Steven Verheyen
I’m an Assistant Professor of Cognitive Psychology at the Erasmus School of Social and Behavioural Sciences. Prior to working at Erasmus University Rotterdam, I was a member of Institut Jean Nicod and the KU Leuven Laboratory of Experimental Psychology.
I am currently serving as Executive Editor of the Review of Philosophy and Psychology (RoPP), a peer-reviewed journal edited quarterly at Institut Jean-Nicod and published by Springer.
My work on individual differences in language use is positioned at the intersection of quantitative psychology, philosophy of language, and cognitive linguistics.
I have expertise in the fields of concepts and categories, semantics, and psychometrics.
You can contact me by e-mail at .
Under review
Cologna, V., Mede, N. G., Berger, S., Besley, J., Brick, C., Joubert, M., Maibach, E. W., Mihelj, S., Oreskes, N., Schäfer, M. S., van der Linden, S., Abdul Aziz, N. I., Abdulsalam, S., Abu Shamsi, N., Aczel, B. Adinugroho, I., Alabrese, E., Aldoh, A., Alfano, M., ... & Zwaan, R. A. (2024). Trust in scientists and their role in society across 68 countries. [preprint]
Croes, M., Kreuwels, B., & Verheyen, S. (2024). Too distracted to remember: Does attentional disengagement underlie the photo-taking impairment effect? [preprint]
Kamermans, K. L., Dudda, L., Daikoku, T., & Verheyen, S. (2024). The is-ought problem in deciding what to replicate: Which motives guide current replication practices? [preprint]
Mede, N. G., Cologna, V., Berger, S., Besley, J., Brick, C., Joubert, M., Maibach, E. W., Mihelj, S., Oreskes, N., Schäfer, M. S., van der Linden, S., Abdul Aziz, N. I., Abdulsalam, S., Abu Shamsi, N., Aczel, B. Adinugroho, I., Alabrese, E., Aldoh, A., Alfano, M., ... & Zwaan, R. A. (2024). Perceptions of science, science communication, and climate change attitudes in 68 countries – The TISP dataset. [preprint]
Yang, X., Schulz, J., Schmidt, K., Kenny, A. R., Pfuhl, G., Gjoneska, B., Dalgar, I., Exner, A., Lander, K., Becker, M., Du, H., Johri, A., Selcuk, E., Gallyamova, A., Calluso, C., Reggev, N., Vranka, M. A., Acar, O. A., Palma, T. A., ... & Dunham, Y. (2024). Large-scale cross-societal examination of real- and minimal-group biases. [preprint]
Yu, K., Verheyen, S., Beckers, T., Vanpaemel, W., Tuerlinckx, F., & Zaman, J. (2024). Representational shifts as a distinct mechanism in associative learning and generalization. [preprint]
Publications in International Journals
Douven, I., & Verheyen, S. (2024). Concept learning: convexity versus connectedness. Erkenntnis. [pdf] [git]
Edelijn, Y., Øvreeide, V. D., & Verheyen, S. (2024). Scrolling through fake news: The effect of presentation order on misinformation retention. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Applied, 30(1), 16-32. [preprint] [osf]
Röseler, L., Kaiser, L., Doetsch, C., Klett, N., Seida, C., Schütz, A., Aczel, B., Adelina, N., Agostini, V., Alarie, S., Albayrak-Aydemir, N., Aldoh, A., Al-Hoorie, A. H., Azevedo, F., Baker, B. J., Barth, C. L., Beitner, J., Brick, C., Brohmer, H., ... & Zhang, Y. (2024). The Replication Database: Documenting the replicability of psychological science. Journal of Open Psychology Data, 12:8, 1-23. [pdf] [database]
Vaidis, D. C., Sleegers, W. W. A., van Leeuwen, F., DeMarree, K. G., Sætrevik, B., Ross, R. M., Schmidt, K., Protzko, J., Morvinski, C., Ghasemi, O., Roberts, A. J., Stone, J., Bran, A., Gourdon-Kanhukamwe, A., Gunsoy, C., Moussaoui, L. S., Smith, A. R., Nugier, A., Fayant, M.-P., ... & Priolo, D. (2024). A multilab replication of the induced-compliance paradigm of cognitive dissonance. Advances in Methods and Practices in Psychological Science, 7(1), 1-26. [pdf] [osf]
Van Gorp, K., & Verheyen, S. (2024). Primary school children’s conflicted emotions about using their heritage languages in multilingual classroom tasks. Modern Language Journal, 108, 101-126. [pdf] [osf]
Douven, I., Verheyen, S. , Elqayam, S., Gärdenfors, P., & Osta-Vélez, M. (2023). Similarity-based reasoning in conceptual spaces. Frontiers in Psychology, 14: 1234483. [pdf] [osf]
