Craig Leth-Steensen

Experience

• 2000- present Assistant Professor at Carleton University
• 1999-2000 Postdoctoral teaching fellow in the Department of Psychology at Northern Michigan University in Marquette, MI.
• 1998-1999 Postdoctoral trainee in the Quantitative Methods program of the Department of Psychology at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

Research Interests

Craig Leth-Steensen is a cognitive psychologist with training in the application of quantitative/statistical techniques to the analysis of psychological data. One main focus of his research is the development of mathematical and computational models (including random walks and neural networks) that can provide theoretical accounts for human cognitive and psychophysical performance (especially with respect to reaction time and reaction time distributions). At present, Craig’s main experimental interests involve the study of comparative judgments of symbolically represented attributes (including numbers), word recognition, the information processing associated sub-clinical autistic traits, and comparative studies of online and in-lab performance. Craig is also very interested in applying quantitative methods to the study of survey and questionnaire data tapping into a variety of issues in Health, Personality, and Social Psychology.

Recent Publications

Petrusic, W. M., Gallitto, E., & Leth-Steensen, C. (2014). Short-term memory for the comparative instructions in symbolic comparison. Canadian Journal of Experimental Psychology/Revue canadienne de psychologie expérimentale, 68, 242-249.

Leth-Steensen, C., Petrusic, W., & Shaki, S. (2014). Enhancing semantic congruity effects with category contingent comparative judgments. Frontiers in Psychology (published on-line Oct. 22, 2014).

Gallitto, E., & Leth-Steensen, C. (2015). Autistic traits and adult attachment styles. Personality and Individual Differences, 79, 63-67.

Leth-Steensen, C., & Citta, R. (2016). Good-bad constraints on a polarity correspondence account for the SNARC and MARC effects. Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology, 69, 482-494.

Leth-Steensen, C., & Gallitto, E. (2016). Testing Mediation in SEM: The Effectiveness of the Test of Joint Significance. Educational and Psychological Measurement, 76, 339-351.

Moret-Tatay, C., Leth-Steensen, C., Irigaray, T. Q., Argimon, I. I. L., Gamermann, D., Abad-Tortosa, D., Oliveira, C., Sáiz-Mauleón., B., Vázquez-Martinez, A., Navarro-Pardo, E., & de Córdoba-Castellá, P. F. (2016). The effect of corrective feedback on performance in basic cognitive tasks: An analysis of RT components. Psychologica Belgica, 56, 370-381.

Mourad, A, & Leth-Steensen, C. (2017). Spatial Reference Frames and SNARC. Journal of Cognitive Psychology, 29, 113-128.

Montiero, L. M., Musten, F., & Leth-Steensen, C. (2018). Effect of mindfulness on values incongruence: A pilot study. Mindfulness, 10, 1030 – 1043.

Vellan, J., & Leth-Steensen, C. (2019). Intermediate Coding versus Direct Mapping Accounts for the SNARC Effect: Santens and Gevers (2008) Revisited. Cognition, 186, 15-19.

Gallitto, E., & Leth-Steensen, C. (2019). Moderating effect of trait emotional intelligence on the relationship between parental nurturance and prosocial behaviour. Journal of Adolescence, 74, 113-119.

Leth-Steensen, C., Gallitto, E., Haghbin, M., & Hannan, P. I. (2021). Enhancing the cognitive and motor abilities of very young children: A pilot study of the effectiveness of the PlayWisely Approach. Mind, Brain, and Education, 159(1), 103-110.

Leth-Steensen, C. Gallitto, E., Mintah, K. & Parlow, S. E. (2021). Testing the latent structure of the autism spectrum quotient in a sub-clinical sample of university student using factor-mixture modeling. Journal of Autism and Developmental Disorders, 51, 3722-3732. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10803-020-04823-7

Vellan J. E., & Leth-Steensen, C (2022). Separate processing mechanisms for spatial–numerical compatibility and numerical-size congruity. Canadian Journal of Experimental Psychology, 76(1), 44-56. https://doi.org/10.1037/cep0000270

Moshirian Farahi, S. M. M., Razaghi Kashani, S. Gallitto, E. & Leth-Steensen, C. (2022). Aspects of interpersonal sensitivity relate differentially to subclinical social phobia and autistic traits. Mediterranean Journal of Clinical Psychology, 10, 1. https://doi.org/10.13129/2282-1619/mjcp-3336

Moshirian Farahi. & Leth-Steensen, C. (2022). The development of a novel theoretically motivated scale to assess cognitive learning styles related to the autism spectrum. BMC Psychiatry, 22, 696. https://doi.org/10.1186/s12888-022-04334-y

Moshirian Farahi. & Leth-Steensen, C. (2022). Latent profile analysis of autism spectrum quotient. Current Psychology: A Journal for Diverse Perspectives on Diverse Psychological Issues. https://doi.org/10.1007/s12144-022-03990-3

Leth-Steensen, C., & Gallitto, E. (2023). Personality factors and health beliefs related to attitudes towards wearing face masks. European Journal of Health Psychology, 30, 180-191. https://doi.org/10.1027/2512-8442/a000136

Laham, N., & Leth-Steensen, C. (2023).  The effect of letter-case type on the semantic processing of words and sentences during attentive and mind-wandering states. Language & Cognition: An Interdisciplinary Journal of Language and Cognitive Science, 15, 106-130. https://doi.org/10.1017/langcog-2022-28

Moshirian Farahi, S. M. M.  & Leth-Steensen, C. (2024). Autism-spectrum-related individual differences in absolute identification. Cognitive Processing, 25, 133-145. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10339-023-01166-w

Leth-Steensen, C., Moshirian Farahi, S. M. M. &., & Al-Juboory, N. (2024). Beyond fixed sets: Boundary conditions for obtaining SNARC-like effects with continuous semantic magnitudes. Psychological Research, 88, 1575-1589. https://doi.org/10.1007/s00426-024-01972-7

Straosta, C., Meader, E. & C. Leth-Steensen, C. (2025). The role of complaint/defendant gender and form of sexual assault on juror’s perception of prototypicality and verdicts. Journal of Interpersonal Violence, 40, 696-725. https://doi.org/10.1177/08862605241253025

Gallitto, E., Serghanuk, A.I., & Leth-Steensen, C. (2025) EI and the dark triad traits: A latent profile analysis. Personality Science. https://doi.org/10.1177/27000710251365729