Scholar
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PROFESSIONAL EXPERIENCE
2022- Assistant professor, Department of Cognitive Science, Central European University, Vienna;
PI of Causal Cognition Lab, member of KinderKognition lab
2021-2022 Postdoctoral researcher, Harvard Graduate School of Education
PI: Dr. Elizabeth Bonawitz
2019-2020 Postdoctoral associate, Rutgers University - Newark
PIs: Dr. Elizabeth Bonawitz and Dr. Patrick Shafto
2016-2019 Postdoctoral fellow, Harvard University
NIH/NICHD National Research Service Award
Mentor: Dr. Susan Carey
EDUCATION
2011-2016 Yale University
Ph.D. in Developmental Psychology, 2016
M.Phil. in Psychology, 2015
M.S. in Psychology, 2014
Advisor: Dr. Frank C. Keil
2005-2009 Reed College
B.A. in Psychology, 2009
Commended for Excellence in Scholarship, 2006-2007, 2008-2009
GRANTS AND AWARDS
FWF PROFI PAT1931423
€480,000 in collaboration with Christoph Völter at VetMedUni Wien to conduct comparative pupillometry research with human infants and dogs.
Project title:Infants and dogs´ perception of causality and animacy
NSF EAGER
$74,999 to develop a novel data collection platform for parent/child conversations.
Project title: Science of Learning: "Talk of the Town" app development
Developing Belief Network Postdoctoral Fellowship
$55,000 to develop a novel data collection platform for parent/child conversations.
Project title: A Flexible Mobile Testing Platform for Large-scale Studies of Developing Beliefs
Social Science Research Council COVID-19 rapid response grant
$4,500 for studies of behavior related to the COVID-19 pandemic.
Project title: Understanding Intuitive Judgments of “Overreaction”
NIH National Research Service Award 1F32HD089595
Project title: Causal Event Categories in Infancy: The Origins and Consequences of Causal Perception
EDITORSHIPS AND APPOINTMENTS
2022- : Associate editor, Infant and Child Development
2022- : Associate editor, Collabra
PREVIOUS WORK EXPERIENCE
Summer 2009-Summer 2011: Yale University Cognition and Development Lab, New Haven, CT
Lab Manager/Research Assistant
Supervisor: Dr. Frank C. Keil
Spring/summer 2008: Cognitive Development Project at Reed College, Portland, OR
Research Assistant
Advisor: Dr. Rebecca Brand
ManyBabies4 Consortium (in press). Infants’ social evaluation of helpers and hinderers: A large- scale, multi-lab, coordinated replication study. Developmental Science.
Kominsky, J. F., & Carey, S. (2024). Infants' representation of Michottean triggering events. Cognition, 250, 105844.
Kominsky, J. F., Bascandziev, I., Shafto, P., & Bonawitz, E. (2023). Talk of the Town mobile app platform: New method for engaging family in STEM learning and research in homes and communities. Frontiers in Psychology, 14.
Kominsky, J. F., Lucca, K., Thomas, A. J., Frank, M. C., & Hamlin, J. K. (2022). Simplicity and validity in infant research. Cognitive Development, 63, 101213.
Gill, M. Kominsky, J. F., Icard, T., & Knobe, J. (Accepted). An interaction effect of norm violations on causal judgments. Cognition
Kominsky, J. F. (2022). The challenges of improving infant research methods. Infant and Child Development
Kominsky, J. F., Li, Y., & Carey, S. (2022). Infants’ attributions of insides and animacy in causal interactions. Cognitive Science, 46(1), e13087.
Kominsky, J. F., Reardon, D., & Bonawitz, E. (2021). Intuitive Judgments of “Overreaction” and Their Relationship to Compliance with Public Health Measures. Journal of Applied Research in Memory and Cognition, Online first publication.
Kominsky, J. F., Begus, K., Bass, I., Colantonio, J., Leonard, J. A., Mackey, A. P., & Bonawitz, E. (2021). Organizing the methodological toolbox: Lessons learned from implementing developmental methods online. Frontiers in Psychology, 12.
