Robert Hawkins

About

Robert Hawkins is an Assistant Professor of Linguistics and, by courtesy, of Psychology at Stanford University. He holds a Bachelor of Science degree in Cognitive Science and Mathematics from Indiana University, obtained in 2014, and a PhD in Psychology from Stanford University, completed in 2019. His research focuses on the cognitive mechanisms that enable people to communicate, collaborate, and coordinate with one another in flexible ways. He directs the Social Interaction & Language (SoIL) Lab at Stanford University, where his team investigates these problems through large-scale, multi-player web experiments and computational models of language and social reasoning. Hawkins is a member of the Bio-X and Wu Tsai Neurosciences Institute, contributing to interdisciplinary efforts to understand social and cognitive processes.

Research topics

• Computer Science
• Artificial Intelligence
• Cognitive science
• Cognitive psychology
• Psychology

Selected publications

• Atezolizumab plus Bevacizumab Versus Sunitinib for Patients with Untreated Metastatic Renal Cell Carcinoma and Sarcomatoid Features: A Prespecified Subgroup Analysis of the IMmotion151 Clinical Trial

  European Urology · 2020-07-09 · 91 citations

  articleOpen access

  Patients with metastatic renal cell carcinoma with sarcomatoid features (sRCC) have a poor prognosis and have shown limited responsiveness to inhibition of the VEGF pathway. We conducted a prespecified analysis of the randomised, phase 3 IMmotion151 trial in previously untreated patients with advanced or metastatic RCC to assess the effectiveness of atezolizumab + bevacizumab versus sunitinib in a subgroup of patients with sarcomatoid features. Patients whose tumour had any component of sarcomat…

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• Experimentology

  The MIT Press eBooks · 2025-07-01 · 10 citations

  bookOpen access

  An engaging research methods text integrating a classic approach to conducting experiments in psychology with open science practices and values. How does a researcher run a high-quality psychology experiment? What time-tested methods should be used, and how can more robust and accurate results be achieved? A dynamic collaboration between groundbreaking cognitive scientist Michael Frank and a diverse cohort of researchers innovating in the field—Mika Braginsky, Julie Cachia, Nicholas Coles, Tom H…

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• Using LLMs to advance the cognitive science of collectives

  Nature Computational Science · 2025-09-09 · 1 citations

  articleSenior author
  PublisherDOI

• Relevant answers to polar questions

  2025-04-17 · 1 citations

  preprintOpen access1st authorCorresponding

  People often provide answers that go beyond what a question literally asks, but it has been difficult to pin down what makes some answers more relevant than others. Here we introduce PRIOR-PQ, a probabilistic cognitive model formalizing how people use theory of mind to produce and interpret relevantly overinformative answers to yes-no questions. Specifically, PRIOR-PQ grounds the pragmatics of question-answering in inferences about the underlying goal that motivated the questioner to ask the giv…

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• How do we get to know someone? Diagnostic questions for inferring personal traits

  2025-05-12 · 1 citations

  preprintOpen accessSenior author

  When first meeting somebody, we’re faced with the challenge of “getting to know them.” Why do some questions seem to enable this better than others? In Experiment 1, participants (N=185) evaluated a large bank of conversational questions. We found that questions varied along a reliable latent dimension of interpersonal depth ranging from “small talk” to “deep” questions. In Experiment 2 (N=188), participants answered a subset of these questions along with a number of self-report personality scal…

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

Recent grants

• Neurotrophins and Consolidation of Learning-Related Synaptic Plasticity

  NIH · $1.8M · 2020–2025

• NIH Grant P50MH050733

  NIH · $23.4M · 2005

• NIH Grant R01NS083690

  NIH · $1.6M · 2019

Frequent coauthors

• Eric R. Kandel

  329 shared

• Min Zhuo

  Fujian Medical University

  62 shared

• Noah D. Goodman

  54 shared

• Craig H. Bailey

  Columbia University

  53 shared

• Mary Elizabeth Bach

  Columbia University

  41 shared

• Clifford G. Kentros

  Norwegian University of Science and Technology

  33 shared

• Iksung Jin

  Yonsei University

  33 shared

• Thomas L. Griffiths

  32 shared

Education

• PhD, Psychology

  Stanford University

  2019

• BS, Cognitive Science & Mathematics

  Indiana University

  2014

Awards & honors

• Stanford Honors Thesis Prizes - Symbolic Systems
• Glushko Prize for Excellence in Undergraduate Research in Sy…
• Barwise Award for Distinguished Contributions to Symbolic Sy…
• Symbolic Systems Distinguished Teaching Award

Similar researchers at Stanford University

• Russell Poldrackh-155
• Vinod Menonh-127
• Russ B. Altmanh-119