Egré, P., Spector, B., Mortier, A., & Verheyen, S. (2023). On the optimality of vagueness: "around", "between" and the Gricean maxims. Linguistics and Philosophy, 46, 1075-1130. [preprint] [scripts]
Pownall, M., Azevedo, F., König, L. M., Slack, H. R., Evans, T. R., Flack, Z., Grinschgl, S., Elsherif, M. M., Gilligan-Lee, K. A., de Oliveira, C. M. F., Gjoneska, B., Kalandadze, T., Button, K., Ashcroft-Jones, S., Terry, J., Albayrak-Aydemir, N., Děchtěrenko, F., Alzahawi, S., Baker, B. J., …, & FORRT (2023). Teaching open and reproducible scholarship: A critical review of the evidence base for current pedagogical methods and their outcomes. Royal Society Open Science, 10, 221255. [pdf]
Zaman, J., Yu, K., & Verheyen, S. (2023). The idiosyncratic nature of how individuals perceive, represent, and remember their surroundings and its impact on learning-based generalization. Journal of Experimental Psychology: General, 152(8), 2345-2358. [pdf] [data]
Parsons, S., Azevedo, F., Elsherif, M. M., Guay, S., Shahim, O. N., Govaart, G. H., Norris, E., O'Mahony, A., Parker, A. J., Todorovic, A., Pennington, C. R., Garcia-Pelegrin, E., Lazić, A., Robertson, O., Middleton, S. L., Valentini, B., McCuaig, J., Baker, B. J., Collins, E., ..., & Aczel, B. (2022). A community-sourced glossary of open scholarship terms. Nature Human Behaviour, 6, 312-318. [pdf] [glossary]
Schoenegger, P., & Verheyen, S. (2022). Taking a closer look at the Bayesian Truth Serum: A registered report. Experimental Psychology, 69(4), 226-239. [pdf] [data]
Verheyen, S., White, A., & Storms, G. (2022). A comparison of the Spatial Arrangement Method and the Total-Set Pairwise Rating Method for obtaining similarity data in the conceptual domain. Multivariate Behavioral Research, 57(2-3), 356-384. [pdf] [data]
Brouwer, A., Jin, X., Waldi, A. H., & Verheyen, S. (2021). Age biases the judgment rather than the perception of an ambiguous figure. Scientific Reports, 11, 8627. [pdf] [data]
Verheyen, S., & Peterson, M. (2021). Can we use conceptual spaces to model moral principles? Review of Philosophy and Psychology, 12, 373-395. [pdf] [data]
Verheyen, S., & Storms, G. (2021). Whether the Pairwise Rating Method and the Spatial Arrangement Method yield comparable dimensionalities depends on the dimensionality choice procedure. Methods in Psychology, 5, 100060. [pdf] [data]
Heyman, T., Vankrunkelsven, H., Voorspoels, W., White, A., Storms, G., & Verheyen, S. (2020). When cheating is an honest mistake: A critical evaluation of the matrix task as a measure of dishonesty. Collabra: Psychology, 6(1), 12. [pdf] [data]
Verheyen, S., De Deyne, S., Linsen, S., & Storms, G. (2020). Lexicosemantic, affective, and distributional norms for 1,000 Dutch adjectives. Behavior Research Methods, 52, 1108-1121. [pdf] [data]
White, A., Malt, B. C., Verheyen, S., & Storms, G. (2020). Development of cross-language lexical influence: divergence, not convergence. International Journal of Bilingual Education and Bilingualism, 23, 241-243. [pdf]
White, A., Malt, B. C., Verheyen, S., & Storms, G. (2020). Language-specificity in monolingual and bilingual later lexical development. Language Learning and Development, 16(4), 309-329. [preprint] [data]
Verheyen, S., Droeshout, E., & Storms, G. (2019). Age-related degree and criteria differences in semantic categorization. Journal of Cognition, 2(1): 17. [pdf] [data] [supplementary materials]
Verheyen, S., White, A., & Egré, P. (2019). Revealing criterial vagueness in inconsistencies. Open Mind: Discoveries in Cognitive Science, 3, 41-51. [pdf] [data] [supplementary materials]
Vankrunkelsven, H., Verheyen, S., Storms, G., & De Deyne, S. (2018). Predicting lexical norms: A comparison between a word association model and text-based word co-occurrence models. Journal of Cognition, 1(1): 45. [pdf]
Verheyen, S., Dewil, S., & Egré, P. (2018). Subjectivity in gradable adjectives: The case of tall and heavy. Mind & Language, 33, 460-479. [pdf] [data]
Verheyen, S., & Egré, P. (2018). Typicality and graded membership in dimensional adjectives. Cognitive Science, 42, 2250-2286. [pdf] [data]
