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About
Overview
Dr Ansgar Endress is a behavioral scientist with key contributions in fields from evolutionary behavioral science to language acquisition to memory processes to social behavior. He has worked with populations from non-human primates to human infants and adults, using a variety of behavioral assays, statistical techniques and computational models.
Dr Endress is interested in how seemingly simple psychological mechanisms shared with other animals shape human-specific traits such as language.
Dr Endress trained as a generalist engineer at École Polytechnique and obtained a doctorate in Cognitive Science from the École des Hautes Études en Sciences Sociales. Before joining City University London, he worked at the International School for Advanced Studies, Harvard University, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and the Universitat Pompeu Fabra (Barcelona).
Research
Research interests
- Language
- Learning
- Language acquisition and cognitive development
- Perception and memory
- Evolutionary psychology
Publications
Featured publications
- Endress, A.D. (2024). Hebbian learning can explain rhythmic neural entrainment to statistical regularities. Developmental Science, 27(4). doi:10.1111/desc.13487
Publications by category
Chapter
- Mehler, J., Endress, A.D., Gervain, J. and Nespor, M. (2008). From perception to grammar. In Friederici, A.D. and Thierry, G. (Eds.), Early Language Development: Bridging Brain and Behaviour (pp. 191-213). John Benjamins.
Journal articles (46)
- Endress, A.D. and de Seyssel, M. (2025). The specificity of sequential statistical learning: Statistical learning accumulates predictive information from unstructured input but is dissociable from (declarative) memory for words. Cognition, 261, pp. 106130-106130. doi:10.1016/j.cognition.2025.106130
- Endress, A.D. (2025). Transitional probabilities outweigh frequency of occurrence in statistical learning of simultaneously presented visual shapes. Memory & Cognition, 53(5), pp. 1497-1509. doi:10.3758/s13421-024-01665-x
- Endress, A.D. (2023). In defense of epicycles: Embracing complexity in psychological explanations. Mind & Language, 38(5), pp. 1208-1237. doi:10.1111/mila.12450
- Endress, A.D. and Johnson, S.P. (2023). Hebbian, correlational learning provides a memory-less mechanism for Statistical Learning irrespective of implementational choices: Reply to Tovar and Westermann (2022). Cognition, 230, pp. 105290-105290. doi:10.1016/j.cognition.2022.105290
- Endress, A.D. and Johnson, S.P. (2023). Corrigendum to “When forgetting fosters learning: A neural network model for statistical learning” [Cognition (2021) 104621]. Cognition, 230, pp. 105310-105310. doi:10.1016/j.cognition.2022.105310
- Endress, A.D. and Ahmed, S. (2022). Generic learning mechanisms can drive social inferences: The role of type frequency. Memory & Cognition, 50(8), pp. 1694-1705. doi:10.3758/s13421-022-01286-2
- Endress, A.D. (2022). Memory and Proactive Interference for spatially distributed items. Memory & Cognition, 50(4), pp. 782-816. doi:10.3758/s13421-021-01239-1
- Endress, A.D. (2022). Socio-Cultural Values Are Risk Factors for COVID-19-Related Mortality. Cross-Cultural Research, 56(2-3), pp. 150-184. doi:10.1177/10693971211067050
- Endress, A.D. and Johnson, S.P. (2021). When forgetting fosters learning: A neural network model for statistical learning. Cognition, 213, pp. 104621-104621. doi:10.1016/j.cognition.2021.104621
