Andreas Wilke

Biography

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.

Education Background

Psychology Ph.D. - 2006 Free University of Berlin
Psychology M.A. - 2002 Free University of Berlin

Experience

Professor Department of Psychology, Clarkson University, Current
Associate Professor Department of Psychology, Clarkson University, 2022
Assistant Professor Department of Psychology, Clarkson University, 2015
Research Scientist Department of Psychological and Brain Sciences, Indiana University, 2009
Postdoctoral Researcher Konrad Lorenz Institute for Evolution and Cognition Research, 2010
Postdoctoral Researcher Center for Behavior, Evolution and Culture (BEC), Department of Anthropology, University of California, 2008
Postdoctoral Researcher Center for Adaptive Behavior and Cognition (ABC), Max Planck Institute for Human Development, 2006

Courses Taught

Introduction to Psychology
Cognitive Psychology
Human Cognitive Evolution
Learning and Memory
Judgement and Decision Making
Judgement and Decision Making for the Biomedical Sciences

Research Interests

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.

Grants

2023 Professional Development Fund, Clarkson University, The effects of product packaging in online shopping environments (Consultant)
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)

Publications

(last 5 years; students in boldface)

Wilke, A., & Mata, R. (in press). Cognitive bias. In M. L. Fisher (Ed.), APA Handbook of Evolutionary Psychology. American Psychological Association.
Jarecki, J., & Wilke, A. (2024). Risk-taking behaviors. In T. K. Shackelford (Ed.), Encyclopedia of Sexual Psychology and Behavior (2ndEdition). Springer Nature.
Wilke, A. (2021). Spatial dependency in local resource distributions informs misperception of randomness research. Human Ethology, 36 (Suppl.), HES45.
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.

Conference Presentations

(last 5 years; students in boldface)

Wilke, A., DeLaBruere, G., Pedersen, S., Han, B-G., Barrett, H. C, Todd, P. M., & Wertz, A. E. (November 2024). Hot hand thinking in children. Paper presented at the 65th annual meeting of the Psychonomic Society, New York City, USA.

Hludzenski, M., Pluviose, N., Makdouli, I., Way, V., DeLaBruere, G., Medved, K., Delices, P., Pedersen, S., Han, B-G., Barrett, H. C, Todd, P. M., Wertz, A. E., & Wilke, A. (November 2024). Adaptivity in human search processes. Poster presented at the 65th annual meeting of the Psychonomic Society, New York City, USA.

Pluviose, N., Makdouli, I., Way, V., DeLaBruere, G., Pedersen, S., Han, B.-G., & Wilke, A. (July 2024). Adaptivity in human search processes. Poster presented at the Summer Research and Project Showcase (RAPS), Potsdam, USA.

Wilke, A. (June 2024). Statistical thinking in children. Paper presented at the Adaptive Behavior and Cognition (ABC) workshop on Education towards Rationality, Barcelona, Spain.

Hludzenski, M., Stone, C., Faul, A., DeLaBruere, G., Pedersen, S., Han, B-G., & Wilke, A. (April 2024). Adaptivity in human search processes. Poster presented at the 8th annual Research and Project Showcase (RAPS), Potsdam, USA.

Wilke, A., DeLaBruere, G., Garcia, Y., Faul, A., Stone, C., Hludzenski, M., Han, B-G., Pedersen, S., Barrett, H. C, Todd, P. M., & Wertz, A. (December 2023). Hot hand thinking in children. Paper presented at the 16th annual meeting of the Human Behavior and Evolution Society of Japan (HBES-J), Osaka, Japan.

Faul, A., DeLaBruere, G., Garcia, Y., Stone, C., Seeger, A., Pedersen, S., Han, B-G., & Wilke, A. (April 2023). The cognitive development of human search processes. Poster presented at the 7th annual Research and Project Showcase (RAPS), Potsdam, USA.

Wilke, A., DeLaBruere, G., Brown, N., Spilman, H., Garcia, Y., Pedersen, S., Han, B.-G., Barrett, H. C., Todd, P. M., & Wertz, A. E. (November 2022). Do children show hot hand thinking? Poster presented at the 63rd annual meeting of the Psychonomic Society, Montreal, Canada.

