Free University of Berlin
Free University of Berlin
Over evolutionary time, humans had to solve difficult information-processing problems, such as finding food and finding a mate, in an uncertain world. My primary interest is in this human cognitive evolution, specifically, the evolution of human judgment and decision-making capacities. The central questions motivating my research are these: how has the evolutionary process shaped the cognitive mechanisms underlying human decision-making behavior under risk and uncertainty? How do these mechanisms operate in domains such as risk taking, mate choice, and foraging for food and information?
To answer these questions, I have adopted an interdisciplinary approach grounded firmly in the theory and methods of cognitive psychology but drawing on ideas from evolutionary biology, behavioral ecology, and anthropology. Appropriately, my training has been interdisciplinary. After completing my diploma in cognitive psychology at the Free University of Berlin, Germany, I joined the International Max Planck Research School LIFE, which emphasizes the study of systematic changes in human behavior over evolutionary and ontogenetic time. LIFE takes an interdisciplinary approach by bringing together doctoral students from such diverse disciplines as biology, psychology, sociology, anthropology, and educational science and provides them with opportunities for collaborative research and supervision at cooperating institutions in the United States, Germany, and Switzerland. In the past, I have been a postdoctoral research fellow both at the Center for Behavior, Evolution, and Culture (BEC), UCLA Department of Anthropology as well as the Konrad Lorenz Institute for Evolution and Cognition Research, Altenberg, Austria.
To date, my research has investigated a variety of topics in human cognitive evolution. I have examined, for instance, the question of how risk taking differs across different domains of everyday life, how it should be defined and measured, and how an evolutionary perspective can help explain why young men in particular are very risk prone. My present research focuses on cognitive adaptations underlying decision making under uncertainty in foraging. I have investigated whether the same mechanisms animals use in foraging for patchy resources are also shared by humans and used in novel tasks such as searching for physical resources or information on the Internet. I am also currently investigating whether people bring to bear heuristics or assumptions about the patchiness of resources and whether these underlie certain well-known phenomena of human judgment, such as the “hot hand” fallacy. In this research, I have expanded my methods to include cross-cultural comparative experiments in a foraging society in Amazonian Ecuador. I am an active collaborator with researchers in adjacent disciplines and regularly interact with other fields of psychology by applying my findings, for example, to research in developmental and clinical psychology.
2018 Fellow, National Endowment for the Humanities Summer Seminar ($4,000)
2017 Nominee, Council Member at Large, Human Behavior and Evolution Society
2016 Nominee, Editor-in-chief of Evolutionary Behavioral Sciences (APA)
2014 Fellow, Psychonomic Society
2012 Commendable Leadership Award, Phalanx Society, Clarkson University
2011 Respect Award, Office of Accommodative Services and Student Life & Engagement, Clarkson
University
2010 Margo Ings Wilson Award, Best Publication in ‘Evolution and Human Behavior’ ($1,500)
2009 Best Postdoctoral Researcher Award, 21st annual meeting of the Human Behavior and Evolution Society
(HBES), Fullerton, USA ($500)
2008 Best Poster Award, 3rd annual meeting of the European Human Behavior and Evolution Conference
(EHBE), Montpellier, France
2007, 2008 Nominee, UCLA Chancellor’s Award for Postdoctoral Research
2006 Honorable Mention, Postdoctoral Competition, 18th annual meeting of the Human Behavior and
Evolution Society (HBES), Philadelphia, USA
2004 Linda Mealey Young Investigator Award, 17th biennial meeting of the International Society for Human
Ethology (ISHE), Ghent, Belgium ($500)
2002 Fellow, 2nd Summer Institute on Bounded Rationality in Psychology and Economics, Max Planck
Institute for Human Development, Berlin, Germany
2021–2023 Research Grant, National Science Foundation (SES-2116145), The misperception of randomness: A developmental perspective (Principal Investigator)
2021 Faculty Undergraduate Research Program Award, Clarkson University, Statistical thinking and the understanding of chance in children (Principal Investigator)
2019 Inaugural Faculty Undergraduate Research Program Award, Clarkson University, The misperception of randomness: A virtual reality foraging study (Co-Principal Investigator)
2013 Research Grant, T. Urling and Mabel Walker Fellowship Program, Illusionary pattern detection in gamblers (Principal Investigator)
2012 Seed Grant, National Center for Responsible Gaming, Sequential decision-making and illusionary pattern detection in gamblers (Principal Investigator)
2005 Owen F. Aldis Scholarship Fund, International Society for Human Ethology, Human foraging behavior in patchy environments (Principal Investigator)
2018 Wilke, A. & Todd, P. M. Studying the evolution of cognition: Towards more methodological diversity in evolutionary psychology. Evolutionary Behavioral Sciences, 12, 133–134.
