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Preprints and Manuscripts Under Review
Qi, W., Vul, E., & Powell, L.J. (under review). An accurate and efficient measure of welfare tradeoff ratios. https://osf.io/preprints/psyarxiv/yn8e5
Smith-Flores, A.S., Bonamy, G., & Powell, L.J. (under review). Children’s evaluations of empathizers. https://osf.io/preprints/osf/3e2pw
Powell, L.J., Herrera, L. & Saxe, R. (in prep). Neural signatures of distinct motives for infant looking.
Powell, L.J. (2020). Robust and automated motion correction for real infant fNIRS data. https://psyarxiv.com/yxcnb/
Papers
Pepe, B. & Powell, L.J. (2025). Infants’ expectation of helping in imitators. Infancy, 30, e12642. preprint
Lucca, K., Yuen, F., Wang, Y., …Powell, L.J.,… Zimmer, L., & Hamlin, J.K. (2025). Infants’ social evaluation of helpers and hinderers: A large-scale, multi-lab, coordinated replication study. Developmental Science, 28, e13581.
Powell, L.J. & Winkielman, P. (2024). Watching others mirror: Explaining the range of third-party inferences from imitation. In O. Genschow & E. Cracco (Eds.), Automatic Imitation, pp. 333-351.
Smith-Flores, A.S., Herrera-Guevara, I.A. & Powell, L.J. (2024). Infants expect friends, but not rivals, to be happy for each other when they succeed. Developmental Science, 27, e13423. https://psyarxiv.com/8gmw3/
Smith-Flores, A.S., Bonamy, G.J. & Powell, L.J. (2023). Children’s reasoning about empathy and social relationships. Open Mind, 7, 837-854.
Smith-Flores, A.S. & Powell, L.J. (2023). Joint reasoning about social affiliation and emotion. Nature Reviews Psychology, 2, 374-383. PDF
Pesowski, M.L. & Powell, L.J. (2023). Ownership as privileged utility. Cognitive Development, 66, 101321. PDF
Pesowski, M.L., Powell, L.J., Cikara, M., & Schachner, A. (2023). Interpersonal utility and children’s social inferences from shared preferences. Cognition, 232, 105344. https://psyarxiv.com/4z8sf
Schuwerk, T., Kampis, D., Baillargeon, R., Biro, S., …Powell, L.J., …Frank, M.C., & Rakoczy, H. (Stage 1 Registered Report). Action anticipation based on an agent’s epistemic state in toddlers and adults. Child Development. https://psyarxiv.com/x4jbm
Powell, L.J. (2022). Adopted utility calculus: Origins of a concept of social affiliation. Perspectives on Psychological Science, 17, 1215-1233. https://psyarxiv.com/kuwgf/
Qi, W., Vul, E., Schachner, A. & Powell, L.J. (2022). Triadic “conflict” primitives can be reduced to welfare tradeoff ratios. Behavioral and Brain Sciences. PDF
Powell, L.J. (2021). Individual differences provide new insight into infant looking. Trends in Cognitive Sciences, 25, 925-926. PDF
Richardson, H., Taylor, J., Kane-Grade, F., Powell, L., Bosquet Enlow, M. & Nelson, C.A. (2021). Preferential responses to faces in superior temporal and medial prefrontal cortex in three-year-old children. Developmental Cognitive Neuroscience, 50, 100984. Open access link
Shah, A.M., Grotzinger, H., Kaczmarzyk, J.R., Powell, L.J., Yücel, M.A., Gabrieli, J.D. & Hubbard, N.A. (2020). Fixed and flexible: Dynamic prefrontal activations and working memory capacity in relationships vary with memory demand. Cognitive Neuroscience, 11, 175-180. PDF
Powell, L.J. (2019). Imitation: Neither instinct nor gadget, but a cultural starting point? Behavioral and Brain Sciences, 42. (Commentary on Précis of Cognitive Gadgets, by Cecilia Heyes.) PDF
Powell, L.J. & Spelke, E.S. (2018). Third party preferences for imitators in preverbal infants. Open Mind, 2, 61-71. PDF
Poulin-Dubois, D., Rakoczy, H., Burnside, K., Crivello, C., Dörrenberg, S., Edwards, K., Krist, H., Kulke, L., Liszkowski, U., Low, J., Perner, J., Powell, L., Priewasser, B., Rafetseder, E. & Ruffman, T. (2018). Do infants understand false beliefs? We don’t know yet - a commentary on Baillargeon, Buttelmann and Southgate’s commentary. Cognitive Development, 48, 302-315. PDF
Powell, L.J., Kosakowski, H.L. & Saxe, R. (2018). Social origins of cortical face areas. Trends in Cognitive Sciences, 22, 752-763. PDF
Powell, L.J., Hobbs, K., Bardis, A., Carey, S. & Saxe, R. (2018). Replication of implicit theory of mind tasks with varying representational demands. Cognitive Development, 46, 40-50. PDF
Powell, L.J., Deen, B. & Saxe, R. (2018). Using individual functional channels of interest to study cortical development with fNIRS. Developmental Science, 21, e12595. PDF
Powell, L.J. & Spelke, E.S. (2018). Human infants’ understanding of social imitation: Inferences of affiliation from third party observations. Cognition, 170, 31-48. PDF Data
Powell, L.J. & Carey, S. (2017). Executive function depletion and its impact on theory of mind. Cognition, 164, 150-162. PDF
Bascandziev, I., Powell, L.J., Harris, P. & Carey, S. (2016). A role for executive functions in explanatory understanding of the physical world. Cognitive Development, 29, 71-85. PDF
Powell, L.J. & Spelke, E.S. (2013). Preverbal infants expect members of social groups to act alike. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 110, E3965-E3972. PDF
Skerry, A.E., Lambert, E., Powell, L.J., & McAuliffe, K. (2013). The origins of pedagogy: Developmental and evolutionary perspectives. Evolutionary Psychology, 11, 550-573. PDF
Powell, L.J., Macrae, C.N., Cloutier, J., Metcalfe, J., & Mitchell, J.P. (2009). Dissociable neural substrates for agentic versus conceptual representations of self. Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience, 22, 2186-2197. PDF
Saxe, R., Jamal, N., & Powell, L. (2006). My body or yours? The effect of visual perspective on cortical body representations. Cerebral Cortex, 16, 178-182. PDF
Saxe, R. & Powell, L.J. (2006). It’s the thought that counts: specific brain regions for one component of theory of mind. Psychological Science, 17, 692-699. PDF
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Garcia, M.C., Smith-Flores, A.S., Pesowski, M.L., Schachner, A., & Powell, L.J. Characterizing infants' understanding of ownership and ownership rights. PDF OSF (Prereg, Materials, Data, Code)
Pepe, B. & Powell, L.J. Infants' understanding of conformity and status. PDF OSF (Prereg, Materials, Data, Code)
Powell, L.J. & Spelke, E.S. (2017, September 30). The role of perceptual access in infants’ third party evaluation of imitation. https://psyarxiv.com/63tyq/