Kominsky, J. F., Gerstenberg, T., Pelz, M., Sheskin, M., Singmann, H., Schulz, L., & Keil, F. C. (2021). The trajectory of counterfactual reasoning in development. Developmental Psychology..
Kominsky, J. F., Shafto, P., & Bonawitz, E. (2021). "There's something inside": Children's intuitions about animate agents. PLoS ONE, 16(5), e0251081.
Kominsky, J. F., Baker, L., Keil, F. C., & Strickland, B. (2020). Causality and continuity close the gaps in event representations. Memory and Cognition.
Kominsky, J. F., & Scholl, B. J. (2020). Retinotopic adaptation reveals distinct categories in casual perception. Cognition, 203, 104339.
ManyBabies Consortium (2020). Quantifying sources of variability in infancy research using the infant-directed-speech preference. Advances in Methods and Practices in Psychological Science, 3(1), 24–52.
Byers-Heinlein, K., Bergmann, C., Davies, C., Frank, M.C., Hamlin, J.K., Kline, M., Kominsky, J. F., Kosie, J.E., Lew-Williams, C., Liu, L., Mastroberardino, M., Singh, L., Waddell, C.P.G., Zetter- sten, M., Soderstrom, M. (2020). Building a collaborative Psychological Science: Lessons learned from ManyBabies 1. Canadian Psychology.
Kominsky, J. F., & Phillips, J. (2019). Immoral professors and malfunctioning tools: Counterfactual relevance accounts explain the effect of norm violations on causal selection. Cognitive Science, 43, e12792
Kominsky, J. F. (2019). PyHab: Open-source real time infant gaze coding and stimulus presentation software. Infant Behavior & Development, 54, 114-119.
Kominsky, J. F., Strickland, B., Wertz, A., Elsner, C., Wynn, K., & Keil, F. C. (2017). Newtonian constraints on causal perception. Psychological Science, 28(11), 1649-1662.
Kominsky, J.F., Zamm, A.P., & Keil, F.C. (2018). Knowing when help is needed: A developing sense of causal complexity. Cognitive Science, 42(2), 491-523.
Icard, T., Kominsky, J.F., & Knobe, J. (2017). Normality and actual causal strength. Cognition, 161, 80-93. doi:10.1016/j.cognition.2017.01.010
Kominsky, J. F., Langthorne, P., & Keil, F. C. (2016). The better part of not knowing: Virtuous ignorance. Developmental Psychology, 52(1), 31-45. doi:10.1037/dev0000065
Banerjee, K., Kominsky, J. F., Fernando, M., & Keil, F. C. (2016). Figuring out function: Children’s and adults’ use of ownership information in judgments of artifact function. Developmental Psychology, 51(12), 1791-1801. doi: 10.1037/a0039751
Kominsky, J. F., Phillips, J., Gerstenberg, T., Lagnado, D., & Knobe, J. (2015). Causal superseding. Cognition, 137, 196-209. doi:10.1016/j.cognition.2015.01.013
Keil, F. C., & Kominsky, J. F. (2015). Grounding concepts. In Margolis and Laurence (eds.) The Conceptual Mind: New Directions in the Study of Concepts, pp. 677-692. Cambridge: MIT Press.
