Publications
JOURNAL ARTICLES
Yu, Y., Shafto, P., & Bonawitz, E. (accepted) Inconvenient samples: Modeling the effects of non-consent by coupling observational and experimental results. Open Mind.
Walker, C., Rhett, A., & Bonawitz,
E. (in press) Object design influences preschooler and adult’s
relational causal inferences. Psychological
Science.
Persaud, K., Bass, L., Colantonio, J., Macias, C., & Bonawitz, E. (in press) Resource-rational analysis: understanding human cognition as the optimal use of limited computational resources. Response to Lieder and Griffiths, Behavior and Brain Sciences.
Bonawitz, E., Shafto, P., Yu, Y., Bridgers, S., & Gonzalez, A. (2020) Children rationally change their beliefs in response to neutral follow-up questions. Cognitive Science.
Bonawitz, E., Ullman, T., Bridgers, S.,
Gopnik, A., & Tenenbaum, J.B. (2019) Chicken-and-egg:
A computational, historical, and behavioral case study of micro-theory
change in the domain of magnetism. Cognitive Science, 43(8), e12765.
Bass, L., Gopnik, A., Hanson, M., Ramarajan, D., Shafto, P., Wellman, H., & Bonawitz, E. (in press) Children's Developing Theory of Mind and Pedagogical Evidence Selection. Developmental Psychology, 55(2), 286.
Yu, Y., Landrum, A., Bonawitz, E., & Shafto, P. (in press) Questioning supports effective transmission of knowledge and increased exploratory learning in pre-kindergarten children. Developmental Science.
Yu, Y., Shafto, P., Bonawitz, E., Yang, S. C. H., Golinkoff, R. M., Corriveau, K. H., ... & Xu, F. (2018). The Theoretical and Methodological Opportunities Afforded by Guided Play With Young Children. Frontiers in psychology, 9.
Lombrozo, T., Bonawitz, E., Scalisea, N.R. (2018) Young children’s learning and generalization of teleological and mechanistic explanations. Journal of Cognition and Development. 19(2), P.1-13. https://doi.org/10.1080/15248372.2018.1427099
Yu, Y., Bonawitz, E., & Shafto, P. (2017) Pedagogical Questions in Mother-Child Conversations. Child Development. DOI: 10.1111/cdev.12850
Walker, C., Bonawitz, E., & Lombrozo, T. (2017) Effects of
explaining on children’s preference for simpler hypotheses. Psychonomic Bulletin and Review, 24(5), 1538–1547.
DOI:10.3758/s13423-016-1144-0
Bonawitz, E. & Shafto, P. (2016) Computational models of learning during development, social influences. Current Opinions in Behavioral Science, 7, 95-100.
Gopnik, A., & Bonawitz, E., (2015) Bayesian models of developmental theory change. Wiley Interdisciplinary Review: Cognitive Science Vol. 6(2), p.75-86. DOI: 10.1002/wcs.1330
Rhodes, M., Bonawitz, E., Shafto, P., Chen , A., & Caglara, L. (2015) Controlling the message: Preschoolers’ use of information to teach and deceive others Frontiers in Psychology, 6, 867.
Bonawitz, E., Denison, S., Griffiths, T., & Gopnik, A. (2014) Probabilistic Models, Learning Algorithms, Response Variability: Sampling in Cognitive Development. Trends in Cognitive Science, 18, 497-500.
Bonawitz, E., Denison, S., Gopnik, G., & Griffiths,
T.L. (2014) Win-stay,
lose-shift: A simple sampling algorithm for
approximating Bayesian inference. Cognitive
Psychology, 74, 35-65.
Denison*, S., Bonawitz*, E.B., Gopnik, A., & Griffiths, T. (2013) Rational Variability in Children’s Causal Inferences: The Sampling Hypothesis. Cognition, 126(2), 285-300. (*joint first authors)
Muentener, P., Bonawitz, E.B., Horowitz, A., & Schulz, L. (2012) Mind the gap: When toddlers do and do not expect contact causality. PLoS ONE 7(4):e34061.
Bonawitz, E.B., van Schijndel, T., Friel, D., & Schulz, L. (2012) Balancing theories and evidence in children's exploration, explanations, and learning. Cognitive Psychology, 64(4), 215-234.
