Publications

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Co-First Authorship: Co-first authors are denoted by asterisks.

Journal Articles

Unger, L., Yim, H., Savic, O., Dennis, S., & Sloutsky, V. M. (2023). No frills: Simple regularities in language can go a long way in the development of word knowledge. Developmental Science, e13373. [pdf] [accepted version] [data/scripts]

Unger, L. & Sloutsky, V. M. (2022). Category learning is shaped by the multifaceted development of selective attention. Journal of Experimental Child Psychology, 226, 105549. [pdf] [accepted version] [data/scripts]

Savic, O.*, Unger, L.* & Sloutsky, V. M. (2022). Experience and maturation: The contribution of co-occurrence regularities in language to the development of semantic organization. Child Development, 94, 142–158. [pdf] [accepted version] [data/scripts]

Unger, L. & Sloutsky, V. M. (2022). Ready to learn: Incidental exposure fosters category learning. Psychological Science. 33, 999–1019. [pdf] [accepted version] [data/scripts]

Savic, O.*, Unger, L.* & Sloutsky, V. M. (2022). Exposure to co-occurrence regularities in language drives semantic integration of new words. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory and Cognition. [pdf] [accepted version] [data/scripts]

Unger, L. & Fisher, A. V. (2021). The emergence of richly organized semantic knowledge from simple statistics: A synthetic review. Developmental Review, 60, 100949. [pdf] [accepted version] [doi]

Unger, L., Vales, C., & Fisher, A. V. (2020). The role of co‐occurrence statistics in developing semantic knowledge. Cognitive Science, 44, e12894. [pdf] [accepted version] [data/scripts] [doi]

Unger, L., Savic, O., & Sloutsky, V. M. (2020). Statistical regularities shape semantic organization throughout development. Cognition, 198, 104190. [accepted version] [data/scripts] [doi]

Unger, L., & Fisher, A. V. (2019). Rapid, experience-related changes in the organization of children’s semantic knowledge. Journal of Experimental Child Psychology, 179, 1-22. [accepted version] [doi]

Unger, L., Fisher, A. V., Nugent, R., Ventura, S., & MacLellan, C. (2016). Developmental changes in semantic knowledge organization. Journal of Experimental Child Psychology, 46, 202-222. [accepted version] [doi]

Fisher, A. V., Godwin, K. E., Matlen, B. J., & Unger, L. (2014). Development of category-based induction and semantic knowledge. Child Development, 86, 48-62.

Stanford, A. D., Luber, B., Unger, L., Cycowicz, Y. M., Malaspina, D., & Lisanby, S. H. (2013). Single pulse TMS differentially modulates reward behavior. Neuropsychologia, 51, 3041-3047.

DeBruine, L. M., Jones, B. C., Unger, L., Little, A. C., & Feinberg, D. R. (2007). Dissociating averageness and attractiveness: Attractive faces are not always average. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Human Perception and Performance, 33, 1420-1430.

Encyclopedia Chapters

Fisher, A.V. & Unger, L. (2019). Categorization in the preschool period. In S. Hupp & J. Jewell (Eds.), The Encyclopedia of Child and Adolescent Development. Wiley: Wiley-Blackwell.

Selected Peer-Reviewed Conference Proceedings

Unger, L., Ralston, R., Wan, Q., Gao, M., & Savic, O. (2022). Delineating prediction mechanisms for word learning from context. To appear in the Proceedings of The Second International Conference on Error-Driven Learning in Language. Virtual/Tübingen, Germany. [pdf]

Unger, L. & Sloutksy, V. M. (2021). Category learning is shaped by the multifaceted development of selective attention. Proceedings of the 43rd Annual Meeting of the Cognitive Science Society, Virtual/Vienna, Austria. [pdf]

Unger, L., Savic, O., & Sloutksy, V. M. (2020). Environmental regularities shape semantic organization throughout development. Proceedings of the 42nd Annual Meeting of the Cognitive Science Society, Virtual/Toronto, Ontario, CA. [pdf]

Unger, L., & Sloutksy, V. M. (2019). Simple mechanisms, rich structure: Statistical co-occurrence regularities in language shape the development of semantic knowledge. Proceedings of the 41st Annual Meeting of the Cognitive Science Society, Montreal, Quebec, CA. [pdf]

Savic, O., Unger, L., & Sloutksy, V. M. (2019). Rapid semantic integration of novel words following exposure to distributional regularities. Proceedings of the 41st Annual Meeting of the Cognitive Science Society, Montreal, Quebec, CA. [pdf]

Unger, L., & Sloutksy, V. M. (2018). Ready to learn: Predictive exposure to category-relevant regularities facilitates novel category learning. Proceedings of the 40th Annual Meeting of the Cognitive Science Society, Madison, WI, USA. [pdf]

Unger, L., & Fisher, A. V. (2018). All creatures great and small: Category-relevant statistical regularities in children’s books. Proceedings of the 40th Annual Meeting of the Cognitive Science Society, Madison, WI, USA. [pdf]

Unger, L., Fisher, A. V. (2017). Learning in the wild: Real-world experiences shape children’s knowledge organization. Proceedings of the 39th Annual Meeting of the Cognitive Science Society, London, UK. [pdf]

Vales, C., Fisher, A. V., & Unger, L. (2017). Looking for the cat and seeing the dog: Using visual search to study semantic knowledge in children. Proceedings of the 39th Annual Meeting of the Cognitive Science Society, London, UK.

Unger, L., Fisher, A. V. (2016). Semantic contamination of visual similarity judgments. Proceedings of the 38th Annual Meeting of the Cognitive Science Society, Philadelphia, PA, USA. [pdf]

Unger, L., Kim, J., Badger, J., Fisher, A. V., & Huppert, T. J. (2016). The role of the prefrontal cortex in induction: An fNIRS study. Proceedings of the 38th Annual Meeting of the Cognitive Science Society, Philadelphia, PA, USA. [pdf]

Unger, L., Fisher, A. V., & MacLellan, C. (2014). Developmental changes in the semantic organization of living kinds. Proceedings of the 36th Annual Meeting of the Cognitive Science Society, Quebec City, Quebec, CA. [pdf]

Supervised Student Conference Presentations

Reardon, N., Unger, L., & Sloutsky, V. M. Incidental exposure optimizes attention to features that are relevant to category membership. Talk to be presented at the Annual Meeting of the Cognitive Neuroscience Society, San Francisco, CA, USA.

Unger, L., Anilkumar, A., & Sloutsky, V. M. (2022). Learning new words from context. Poster presented at the 63rd Annual Meeting of the Psychonomic Society. Virtual/Boston, MA, USA.

Vallampati, A., Unger, L., & Savic, O. (2020). The semantic network: The mechanisms that build organized word knowledge in development. Poster presented at the 42nd Annual Meeting of the Cognitive Science Society. Virtual/Toronto, Ontario, CA.

Swenski, T., Unger, L., Savic, O., & Sloutsky, V. M. (2019). Co-occurrence regularities in language shape the development of semantic knowledge. Poster presented at the Biennial Conference of the Cognitive Development Society, Louisville, KY, USA.

Unger, L., D’Emilia, W., & Fisher, A. V. (2015). Semantic development: The contribution of number of relations to representational similarity. Poster presented at the Biennial Meeting of the Society for Research in Child Development, Philadelphia, PA, USA.