White, A., Storms, G., Malt, B. C., & Verheyen, S. (2018). Mind the generation gap: Differences between young and old in everyday lexical categories. Journal of Memory and Language, 98, 12-25. [pdf] [data]
Ruytenbeek, N., Verheyen, S., & Spector, B. (2017). Asymmetric inference towards the antonym: Experiments into the polarity and morphology of negated adjectives. Glossa: A Journal of General Linguistics, 2(1): 92. [pdf] [data]
Verheyen, S., Voorspoels, W., Longenecker, J., Weinberger, D., Elvevåg, B., & Storms, G. (2016). Invalid assumptions in clustering analyses of category fluency data: Reply to Sung, Gordon, & Schretlen (2015). Cortex, 75, 255-259. [pdf]
Verheyen, S., Voorspoels, W., Vanpaemel, W., & Storms, G. (2016). Caveats for the spatial arrangement method: Comment on Hout, Goldinger, and Ferguson (2013). Journal of Experimental Psychology. General, 145, 376-382. [pdf] [supplementary materials]
De Deyne, S., Verheyen, S., & Storms, G. (2015). The role of corpus size and syntax in deriving lexico-semantic representations for a wide range of concepts. The Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology, 68, 1643-1664. [pdf]
De Witte, E., Satoer, D., Robert, E., Colle, H., Verheyen, S., Visch-Brink, E., & Mariën, P. (2015). The Dutch Linguistic Intraoperative Protocol: A valid linguistic approach to awake brain surgery. Brain and Language, 140, 35-48. [pdf]
Verheyen, S., Voorspoels, W., & Storms, G. (2015). Inferring choice criteria with mixture IRT models: A demonstration using ad hoc and goal-derived categories. Judgment and Decision Making, 10, 97-114. [pdf] [data]
De Deyne, S., Voorspoels, W., Verheyen, S., Navarro, D., & Storms, G. (2014). Accounting for graded structure in adjective categories with valence-based opposition relationships. Language and Cognitive Processes, 29, 568-583. [pdf]
Voorspoels, W., Storms, G., Longenecker, J., Verheyen, S., Weinberger, D., & Elvevåg, B. (2014). Deriving semantic structure from category fluency: Clustering techniques and their pitfalls. Cortex, 55, 130-147. [pdf]
White, A., Voorspoels, W., Storms, G., & Verheyen, S. (2014). Problems of reliability and validity with similarity derived from category fluency. Psychiatry Research, 220, 1125-1130. [pdf] [supplementary materials] [data]
Verheyen, S., & Storms, G. (2013). A mixture approach to vagueness and ambiguity. PLoS One, 8(5): e63507. [pdf] [data]
Heussen, D., Voorspoels, W., Verheyen, S., Storms, G., & Hampton, J. (2011). Raising argument strength using negative evidence: A constraint on models of induction. Memory & Cognition, 39, 1496-1507. [pdf] [data]
Verheyen, S., De Deyne, S., Dry, M., & Storms, G. (2011). Uncovering contrast categories in categorization with a probabilistic threshold model. Journal of Experimental Psychology. Learning, Memory, & Cognition, 37, 1515-1531. [pdf] [data]
Verheyen, S., Heussen, D., & Storms, G. (2011). On domain differences in categorization and context variety. Memory & Cognition, 39, 1290-1300. [pdf] [data]
Verheyen, S., Stukken, L., De Deyne, S., Dry, M., & Storms, G. (2011). The generalized polymorphous concept account of graded structure in abstract categories. Memory & Cognition, 39, 1117-1132. [pdf] [data]
Vandekerckhove, J., Verheyen, S., & Tuerlinckx, F. (2010). A crossed random effects diffusion model for speeded semantic categorization decisions. Acta Psychologica, 133, 269-282. [pdf] [data]
Verheyen, S., Hampton, J., & Storms, G. (2010). A probabilistic threshold model: Analyzing semantic categorization data with the Rasch model. Acta Psychologica, 135, 216-225. [pdf] [data]
De Deyne, S., Verheyen, S., Ameel, E., Vanpaemel, W., Dry, M. J., Voorspoels, W., & Storms, G. (2008). Exemplar by feature applicability matrices and other Dutch normative data for semantic concepts. Behavior Research Methods, 40, 1030-1048. [pdf] [data]
Verheyen, S., Ameel, E., & Storms, G. (2007). Determining the dimensionality in spatial representations of semantic concepts. Behavior Research Methods, 39, 427-438. [pdf] [data]
Verheyen, S., & Storms, G. (2007). Modeling individual differences in learning hierarchically organised categories. Psychologica Belgica, 47, 219-234. [pdf] [data]
