Adena Schachner

Hmm, line of text at the bottom is not visible - Shirley Liu's poster on causal reasoning about defaults is at Sat 1:00-2:15, P3-L-115!

On Wednesday: Adena Schachner, talk: "Intuitive Archeology: Social reasoning from the physical world”, W ~10 am, Fourth Level (Pacific) Room A. Chaolan Lin & Adena Schachner, poster: "How children explore and detect augmented reality filters", W 10-11 am, Fourth level (Pacific) Room E. On Thursday: Amy Nguyễn, Rodney Tompkins & Adena Schachner, poster, "When walls talk: People make social inferences from towns’ protective features", Th 1:00-2:15, P1-T-194 On Saturday: Chaolan Lin & Adena Schachner, poster, "Perceived musicality in an android increases positive social attributions", Sat 1:00-2:15, P3-L-113 Shirley Liu, Craig McKenzie & Adena Schachner, poster, "When Default Options Explain Away Preferences: A Causal Reasoning Account of Mental State Reasoning from Default Options ", Sat 1:00-2:15, P3-L-11

I and my lab are happy to be at #cogsci2025! Here's a shortcut to find work from the fabulous folks in my lab (and me) 😄

thanks!! and yes... I'm very happy to have this paper out in its final form, after talking about these ideas at several conferences over the years!

Sounds of Hidden Agents: The Development of Causal Reasoning About Musical Sounds Listening to music activates representations of movement and social agents. Why? We test whether causal reasoning plays a role, and find that from childhood, people can intuitively reason about how m...

Check out our paper for more -- it’s open access: onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10....

and on OSF, too! osf.io/preprints/os...

Overall - we think these findings are exciting, as they provide a new mechanism by which music is linked to social cognition,

show that people rationally infer social causes (“hidden agents”) for sounds they hear,

and raise questions about developmental change in children's reasoning about sound!

Again, younger children failed: 4 year old children did not systematically pick any answer. Altogether, our data shows developmental change. 4 year old children may fail to integrate auditory & visual information in causal reasoning, and develop this ability by age 6 years.

If people are using Bayesian causal reasoning, then their reasoning should be flexible, allowing for other inferences too.

In a second experiment, we found evidence of this: 6yo children and adults also used musical sounds' timing to infer the structure of the visual environment.

By 6 years, kids' causal reasoning about music was adult-like: They integrated auditory and visual information to judge when a hidden agent was present.

Younger kids differed: 4yo's judged that an agent was present when they heard orderly sounds, and ignored relevant visual information entirely.

We find: Adults and 6yo children rationally infer the cause of musical sounds they hear. Exp1: They inferred the presence of a “hidden agent” from musical sounds’ timing. (When the timing required self-propelled movement to produce, they inferred the presence of a hidden agent, causing the sounds.)

We explore the development of this reasoning, motivated by findings that children below 6 years have failed to rationally integrate auditory-visual information in causal reasoning, in other tasks.

From early in life, and across cultures, music listening is linked with movement and the social world. Why?

We test a new hypothesis. People may engage in causal reasoning about how musical sounds were generated, which intuitively links musical sounds with the agents and events that caused them.

⭐ Out now in Developmental Science ⭐

"Sounds of Hidden Agents: The development of causal reasoning about musical sounds"

(by Minju Kim and me)

causal reasoning, music/auditory cognition, event reconstruction, kids' integration of information...

onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/pdf/10.1...

Congratulations!!!

The symposium title (Navigating social groups and relationships: Children’s developing sense of belonging and social connection) and the titles and author lists of each of the talks 1. Minimal group and racial/ethnic attitudes among US minority and majority race/ethnic children Sarah Ramsey, Brenda Straka, Ashley Jordan, Alisha Osornio, Mayling Halim, Kristin Pauker, Kristina Olson, Yarrow Dunham, and Sarah Gaither 2. How social relationships guide girls’ interests in brilliance-associated activities Rongzhi Liu, Vanessa Lazaro, and Lin Bian 3. The origins of social evaluations of sleep arrangements Rodney Tompkins and Adena Schachner 4. Developing intuitions that close others know the content of each other’s minds Brandon Woo, Emma Yu, Megan Richardson, and Ashley Thomas

Come check out our symposium at #SRCD2025: "Navigating social groups and relationships"! There'll be talks by Sarah Ramsey, Rongzhi Liu, @rtompkins.bsky.social, and me. Thursday at 10 am.

(With co-authors extraordinaire @asmithflores.bsky.social, Madison Pesowski (poster 90) and Minju Kim (Poster 52)!

#SRCD25, I and my lab are here! Come see @rtompkins.bsky.social on social reasoning from sleep arrangements-Th 10-11:20am talk 3, room 200B; R Santiago on how children use objects’ placements to learn about people-Fri 10:50 Poster 90; & K Han on the origins of dance in infancy-Sat 10:30, Poster 52!

Diversifying Psychology Event Thursday, October 17, 2024 & Friday, October 18, 2024

Interested in working with me and/or any of my awesome colleagues at @UCSDPsychology for grad-school? Come check out this virtual event that @asmithflores.bsky.social organized for next week! Registration deadline this Friday (Oct 11)! diversifyingpsychology.ucsd.edu

Many of our faculty panelists are looking to accept students this cycle (@brialong.bsky.social @adenaschachner.bsky.social @nadiabrashier.bsky.social to name a few), so it’s a chance to hear from them before you apply!

Come spend two days learning about our program! We can’t wait to meet you! 3/4

Congratulations!!

...and my wonderful students and trainees who make everything we do possible, and make doing science so much more meaningful and fun. @rtompkins.bsky.social @asmithflores.bsky.social @chaolanlin.bsky.social (+Minju Kim, Tanushree Agrawal, Madison Pesowski!)

I'm looking forward to this new decade!

I am feeling so fortunate, and so grateful. Thank you to all of my family (particularly @timbrady.bsky.social, and my parents); my colleagues and mentors who have supported me (and contributed letters to the tenure process)...

Yesterday, on my birthday, I got the call from our department chair that I have officially received tenure, and an additional acceleration/ promotion as well (which I had not at all anticipated). The best timing — and the best 40th birthday present ever!

For years, I’ve been saying it was interesting that I would probably hear back about whether I would get tenure (or not) just around my 40th birthday. Well — the best version of this just happened.

Correction: our talk on hearing water temperature is now a bit earlier, at 3:20 today!!

Forgot the main hashtag #CDS2024 😅

#devsci #devpsych

Looking forward to CDS 2024! Come hear about: Kids’ perspective-taking over video chat (Chaolan Lin); hearing water temperature (Tanushree Agrawal); expectations about shared sleep arrangements (Rodney Tompkins); and social reasoning about placement of possessions (Rob Santiago)!

It's CDS week!! The SoCal Lab will be there, looking forward to lots of science & fun. Here are some places you'll be able to find us:

behaviorism considers the relation between behavior and the environment (rather than the mediating cognitive thoughts/feelings), is the contrast I’m thinking of

New Substack!
smallpotatoes.paulbloom.net/p/how-to-giv...