- Endress, A.D., Slone, L.K. and Johnson, S.P. (2020). Statistical learning and memory. Cognition, 204, pp. 104346-104346. doi:10.1016/j.cognition.2020.104346
- Endress, A.D. and Szabó, S. (2020). Sequential Presentation Protects Working Memory From Catastrophic Interference. Cognitive Science, 44(5). doi:10.1111/cogs.12828
- Endress, A.D. (2020). A Simple, Biologically Plausible Feature Detector for Language Acquisition. Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience, 32(3), pp. 435-445. doi:10.1162/jocn_a_01494
- Endress, A.D. (2019). Duplications and domain-generality. Psychological Bulletin, 145(12), pp. 1154-1175. doi:10.1037/bul0000213
- Webb, R., Ayers, S. and Endress, A. (2018). The City Infant Faces Database: A validated set of infant facial expressions. Behavior Research Methods, 50(1), pp. 151-159. doi:10.3758/s13428-017-0859-9
- Endress, A.D., Korjoukov, I. and Bonatti, L.L. (2017). Category-based grouping in working memory and multiple object tracking. Visual Cognition, 25(9-10), pp. 868-887. doi:10.1080/13506285.2017.1349229
- Endress, A.D. and Szabó, S. (2017). Interference and memory capacity limitations. Psychological Review, 124(5), pp. 551-571. doi:10.1037/rev0000071
- Gervain, J. and Endress, A.D. (2017). Learning multiple rules simultaneously: Affixes are more salient than reduplications. Memory & Cognition, 45(3), pp. 508-527. doi:10.3758/s13421-016-0669-9
- Endress, A.D. and Langus, A. (2017). Transitional probabilities count more than frequency, but might not be used for memorization. Cognitive Psychology, 92, pp. 37-64. doi:10.1016/j.cogpsych.2016.11.004
- Endress, A.D. and Siddique, A. (2016). The cost of proactive interference is constant across presentation conditions. Acta Psychologica, 170, pp. 186-194. doi:10.1016/j.actpsy.2016.08.001
- Endress, A. and Katzir, R. (2016). Linguistics, cognitive psychology, and the now-or-never bottleneck. Behavioral and Brain Sciences, 39, pp. e71-e71. doi:10.1017/S0140525X15000953
- Endress, A.D. and Bonatti, L.L. (2016). Words, rules, and mechanisms of language acquisition. WIREs Cognitive Science, 7(1), pp. 19-35. doi:10.1002/wcs.1376
- Endress, A.D. and Potter, M.C. (2014). Something from (almost) nothing: buildup of object memory from forgettable single fixations. Attention, Perception, & Psychophysics, 76(8), pp. 2413-2423. doi:10.3758/s13414-014-0706-3
- Kovács, Á.M. and Endress, A.D. (2014). Hierarchical Processing in Seven‐Month‐Old Infants. Infancy, 19(4), pp. 409-425. doi:10.1111/infa.12052
- Endress, A.D. (2014). How are Bayesian models really used? Reply to Frank (2013). Cognition, 130(1), pp. 81-84. doi:10.1016/j.cognition.2013.09.003
- Endress, A.D. and Potter, M.C. (2014). Large capacity temporary visual memory. Journal of Experimental Psychology: General, 143(2), pp. 548-565. doi:10.1037/a0033934
- Endress, A.D. (2013). Bayesian learning and the psychology of rule induction. Cognition, 127(2), pp. 159-176. doi:10.1016/j.cognition.2012.11.014
- Endress, A.D. and Potter, M.C. (2012). Early Conceptual and Linguistic Processes Operate in Independent Channels. Psychological Science, 23(3), pp. 235-245. doi:10.1177/0956797611421485
- Endress, A.D. and Wood, J.N. (2011). From movements to actions: Two mechanisms for learning action sequences. Cognitive Psychology, 63(3), pp. 141-171. doi:10.1016/j.cogpsych.2011.07.001
- Endress, A.D. and Hauser, M.D. (2011). The influence of type and token frequency on the acquisition of affixation patterns: Implications for language processing. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory, and Cognition, 37(1), pp. 77-95. doi:10.1037/a0020210