Publications in Books
Egré, P., Ripley, D., & Verheyen, S. (2019). The Sorites paradox in psychology. In E. Zardini, & S. Oms (Eds.), The Sorites Paradox (pp. 263 - 286). Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press. [pdf]
Van Gorp, K., & Verheyen, S. (2018). Language awareness in action: Primary school students' language practices while performing a multilingual task. In C. Hélot, C. Frijns, K. Van Gorp, & S. Sierens (Eds.), Language awareness in multilingual classrooms in Europe: From theory to practice (Contributions to the Sociology of Language 109) (pp. 235-273). Berlin, Germany: De Gruyter Mouton. [pdf] [data]
Verheyen, S., & Storms, G. (2018). Education as a source of vagueness in criteria and degree. In E. Castroviejo, L. McNally, & G. W. Sassoon (Eds.), The Semantics of Gradability, Vagueness, and Scale Structure: Experimental Perspectives (pp. 149 - 167). Berlin, Germany: Springer. [pdf] [data]
De Deyne, S., Verheyen, S., & Storms, G. (2016). Structure and organization of the mental lexicon: A network approach derived from syntactic dependency relations and word associations. In A. Mehler, A. Lücking, S. Banish, P. Blanchard, & B. Frank-Job (Eds.), Towards a theoretical framework for analyzing complex linguistic networks (pp. 47-79). Berlin, Germany: Springer. [pdf]
Conference Proceedings
Braun, S., Croes, M., Vaitkunaite, R., & Verheyen, S. (2024). Does taking photographs impair your memory? The role of attentional disengagement. In L. K. Samuelson, S. L. Frank, M. Toneva, A. Mackey & E. Hazeltine, (Eds.), Proceedings of the 46th Annual Conference of the Cognitive Science Society (pp. 3206-3212). Cognitive Science Society. [pdf] [poster]
Elsayed, Y., & Verheyen, S. (2024). ChatGPT and the illusion of explanatory depth. In L. K. Samuelson, S. L. Frank, M. Toneva, A. Mackey & E. Hazeltine, (Eds.), Proceedings of the 46th Annual Conference of the Cognitive Science Society (pp. 4195-4202). Cognitive Science Society. [pdf] [poster]
Louter, W. J., Jabbari, S., Juhasz, S. B. C., & Verheyen, S. (2024). Individual differences in concept dominance. In L. K. Samuelson, S. L. Frank, M. Toneva, A. Mackey & E. Hazeltine, (Eds.), Proceedings of the 46th Annual Conference of the Cognitive Science Society (pp. 2211-2218). Cognitive Science Society. [pdf] [poster]
Korkmaz, G., Buchner, M., & Verheyen, S. (2023). Student replications of the survival memory effect demonstrate the dance of the p-values. Brain and Cognition, 170, 106044. [pdf] [poster]
Richie, R., & Verheyen, S. (2020). Using cross-validation to determine dimensionality in multidimensional scaling. In T. C. Stewart (Ed.), Proceedings of the 18th International Conference on Cognitive Modeling (pp. 214-215). University Park, PA: Applied Cognitive Science Lab, Penn State. [pdf]
Verheyen, S., & Van Gorp, K. (2018). Multilingual tasks can induce conflicted emotions about one's home language. In M. Simons, & T. F. H. Smits (Eds.), Language Education and Emotions. Proceedings of the Third International Conference on Language Education and Testing (pp. 65-72). Antwerp, Belgium: University of Antwerp. [pdf]
Smirnow, S., Maes, C., Luyten, L., & Verheyen, S. (2017). Assessment in a globalised economy: A task-based approach to assess the proficiency of Dutch in specific occupational domains. In E. G.Eugenio (Ed.), Proceedings of the ALTE 6th International Conference (pp. 26-31). Cambridge, UK: Association of Language Testers in Europe. [pdf]
White, A., Storms, G., Malt, B. C., & Verheyen, S. (2016). Between versus within-language differences in linguistic categorization. In J. Trueswell, A. Papafragou, D. Grodner, & D. Mirman, (Eds.), Proceedings of the 38th Annual Conference of the Cognitive Science Society (pp. 1955-1960). Austin, TX: Cognitive Science Society. [pdf]
De Deyne, S., Verheyen, S., Perfors, A., & Navarro, D. (2015). Evidence for widespread thematic structure in the mental lexicon. In R. Dale, C. Jennings, P. Maglio, T. Matlock, D. Noelle, A. Warlaumont, & J. Yoshimi, (Eds.), Proceedings of the 37th Annual Conference of the Cognitive Science Society (pp. 518-523). Cognitive Science Society. [pdf] [supplemental materials]