2018 von Helversen, B., Mata, R., Samanez-Larkin, G. R., & Wilke, A. Foraging, exploration, or search? On the (lack) of convergent validity between three behavioral paradigms. Evolutionary Behavioral Sciences, 12, 152–162.
2018 Wilke, A., Bedell, V., Lydick, J., Treat, J., Dawley, T., Pedersen, S., & Langen, T. Spatial dependency in local resource distributions. Evolutionary Behavioral Sciences, 12, 163–172.
2018 Jarecki, J. & Wilke, A. Into the black box: Tracing information about risks related to ten evolutionary domains. Evolutionary Behavioral Sciences, 12, 230–244.
2016 Sherman, A. K., Minich, S. H., Langen, T. A., Skufca, J. D., & Wilke, A. Are college students’ assessments of threat shaped by the dangers of their childhood environment? Journal of Interpersonal Violence, 31, 2006–2025.
2016 Gaissmaier, W., Wilke, A., Scheibehenne, B., McCanney, P., & Barrett, H. C. Betting on illusionary patterns: Probability matching in habitual gamblers. Journal of Gambling Studies, 32, 143–156
2015 Wilke, A., Minich, S., Panis, M., Langen, T. A., Skufca, J., & Todd, P. M. A game of hide and seek: Expectations of clumpy resources influence hiding and searching patterns. PLoS ONE, 10(7), e0130976.
2014 Wilke, A., Sherman, A. K., Curdt, B., Mondal, S., Fitzgerald, C., & Kruger, D. J. An evolutionary domain-specific risk-taking scale. Evolutionary Behavioral Sciences, 8, 123–141.
2014 Blanchard, T. C., Wilke, A., & Hayden, B. Y. Hot hand bias in monkeys. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Animal Learning and Cognition, 40, 280–286.
2014 Wilke, A., Scheibehenne, B., Gaissmaier, W., McCanney, P., & Barrett, H. C. Illusionary pattern detection in habitual gamblers. Evolution and Human Behavior, 35, 291–297.
2013 Hills, T. T., Mata, R., Wilke, A., & Samanez-Larkin, G. R. Mechanisms of age-related decline in memory search across the adult life span. Developmental Psychology, 49, 2396–2404.
2013 von Helversen, B., Mata, R., Karlsson, L., & Wilke, A. Why does cue polarity information provide benefits in inference problems? The role of strategy selection and knowledge of cue importance. Acta Psychologica, 144, 73–82.
2013 Mata, R., & Wilke, A. Foraging across the life span: Is there a reduction in exploration with aging? Frontiers in Neuroscience, 7, 53.
2011 von Helversen, B., Wilke, A., Johnson, T., Schmid, G., & Klapp, B. Performance benefits of depression: Sequential decision making in a healthy sample and a clinically depressed sample. Journal of Abnormal Psychology, 120, 962–968.
2011 Scheibehenne, B., Wilke, A., & Todd, P. M. Expectations of clumpy resources influence predictions of sequential events. Evolution and Human Behavior, 32, 326–333.
2010 Wilke, A., & Todd, P. M. Past and present environments: The evolution of decision making. Psicothema, 22, 4–8.
2009 Haselton, M. G., Bryant, G. A., Wilke, A., Frederick, D. A., Galperin, A., Frankenhuis, W. E., & Moore, T. Adaptive Rationality: An evolutionary perspective on cognitive bias. Social Cognition, 27, 733–763.