Bonawitz, E.B, & Lombrozo, T. (2012) Occam's Rattle: Children’s use of simplicity and probability to constrain inference. Developmental Psychology, 48, 1156-1164.
Bonawitz, E.B., Fischer, A., & Schulz, L. (2012)Teaching 3.5-year-olds to revise their beliefs given ambiguous evidence. Journal of Cognition and Development, 13(2), 266-280.
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 exploratoration and discovery. Cognition, 120(3), 322-330. (*joint first author)
Bonawitz, E.B., Ferranti, D., Saxe, R., Gopnik, A., Meltzoff, A., Woodward, J., & Schulz, L. (2010) Just do it? Toddlers ability to integrate prediction and action. Cognition, 115, 104-117.
Schulz, L., 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.
Shafto, P., Kemp, C., Bonawitz, E.B., Coley, J.D., & Tenenbaum, J.B. (2008) Reasoning About Causal Transmission. Cognition, 109(2), 175-192.
Schulz, L., Bonawitz, E.B., & Griffiths, T.L. (2007) Can being scared give you a tummy ache? Naive theories, ambiguous evidence and preschoolers' causal inferences. Developmental Psychology, Sep Vol 43(5) 1124-1139.
Schulz, L., & Bonawitz, E.B. (2007) Serious fun: Preschoolers play more when evidence is confounded. Developmental Psychology, Jul Vol 43(4) 1045-1050.
JOURNAL ARTICLES (SUBMITTED)
Daubert, E.N, Yu, Y., Grados, M., Shafto, P, & Bonawitz, E. (in
review) Pedagogical questions promote causal learning in preschoolers.
Wang, J., Yang, Y., Macias, C., & Bonawitz, E. (in review) Children
with more immature intuitive theories seek domain-relevant information.
Macias, C., Persuad, K., Hemmer, P., & Bonawitz, E. (in revision)
Episodic Memory Error in Adults and Preschoolers: Category Expectations
Influence Episodic Memory for Color.
Doen, T., Castro, A., Bonawitz, E., & Denison, S. (in review) “Wow,
I did it!”: Unexpected success increases preschoolers’ exploratory play
on a later task.
Bonawitz, E., Walker, C., Abbot, J., Griffiths, T., & Gopnik, A.
(in revision) Variability in preschoolers’ cognitive search.
Colantonio, J., Durkin, K., Bonawitz, E., & Shafto, P. (in
revision) Intentional Selection Assumption.
Bonawitz, E.B. & Griffiths, T.L. (in revision) Considering
psychological mechanisms can change the interpretation of Bayesian
models.
REFEREED CONFERENCE PROCEEDINGS (FULL
PAPERS)
Rett,
A., Bonawitz, E., & Walker, C. (2019) The Design of the Learning
Environment Shapes Preschoolers’ Causal Inference. In A.K. Goel, C.M.
Seifert, & C. Freksa (Eds.) Proceedings
of the 41st Annual Conference of the Cognitive Science Society.
Montreal, QB: Cognitive Science Society. Bass,
I., Shafto, P., & Bonawitz, E. (2018) That'll Teach
'em: How
Expectations about Teaching Styles may Constrain Inferences. Proceedings of the 30th Annual Conference
of the Cognitive Science Society. Madison, WI: Cognitive Science
Society. Choi, K., Lapidow, E., Austin, J., Shafto, P. &
Bonawitz, E. (2018) Preschoolers
are more likely to direct questions to
adults than to other children (or selves) during spontaneous
conversational act. Proceedings
of the 30th Annual Conference of the Cognitive Science Society.
Madison, WI: Cognitive Science Society. Colantonio, J., & Bonawitz, E. (2018) Awesome play: Awe
increases preschoolers exploration and discovery. Proceedings of the 30th Annual Conference
of the Cognitive Science Society. Madison, WI: Cognitive
Science Society. Yu, Y. Bonawitz, E., & Shafto, P. (2017) Inconvenient
samples: Modeling the effects of non-consent by coupling observational
and experimental results. Proceedings
of the 29th Annual Conference of the Cognitive Science Society.
