All Publications

Working papers

Productive causation and compositionality

Tadeg Quillien, Neil R. Bramley, Christopher G. Lucas

Under Submission

Preprint

Representational constraints shape human information-seeking

Sam J. Cheyette, Fred L. Callaway, Neil R. Bramley, Jonathan D. Nelson, Joshua B. Tenenbaum

Under Submission

Preprint

Resource bottlenecks determine when human and machine teams decide to specialise

Elizabeth Mieczkowski, Ruaridh Mon Williams, Neil R. Bramley, Christopher G. Lucas, Natalia A. Vélez, Thomas L. Griffiths

Under Submission

Preprint

Seeking Information or Rewards? Seven- to 12-year-olds Infer What Drives Others’ Actions

Azzurra Ruggeri, Neil R. Bramley

Under Submission

Project

Social Information Aggregation with Partial Knowledge

Danqin Zhao, Neil R. Bramley

Under Submission

Spatial neglect through the lens of rational Bayesian theory

Tianwei Gong, Robert D. McIntosh, Bonan Zhao, Neil R. Bramley, Christopher G. Lucas

Under Submission

Specialized Computations for Generalized World Modelling in Prefrontal Cortex

Fahd Yasin, Neil R. Bramley, Paul Hoffman

Under Submission

Temporal and Existential Causation: How People Distinguish Generation, Hastening, Prevention, and Delay

Tianwei Gong, Yining Hou, Henrik Singmann, Neil R. Bramley

Under Submission

Project

The ABC of heuristics

Tianwei Gong, Simon Valentin, Neil R. Bramley, Christopher G. Lucas

Under Submission

Preprint

Unifying inference and selection in causal attribution

Stephanie Droop, Tadeg Quillien, Neil R. Bramley

Under Submission

2026

Assessing alternative models of counterfactual reasoning

Robert E. Rehder, Selena Zheng, Angela Cao, Neil R. Bramley, Tadeg Quillien

Proceedings of the 48th Annual Meeting of the Cognitive Science Society

Causal inference and learned helplessness

Joshua Hew, Neil R. Bramley

Proceedings of the 48th Annual Meeting of the Cognitive Science Society

Explaining order effects in counterfactual reasoning

Nicolas Navarre, Tadeg Quillien, Tobias Gerstenberg, Daniel Lassiter, Neil R. Bramley

Proceedings of the 48th Annual Meeting of the Cognitive Science Society

Longitudinal, self-directed gameplay as a window into the development of expertise

Samuel J. Cheyette, Tony Chen, Tracey Mills, Matthias Hofer, James Roberts, Neil R. Bramley, Katherine M. Collins, Frederick Callaway, Joshua B. Tenenbaum

Proceedings of the 48th Annual Meeting of the Cognitive Science Society

The benefits of staying local: Bounded adaptive control by modeling linearly and acting locally

Jiong Xiao, Neil R. Bramley

Proceedings of the 48th Annual Meeting of the Cognitive Science Society

The cognitive science of AI alignment

Konstantinos Voudouris, Xavier Roberts-Gaal, Neil R. Bramley, Ilia Sucholutsky, Christopher Summerfield

Proceedings of the 48th Annual Meeting of the Cognitive Science Society

Workshop

2025

Lossy encoding of distributions in judgment under uncertainty

Tadeg Quillien, Neil R. Bramley, Christopher G. Lucas

Cognitive Psychology, 159, 101745

PDF Preprint Project

Partner Modelling Emerges in Recurrent Agents (But Only When It Matters)

Ruaridh Mon Williams, Max Taylor-Davies, Elizabeth Mieczkowski, Natalia A. Vélez, Neil R. Bramley, Yanwei Wang, Thomas L. Griffiths, Christopher G. Lucas

The 39th Annual Conference on Neural Information Processing Systems

Preprint

Rational causal induction from events in time

Tianwei Gong*, M Pacer*, Thomas L. Griffiths, Neil R. Bramley

Psychological Review

PDF Preprint Project

Less is more: Local focus in continuous time causal learning

Victor Btesh, Neil R. Bramley, Maarten Speekenbrink, David A. Lagnado

Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning Memory & Cognition, 52(1), 55-80

PDF Preprint Demo Project

A rational framework for group-based selective social learning

Max Taylor-Davies, Neil R. Bramley, Christopher G. Lucas

Open Mind, 9, 677–708.

