Dr Steven Samuel
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About
Overview
Steven Samuel is a cognitive psychologist whose interests include perspective taking ('theory of mind'), cognitive representation (how we code in our heads things that exist outside of our minds), and the cognition of roleplaying games.
Steven completed his PhD at the University of Essex before taking up research roles at the universities of Stockholm, Cambridge, and then again at Essex. Steven joined City following a lectureship at the University of Plymouth.
Steven is interested in applications from potential PhD students in the fields of either 1) theory of mind/perspective taking, 2) the interface between language and cognition, 3) the cognition of roleplaying games.
Qualifications
- PhD, University of Essex, United Kingdom, 2015
Publications
Publications by category
Chapters (2)
- In Athanasiadou, A. (Ed.), (2017). Studies in Figurative Thought and Language. In John Benjamins Publishing Company. ISBN 9789027246721.
- Samuel, S. (2016). Do bilinguals inhibit one language to speak another? Bilingual Landscape of the Contemporary World (pp. 189-202). Peter Lang Verlag.
Journal articles (36)
- Lurz, R., Samuel, S. and Cox, C. (2026). Altercentrism and self-representation in chimpanzees. Neuroscience & Biobehavioral Reviews, 183, pp. 106580-106580. doi:10.1016/j.neubiorev.2026.106580
- Samuel, S. and Boeckle, M. (2026). No foreign language effect in Schizotypy: Evidence from German-English bilinguals. Schizophrenia Research: Cognition, 43, pp. 100410-100410. doi:10.1016/j.scog.2025.100410
- Cole, G.G. and Samuel, S. (2026). What Piaget didn’t know: The paradox of visual perspective-taking. The Cognitive Psychology Bulletin, 1(11), pp. 26-31. doi:10.53841/bpscog.2026.1.11.26
- Samuel, S., Cole, G.G., Eacott, M.J. and Edwardson, R. (2026). How to eliminate (and even reverse) egocentric bias in perspective taking. Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology, 79(2), pp. 338-354. doi:10.1177/17470218251341289
- Dylman, A.S. and Samuel, S. (2026). Does linguistic similarity matter in the foreign language effect in decision making and emotional resonance? Language and Cognition, 18. doi:10.1017/langcog.2026.10077
- Samuel, S., Lurz, R., Davies, D., Axtell, H. and Salo, S.K. (2025). Testing “quarantined” metarepresentational accounts of Theory of Mind: Are we biased by others' false beliefs? Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, 121, pp. 104785-104785. doi:10.1016/j.jesp.2025.104785
- Samuel, S. (2025). Are visual artists better visual perspective takers? An exploratory study with an unexpected outcome. Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology, 78(6), pp. 1195-1204. doi:10.1177/17470218241263755
- Ganse-Dumrath, A., Chohan, A., Samuel, S., Bretherton, P., Haenschel, C. and Fett, A.-.K. (2025). Systematic review and meta-analysis of early visual processing, social cognition, and functional outcomes in schizophrenia spectrum disorders. Schizophrenia Research: Cognition, 40, pp. 100351-100351. doi:10.1016/j.scog.2025.100351
- Samuel, S. (2025). Cognition in the real world: The benefits of context SmithA. D. (Ed.). (2023). Cognition in the real world. Glasgow: Oxford University Press, £48.99. ISBN 978-0-19-879901-4. Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology, 78(6), pp. 1234-1235. doi:10.1177/17470218251334023
- Lurz, R., Samuel, S., Mshvelidze, J., Cherry, A., Dent, J., Garcia, J.... Taglialatela, J. (2025). Are bonobos anxious when others are ignorant of a threat? Using an affect measure to assess Theory-of-Mind abilities in bonobos. Psihologijske teme, 34(1), pp. 139-154. doi:10.31820/pt.34.1.7
- Cole, G.G., Benfield, E. and Samuel, S. (2024). Format-Free Submissions in Psychology-Related Journals. Publications, 12(3), pp. 29-29. doi:10.3390/publications12030029
- Bylund, E., Samuel, S. and Athanasopoulos, P. (2024). Crosslinguistic Differences in Food Labels Do Not Yield Differences in Taste Perception. Language Learning, 74(S1), pp. 20-39. doi:10.1111/lang.12641
- Samuel, S., Erle, T.M., Kirsch, L.P., Surtees, A., Apperly, I., Bukowski, H.... Quesque, F. (2024). Three key questions to move towards a theoretical framework of visuospatial perspective taking. Cognition, 247, pp. 105787-105787. doi:10.1016/j.cognition.2024.105787
- Samuel, S., Cole, G.G., Eacott, M.J., Edwardson, R. and Course, H. (2023). Evidence for a Weak but Reliable Processing Advantage for False Beliefs Over Similar Nonmental States in Adults. Cognitive Science, 47(10). doi:10.1111/cogs.13364
- Samuel, S., Salo, S., Ladvelin, T., Cole, G.G. and Eacott, M.J. (2023). Teleporting into walls? The irrelevance of the physical world in embodied perspective-taking. Psychonomic Bulletin & Review, 30(3), pp. 1011-1019. doi:10.3758/s13423-022-02070-8