Vankrunkelsven, H., Verheyen, S., De Deyne, S., & Storms, G. (2015). Predicting lexical norms using a word association corpus. In R. Dale, C. Jennings, P. Maglio, T. Matlock, D. Noelle, A. Warlaumont, & J. Yoshimi, (Eds.), Proceedings of the 37th Annual Conference of the Cognitive Science Society (pp. 2463-2468). Cognitive Science Society. [pdf]
Zee, J., Storms, G., & Verheyen, S. (2014). Violations of the local independence assumption in categorization. In P. Bello, M. Guarini, M. McShane, & B. Scassellati, (Eds.), Proceedings of the 36th Annual Conference of the Cognitive Science Society (pp. 1670-1675). Cognitive Science Society. [pdf]
Stukken, L., Verheyen, S., & Storms, G. (2013). Representation and criterion differences between men and women in semantic categorization. In M. Knauff, M. Pauen, N. Sebanz, & I. Wachsmuth (Eds.), Proceedings of the 35th Annual Conference of the Cognitive Science Society (pp. 3474-3479). Cognitive Science Society. [pdf]
De Deyne, S., Voorspoels, W., Verheyen, S., Navarro, D., & Storms, G. (2011). Graded structure in adjective categories. In L. Carlson, C. Hölscher, & T. Shipley (Eds.), Proceedings of the 33rd Annual Conference of the Cognitive Science Society (pp. 249-254). Cognitive Science Society. [pdf]
Verheyen, S., & Storms, G. (2012). Qualitative and quantitative individual differences in semantic categorization. In N. Rußwinkel, U. Drewitz, & H. van Rijn (Eds.), Proceedings of the 11th International Conference on Cognitive Modeling (pp. 251-252). Universitaetsverlag der TU Berlin. [pdf]
Verheyen, S., Ameel, E., & Storms, G. (2011). Overextensions that extend into adolescence: Insights from a threshold model of categorization. In L. Carlson, C. Hölscher, & T. Shipley (Eds.), Proceedings of the 33rd Annual Conference of the Cognitive Science Society (pp. 2000-2005). Cognitive Science Society. [pdf]
Verheyen, S., & Storms, G. (2011). Does a single dimension govern categorization in natural language categories?. In A. Karmiloff-Smith, B. Kokinov, & N. Nersessian (Eds.), Proceedings of the European Conference on Cognitive Science. New Bulgarian University Press. [pdf]
Verheyen, S., & Storms, G. (2011). Towards a categorization-based model of similarity. In L. Carlson, C. Hölscher, & T. Shipley (Eds.), Proceedings of the 33rd Annual Conference of the Cognitive Science Society (pp. 614-619). Cognitive Science Society. [pdf]
Verheyen, S., & Storms, G. (2011). Unidimensionality of category intension and extension. In A. Karmiloff-Smith, B. Kokinov, & N. Nersessian (Eds.), Proceedings of the European Conference on Cognitive Science. New Bulgarian University Press. [pdf]
Stukken, L., Verheyen, S., Dry, M., & Storms, G. (2009). A new investigation of the nature of abstract categories. In N. A. Taatgen, & H. van Rijn, (Eds.), Proceedings of the 31st Annual Conference of the Cognitive Science Society (pp. 2438-2443). Cognitive Science Society. [pdf]
Verheyen, S., Ameel, E., Rogers, T., & Storms, G. (2008). Learning categories at different levels of abstraction. In B. C. Love, K. McRae, & V. M. Sloutsky (Eds.), Proceedings of the 30th annual conference of the cognitive science society (pp. 751-756). Cognitive Science Society. [pdf]
Publications in National Journals
Van Gorp, K., & Verheyen, S. (2018, September/October/November). Meertaligheid benutten in je klas, dat kan zo! De impact van een meertalige taak op de klaspraktijk in de basisschool. [Using multilingualism to your advantage! The impact of multilingual tasks on class practices in primary school.] Schokla: School- en klaspraktijk, 60, 39-48. [pdf]
Verheyen, S., & Storms, G. (2008, January/February/March). Learning categories at different hierarchical levels. Psychologos, 23, 3-3.
Translated Books (as Editor)
Council of Europe (2017). Handleiding voor de ontwikkeling van taaltoetsen. [Manual for language test development and examining.] Leuven, Belgium: Certificaat Nederlands als Vreemde Taal. [pdf]