PDF

An Incremental Program Induction Model of Slow Mapping Words to Meanings

Ella Markham, Hugh Rabagliati, Neil R. Bramley

Proceedings of the 47th Annual Meeting of the Cognitive Science Society

PDF Project

Bootstrapping in Geometric Puzzle Solving

Xiangying He, Bonan Zhao, Neil R. Bramley

Proceedings of the 47th Annual Meeting of the Cognitive Science Society

PDF

Decompose, Deduce, and Dispose: A Memory-Limited Metacognitive Model of Human Problem Solving

Samuel J. Cheyette, Tony Chen, Matthias Hofer, Frederick Callaway, Neil R. Bramley, Joshua B. Tenenbaum

Proceedings of the 47th Annual Meeting of the Cognitive Science Society

PDF

Fragmentation and multithreading of experience in the default-mode network

Fahd Yasin, Gargi Majumdar, Neil R. Bramley, Paul Hoffman

Nature Communications

PDF Preprint

Identifying 'when' and 'whether' causation: How people distinguish generation, hastening, prevention, and delay

Tianwei Gong, Sherry Hou, Henrik Singmann, Neil R. Bramley

Proceedings of the 47th Annual Meeting of the Cognitive Science Society

PDF

Integrating specialist judgments with and without mentalizing

Danqin Zhao, Neil R. Bramley

Proceedings of the 47th Annual Meeting of the Cognitive Science Society

PDF

People attribute purpose to autonomous vehicles when explaining their behavior

Balint Gyevnar, Stephanie Droop, Tadeg Quillien, Shay B. Cohen, Neil R. Bramley, Christopher G. Lucas, Stefano V. Albrecht

CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems

PDF Preprint

Unifying inference and selection in singular causal explanation

Stephanie Droop, Tadeg Quillien, Neil R. Bramley

Proceedings of the 47th Annual Meeting of the Cognitive Science Society

PDF

2024

A model of conceptual bootstrapping in human cognition

Bonan Zhao, Christopher G. Lucas, Neil R. Bramley

Nature Human Behaviour, 8(1), 125-136.

PDF Project Preregistration

Designing Optimal Behavioral Experiments Using Machine Learning

Simon Valentin*, Steven Kleinegesse*, Neil R. Bramley, Peggy Seriès, Michael U. Gutmann, Christopher G. Lucas

eLife, 13:e86224.

PDF Preprint Tutorial Notebook

Evidence from the future

Tianwei Gong, Neil R. Bramley

Journal of Experimental Psychology: General, 153(3), 864-872

PDF Preprint Project

Naïve information aggregation in human social learning

Jan-Philipp Fränken, Simon Valentin, Christopher G. Lucas, Neil R. Bramley

Cognition, 242, 105633.

PDF Preprint Project

Functional rule inference from causal selection explanations

Nicolas Navarre, Can Konuk, Neil R. Bramley, Salvador Mascarenhas

Proceedings of the 46th Annual Meeting of the Cognitive Science Society

PDF Preprint

Paradoxical parsimony: How latent complexity favors theory simplicity

Tianwei Gong, Simon Valentin, Christopher G. Lucas, Neil R. Bramley

Proceedings of the 46th Annual Meeting of the Cognitive Science Society

PDF Project

Slow mapping words as incremental meaning refinement

Ella Markham, Hugh Rabagliati, Neil R. Bramley

Proceedings of the 46th Annual Meeting of the Cognitive Science Society

PDF Project

2023

Local search and the evolution of world models

Neil R. Bramley, Bonan Zhao, Tadeg Quillien, Christopher G. Lucas

Topics in Cognitive Science

PDF Preprint Project

Continuous time causal structure induction with prevention and generation

Tianwei Gong, Neil R. Bramley

Cognition, 240, 105530.

PDF Project Preregistration

Active inductive inference in children and adults: A constructivist perspective

Neil R. Bramley, Fei Xu

Cognition, 238, 105471

PDF Preprint Demo Project Workshop

Active Causal Structure Learning in Continuous Time

Tianwei Gong, Tobias Gerstenberg, Ralf Mayrhofer, Neil R. Bramley

Cognitive Psychology, 140, 101542.

PDF Preprint Project

A rational model of spatial neglect

Tianwei Gong, Bonan Zhao, Robert D. McIntosh, Christpher G. Lucas

Proceedings of the 45th Annual Meeting of the Cognitive Science Society
🏆 Student Travel Award 🏆

PDF Project

Bootstrapping compositional generalization with cache-and-reuse

Bonan Zhao, Christopher G. Lucas, Neil R. Bramley

Proceedings of the Computational Cognitive Neuroscience Society Meeting 2023

PDF Project

Causal inference shapes counterfactual plausibility

Tadeg Quillien, Aba Szollosi, Neil R. Bramley, Christopher G. Lucas

Proceedings of the 45th Annual Meeting of the Cognitive Science Society

PDF Preprint Demo Project

How do instructions, examples, and testing shape task representations?