2009 Mata, R., Wilke, A., & Czienskowski, U. Cognitive aging and adaptive foraging behavior. Journal of Gerontology: Psychological Sciences, 64, 474–481.
2009 Wilke, A. & Barrett, H. C. The hot hand phenomenon as a cognitive adaptation to clumped resources. Evolution and Human Behavior, 30, 161–169.
2009 Wilke, A., Hutchinson, J. M. C, Todd, P. M., & Czienskowski, U. Fishing for the right words: Decision rules for human foraging behavior in internal search tasks. Cognitive Science, 33, 497–529.
2009 Wang, X. T., Kruger, D. J., & Wilke, A. Life-history variables and risk-taking propensity. Evolution and Human Behavior, 30, 77–84.
2008 Barrett, H. C., Frankenhuis, W. E., & Wilke, A. Adaptation to moving targets: Culture/gene coevolution, not either/or (Commentary on M. H. Christiansen and N. Chater, Language as shaped by the brain). Behavioral and Brain Sciences, 31, 511–512.
2008 Hutchinson, J. M. C., Wilke, A., & Todd, P. M. Patch leaving in humans: Can a generalist adapt its rules to dispersal of items across patches? Animal Behaviour, 75, 1331–1349.
2007 Kruger, D. J., Wang, X. T., & Wilke, A. Towards the development of an evolutionary valid domainspecific risk-taking scale. Evolutionary Psychology, 5, 555–568.
2006 Wilke, A., Hutchinson, J. M. C., Todd, P. M., & Kruger, D. J. Is risk-taking used as a cue in mate choice? Evolutionary Psychology, 4, 367–393.
2006 Brighton, H., Mata, R., & Wilke, A. Reconciling vague and formal models of language evolution (Commentary on J. L. Locke and B. Bogin, Language and life history: A new perspective on the development and evolution of human language). Behavioral and Brain Sciences, 29, 282.
2006 Hanoch, Y., Johnson, J. G., & Wilke, A. Domain-specificity in experimental measures and participant recruitment: An application to risk-taking behavior. Psychological Science, 17, 300–304.
2005 Mata, R., Wilke, A., & Todd, P. M. Adding the missing link back into mate choice research (Commentary on D. Schmitt, Sociosexuality from Argentina to Zimbabwe. A 48-nation study of sex, culture, and strategies of human mating). Behavioral and Brain Sciences, 28, 289.
2004 Johnson, J. G., Wilke, A., & Weber, E. Beyond a trait view of risk-taking: A domain-specific scale measuring risk perceptions, expected benefits, and perceived risk attitude in German-speaking populations. Polish Psychological Bulletin, 35, 153–163.
(last 5 years; students in boldface)
Wilke, A. The adaptive problem of exploiting resources: Human foraging behavior in patchy environments. (2020). In L. Workman, W. Reader & J. H. Barkow (Eds.), Cambridge Handbook of Evolutionary Perspectives on Human Behavior (pp. 241-249). Cambridge University Press.
Jarecki, J. & Wilke, A. (2020). The relevance of subjective benefits in risky choice across ten domains of life. Proceedings of the 42nd Annual Conference of the Cognitive Science Society, Preprint: https://psyarxiv.com/x2n6f.
Wilke, A. Risky behavior. (2020). In T. K. Shackelford & V. A. Weekes-Shackelford (Eds.), Encyclopedia of Evolutionary Psychological Science. Springer Nature.
Wilke, A. & Todd, P. M. (2018). Studying the evolution of cognition: Towards more methodological diversity in evolutionary psychology. Evolutionary Behavioral Sciences, 12, 133–134.
von Helversen, B., Mata, R., Samanez-Larkin, G. R., & Wilke, A. (2018). Foraging, exploration, or search? On the (lack) of convergent validity between three behavioral paradigms. Evolutionary Behavioral Sciences, 12, 152–162.
Wilke, A., Bedell, V., Lydick, J., Treat, J., Dawley, T., Pedersen, S., & Langen, T. (2018). Spatial dependency in local resource distributions. Evolutionary Behavioral Sciences, 12, 163–172.