- Samuel, S., Cole, G.G. and Eacott, M.J. (2023). It’s Not You, It’s Me: A Review of Individual Differences in Visuospatial Perspective Taking. Perspectives on Psychological Science, 18(2), pp. 293-308. doi:10.1177/17456916221094545
- Samuel, S. (2022). A curse of knowledge or a curse of uncertainty? Bilingualism, embodiment, and egocentric bias. Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology. doi:10.1177/17470218221132539
- Cole, G.G., Samuel, S. and Eacott, M.J. (2022). A return of mental imagery: The pictorial theory of visual perspective-taking. Consciousness and Cognition, 102, pp. 103352-103352. doi:10.1016/j.concog.2022.103352
- Samuel, S., Eacott, M.J. and Cole, G.G. (2022). Visual perspective taking without visual perspective taking. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory, and Cognition, 48(7), pp. 959-965. doi:10.1037/xlm0001121
- Samuel, S., Hagspiel, K., Cole, G.G. and Eacott, M.J. (2021). ‘Seeing’ proximal representations: Testing attitudes to the relationship between vision and images. PLoS One, 16(8). doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0256658
- Samuel, S., Hagspiel, K., Eacott, M.J. and Cole, G.G. (2021). Visual perspective-taking and image-like representations: We don't see it. Cognition, 210. doi:10.1016/j.cognition.2021.104607
- Samuel, S., Cole, G.G. and Eacott, M.J. (2020). Two independent sources of difficulty in perspective-taking/theory of mind tasks. Psychonomic Bulletin & Review, 27(6), pp. 1341-1347. doi:10.3758/s13423-020-01789-6
- Samuel, S., Frohnwieser, A., Lurz, R. and Clayton, N.S. (2020). Reduced egocentric bias when perspective-taking compared with working from rules. Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology, 73(9), pp. 1368-1381. doi:10.1177/1747021820916707
- Cole, G.G., Millett, A.C., Samuel, S. and Eacott, M.J. (2020). Perspective-Taking: In Search of a Theory. Vision, 4(2), pp. 30-30. doi:10.3390/vision4020030
- Samuel, S., Legg, E.W., Manchester, C., Lurz, R. and Clayton, N.S. (2020). Where was I? Taking alternative visual perspectives can make us (briefly) misplace our own. Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology, 73(3), pp. 468-477. doi:10.1177/1747021819881097
- Bylund, E., Gygax, P., Samuel, S. and Athanasopoulos, P. (2020). Back to the future? The role of temporal focus for mapping time onto space. Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology, 73(2), pp. 174-182. doi:10.1177/1747021819867624
- Samuel, S., Cole, G. and Eacott, M.J. (2019). Grammatical gender and linguistic relativity: A systematic review. Psychonomic Bulletin & Review, 26(6), pp. 1767-1786. doi:10.3758/s13423-019-01652-3
- Samuel, S., Roehr-Brackin, K., Jelbert, S. and Clayton, N.S. (2019). Flexible egocentricity: Asymmetric switch costs on a perspective-taking task. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory, and Cognition, 45(2), pp. 213-218. doi:10.1037/xlm0000582
- Samuel, S., Durdevic, K., Legg, E.W., Lurz, R. and Clayton, N.S. (2019). Is Language Required to Represent Others’ Mental States? Evidence From Beliefs and Other Representations. Cognitive Science, 43(1). doi:10.1111/cogs.12710
- Samuel, S., Legg, E.W., Lurz, R. and Clayton, N.S. (2018). Egocentric bias across mental and non-mental representations in the Sandbox Task. Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology, 71(11), pp. 2395-2410. doi:10.1177/1747021817742367
- Samuel, S., Legg, E.W., Lurz, R. and Clayton, N.S. (2018). The unreliability of egocentric bias across self–other and memory–belief distinctions in the Sandbox Task. Royal Society Open Science, 5(11). doi:10.1098/rsos.181355
- Samuel, S., Roehr‐Brackin, K., Pak, H. and Kim, H. (2018). Cultural Effects Rather Than a Bilingual Advantage in Cognition: A Review and an Empirical Study. Cognitive Science, 42(7), pp. 2313-2341. doi:10.1111/cogs.12672
- Samuel, S., Bylund, E., Cooper, R. and Athanasopoulos, P. (2018). Illuminating ATOM: Taking time across the colour category border. Acta Psychologica, 185, pp. 116-124. doi:10.1016/j.actpsy.2018.01.011
- Samuel, S. and Clayton, N. (2018). Morgan's canon is not evidence. Behavioral and Brain Sciences, 41. doi:10.1017/s0140525x17001509
- Legg, E.W., Olivier, L., Samuel, S., Lurz, R. and Clayton, N.S. (2017). Error rate on the director's task is influenced by the need to take another's perspective but not the type of perspective. Royal Society Open Science, 4(8). doi:10.1098/rsos.170284
- Samuel, S., Roehr-Brackin, K. and Roberson, D. (2016). ‘She says, he says’: Does the sex of an instructor interact with the grammatical gender of targets in a perspective-taking task? International Journal of Bilingualism, 20(1), pp. 40-61. doi:10.1177/1367006915576831