About me

I am a post-doctoral researcher at the University of Göttingen working in Michael Waldmann’s DFG-funded project Mechanisms, Capacities, and Dependencies. I’m very much interested in how minds learn and reason about the causal relationships in the world. Given that causal relations are neither directly observable nor logically deducible, how do reasoners manage to learn about causes and effect so successfully? How do they use this knowledge to make predictions, diagnoses, or to explain things? I’m also fascinated by the more general question of how minds form and use categories.

On this website I share information about my academic life. You’ll find an up-to-date CV, my publication list, and information about recent/ upcoming presentations (e.g., conference talks).

Interests

Computational Cognitive Science
Philosophy of Science
Causal Cognition
Learning and Reasoning
Statistical Inference
Open Science

Education

PhD in Psychology, 2019 University of Göttingen
MSc in Psychology, 2014 University of Göttingen
BSc in Psychology, 2012 University of Göttingen

Grants, Honors & Awards

2024 Best Paper Award for the paper: Reasoning about actual causation in reversible and irreversible causal structures. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory, and Cognition. Awarded by Division 3 of the APA
2017 Computational Modeling Prize - Higher Level Cognition Awarded by the Cognitive Science Society
2016 Leibniz-ScienceCampus Grant, Project: The relationship between causal and moral judgments
2015 Leibniz-ScienceCampus Grant, Project: The role of intentions in children’s and adults’ causal ascriptions

Teaching

Winter terms (2014/15 until 2021/22): Quantitative Methods I Seminar As part of the first year undergraduate psychology statistics class
Summer terms (2015 until 2022): Quantitative Methods II Seminar As part of the first year undergraduate psychology statistics class
Winter term 2022/23: Seminar on the principles of learning and behavior As part of the second year undergraduate psychology module “Allgemeine Psychologie II” (General Psychology II)

The seminar Quantitative Methods I covers basics of research design and the application of hypothesis testing, data visualisation, probability theory, descriptive and inferential data analysis, and power analyses. Quantitative Methods II focuses on the General Linear Model and its applications (regression, ANOVA, contrast analyses, multilevel models). Students learn to apply these methods with R and RStudio.

An overview of the teaching resources (including teaching videos) is given at: https://quantigoettingen.github.io/quantigoettingen

I also supervised a number of Bachelor and Master projects (see my CV for a list).

Selected Publications

Stephan, S., & Waldmann, M. R. (2026). Manipulating prior causal beliefs affects the formation of apparent causal illusions. Cognition, 277, 106684. Paper OSF Code Preregistration
Stephan, S. (2025). Reasoning about actual causation in reversible and irreversible causal structures. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory, and Cognition, 51(1), 152–169. Paper Project page OSF Preregistration
Stephan, S. (2023). Revisiting the narrow latent scope bias in explanatory reasoning. Cognition, 241, 105630. Paper Project page OSF Preprint
Stephan, S., Engelmann, N., & Waldmann, M. R. (2023). The perceived dilution of causal strength. Cognitive Psychology, 140, 101540. Paper Project page OSF
Stephan, S., & Waldmann, M. R. (2022). The role of mechanism knowledge in singular causation judgments. Cognition, 218, 104924. Paper OSF Code
Stephan, S., Tentori, K., Pighin, S., & Waldmann, M. R. (2021). Interpolating causal mechanisms: The paradox of knowing more. Journal of Experimental Psychology: General, 150(8), 1500-1527. Paper OSF
Stephan, S., Mayrhofer, R., & Waldmann, M. R. (2020). Time and singular causation - a computational model. Cognitive Science, 44, e12871. Paper OSF Preregistration

All publications