Aba Szollosi, Vlad Grigoras, Tadeg Quilien, Christopher G. Lucas, Neil R. Bramley

Proceedings of the 45th Annual Meeting of the Cognitive Science Society

PDF Preprint Demo

Modeling infant object perception as program induction

Jan-Philipp Fränken, Christopher G. Lucas, Neil R. Bramley, Steven T. Piantadosi

Proceedings of the Computational Cognitive Neuroscience Society Meeting 2023

PDF Preprint Project

People seek easily interpretable information

Samuel J. Cheyette, Frederick Callaway, Neil R. Bramley, Jonathan D. Nelson, Joshua B. Tenenbaum

Proceedings of the 45th Annual Meeting of the Cognitive Science Society
🏆 Computational Modeling Prize in Higher-level Cognition 🏆

PDF

Swipe and hold: Composing interventions in continuous time causal learning

Victor Btesh, David A. Lagnado, Maarten Speekenbrink, Neil R. Bramley

Proceedings of the 45th Annual Meeting of the Cognitive Science Society

PDF Preprint

Variational inference in dynamical active causal learning

Victor Btesh, Neil R. Bramley, Jan-Philipp Fränken, Maarten Speekenbrink, David A. Lagnado

Proceedings of the Computational Cognitive Neuroscience Society Meeting 2023

PDF

Extending counterfactual reasoning models to capture unconstrained social explanations

Stephanie Droop, Neil R. Bramley

Poster at 45th Annual Meeting of the Cognitive Science Society

PDF Project

2022

Algorithms of Adaptation in Inductive Inference

Jan-Philipp Fränken, Nikolaos C. Theodoropoulos, Neil R. Bramley

Cognitive Psychology, 137, 101506.

PDF Preprint Project

Children's active physical learning is as effective and goal-targeted as adults'

Neil R. Bramley, Azzurra Ruggeri

Developmental Psychology, 58(12), 2310–2321.

Preprint Demo Project

Children's failure to control variables may reflect adaptive decision making

Neil R. Bramley, Angela Jones, Todd M. Gureckis, Azzurra Ruggeri

Psychonomic Bulletin & Review, 29, 2314–2324.

PDF Preprint Project

Discovering Common Hidden Causes in Sequences of Events

Simon Valentin, Neil R. Bramley, Christopher G. Lucas

Computational Brain & Behavior

PDF Pre-registration

How do people generalize causal relations over objects? A non-parametric Bayesian account

Bonan Zhao, Christopher G. Lucas, Neil R. Bramley

Computational Brain & Behavior, 5, 22-44.

DOI PDF Preprint Project

The Paradox of Time in Dynamic Causal Systems

Robert E. Rehder, Zachary Davis, Neil R. Bramley

Entropy, 24, 863.

PDF

Redressing the Emperor in Causal Clothing - Commentary on 'The Emperor's New Markov Blankets' by Bruineberg, Dolega, Dewhurst and Baltieri

Victor Btesh, Neil R. Bramley, David A. Lagnado

Behavioral & Brain Sciences, 45, e188.

PDF

Categorizing perceived causal events

Nicolas Marchant, Bonan Zhao, Neil R. Bramley, Diego Morales, Sergio E. Chaigneau

Proceedings of the 44th Annual Meeting of the Cognitive Science Society

PDF

Dissecting causal asymmetries in inductive generalization

Zeyu Xia*, Bonan Zhao*, Tadeg Quillien, Christopher G. Lucas

Proceedings of the 44th Annual Meeting of the Cognitive Science Society

PDF

Inferring epistemic intention in simulated physical microworlds

Stephanie Droop, Neil R. Bramley

Proceedings of the 44th Annual Meeting of the Cognitive Science Society

PDF Project

Intuitions and Perceptual Constraints on Causal Learning from Dynamics

Tianwei Gong, Neil R. Bramley

Proceedings of the 44th Annual Meeting of the Cognitive Science Society

PDF Demo Project Pre-registration

Powering up causal generalization: A model of human conceptual bootstrapping with adaptor grammars

Bonan Zhao, Neil R. Bramley, Christopher G. Lucas

In Proceedings of the 44th Annual Meeting of the Cognitive Science Society

PDF Preprint Project

2021

Cascades across networks are sufficient for the formation of echo chambers: An agent-based model

Jan-Philipp Fränken, Toby D. Pilditch

Journal of Artificial Societies and Social Simulation

PDF Project

Expectations about future learning influence moment-to-moment feelings of suspense

Zhiwei Li, Neil R. Bramley, Todd M. Gureckis

Cognition & Emotion, 35(6), 1099–1120.