London, UK: Cognitive Science Society. Bass, L., Bonawitz, E., Shafto, P., Ramarajana, D.,
Gopnik, A., & Wellman, H. (2017) I know what you need to know:
Children’s developing theory of mind and pedagogical evidence
selection. Proceedings of the
29th Annual Conference of the Cognitive Science Society. London,
UK: Cognitive Science Society. Bass, L., Bonawitz, E., & Gweon, H. (2017) Didn’t
know, or didn’t show? Preschoolers consider epistemic state and degree
of omission when evaluating teachers. Proceedings of the 29th Annual Conference
of the Cognitive Science Society. London, UK: Cognitive Science
Society. Baker, L.J., Lobue, V., Bonawitz, E., & Shafto, P.
(2017) Towards
Automated Classification of Emotion Facial Expressions. Proceedings of the 29th Annual Conference
of the Cognitive Science Society. London, UK: Cognitive Science
Society. Yu, Y., Bonawitz, E., & Shafto, P. (2016) Questions in informal teaching: A
study of mother-child conversations. Proceedings of the 28th Annual Conference
of the Cognitive Science Society. Philadelphia, PA: Cognitive
Science Society. Durkin, K., Caglar, L., Bonawitz, E., & Shafto, P.
(2015). Explaining Choice
Behavior: The Intentional Selection
Assumption. In Dale, R., Jennings, C., Maglio, P., Matlock, T.,
Noelle,
D., Warlaumont, A., Yoshimi, J. (Eds.) Proceedings of the 37th Annual Conference
of the Cognitive Science Society. Austin, TX: Cognitive Science
Society, 708-713. Rhodes, M., Bonawitz, E., Shafto, P., & Chen, A.
(2014) Controlling the
message: Preschoolers’ use of evidence to teach and deceive others.
In Bello, P., Cuarini, M., McShane, M., & Scassellati, B. (Eds.) Proceedings
of the Thirty-sixth Cognitive Science Society. Austin, TX:
Cognitive Science Society, 213-218 Bonawitz, E., Ullman, T., Gopnik, A., & Tenenbaum,
J.B. (2012)
Sticking to the evidence? A computational and behavioral case study of
micro-theory change in the domain of magnetism. 2012
IEEE International Conference on Development and Learning and
Epigenetic Robotics (ICDL) [Best Paper: Experiment Combined with
Computational Model] Pham, K.*, Bonawitz, E., & Gopnik, A. (2012) Seeing who sees:
Contrastive access helps children rason about other minds. Proceedings
of the Thirty-fourth Cognitive Science Society. *mentored
undergraduate. Gonzalez, A.*, Shafto, P., Bonawitz, E., & Gopnik, A.
(2012) Is
that your final answer? the effects of neutral queries on children's
choices.Proceedings of the Thirty-fourth Cognitive
Science Society. *mentored undergraduate. Bonawitz, E., Denison, S., Chen, A., Gopnik, G., &
Griffiths, T.L. (2011) A simple sequential algorithm for approximating Bayesian
inferenceProceedings of the Thirty-third Cognitive
Science Society. Muentener, P., Bonawitz, E.B., Horowitz, A., &
Schulz, L.E. (2011) Mind the Gap: Dispositional Agency Facilitates Toddler’s
Causal Representations. Proceedings of the Thirty-third
Cognitive Science Society. Bonawitz, E.B., & Griffiths, T. (2010) Deconfounding
Hypothesis Generation and Evaluation in Bayesian Models. Proceedings
of the Thirty-second Cognitive Science Society. Denison, S., Bonawitz, E.B., Gopnik, A., & Griffiths,
T. (2010)
Preschoolers sample from probability distributions. Proceedings
of the Thirty-second Cognitive Science Society. Bonawitz, E.B., Horowitz, A., Ferranti, D., & Schulz,
L. (2009) The Block Makes It Go: Causal Language Helps Toddlers
Integrate Prediction, Action, and Expectations about Contact Relations.Proceedings
of the Thirty-first Cognitive Science Society. Bonawitz, E.B*., Shafto, P*., Gweon, H., Chang, I. ,
Katz, S., & Schulz, L. (2009) The
Double-Edged Sword of Pedagogy: Modeling the Effect of Pedagogical
Contexts on Preschoolers Exploratory Play.Proceedings of
the Thirty-first Cognitive Science Society. *Equal author
contribution. Bonawitz, E.B. & Schulz, L.E. (2008) Why
Learning is Hard. Symposium on Naturally-Inspired Artificial
Intelligence, Proceedings of AAAI. Bonawitz, E.B., Chang, I., Clark, C., & Lombrozo, T.
