 1574-1585. [pdf]
Magid, R. & Schulz, L.E. (2017). Moral alchemy: How love changes norms. Cognition, 167, 135-150. [pdf]
Scott, K. & Schulz, L.E. (2017). Lookit (Part One): A new online platform for developmental research. Open Mind, 1(1), 4-14 [pdf]
Scott, K., Chu, J., & Schulz, L.E. (2017). Lookit (Part Two): Assessing the viability of online developmental research: Results from three case studies. Open Mind, 1(1), 15-29. [pdf]
Jara-Ettinger, J., Gweon, H., Schulz, L.E., & Tenenbaum, J. (2016). The naïve utility calculus: Computational principles underlying commonsense psychology. Trends in Cognitive Science, 20(8), 589-604. [pdf]
Kline, M., Snedeker, J., & Schulz, L. (2016). Linking language and events: Spatiotemporal cues drive children's expectations about the meanings of novel transitive verbs. Language Learning and Development, 1-23. [pdf]
Shnediman, L., Gweon, H., Schulz, L.E., & Woodward, A. (2016). Learning from others and spontaneous exploration: A cross-cultural investigation. Child Development, 87(3), 723-735. [pdf]
Wu, Y., Muentener, P. & Schulz, L.E. (2015). The invisible hand: Toddlers connect probabilistic events with agentive causes. Cognitive Science, 1(23). [pdf]
Schulz, L. (2015). Infants explore the unexpected. Comment on Observing the unexpected enhances infants' learning and exploration. Science, 3(6230), 42-43. [link]
Jara-Ettinger, J., Gweon, H., Tenenbaum, J. B., & Schulz, L. E. (2015). Children's understanding of the costs and rewards underlying rational action. Cognition. [pdf]
Jara-Ettinger, J., Tenenbaum, J. B., & Schulz, L. E. (2015). Not so innocent: Toddlers' inferences about costs and culpability. Psychological Science. [pdf]
Magid, R., Sheskin, M. & Schulz, L.E. (2015). Imagination and the generation of new ideas. Cognitive Development. [pdf]
Gweon, H., Pelton, H., Konopka, J.A. & Schulz, L.E. (2014). Sins of omission: Children selectively explore when teachers are under-informative. Cognition. [pdf]
Muentener, P., & Schulz, L.E. (2014). Toddlers infer unobserved causes for spontaneous events. Frontiers in Psychology. 5:1496 [pdf]
Schulz, L.E. (2012). Finding new facts; Thinking new thoughts. In J.B. Benson (Serial Ed.) & F. Xu & T. Kushnir (Vol. Eds.), Rational Constructivism in Cognitive Development(pp. 269-294). Elsevier Inc.: Academic Press. [pdf]
Muentener, P., Friel, D., & Schulz, L.E. (2012). Giving the giggles: Prediction, intervention, and young children's representation of psychological Events. PLoS ONE, 7(8). [pdf]
Schulz, L.E. (2012). The origins of inquiry: Inductive inference and exploration in early childhood. Trends in Cognitive Science, 16, 382-389 [pdf]
Muentener, P., Bonawitz, E., Horowitz, A., & Schulz, L. (2012). Mind the gap: Investigating toddlers' sensitivity to contact relations in predictive events. PLoS ONE, 7(4). [pdf]
Bonawitz, E. B., Fischer, A., & Schulz, L.E. (2012). Teaching the bayesian child: Three-and-a-half-year-olds’ reasoning about ambiguous evidence. Journal of Cognition and Development. [pdf]
Bonawitz, E. B., van Schijndel, T. J. P., Friel, D., & Schulz, L. E. (2012). Children balance theories and evidence in exploration, explanation, and learning. Cognitive Psychology, 64(4), 215-234. [pdf]
Muentener, P. & Schulz, L. (2012). What doesn’t go without saying: Communication, induction, and exploration. Language, Learning, and Development, 8, 61-85. [pdf]
Gweon, H. & Schulz, L.E. (2011). 16-month-olds rationally infer causes of failed actions. Science, 332(6037), 1524 [pdf]
