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Psychology
Austria
2026

D-Index & Metrics

Psychology

D-Index
76
Citations
44932
World Ranking
1686
National Ranking
2

Research.com Recognitions

  • 2026 - Research.com Psychology in Austria Leader Award
  • 2025 - Research.com Psychology in Austria Leader Award
  • 2023 - Research.com Psychology in Austria Leader Award
  • 2022 - Research.com Psychology in Austria Leader Award
  • 2011 - German National Academy of Sciences Leopoldina - Deutsche Akademie der Naturforscher Leopoldina – Nationale Akademie der Wissenschaften Psychology and Cognitive Sciences
  • 2008 - Member of Academia Europaea

Overview

Josef Perner is affiliated with the University of Salzburg in Austria and focuses primarily on the fields of Psychology and Neuroscience. Their work spans various subfields including Developmental and Educational Psychology, Cognitive Neuroscience, Social Psychology, Philosophy, and Artificial Intelligence.

Their research themes cover several topics such as Child and Animal Learning Development, Psychology of Moral and Emotional Judgment, Social Representations and Identity, Spatial Cognition and Navigation, Mental Health Treatment and Access, Psychiatric Care and Mental Health Services, and general Mental Health and Psychiatry.

Perner's recent published papers include the following:

  • "Defining key concepts for mental state attribution," 2024, Communications Psychology
  • "Mental files: Developmental integration of dual naming and theory of mind," 2020, Developmental Review
  • "Extended difficulties with counterfactuals persist in reasoning with false beliefs: Evidence for teleology-in-perspective," 2020, Journal of Experimental Child Psychology
  • "What's in a Hub?-Representing Identity in Language and Mathematics," 2020, Neuroscience
  • "Memory's forgotten process: What happened to the man on the bus?" 2025, Neuropsychologia

Their frequent co-authors include Matthias Schurz, Markus Aichhorn, Matthias G. Tholen, Eva Rafetseder, and Michael Huemer.

Josef Perner's publications frequently appear in the following venues:

  • Communications Psychology
  • Developmental Review
  • Neuroscience
  • Neuropsychologia
  • Journal of Experimental Child Psychology

Among awards, Josef Perner has been recognized by the German National Academy of Sciences Leopoldina in 2011 for contributions to Psychology and Cognitive Sciences and was made a Member of Academia Europaea in 2008.

Best Publications

  • Beliefs about beliefs: representation and constraining function of wrong beliefs in young children's understanding of deception.

    Heinz Wimmer;Josef Perner

  • Understanding the Representational Mind

    Josef Perner

  • “John thinks that Mary thinks that…” attribution of second-order beliefs by 5- to 10-year-old children ☆

    Josef Perner;Heinz Wimmer;Heinz Wimmer

  • Three-year-olds' difficulty with false belief: The case for a conceptual deficit

    Josef Perner;Susan R. Leekam;Heinz Wimmer

  • Fractionating theory of mind: a meta-analysis of functional brain imaging studies.

    Matthias Schurz;Joaquim Radua;Markus Aichhorn;Fabio Richlan

  • A theory of implicit and explicit knowledge

    Zoltan Dienes;Josef Perner

  • Implicit Understanding of Belief

    Wendy A. Clements;Josef Perner

  • Exploration of the autistic child's theory of mind: knowledge, belief, and communication.

    Josef Perner;Uta Frith;Alan M. Leslie;Susan R. Leekam

  • Theory of mind is contagious - you catch it from your sibs

    Josef Perner;Ted Ruffman;Susan R. Leekam

  • Development of theory of mind and executive control.

    Josef Perner;Birgit Lang

  • Ignorance versus false belief: a developmental lag in attribution of epistemic states

    G.-Juergen Hogrefe;Heinz Wimmer;Josef Perner

  • Episodic memory and autonoetic consciousness: developmental evidence and a theory of childhood amnesia.

    Josef Perner;Ted Ruffman

  • Older (but not younger) siblings facilitate false belief understanding.

    Ted Ruffman;Josef Perner;Mika Naito;Lindsay Parkin

  • Children's understanding of informational access as source of knowledge.

    Heinz Wimmer;G.-Jurgen Hogrefe;Josef Perner

  • Infants' Insight into the Mind: How Deep?

    Josef Perner;Ted Ruffman

  • Theory of Mind and Self-Control: More than a Common Problem of Inhibition

    Josef Perner;Birgit Lang;Daniela Kloo

  • Does the autistic child have a metarepresentational deficit

    Susan R. Leekam;Josef Perner

  • How Parenting Style Affects False Belief Understanding

    Ted Ruffman;Josef Perner;Lindsay Parkin

  • Framing decisions: Hypothetical and real

    Anton Kühberger;Michael Schulte-Mecklenbeck;Josef Perner

  • Early Deception and the Child's Theory of Mind: False Trails and Genuine Markers

    Beate Sodian;Catherine Taylor;Paul L. Harris;Josef Perner

Frequent Co-Authors

Zoltan Dienes
Zoltan Dienes University of Sussex
Heinz Wimmer
Heinz Wimmer University of Salzburg
Ted Ruffman
Ted Ruffman University of Otago
Alan Garnham
Alan Garnham University of Sussex
Susan R. Leekam
Susan R. Leekam Cardiff University
Beate Sodian
Beate Sodian Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München
Michael J. Beran
Michael J. Beran Georgia State University
Nicola Yuill
Nicola Yuill University of Sussex
Nick Chater
Nick Chater University of Warwick
Hannes Rakoczy
Hannes Rakoczy University of Göttingen

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