(2008) Ockham's
razor as inductive bias in preschoolers causal explanations.Proceedings
of the 7th International Conference of Development and Learning.
Monterey, CA. Bonawitz, E.B., Fischer, A., Schulz, L.E. (2008)Training a
Bayesian: Three-and-a-half-year-olds' reasoning about Ambiguous
Evidence. Proceedings of the Thirtieth Annual Conference
of the Cognitive Science Society. Washington, DC. Bonawitz, E.B., Lim, S., & Schulz, L.E. (2007) Weighing the
Evidence: Children's theories of Balance affect play. Proceedings
of the Twenty-Ninth Annual Conference of the Cognitive Science Society.
Nashville, Tennessee. Bonawitz, E.B., & Schulz, L. (2007) Children's
Rational Exploration. AAAI Fall Symposium on Computational
Approaches to Representation Change During Learning and Development. Washington
DC. Bonawitz, E.B., Griffiths, T.L., & Schulz, L. (2006) Modeling
Cross-Domain Causal Learning in Preschoolers as Bayesian Inference.
Proceedings of the Twenty-Eighth Annual Conference of the Cognitive
Science Society. Vancouver, Canada. 2006 [Received Marr Prize
for Best Student Paper] Griffiths, T.L., Baraff, E., & Tenenbaum, J.B. (2004)
Using
Physical Theories to Infer Hidden Causal Structure. Proceedings
of the Twenty-Sixth Annual Conference of the Cognitive Science Society.
[Marr Prize for Best Student Paper, Honorable Mention, Cognitive
Science. Chicago, IL] CHAPTERS & THESES Bonawitz, E., Perfors, A., & Ullman, T. (in press) Probabilistic Models of
Development. In: Griffiths, T. (ed) Probabilistic Models of Cognition. Bonawitz,
E., Bass, L., & Lapidow, E. (2018) Choosing
to Learn: Evidence
evaluation for active learning and teaching in early childhood. In
Saylor, M., & Ganea, P. (Eds.) Active
Learning from Infancy to Childhood: Social Motivation, Cognition, and
Linguistic Mechanisms. Springer International. Muentner, P., & Bonawitz, E. (2016) The development of Causal Reasoning.
In Waldman, M. (Ed.) Oxford Handbook
of Causality. Oxford, United Kingdom: Elsevier Limited. Shafto, P., & Bonawitz, E. (2015) Choice from among
intentionally selected options. In Brian Ross (Ed). Psychology of
Learning and Motivation, Vol 63. San Diego: Elsevier, 153-169. Bonawitz, E., Gopnik, A., Denison, S., & Griffiths,
T. (2012) Rational Randomness: The role of sampling in an algorithmic
account of preschooler's causal learning. In Xu, F., &
Kushnir, T. (Eds.) Rational Constructivism in Cognitive
Development. Oxford, United Kingdom: Elsevier Limited.
Choi, K., Grados, M, Bonawitz, E. (2019) Observing child-led
exploration improves parents’ causal inferences. In A.K. Goel, C.M.
Seifert, & C. Freksa (Eds.) Proceedings
of the 41st Annual Conference of the Cognitive Science Society.
Montreal, QB: Cognitive Science Society.
Persaud, K., Macias, C., Hemmer, P., & Bonawitz, E. (2019)
Age-Related Differences in the Influence of Category Expectations on
Episodic Memory in Early Childhood. In A.K. Goel, C.M. Seifert, &
C. Freksa (Eds.) Proceedings of the
41st Annual Conference of the Cognitive Science Society. Montreal,
QB: Cognitive Science Society.
Wang, J., & Bonawitz, E. (2019) Active information seeking using
the Approximate Number System. In A.K. Goel, C.M. Seifert, & C.
