Julian Jara-Ettinger
Biographic Data
| ID | 1849507 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Julian Jara-Ettinger |
| GIVEN NAMES | Julian |
| FAMILY NAME | Jara-Ettinger |
| SIGNATURE | JARA-ETTINGER J |
| AFFILIATIONS | Yale University |
| ORCID | 0000-0002-6167-1647 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 23 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 18 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 23 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2016 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2025 |
| H-INDEX | 2 |
People can infer the magnitude of other people’s knowledge even when they cannot infer its contents
Six-Year-Olds, but Not Younger Children, Consider the Probability of Being Right by Chance When Inferring Others' Knowledge
When determining what others know, we intuitively consider not only whether they succeed but also their probability of success in the absence of knowledge (e.g., random guessing). Across three experiments (n = 240 North American 4–6-year-olds, data collected between 2020–2023) we find that 4-year-olds understand that tasks with a lower probability of chance success are harder. However, it is not until age 6 that children use this understanding to…
Detecting social biases using mental state inference
Social biases are prevalent in everyday social interactions, but they are often expressed in subtle ways that can make them difficult to detect. Yet, intuitively, people often recognize when they are the subject of a bias, even when those biases are not explicitly communicated (e.g., sexist or racist slurs). While much research has focused on the negative consequences of social biases, less is known about the cognitive mechanisms that allow peopl…
Inference from social evaluation
People have a remarkable ability to infer the hidden causes of things. From physical evidence, such as muddy footprints on the floor, we can figure out what happened and who did it. Here, we investigate another source of evidence: social evaluations. Social evaluations, such as praise or blame, are commonplace in everyday conversations. While such evaluations do not fully reveal what happened, they provide valuable clues. Across three experiments…
Adolescents report being most motivated by encouragement from people who know their abilities and the domain
Students often receive encouragement but do not always find it motivating. Whose encouragement motivates students and what cognitive mechanisms underlie this process? We propose that students' responses to positive feedback (e.g., encouragement) hinge on mental state representations, specifically what the speaker knows. Across three studies, we find that U.S. adolescents ( n = 581-759 11- to 19-year-olds per study, preregistered; > 80% racial/eth…
Children's Understanding of How Past Experience Shapes Future Expectations
As adults, we do not expect ignorant agents to behave randomly or always get things wrong. Instead, we expect them to act reasonably, guided by past experiences. We test whether 4-to-6-year-olds share this intuition and use it to infer others' knowledge, or whether they rely on a simple “ignorance = error” heuristic identified in past work. Across three pre-registered experiments (n = 264 4-to-6-year-olds recruited in the US between 2018-2022; de…
When New Experience Leads to New Knowledge
The discovery of a new kind of experience can teach an agent what that kind of experience is like. Such a discovery can be epistemically transformative, teaching an agent something they could not have learned without having that kind of experience. However, learning something new does not always require new experience. In some cases, an agent can merely expand their existing knowledge using, e.g., inference or imagination that draws on prior know…
Perceptual, Semantic, and Pragmatic Factors Affect the Derivation of Contrastive Inferences
People derive contrastive inferences when interpreting adjectives (e.g., inferring that ‘the short pencil’ is being contrasted with a longer one). However, classic eye-tracking studies revealed contrastive inferences with scalar and material adjectives, but not with color adjectives. This was explained as a difference in listeners’ informativity expectations, since color adjectives are often used descriptively (hence not warranting a contrastive …
Identifying social partners through indirect prosociality
People can use the placement of objects to infer communicative goals
Preschoolers decide who is knowledgeable, who to inform, and who to trust via a causal understanding of how knowledge relates to action
Not just what you did, but how
Inferring the internal structure of social collectives
We investigate how humans infer the rich internal structure of social collectives from patterns of interactions between agents. We propose a computational model of this process which integrates a domain-general statistical learning mechanism with, domain-specific knowledge about social contexts (i.e.: "intuitive sociologies"). We test our model in two experiments where participants observe a sequence of animated interactions between agents, and t…
Children's understanding of the abstract logic of counting
In Pursuit of Knowledge
When deciding whether to explore, agents must consider both their need for information and its cost. Do children recognize that exploration reflects a trade-off between action costs and expected information gain, inferring epistemic states accordingly? In two experiments, 4- and 5-year-olds (N = 144; of diverse race and ethnicity) judge that an agent who refuses to obtain low-cost information must have already known it, and an agent who incurs a …
Resource scarcity compromises explore-exploit decision-making
The Naïve Utility Calculus as a unified, quantitative framework for action understanding
What comes to mind
Communication efficiency of color naming across languages provides a new framework for the evolution of color terms
Social Pragmatics
Four experiments show that 4- and 5-year-olds (total N = 112) can identify the referent of underdetermined utterances through their Naïve Utility Calculus—an intuitive theory of people’s behavior structured around an assumption that agents maximize utilities. In Experiments 1–2, a puppet asked for help without specifying to whom she was talking (“Can you help me?”). In Experiments 3–4, a puppet asked the child to pass an object without specifying…
Young children consider the expected utility of others' learning to decide what to teach
