Peer-Reviewed Journal Articles

• Bascandziev, I. (2026) Active Exploration of Explanations as a Guard Against Overconfidence in Understanding [Commentary]. Computational Brain & Behavior.

• Bascandziev, I., Abutto, A., Walker, C., & Bonawitz, E.(in review). The Mind Lab: Thought Experiments as a Means to Teaching Science Effectively and Efficiently. Preprint.

• Bascandziev, I., Shafto, P., & Bonawitz, E. (2025). Prosodic cues support inferences about the question’s pedagogical intent. Open Mind: Discoveries in Cognitive Science.

• Bascandziev, I., Abutto, A., Walker, C., & Bonawitz, E. (2025). Mind over Matter: Conflict Monitoring and Science Learning. Frontiers in Developmental Psychology: Cognitive Development.

• Colantonio, J., Theobald., M., Bascandziev, I., Brod, G., & Bonawitz, E. (2024). Predicting Learning: Understanding the Role of Executive Functions in Children's Belief Revision Using Bayesian Models. Topics in Cognitive Science.

• Theobald., M., Colantonio, J., Bascandziev, I., Bonawitz, E., & Brod, G. (2024). Do Reflection Prompts Promote Children’s Conflict Monitoring and Revision of Misconceptions? Child Development.

• Bascandziev, I. (2024). Thought experiments as an error detection and correction tool. Cognitive Science.

• Colantonio, J., Bascandziev, I., Theobald, M., Brod, G. and Bonawitz, E. (2023). Seeing the Error in my “Bayes”: A Quantified Degree of Belief Change Correlates with Children's Pupillary Surprise Responses Following Explicit Predictions. Entropy.

• Kominsky, J., Bascandziev, I., Shafto, P., & Bonawitz, E. (2023). Talk of the Town Mobile App Platform: New method engaging family in STEM learning and research in homes and communities, Frontiers in Psychology: Developmental Psychology.

• Colantonio, J., Bascandziev, I., Theobald, M., Brod, G. and Bonawitz, E. (2022). Priors, progressions, and predictions: Theory-based Bayesian models of children’s revising beliefs of water displacement, IEEE Transactions on Cognitive and Developmental Systems.

• Tardiff, N., Bascandziev, I., Carey, S., & Zaitchik, D. (2020). Specifying the domain-general resources that contribute to conceptual construction: Evidence from the child’s acquisition of vitalist biology. Cognition.

• Bascandziev, I., Tardiff, N., Zaitchik, D., & Carey, S. (2018). The role of domain-general cognitive resources in children’s construction of a vitalist theory of biology. Cognitive Psychology.

• Tardiff, N., Bascandziev, I., Sandor, K., Carey, S., & Zaitchik, D. (2017). Some consequences of normal aging for generating conceptual explanations: A case study of vitalist biology. Cognitive Psychology.

• Bascandziev, I.,& Harris, P. L.  (2016). The beautiful and the accurate: are children’s selective trust decisions biased? Journal of Experimental Child Psychology.

• Bascandziev, I., Powell, L. J., Harris, P. L., & Carey, S. (2016). A role for executive functions in explanatory understanding of the physical world. Cognitive Development.

• Carey, S., Zaitchik, D., & Bascandziev, I. (2015). Theories of development: In dialog with Jean Piaget. Developmental Review.

• Bascandziev, I., & Harris, P. L. (2014). In beauty we trust: Children prefer information from more attractive informants, British Journal of Developmental Psychology.

• Bascandziev, I., & Harris, P. L. (2011). Gravity is not the only ruler for falling events: Young children stop making the gravity error after receiving additional perceptual information about the tubes mechanism, Journal of Experimental Child Psychology.

• Bascandziev, I., & Harris, P. L. (2010). The role of testimony in young children’s solution of a gravity-driven invisible displacement task, Cognitive Development. 

Book Chapters & Edited Volumes

• Bascandziev, I. (2022). Representational pluralism in the service of learning: The case of thought experiments. In M. Bélanger, Potvin, P., Horst, S., Shtulman, S., & Mortimer, E. (Eds.), Representational Pluralism. Routledge 

• Bascandziev, I., &Harris, P.L.(2019). Can children benefit from thought experiments? In P. Godfrey - Smith & A. Levy (Eds.). The Scientific Imagination. New York: Oxford University Press.

• Zaitchik, D., Solomon, G. E. A., Tardiff, N., & Bascandziev, I. (2016). Conceptual change: Where domain-specific mechanisms meet domain-general cognitive resources. In D. Barner & A. Baron (Eds.), Conceptual Change and Core Knowledge.  Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press.

Published Peer Reviewed Proceedings (~5000-word papers)

• Bascandziev, I., Shafto, P., & Bonawitz, E. (2024). Parents modify their prosody when asking questions with pedagogical intent. In L. K. Samuelson, S. Frank, M. Toneva, A. Mackey, & A. Hazeltine (Eds.), Proceedings of the 46th Annual Conference of the Cognitive Science Society. Rotterdam NL: Cognitive Science Society

• Bascandziev, I. & Carey, S. (2022). Young children learn equally from real and thought experiments. In J. Culbertson, A. Perfors, H., Rabagliati, & V. Ramenzoni (Eds.), Proceedings of the 44th Annual Conference of the Cognitive Science Society. Toronto CA: Cognitive Science Society

• Bascandziev, I., Shafto, P., & Bonawitz, E. (2021). The sound of pedagogical questions. In T. Fitch, C. Lamm, H. Leder, & K. Tessmar-Raible (Eds.), Proceedings of the 43rd Annual Conference of the Cognitive Science Society. Vienna, AT: Cognitive Science Society

• Bascandziev, I. (2020). Inconsistencies among beliefs as a basis for learning via thought experiments. In B. C. Armstrong, S. Denison, M. Mack, & Y. Xu (Eds.), Proceedings of the 42nd Annual Conference of the Cognitive Science Society. Toronto, CA: Cognitive Science Society