DEPARTMENT OF PSYCHOLOGY

Research Interests

My current interests include concepts (especially concepts of individual objects and events as they change in time), reasoning (especially reasoning about new mathematical systems), and autobiographical memory. 

Selected Publications

Books:

Rips, L. J. (2011). Lines of thought: Central concepts in cognitive psychology. Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press.

Adler, J. E., & Rips, L. J. (eds.) (2008). Reasoning: Studies of human inference and its foundations. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.

Tourangeau, R., Rips, L. J., & Rasinski, K. (2000). The psychology of survey response. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.

Sloman, S. A., & Rips, L. J. (eds.) (1998). Similarity and symbols in human thought. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.

Rips, L. J. (1994). The psychology of proof: Deduction in human thinking. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.

Recent Journal articles:

Cariani, F., & Rips, L. J. (in press). Experimenting with (conditional) perfection: Tests of the exhaustivity theory. In S. Kaufmann & D. Over (Eds.), Conditionals: Logic, Linguistics, and Psychology. Palgrave Macmillan.

Rips, L. J. (2020). Possible objects: Topological approaches to individuation. Cognitive Science, 44(11).

Rips, L. J., & Hespos, S. J. (2019). Concepts of objects and substances in language. Psychonomic Bulletin and Review, 26, 1238-1256.

Rips, L. J., & Leonard, N. (2018). Does the identity of an object depend on its category? The role of sortals in thought. In A. Goldman & B. McLaughlin (Eds.), Metaphysics and cognitive science. Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press.

Asmuth, J., Morson, E., & Rips, L. J. (2018). Children’s understanding of the natural numbers’ structure. Cognitive Science, 42, 1945-1973.

Wellwood, A., Hespos, S. J., & Rips, L. J. (2018). The object : substance :: event : process analogy. In J. Knobe, T. Lombrozo, & S. Nichols (Eds.), Oxford studies in experimental philosophy (vol. 2, pp. 183-212). Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press.

Anderson, E. M., Hespos, S. J., & Rips, L. J. (2018). Five-month-old infants have expectations for the accumulation of nonsolid substances. Cognition, 175, 1-10.

Rips, L. J. (2017). Core cognition and its aftermath. Philosophical Topics, 45, 157-179.

Dink, J. W., & Rips, L. J. (2017). Folk teleology and its implications. In D. Rose (Ed.), Experimental metaphysics (pp. 207-236). London: Bloomsbury Press.

Cariani, F., & Rips, L. J. (2017). Conditionals, context, and the suppression effect. Cognitive Science, 41, 540-589.

Hespos, S. J., Ferry, A. L., Anderson, E. M., Hollenbeck, E. N., & Rips, L. J. (2016). Five-month-old infants have general knowledge of how nonsolid substances behave and interact. Psychological Science, 27, 244-256.

Rips, L. J. (2015). Beliefs about the nature of numbers. In E. Davis & P. Davis (Eds.), Mathematics, substance and surmise: Views on the meaning and ontology of mathematics (pp. 321-345). Berlin: Springer.

Rips, L. J., & Hespos, S. J. (2015). Divisions of the physical world: Concepts of objects and substances. Psychological Bulletin, 141, 786-811.

Johnson, S. G. B., & Rips, L. J. (2015). Do the right thing: The assumption of optimality in lay decision theory and causal judgment. Cognitive Psychology, 77, 42-76.

Sagi, E., & Rips, L. J. (2014). Identity, causality, and pronoun ambiguity. Topics in Cognitive Science, 6, 663-680.

Rips, L. J., & Thompson, S. (2014). Possible number systems. Cognitive, Affective, and Behavioral Neuroscience, 14, 3-23.

Rips, L. J., & Edwards, B. J. (2013). Inference and explanation in counterfactual reasoning. Cognitive Science 37, 1107-1135.

Rips, L. J. (2013). How many is a zillion? Sources of number distortion. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory, and Cognition, 39, 1257-1264.

Rips, L. J. (2011). Split identity: Intransitive judgments of the identity of objects. Cognition, 119, 356-373.

Rips, L. J. (2011). Causation from perception. Perspectives on Psychological Science, 6, 77-97.

Rips, L. J. (2010). Two causal theories of counterfactual conditionals. Cognitive Science, 34, 175-221.

Bartels, D. M., & Rips, L. J. (2010). Psychological connectedness and intertemporal choice. Journal of Experimental Psychology: General, 139, 49-69.

Conrad, F. G., Rips, L. J., & Fricker, S. S. (2009). Seam effects in quantitative responses. Journal of Official Statistics.

Hespos, S. J., Ferry, A. L., & Rips, L. J. (2009). Five-month-old infants have different expectations for solids and liquids. Psychological Science, 20, 603-611.

Rips, L. J., Bloomfield, A., & Asmuth, J. (2008). From numerical concepts to concepts of number. Behavioral and Brain Sciences, 31,623-642.

Rips, L. J. (2008). Causal thinking. In J. E. Adler & L. J. Rips (Eds.), Reasoning:  Studies of Human Inference and Its Foundation (pp. 597-631). Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.

Rips, L. J., Asmuth, J., & Bloomfield, A. (2008). Do children learn the integers by induction?  Cognition, 106, 940-951. 

Blok, S. V., Newman, G. E., & Rips, L. J. (2007). Out of sorts? Remedies for theories of object concepts: A reply to Rhemtulla and Xu. Psychological Review, 114, 1096-1102

Rips, L. J., & Asmuth, J. (2007). Mathematical induction and induction in mathematics. In A. Feeney & E. Heit (Eds.), Induction (pp. 248-268). Cambridge, England: Cambridge University Press.

Rips, L. J., Asmuth, J., & Bloomfield, A. (2006). Giving the boot to the bootstrap: How not to learn the natural numbers. Cognition, 101, B51-B60.

Rips, L. J., Blok, S., & Newman, G. (2006). Tracing the identity of objects. Psychological Review, 113, 1-30.

Blok, S., Newman, G., & Rips, L. J. (2005). Individuals and their concepts. In W-k. Ahn, R. L. Goldstone, B. C. Love, A. B. Markman, & P. Wolff (Eds.), Categorization inside and outside the lab (pp. 127-149). Washington, D.C.: American Psychological Association. 

Rips, L. J., Conrad, F. G., & Fricker, S. S. (2003). Straightening the seam effect in panel surveys. Public Opinion Quarterly, 67, 522-554.

Rips, L. J. (2002). Circular reasoning. Cognitive Science, 26, 767-795.

Rips, L. J. (2001). Two kinds of reasoning. Psychological Science, 12, 129-134. 

Rips, L. J. (2001). Necessity and natural categories. Psychological Bulletin, 127, 827-852.

Rips, L. J. (2001). Reasoning imperialism. In R. Elio (Ed.), Common sense, reasoning, and rationality (pp. 215-235). Oxford, England: Oxford University Press.