Rational quantitative attribution of beliefs, desires and percepts in human mentalizing
The Naïve Utility Calculus
The Naïve Utility Calculus
Rational quantitative attribution of beliefs, desires and percepts in human mentalizing
Young children consider the expected utility of others' learning to decide what to teach
The Naïve Utility Calculus as a unified, quantitative framework for action understanding
What comes to mind
Communication efficiency of color naming across languages provides a new framework for the evolution of color terms
Social Pragmatics
Four experiments show that 4- and 5-year-olds (total N = 112) can identify the referent of underdetermined utterances through their Naïve Utility Calculus—an intuitive theory of people’s behavior structured around an assumption that agents maximize utilities. In Experiments 1–2, a puppet asked for help without specifying to whom she was talking (“Can you help me?”). In Experiments 3–4, a puppet asked the child to pass an object without specifying…
Children's understanding of the abstract logic of counting
In Pursuit of Knowledge
When deciding whether to explore, agents must consider both their need for information and its cost. Do children recognize that exploration reflects a trade-off between action costs and expected information gain, inferring epistemic states accordingly? In two experiments, 4- and 5-year-olds (N = 144; of diverse race and ethnicity) judge that an agent who refuses to obtain low-cost information must have already known it, and an agent who incurs a …
Resource scarcity compromises explore-exploit decision-making
Preschoolers decide who is knowledgeable, who to inform, and who to trust via a causal understanding of how knowledge relates to action
Not just what you did, but how
Inferring the internal structure of social collectives
We investigate how humans infer the rich internal structure of social collectives from patterns of interactions between agents. We propose a computational model of this process which integrates a domain-general statistical learning mechanism with, domain-specific knowledge about social contexts (i.e.: "intuitive sociologies"). We test our model in two experiments where participants observe a sequence of animated interactions between agents, and t…
Identifying social partners through indirect prosociality
People can use the placement of objects to infer communicative goals
When New Experience Leads to New Knowledge
The discovery of a new kind of experience can teach an agent what that kind of experience is like. Such a discovery can be epistemically transformative, teaching an agent something they could not have learned without having that kind of experience. However, learning something new does not always require new experience. In some cases, an agent can merely expand their existing knowledge using, e.g., inference or imagination that draws on prior know…
Perceptual, Semantic, and Pragmatic Factors Affect the Derivation of Contrastive Inferences
People derive contrastive inferences when interpreting adjectives (e.g., inferring that ‘the short pencil’ is being contrasted with a longer one). However, classic eye-tracking studies revealed contrastive inferences with scalar and material adjectives, but not with color adjectives. This was explained as a difference in listeners’ informativity expectations, since color adjectives are often used descriptively (hence not warranting a contrastive …
People can infer the magnitude of other people’s knowledge even when they cannot infer its contents
Six-Year-Olds, but Not Younger Children, Consider the Probability of Being Right by Chance When Inferring Others' Knowledge
When determining what others know, we intuitively consider not only whether they succeed but also their probability of success in the absence of knowledge (e.g., random guessing). Across three experiments (n = 240 North American 4–6-year-olds, data collected between 2020–2023) we find that 4-year-olds understand that tasks with a lower probability of chance success are harder. However, it is not until age 6 that children use this understanding to…
Detecting social biases using mental state inference
Social biases are prevalent in everyday social interactions, but they are often expressed in subtle ways that can make them difficult to detect. Yet, intuitively, people often recognize when they are the subject of a bias, even when those biases are not explicitly communicated (e.g., sexist or racist slurs). While much research has focused on the negative consequences of social biases, less is known about the cognitive mechanisms that allow peopl…
Inference from social evaluation
People have a remarkable ability to infer the hidden causes of things. From physical evidence, such as muddy footprints on the floor, we can figure out what happened and who did it. Here, we investigate another source of evidence: social evaluations. Social evaluations, such as praise or blame, are commonplace in everyday conversations. While such evaluations do not fully reveal what happened, they provide valuable clues. Across three experiments…
Adolescents report being most motivated by encouragement from people who know their abilities and the domain
Students often receive encouragement but do not always find it motivating. Whose encouragement motivates students and what cognitive mechanisms underlie this process? We propose that students' responses to positive feedback (e.g., encouragement) hinge on mental state representations, specifically what the speaker knows. Across three studies, we find that U.S. adolescents ( n = 581-759 11- to 19-year-olds per study, preregistered; > 80% racial/eth…
Children's Understanding of How Past Experience Shapes Future Expectations
As adults, we do not expect ignorant agents to behave randomly or always get things wrong. Instead, we expect them to act reasonably, guided by past experiences. We test whether 4-to-6-year-olds share this intuition and use it to infer others' knowledge, or whether they rely on a simple “ignorance = error” heuristic identified in past work. Across three pre-registered experiments (n = 264 4-to-6-year-olds recruited in the US between 2018-2022; de…
Psychology (23 works) · Cognitive psychology (19 works) · Social Psychology (14 works) · Child and Animal Learning Development (13 works) · Computer Science (9 works) · Cognition (8 works) · Cognitive science (8 works) · Epistemology (7 works) · Artificial Intelligence (6 works) · Artificial Intelligence (5 works)