PDF Preprint Project

Limits on Simulation Approaches in Intuitive Physics

Ethan J. Ludwin-Peery, Neil R. Bramley, Ernest Davis, Todd M. Gureckis

Cognitive Psychology, 127, 101396.

Preprint Preregistration

Observing effects in various contexts won’t give us general psychological theories - Commentary on 'The generalizability crisis' by Tal Yarkoni

Chris Donkin, Aba Szollosi, Neil R. Bramley

Behavioral and Brain Sciences, 45, e13.

PDF Preprint

Bayesian Experimental Design for Intractable Models of Cognition

Simon Valentin*, Steven Kleinegesse*, Neil R. Bramley, Michael U. Gutmann, Christopher G. Lucas

Poster Presented at the 43rd Annual Meeting of the Cognitive Science Society

Bayesian Optimal Experimental Design for Simulator Models of Cognition

Simon Valentin, Steven Kleinegesse, Neil R. Bramley, Michael U. Gutmann, Christopher G. Lucas

AI for Science: Mind the Gaps – Workshop at NeurIPS

Workshop

Building Object-based Causal Programs for Human-like Generalization

Bonan Zhao, Christopher G. Lucas, Neil R. Bramley

Causal Inference & Machine Learning: Why now? – Workshop at NeurIPS

PDF Poster Workshop

Know your network: Sensitivity to structure in social learning

Jan-Philipp Fränken, Simon Valentin, Christopher G. Lucas, Neil R. Bramley

Poster Presented at the 43rd Annual Meeting of the Cognitive Science Society

Demo

Learning preventative and generative causal structures from point events in continuous time

Tianwei Gong, Neil R. Bramley

Causal Inference & Machine Learning: Why now? – Workshop at NeurIPS

PDF Workshop

2020

Belief revision in a micro-social network: Modeling sensitivity to statistical dependencies in social learning

Jan-Philipp Fränken, Nikolaos Theodoropoulos, Adam B. Moore, Neil R. Bramley

Proceedings of the 42nd Annual Meeting of the Cognitive Science Society

PDF Project Preregistration

Broken physics: A conjunction fallacy effect in intuitive physical reasoning

Ethan J. Ludwin-Peery, Neil R. Bramley, Ernest Davis, Todd M. Gureckis

Psychological Science, 31 (12), 1602-1611.

PDF Preprint Preregistration

Causal structure learning in continuous systems

Zach J. Davis, Neil R. Bramley, Robert E. Rehder

Frontiers in Psychology, 11, 244.

PDF

The paradox of time in dynamic causal systems

Zach J. Davis, Neil R. Bramley, Robert E. Rehder

Proceedings of the 42nd Annual Meeting of the Cognitive Science Society

PDF

What you didn’t see: Prevention and generation in continuous time causal induction

Tianwei Gong, Neil R. Bramley

Proceedings of the 42nd Annual Meeting of the Cognitive Science Society

PDF Preregistration

Contrasting RNN-based and simulation-based models of human physical parameter inference

Héctor Otero Mediero, Neil R. Bramley

Poster Presented at the 42nd Annual Meeting of the Cognitive Science Society

Preprint

Human dynamic control under changing goals

Zach J. Davis, Todd M. Gureckis, Robert E. Rehder, Neil R. Bramley

Causal learning for decision making workshop — Workshop at ICLR

PDF

Learning hidden causal structure from temporal data

Simon Valentin, Neil R. Bramley, Christopher G. Lucas

Proceedings of the 42nd Annual Meeting of the Cognitive Science Society

PDF Project

2019

Testing one or multiple: Beliefs about sparsity affect causal experimentation

Anna Coenen, Azzurra Ruggeri, Neil R. Bramley, Todd M. Gureckis

Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory & Cognition 45(11), 1923-1941
🏆 Early Career Award to Coenen, Society for Experimental Psychology and Cognitive Science, Div 3 APA 🏆

PDF Preprint Project

Active physical inference via reinforcement learning

Shuaiji Li, Yu Sun, Sijia Liu, Tianyu Wang, Todd M. Gureckis, Neil R. Bramley

In Proceedings of the 41st Annual Meeting of the Cognitive Science Society

PDF Project

Intervening in time

Neil R. Bramley, Tobias Gerstenberg, Ralf Mayrhofer, David A. Lagnado

In Time and Causality in the Sciences (Chapter 6)