Kominsky, J. F., & Keil, F. C. (2014). Overestimation about knowledge of word meanings: The misplaced meaning effect. Cognitive Science, 38(8), 1604-1633. doi: 10.1111/cogs.12122
Rottman, B., Kominsky, J. F., & Keil, F. C. (2013). Children use temporal stability to learn causal directionality. Cognitive Science, 38(3), 489-513. doi: 10.1111/cogs.12070
Keil, F. C., & Kominsky, J. F. (2013). Missing links in middle school: developing use of disciplinary relatedness in evaluating internet search results. PLoS ONE 8(6), e67777. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0067777
Kominsky, J. F., & Casasanto, D. (2013). Specific to whose body? Perspective-taking and the spatial mapping of valence. Frontiers in Psychology, 4, 266. doi: 10.3389/fpsyg.2013.00266
Brand, R. J., Hollenbeck, E., & Kominsky, J. F. (2013). B. Mothers’ infant-directed gaze during object demonstration highlights action boundaries and goals. IEEE Transactions on Autonomous Mental Development, 5(3), 192-201. doi: 10.1109/TAMD.2013.2273057
Brand, R. J., McGee, A., Kominsky, J. F., Briggs, K., Gruneisen, A., & Orbach, T. (2009). Repetition in infant-directed action depends on the goal structure of the object: Evidence for statistical regularities. Gesture, 9(3), 337–353. doi: 10.1075/gest.9.3.04bra
PRESENTATIONS
Kominsky, J. F. Online developmental research methods: Limitations and opportunities. Invited workshop presentation, Cognitive Development Society Biennial meeting, Madison, WI, April 2022
Kominsky, J. F., Shafto, P., & Bonawitz, E. Do children make pedagogical interpretations of counterfactual questions? Oral presentation, BCCCD (virtual), January 2022
Kominsky, J. F., Reardon, D., & Bonawitz, E. If it works we didn’t need it: Intuitive judgments of ’overreaction’. Conference proceeding and poster, Cognitive Science Society Annual Meeting (virtual), July 2021
Kominsky, J. F., Shafto, P., & Bonawitz, E. Children's intuitions about the insides of animate agents. Poster, Society for Research on Child Development Biennial Meeting (virtual), April 2021.
Kominsky, J. F., Benton, D., Wood, S. M. W., & Begus, K. The origins of causal thought. Symposium, International Conference on Infant Studies (virtual), July 2020.
Kominsky, J. F. PyHab: Open-source tools for infant looking-time research across multiple paradigms. Poster, International Conference on Infant Studies (virtual), July 2020.
Kominsky, J. F., Baker, L., Keil, F. C., & Strickland, B. Causality and continuity close the gaps in event representations. Poster, Vision Sciences Society (virtual) annual meeting, June 2020.
Li, Y., Carey, S., & Kominsky, J. F. Infants’ inferences about insides. Poster presentation, Cognitive Development Society Biennial meeting, October 17-19, 2019.
Kominsky, J. F., Gerstenberg, T., Pelz, M., Singmann, H., Sheskin, M., & Keil, F. C. The trajectory of counterfactual simulation in development. Poster presentation, Cognitive Development Society Biennial meeting, October 17-19, 2019.
Kominsky, J. F., Gerstenberg, T., Pelz, M., Singmann, H., Sheskin, M., & Keil, F. C. The trajectory of counterfactual simulation in development. Conference proceeding and poster presentation, Cognitive Science Society annual meeting, July 24 - 27, 2019.
Gill, M., Kominsky, J. F., Knobe, J., & Icard, T. Inflated inflation and superseded supersession: testing counterfactual sampling accounts of causal strength judgments. Member abstract and poster presentation, Cognitive Science Society annual meeting, July 24 - 27, 2019.
Kominsky, J. F., & Carey, S. Early-developing causal perception is sensitive to multiple physical constraints. Conference proceeding and oral presentation, Cognitive Science Society annual meeting, July 25 – 28, 2018.
Kominsky, J. F., & Scholl, B. J. Retinotopically specific visual adaptation reveals the structure of causal events in perception. Conference abstract and oral presentation, Cognitive Science Society annual meeting, July 25 – 28, 2018.
Kominsky, J. F., & Scholl, B. J. Retinotopically specific adaptation reveals different categories of causal events: Launching vs. Entraining. Poster presentation, Vision Sciences Society annual meeting, May 18-23, 2018.
Kominsky, J. F., Strickland, B., Wertz, A. E., Elsner, C., Wynn, K., Keil, F. C, & Carey, S. Early-developing causal perception is sensitive to physical constraints on collision events. Poster presentation, Cognitive Development Society biennial meeting, October 12-14, 2017.