- Kovács, Á.M., Téglás, E. and Endress, A.D. (2010). The Social Sense: Susceptibility to Others’ Beliefs in Human Infants and Adults. Science, 330(6012), pp. 1830-1834. doi:10.1126/science.1190792
- Endress, A.D. (2010). Learning melodies from non-adjacent tones. Acta Psychologica, 135(2), pp. 182-190. doi:10.1016/j.actpsy.2010.06.005
- Endress, A.D. and Hauser, M.D. (2010). Word segmentation with universal prosodic cues. Cognitive Psychology, 61(2), pp. 177-199. doi:10.1016/j.cogpsych.2010.05.001
- Hochmann, J.-.R., Endress, A.D. and Mehler, J. (2010). Word frequency as a cue for identifying function words in infancy. Cognition, 115(3), pp. 444-457. doi:10.1016/j.cognition.2010.03.006
- Endress, A.D., Carden, S., Versace, E. and Hauser, M.D. (2010). The apes’ edge: positional learning in chimpanzees and humans. Animal Cognition, 13(3), pp. 483-495. doi:10.1007/s10071-009-0299-8
- Endress, A.D. and Mehler, J. (2010). Perceptual constraints in phonotactic learning. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Human Perception and Performance, 36(1), pp. 235-250. doi:10.1037/a0017164
- Endress, A.D., Cahill, D., Block, S., Watumull, J. and Hauser, M.D. (2009). Evidence of an evolutionary precursor to human language affixation in a non-human primate. Biology Letters, 5(6), pp. 749-751. doi:10.1098/rsbl.2009.0445
- Endress, A.D. and Hauser, M.D. (2009). Syntax-induced pattern deafness. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 106(49), pp. 21001-21006. doi:10.1073/pnas.0908963106
- Endress, A.D. and Mehler, J. (2009). Primitive computations in speech processing. Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology, 62(11), pp. 2187-2209. doi:10.1080/17470210902783646
- Endress, A.D., Nespor, M. and Mehler, J. (2009). Perceptual and memory constraints on language acquisition. Trends in Cognitive Sciences, 13(8), pp. 348-353. doi:10.1016/j.tics.2009.05.005
- Endress, A.D. and Mehler, J. (2009). The surprising power of statistical learning: When fragment knowledge leads to false memories of unheard words. Journal of Memory and Language, 60(3), pp. 351-367. doi:10.1016/j.jml.2008.10.003
- Endress, A.D. and Mehler, J. (2009). The surprising power of statistical learning: When fragment knowledge leads to false memories of unheard words. Journal of Memory and Language, 60(3), pp. 353-369
- Versace, E., Endress, A.D. and Hauser, M.D. (2008). Pattern recognition mediates flexible timing of vocalizations in nonhuman primates: experiments with cottontop tamarins. Animal Behaviour, 76(6), pp. 1885-1892. doi:10.1016/j.anbehav.2008.08.015
- TORO, J.M., SHUKLA, M., NESPOR, M. and ENDRESS, A.D. (2008). The quest for generalizations over consonants: Asymmetries between consonants and vowels are not the by-product of acoustic differences. Perception & Psychophysics, 70(8), pp. 1515-1525. doi:10.3758/pp.70.8.1515
- Endress, A.D., Dehaene-Lambertz, G. and Mehler, J. (2007). Perceptual constraints and the learnability of simple grammars. Cognition, 105(3), pp. 577-614. doi:10.1016/j.cognition.2006.12.014
- Endress, A.D. and Bonatti, L.L. (2007). Rapid learning of syllable classes from a perceptually continuous speech stream. Cognition, 105(2), pp. 247-299. doi:10.1016/j.cognition.2006.09.010
- Endress, A.D., Scholl, B.J. and Mehler, J. (2005). The Role of Salience in the Extraction of Algebraic Rules. Journal of Experimental Psychology: General, 134(3), pp. 406-419. doi:10.1037/0096-3445.134.3.406
Thesis/dissertation
- Endress, A.D. Limitations perceptives et repr�sentationnelles des computations symboliques mentales. (PhD)