Preprint

Limits on the use of simulation in physical reasoning

Ethan J. Ludwin-Peery, Neil R. Bramley, Ernest Davis, Todd M. Gureckis

In Proceedings of the 41st Annual Meeting of the Cognitive Science Society

PDF Project

The critical moment is coming: Modeling the dynamics of suspense

Zhiwei Li, Neil R. Bramley, Todd M. Gureckis

In Proceedings of the 41st Annual Meeting of the Cognitive Science Society

PDF Project

2018

A causal model approach to dynamic control

Zach J. Davis, Neil R. Bramley, Robert E. Rehder, Todd M. Gureckis

In Proceedings of the 40th Annual Meeting of the Cognitive Science Society

PDF

Causal structure learning with continuous variables in continuous time

Zach J. Davis, Neil R. Bramley, Robert E. Rehder

In Proceedings of the 40th Annual Meeting of the Cognitive Science Society

PDF

Children's causal interventions combine discrimination and confirmation

Yuan Meng, Neil R. Bramley, Fei Xu

In Proceedings of the 40th Annual Meeting of the Cognitive Science Society

PDF

Grounding compositional hypothesis generation in specific instances

Neil R. Bramley, Anselm Rothe, Joshua B. Tenenbaum, Fei Xu, Todd M. Gureckis

In Proceedings of the 40th Annual Meeting of the Cognitive Science Society

PDF Project Slides Workshop

Intuitive experimentation in the physical world

Neil R. Bramley, Tobias Gerstenberg, Joshua B. Tenenbaum, Todd M. Gureckis

Cognitive Psychology, (195), pp. 9–38

PDF Preprint Project Slides Press

Time in causal structure learning

Neil R. Bramley, Tobias Gerstenberg, Ralf Mayrhofer, David A. Lagnado

Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory & Cognition

PDF

2017

Beliefs about sparsity affect causal experimentation

Anna Coenen, Neil R. Bramley, Azzurra Ruggeri, Todd M. Gureckis

In Proceedings of the 39th Annual Meeting of the Cognitive Science Society

PDF

Causal learning from interventions and dynamics in continuous time

Neil R. Bramley, Ralf Mayrhofer, Tobias Gerstenberg, David A. Lagnado

In Proceedings of the 39th Annual Meeting of the Cognitive Science Society

PDF Demo Video

Constructing the world: Active causal learning in cognition

Neil R. Bramley

Unpublished PhD thesis, UCL
🏆 2017 British Psychological Society Award for Doctoral Work in Cognition 🏆

PDF Project

Formalizing Neurath's ship: Approximate algorithms for online causal learning

Neil R. Bramley, Peter Dayan, Thomas L. Griffiths, David A. Lagnado

Psychological Review, (124), 3, pp. 301–338

PDF Preprint Project

Strategic exploration in human adaptive control

Eric Schulz, Edgar D. Klenske, Neil R. Bramley, Maarten Speekenbrink

In Proceedings of the 39th Annual Meeting of the Cognitive Science Society

PDF

2016

Children's Use of Interventions to Learn Causal Structure

Teresa McCormack, Neil R. Bramley, Caren Frosch, Fiona Patrick, David A. Lagnado

Journal of Experimental Child Psychology, (141), pp. 1–22

PDF

Natural science: Active learning in dynamic physical microworlds

Neil R. Bramley, Tobias Gerstenberg, Joshua B. Tenenbaum

In Proceedings of the 38th Annual Meeting of the Cognitive Science Society, Austin, TX, pp. 2567–2573

PDF Project

2015

Conservative forgetful scholars: How people learn causal structure through interventions

Neil R. Bramley, David A. Lagnado, Maarten Speekenbrink

Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory & Cognition, (41), 3, pp. 708–731

PDF Exp 1 Exp 2

Staying afloat on Neurath's boat: Heuristics for sequential causal learning

Neil R. Bramley, Peter Dayan, David A. Lagnado

In Proceedings of the 37th Annual Meeting of the Cognitive Science Society, pp. 262–267

PDF Demo

2014

Book Review: Future-Minded: The Psychology of Agency and Control by Magda Osman

Neil R. Bramley

The London School of Economics Review of Books

Link

The order of things: Inferring causal structure from temporal patterns

Neil R. Bramley, Tobias Gerstenberg, David A. Lagnado

In Proceedings of the 36th Annual Meeting of the Cognitive Science Society, pp. 236–242

PDF Demo Dataset

What should causal learners value?

Neil R. Bramley, Jonanthan D. Nelson, Maarten Speekenbrink, Vincenzo Crupi, David A Lagnado

Poster presented at The Annual Meeting of the Psychonomic Society

PDF

2013

Mechanisms of active causal learning

Neil R. Bramley, Maarten Speekenbrink, David A. Lagnado

Poster presented at the 35th Annual Meeting of the Cognitive Science Society

PDF