Phillips, J., & Kominsky, J. F. Causation and norms of proper functioning: Counterfactuals are (still) relevant. Conference proceeding and oral presentation, Cognitive Science Society annual meeting, July 26 – 29, 2017.
Kominsky, J. F., & Phillips, J. What’s in a cause? Counterfactual relevance and hierarchical event structure in causal judgment. Poster presentation, Society for Philosophy and Psychology annual meeting, June 28 – July 1, 2017.
Kominsky, J. F., Strickland, B., Wertz, A., Elsner, C., Wynn, K., & Keil, F. C. Causal perception is constrained by principles of Newtonian mechanics. Poster presentation, Cognitive Science Society annual meeting, August 11-13, 2016.
Kominsky, J. F., & Scholl, B. J. Retinotopic adaptation reveals multiple distinct categories of causal perception. Poster presentation, Vision Sciences Society annual meeting, May 13-18, 2016.
Kominsky, J. F., Phillips, J., Knobe, J., & Keil, F. C. Norm violations affect children’s causal judgments. Poster presentation, Cognitive Development Society biennial meeting, October 8-10, 2015.
Kominsky, J. F., Langthorne, P., & Keil, F. C. The better part of not knowing: Virtuous ignorance. Conference paper and oral presentation, Cognitive Science Society annual meeting, July 23-25, 2015.
Wertz, A., Kominsky, J. F., Strickland, B., Keil, F. C., & Wynn, K. 9-Month-Olds, But Not 7-Month-Olds, Show Sensitivity to Principles of Newtonian Physics in Causal Launching Events. Poster presentation, Society for Research in Child Development biennial meeting, March 20-22, 2015.
Kominsky, J. F., Zamm, A. P., & Keil, F. C. A developing understanding of causal complexity. Poster presentation, Society for Research in Child Development biennial meeting, March 20-22, 2015.
Kominsky, J. F., Phillips, J., Gerstenberg, T., Lagnado, D., & Knobe, J. Causal Supersession. Conference paper and oral presentation, Cognitive Science Society annual meeting, July 24-26, 2014.
Kominsky, J. F., Strickland, B., & Keil, F. C. Sensitivity to Newtonian regularities in causal perception: Evidence from attention. Poster presentation, Vision Sciences Society annual meeting, May 16-21, 2014.
Kominsky, J. F., Zamm, A., & Keil, F. C. Intuitive causal complexity in the absence of causal understanding. Poster presentation, Cognitive Development Society biennial meeting, October 18-19, 2013.
Kominsky, J. F., Banerjee, K., Fernando, M., & Keil, Frank C. The impact of agent information on judgments of artifact function. Poster presentation, Society for Research in Child Development biennial meeting, April 18-20, 2013.
Kominsky, J. F., & Scholl, B. J. The window of ‘postdiction’ in visual perception is flexible: Evidence from causal perception. Poster presentation, Vision Sciences Society annual meeting, May 11-16, 2012.
Kominsky, J. F., Gaughen, K., & Keil, F. C. Coming to see explanations with diverse reasons as more compelling than those with similar reasons. Poster presentation, Society for Research in Child Development biennial meeting, March 31-April 2, 2011.
Orbach, T., Gruneisen, A., Briggs, K., Kominsky, J. F., McGee, A., & Brand, R. J. Structure in mothers' demonstrations to infants of objects with and without a salient end-goal. Poster presentation, Society for Research in Child Development biennial meeting, April 2-4, 2009.
PROFESSIONAL SERVICE
Meta-reviewer: Cognitive Science Society Annual Meeting (2016, 2022-present)
Ad-hoc grant proposal review: National Science Foundation (2018-2020)
Journal peer review: Child Development; Cognition; Cognitive Development; Cognitive Science; Developmental Psychology; Journal of Experimental Psychology: Human Perception & Performance; JEP: General; JEP: Learning, Memory, & Cognition; Memory & Language; PLoS ONE; Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology; Review of Philosophy & Psychology; Visual Cognition
Conference peer review: Cognitive Development Society (2017); Cognitive Science Society (2015-2021); Society for Philosophy and Psychology (2016, 2019)