Jarecki, J. & Wilke, A. (2018). Into the black box: Tracing information about risks related to ten evolutionary domains. Evolutionary Behavioral Sciences, 12, 230–244.
Wilke, A., & Mata, R. (2017). Cognitive bias. Reference Module in Neuroscience and Biobehavioral Psychology (pp. 1–6). Elsevier.
Sherman, A. K., Minich, S. H., Langen, T. A., Skufca, J. D., & Wilke, A. (2016). Are college students’ assessments of threat shaped by the dangers of their childhood environment? Journal of Interpersonal Violence, 31, 2006–2025.
Gaissmaier, W., Wilke, A., Scheibehenne, B., McCanney, P., & Barrett, H. C. (2016). Betting on illusionary patterns: Probability matching in habitual gamblers. Journal of Gambling Studies, 32, 143–156
Conference Presentations
(last 5 years; students in boldface)
Wilke, A. (November, 2019). Spatial dependency in local resource distributions informs misperceptions of randomness research. Paper presented at the 60th annual meeting of the Psychonomic Society Meeting, Montreal, Canada.
Chicoine, N., Porga, M., Hall, B., Moran, S., Mays, K., Meyer, S., Lee, A., & Wilke, A. (November, 2019). Using virtual reality to study human foraging behavior. Poster presented at the 60th annual meeting of the Psychonomic Society Meeting, Montreal, Canada.
Wilke, A., Dawley, T., Pedersen, S., & Langen, T. A. (July, 2018). Spatial dependency in local resource distributions. Paper presented at the 30th annual meeting of the Human Behavior and Evolution Society (HBES), Amsterdam, Netherlands.
Porga, M., Chicoine, N., Hall, B., & Wilke, A. (May, 2019). A virtual reality foraging study. Poster presented at the 31st annual meeting of the Human Behavior and Evolution Society (HBES), Boston, USA.
Jarecki, J., Mays, K., Moran, S., & Wilke, A. (May, 2019). Risk taking across ten evolutionary domains. Poster presented at the 31st annual meeting of the Human Behavior and Evolution Society (HBES), Boston, USA.
Chicoine, N. & Wilke, A. (November, 2018). Exploring humans’ perception of randomness in spatial distribution statistics. Poster presented at the 53rd annual conference of the National Collegiate Honors Council (NCHC), Boston, USA.
Wilke, A. (July, 2018). The misperception of randomness. Paper presented at the National Endowment for the Humanities Summer School on Animal Minds and Animal Ethics, Potsdam, USA.
Hall, B., Dawley, T., & Wilke, A. (July, 2018). Spatial adaptations for cognitive search: A literature study. Poster presented at the 30th annual meeting of the Human Behavior and Evolution Society (HBES), Amsterdam, Netherlands.
Chicoine, N., & Wilke, A. (July, 2018). Exploring humans’ perception of randomness with two spatial distribution statistics. Poster presented at the 30th annual meeting of the Human Behavior and Evolution Society (HBES), Amsterdam, Netherlands.
Wilke, A., Dawley, T., & Lydick, J. (September, 2017). Spatial dependency in local resource distributions. Paper presented at the 20th annual meeting of the European Society for Cognitive Psychology (ESCoP), Potsdam, Germany.
Bedell, V., Lydick, J., Treat, J., Dawley, T., & Wilke, A. (November, 2016). Spatial dependency in local resource distributions. Poster presented at the 57th annual meeting of the Psychonomic Society, Boston, USA.
Wilke, A., Sherman, A., Curdt, B., Monday, S., Fitzgerald, C., & Kruger, D. J. (July, 2016). An evolutionary domain-specific risk scale. Paper presented at the 28th annual meeting of the Human Behavior and Evolution Society (HBES), Vancouver, Canada.
Jarecki, J. B., & Wilke, A. (July, 2016). Non-compensatory integration of memory cues in evolutionary domains of risky choice. Paper presented at the 28th annual meeting of the Human Behavior and Evolution Society (HBES), Vancouver, Canada.
Jarecki, J. B., & Wilke, A. (April, 2016). Evolutionary functions shape the construction of risk preferences. Paper presented at the Shaped/Constructed Preferences Workshop, Potsdam, Germany.