Freksa (Eds.) Proceedings of the
41st Annual Conference of the Cognitive Science Society.
Montreal, QB: Cognitive Science Society.
Jean, A., Daubert, E., Yu, Y., Shafto, P., & Bonawitz, E. (2019)
Pedagogical Questions Empower Exploration. In A.K. Goel, C.M. Seifert,
& C. Freksa (Eds.) Proceedings
of the 41st Annual Conference of the Cognitive Science Society.
Montreal, QB: Cognitive Science Society.
Goodman,
N.D., Baker, C.L, Bonawitz, E.B., Mansinghka, V.K., Gopnik, A.,
Wellman, H., Schulz, L.E., & Tenenbaum, J.B. (2006) Intuitive
Theories of Mind: A Rational Approach to False Belief. Proceedings
of the Twenty-Eighth Annual Conference of the Cognitive Science Society.
Vancouver, Canada.
Shafto, P., Kemp, C., Baraff, E.R., Tenenbaum, J.B., &
Coley, J. (2005) Inductive
Generalizations of Novel Disease: Causal Generalizations over Foodweb
Relations. Proceedings of the Twenty-Seventh Annual
Conference of the Cognitive Science Society. Stresa, Italy.
Bonawitz, E.B. (2009) The
Rational Child: Theories and Evidence in Prediction, Exploration, and
Explanation. MIT PhD Thesis in Brain and Cognitive
Sciences. Coley, J.D., Shafto, P., Stepanova, O., & Baraff, E.
(2005) Knowledge and
Category-Based Induction. In Ahn, W., Goldstone, R. L.,
Love, B. C., Markman, A. B., & Wolff, P. (Eds.) Categorization
inside and outside the laboratory: Essays in honor of Douglas L. Medin.
Washington, DC: American Psychological Association.
FORTHCOMING PAPERS
Jean, A., Daubert, E., Yu, Y., Shafto, P., &
Bonawitz, E. (2019) Pedagogical Questions increase persistent in
preschooler’s hypothesis testing.
Colantonio, J., Walden, Z., Dehrone, T., Fredricks, J., & Bonawitz,
E. (in prep) Learned empowerment encourages exploratory play in
preschoolers.
Bass, I., Hawthorne-Madell, D., Goodman, N., Bonawitz, E., & Gweon,
H. (in prep) The effects of information quality and teachers’ knowledge
on evaluations of under-informative pedagogy.
Lapidow, E., & Bonawitz, E (in prep) Explore-Exploit: Ambiguity,
Expectation, and Information Gain Influence Preschooler’s Choices in
Exploration.
Choi, K., Barak, L., Lapidow, E., Austin, J., Shafto, P., &
Bonawitz, E. (in prep) Preschoolers are more likely to direct questions
to adults than to other children (or selves) during spontaneous
conversational acts.
Lapidow, E., & Bonawitz, E (in prep) Heuristics in exploration:
Distributional information is selectively used for active learning
Bass, L., Goodman, N.D., Phama, K., Baker, C.L, Gopnik, A., Wellman,
H., Schulz, L.E., Saxe, R., Tenenbaum, J.B., & Bonawitz, E. (in
prep) Ideal Observers in Theory of Mind.
Begus, K., Lapidow, E., & Bonawitz. E. (in prep). Preschooler's
Causal Hypothesis Testing Reveals Developmental Shifts in the use of
Temporal and Pedagogical Information.
Bonawitz, E. (2020) Children's shifting responses are more than what they seem. BOLD - Blog on Learning and Development.
Bonawitz, E. (2018). Towards
computational models of
curiosity in cognitive development. Reply to: Curiosity as Driver
of
Extreme Specialization in Humans. In IEEE CDS NewsLetter. Vol 14(3),
ed. Oudeyer, Pierre-Yves.
Bonawitz, E. (2017, video interview) Play
in childhood supports the
same skills that underlie scientific reasoning. BOLD – Blog on
Learning
and Development:
http://bold.expert/play-in-childhood-supports-same-skills-that-underlie-scientific-reasoning/
F1000 Regular contributor (01/19 – current)