Garcia, Y., DeLaBruere, G., Spilman, H., Pedersen, S., Han, B.-G., & Wilke, A. (October 2022). Statistical thinking in children. Poster presented at the Presidential Inauguration Showcase, Potsdam, USA.

Garcia, Y., Brown, N., DeLaBruere, G., Spilman, H., Pedersen, S., Han, B.-G., & Wilke, A. (July 2022). Statistical thinking in children. Poster presented at the Summer Research and Project Showcase (RAPS), Potsdam, USA.

DeLaBruere, G., Brown, N., Spilman, H., Garcia, Y., Pedersen, S., Han, B-G., Wertz, A., Barrett, H. C, Todd, P. M., & Wilke, A. (June 2022). Do children show expectations of clumpy resource distributions? Paper presented at the 33rd annual meeting of the Human Behavior and Evolution Society (HBES), Still Virtually Everywhere.

Wilke, A. (June 2022). Do children show expectations of clumpy resource distributions? Paper presented at the Adaptive Behavior and Cognition (ABC) workshop on Decision Making under Radical Uncertainty, Berlin, Germany.

Spilman, H., DeLaBruere, G., Brown, N., Garcia, Y., Pedersen, S., Han, B.-G., Wertz, A. E., Barrett, H. C., Todd, P. M. & Wilke, A. (April 2022). Statistical thinking in children. Poster presented at the 6th Annual Research and Project Showcase (RAPS), Potsdam, USA.

DeLaBruere, G., Brown, N., Pedersen, S., Han, B-G. & Wilke, A. (July 2021). Do children show expectations of clumpy resource distributions? Paper presented at the 25th biennial meeting of the International Society for Human Ethology (ISHE), Online and Global.

Wilke, A. (July 2021). Spatial dependency in local resource distributions informs misperception of randomness research. Paper presented at the 25th biennial meeting of the International Society for Human Ethology (ISHE), Online and Global.

Wilke, A., Chicoine, N., Porga, M., DeLaBruere, G., Moran, S., Meyer, S. & Lee, A. (June 2021). Human foraging behavior in a Virtual Reality task. Poster presented at the 32nd annual meeting of the Human Behavior and Evolution Society (HBES), Virtually Everywhere.

Porga, M., DeLaBruere, G., Brown, N., Haywood, K., Spillman, H. & Wilke, A. (June 2021). Spatial memory and reasoning: The Visual Perceptions Test. Poster presented at the 32nd annual meeting of the Human Behavior and Evolution Society (HBES), Virtually Everywhere.

Porga, M., Brown, N., DeLaBruere, G., Haywood, K., Spilman, H. & Wilke, A. (April 2021). Spatial memory and reasoning: A pilot of the Visual Perceptions Test. Paper presented at the 5th annual Research and Project Showcase (eRAPS), Potsdam, USA.

DeLaBruere, G., Pedersen, S., Han, B.-G.., Wertz, A. E., Barrett, H. C., Todd, P. M. & Wilke, A. (July 2020). Children’s understanding of randomness. Poster presented at the Summer Research and Project Showcase (eRAPS), Potsdam, USA.

Jarecki, J., & Wilke, A. (July 2020). The relevance of subjective benefits in risky choice across ten domains of life. Poster presented at the 42ndAnnual Virtual Conference of the Cognitive Science Society.

DeLaBruere, G., Moran, S., Holbert, H., Wertz, A. E., Barrett, H. C., Todd, P. M. & Wilke, A. (April 2020). Children’s understanding of randomness. Poster presented at the 4th Annual Research and Project Showcase (eRAPS), Potsdam, USA.

Chicoine, N., Porga, M., Hall, B., Moran, S., Mays, K., DeLaBruere, G., Meyer, S., Lee, A., & Wilke, A. (April 2020). Using virtual reality to study expectations of clumpy resources in human foragers. Paper presented at the 4th annual Research and Project Showcase (eRAPS), Potsdam, USA.

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.