Publications | Yang Xiang

Working Papers

Xiang, Y., Vélez, N., & Gershman, S.J. (under revision). Cognitive foundations of collaboration.
Xiang, Y., Hsu, S., & Gershman, S.J. (under review). Intuitions about trait responsibilities. [repo]
Liu, S.^*, Xiang, Y.^*, & Gershman, S.J. (under review). Humans neglect Occam's razor in predictive model selection. [repo]
Bhui, R., & Xiang, Y. (under revision). A rational account of the repulsion effect. [repo]

Tian, F., Gershman, S.J., & Xiang, Y.^† (in press). Training collaborators for effective division of labor. Cognitive Science. [repo]
Liu, S., Xiang, Y., & Gershman, S.J. (in press). Probabilistic forecasting guides dynamic decisions. Psychological Review. [repo]

Xiang, Y., Gershman, S.J.^†, & Gerstenberg, T.^† (2026). A signaling theory of self-handicapping. Cognition, 266, 106288. [repo]
Xiang, Y. (2026). Cognitive Foundations of Collaboration. Ph.D. Dissertation, Harvard University, Department of Psychology.

Xiang, Y., Dorst, K., & Gershman, S.J. (2025). On the robustness and provenance of the Gambler's fallacy. Psychological Science, 36(6), 451-464. [repo]
Xiang, Y., Landy, J., Cushman, F.A., Vélez, N., & Gershman, S.J. (2025). People reward others based on their willingness to exert effort. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, 116, 104699. [repo]
Xiang, Y., & Gershman, S.J. (2025). Modeling intrinsic motivation as reflective planning. Proceedings of the 47th Annual Cognitive Science Society. [repo]
Xiang, Y.^*, Bigelow, E.^*, Gerstenberg, T., Ullman, T.^†, & Gershman, S.J.^† (2025). Language models assign responsibility based on actual rather than counterfactual contributions. Proceedings of the 47th Annual Cognitive Science Society. [repo]
Bigelow, E.^*, Xiang, Y.^*, Gerstenberg, T., Ullman, T.^†, & Gershman, S.J.^† (2025). Actual or counterfactual? Asymmetric responsibility attributions in language models. NeurIPS Workshop on Interpreting Cognition in Deep Learning Models.

Xiang, Y., Vélez, N., & Gershman, S.J. (2024). Optimizing competence in the service of collaboration. Cognitive Psychology, 150, 101653. [repo]

Xiang, Y., Landy, J., Cushman, F.A., Vélez, N., & Gershman, S.J. (2023). Actual and counterfactual effort contribute to responsibility attributions in collaborative tasks. Cognition, 241, 105609. [repo]
Xiang, Y., Vélez, N., & Gershman, S.J. (2023). Collaborative decision making is grounded in representations of other people's competence and effort. Journal of Experimental Psychology: General, 152(6), 1565-1579. [repo]

Xiang, Y., Graeber, T., Enke, B., & Gershman, S.J. (2021). Confidence and central tendency in perceptual judgment. Attention, Perception, & Psychophysics, 83, 3024-3034. [repo]