Cook, C., Goodman, N., & Schulz, L. E. (2011). Where science starts: Spontaneous experiments in preschoolers' exploratory play. Cognition, 120(3), 341-349. [pdf]
Bonawitz, E. B., Shafto, P., Gweon, H., Goodman, N., Spelke, E. & Schulz, L. E. (2011). The double-edged sword of pedagogy: Teaching limits children’s spontaneous exploration and discovery. Cognition, 120(3), 322-330. [pdf]
Gweon, H., Tenenbaum, J., & Schulz, L.E. (2010). Infants consider both the sample and the sampling process in inductive generalization. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 107(20), 9066-9071 [pdf]
Bonawitz, E.B., Ferranti, D., Gopnik, A., Meltzoff, A. Woodward, J., & Schulz, L.E. (2010). Just do it? Toddlers’ ability to integrate prediction and action in causal inference. Cognition, 115, 104-117. [pdf]
Kushnir, T., Gopnik, A., Lucas C., & Schulz, L. E. (2009). Inferring hidden causal structure. Cognitive Science, 34(2010), 148-160. [pdf]
Schulz, L.E., Goodman, N.D., Tenenbaum, J.B., & Jenkins, C.A. (2008). Going beyond the evidence: Abstract laws and preschoolers' responses to anomalous data. Cognition, 109(2), 211-223. [pdf]
Schulz, L.E., Standing, H., & Bonawitz, E.B. (2008). Word, thought and deed: The role of object labels in children's inductive inferences and exploratory play. Developmental Psychology, 44(5), 1266-1276. [pdf]
Shtulman, A. & Schulz, L.E. (2008). The relationship between essentialist beliefs and evolutionary reasoning. Cognitive Science, 32(6), 1049-1062. [pdf]
Schulz, L.E., Hooppell, K., & Jenkins, A. (2008). Judicious imitation: Young children imitate deterministic actions exactly, stochastic actions more variably. Child Development, 79(20), 395-410. [pdf]
Schulz, L.E. & Bonawitz, E. B. (2007). Serious Fun: Preschoolers engage in more exploratory play when evidence is confounded. Developmental Psychology, 43(4), 1045-1050. [pdf]
Schulz, L.E., Bonawitz, E. B., & Griffiths, T. (2007). Can being scared make your tummyache? Naive theories, ambiguous evidence and preschoolers' causal inferences. Developmental Psychology, 43(5), 1124-1139. [pdf]
Saxe, R., Schulz, L., & Jiang, Y. (2007). Reading minds versus following rules: Dissociating theory of mind and executive control in the brain. Social Neuroscience. [pdf]
Schulz, L. E., Gopnik, A., & Glymour, C. (2007). Preschool children learn about causal structure from conditional interventions. Developmental Science, 10(3), 322-332. [pdf]
Schulz, L. E. & Sommerville, J. (2006). God does not play dice: Causal determinism and children's inferences about unobserved causes. Child Development, 77(2), 427-442. [pdf]
Schulz, L. E. & Gopnik, A. (2004). Causal learning across domains, Developmental Psychology, 40(2), 162-176. [pdf]
Gopnik, A. & Schulz, L. E. (2004). Mechanisms of theory-formation in young children. Trends in Cognitive Science, 8(8), 371-377. [pdf]
Gopnik, A., Glymour, C., Sobel, D., Schulz, L. E., Kushnir, T., & Danks, D. (2004). A theory of causal learning in children: Causal maps and Bayes nets. Psychological Review, 111, 1-31. [pdf]
Leigland, L., Schulz, L. E. & Janowsky, J. (2004). Age-related changes in emotional memory. Neurobiology of Aging, 25(8), 1117-1124. [link]
Gopnik, A., Sobel, D. M., Schulz, L. E., & Glymour, C. (2001). Causal learning mechanisms in very young children: Two-, three-, and four-year-olds infer causal relations from patterns of variation and covariation. Developmental Psychology, 37(5), 620-629. [pdf]