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Selected publications

(Click here for the full list.)
Endress, A.D. (2023). In defense of epicycles: Embracing complexity in psychological explanations. Mind & Language
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Endress, A.D. (2019). Duplications and domain-generality. Psychological Bulletin 145(12): 1154-1175.
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Endress, A.D. & Langus, A (2017). Transitional probabilities count more than frequency, but might not be used for memorization. Cognitive Psychology 92: 37–64.
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Endress, A.D. & Szabó, S. (2017). Interference and memory capacity limitations. Psychological Review 124, 551-571.
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Endress, A.D. & Potter, M.C. (2014). Large capacity temporary visual memory. Journal of Experimental Psychology: General, 143(2):548-65

Kovács, Á.M., Téglás, E. & Endress, A.D. (2010). The social sense: susceptibility to others' beliefs in human infants and adults. Science, 330(6012), 1830-1834.

Endress, A.D. & Hauser, M.D. (2010). Word segmentation with universal prosodic cues. Cognitive Psychology, 61(2), 177-199.

Endress, A.D., Nespor, M. & Mehler, J. (2009). Perceptual and memory constraints on language acquisition. Trends in Cognitive Sciences, 13(8), 348-353.

Endress, A.D. & Hauser, M.D. (2009). Syntax-induced pattern deafness. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the USA, 106(49), 21001-21006.

Endress, A.D., Cahill, D., Block, S., Watumull, J. & Hauser, M.D. (2009). Evidence of an evolutionary precursor to human language affixation in a nonhuman primate. Biology Letters, 5(6), 749-751.

Main research themes

Language acquisition and evolution

Language is specific to humans, but is likely to use some mechanisms that we share with other animals. We investigate the role of Perceptual or Memory Primitives for language acquisition and use, especially for word- and rule-learning.

Humans use these primitives not just for language, but also in other domains, as do non-human animals with whom these primitives are shared. Still, they are crucial for language, and constrain the expressed form of language.

For example, one of these primitives relates to how humans encode the positions of items within sequences. We showed that, in many languages, this mechanism is used for grammatical purposes when representing linguistic sequences, and that it constrains the grammatical options languages take. However, this mechanism is not specific to language nor to humans; we showed that humans and chimpanzees use it for non-verbal sequences, and that monkeys readily learn language-like regularities when these draw on this mechanism. Some evolutionarily ancient mechanisms are thus critical for a human-specific trait: language.

Relevant key publications

Endress, A.D. (2013). Bayesian learning and the psychology of rule induction. Cognition, 127(2), 159-176.
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Endress, A.D. & Wood, J.N. (2011). From movements to actions: Two mechanisms of learning movement sequences. Cognitive Psychology, 63(3), 141-171.
pdf Demo movies

Endress, A.D. & Hauser, M.D. (2009). Syntax-induced pattern deafness. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the USA, 106(49), 21001-21006.
pdf Supplementary Information (pdf)

Endress, A.D., Cahill, D., Block, S., Watumull, J. & Hauser, M.D. (2009). Evidence of an evolutionary precursor to human language affixation in a nonhuman primate. Biology Letters, 5(6), 749-751.
pdf

Endress, A.D., Nespor, M. & Mehler, J. (2009). Perceptual and memory constraints on language acquisition. Trends in Cognitive Sciences, 13(8), 348-353.
pdf

Endress, A.D. & Mehler, J. (2009). Primitive Computations in Speech Processing. Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology, 62(11), 2187-2209.
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Determinants of working memory capacity

One of the hallmarks of Working Memory (WM) is its limited capacity. However, we showed that such capacity limitations sometimes disappear: when interference among memory items is minimized, visual WM capacity is fundamentally open-ended, and traditional capacity limitations arise mostly under conditions of strong interference among memory items. In line with this conclusion, such interference was present in many previous WM experiments that revealed limited capacities. In theoretical work, we showed that, under very general assumptions, interference among memory items mathematically guarantees fixed capacity limitations. These results suggest that memory capacity limitations might be at least in part due to interference, but that WM per se might not be capacity-limited.

Relevant key publications

Endress, A.D. & Szabó, S. (2017). Interference and memory capacity limitations. Psychological Review 124, 551-571.
pdf

Endress, A.D. & Potter, M.C. (2014). Something from (almost) nothing: Buildup of object memory from forgettable single fixations. Attention, Perception & Psychophysics, 76(8), 2413-2423.
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Endress, A.D. & Potter, M.C. (2014). Large capacity temporary visual memory. Journal of Experimental Psychology: General, 143(2):548-65
pdf

When do we memorize chunks?

Objects are usually distributed over space and time. For example, we hear sentences one syllable at a time, and often objects are not fully in our visual field, for example because parts of them are occluded, or because they are simply to large to fit into the visual field. In such situations, we need to integrate the different parts of the objects over space and/or time. However, it is not clear how we integrate them. We are trying to understand the cues we can use to integrate the disjoint parts of objects so that we can place the entire objects into memory.

Relevant key publications

Endress, A.D. & Langus, A. (2017). Transitional probabilities count more than frequency, but might not be used for memorization. Cognitive Psychology 92, 37-64.
pdf

Endress, A.D. & Hauser, M.D. (2010). Word segmentation with universal prosodic cues. Cognitive Psychology, 61(2), 177-199.
pdf

Endress, A.D. & Mehler, J. (2009). The surprising power of statistical learning: When fragment knowledge leads to false memories of unheard words. Journal of Memory and Language, 60(3), 351-367.
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