As we count up, number words that occur later in our count denote greater quantities. Here, we tested whether children's understanding of this “later-greater” principle originates from associating nu...

Please refer to the How to Apply for a Job (for External Candidates) job aid for instructions on how to apply. If you are an active McGill employee (ie: currently in an active contract or position at ...

When asked to count under specific instructions, for example, to count “the forks,” or to identify the referent of “a fork,” children have been shown to treat whole forks and detached parts of fork...

What does it mean for something to be complex? Fundamentally, complexity is a cue that something is less easily represented by our minds. With this fact in view, complexity becomes a tool: By understa...

Abstract. An emerging body of work in visual working memory (VWM) has embraced the theoretical construct of pointers: an object is mentally represented by

The language of thought hypothesis (LoTH) claims that thoughts are underpinned by language-like vehicles. A central motivation is that there is a relevant similarity between language and thought expla...

All content on this site: Copyright © 2026 Elsevier B.V., its licensors, and contributors. All rights are reserved, including those for text and data mining, AI training, and similar technologies. For all open access content, the relevant licensing terms apply.

Infants use others' emotional expressions to make inferences about the world, for example by inferring candidate causes of their happiness or sadness. However, one emotion—surprise—is less clearly li...

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

ALT: Flynn Rider's Confident Smirk

Weber's law is a rare quantitative regularity in psychology, yet its origins remain debated. Here we provide causal evidence that it arises from the more fundamental principle of efficient coding. Thi...