Andrea Bender

Andrea Bender is Full Professor in General Psychology and Principal Investigator at the Centre for Early Sapiens Behaviour (SapienCE) at the University of Bergen, Norway. Her research bridges cognitive science, psychology, and anthropology with a focus on numerical cognition, causal reasoning, and cultural evolution.

• Full Professor, Psychosocial Science, University of Bergen (2017–present)
• PI, SapienCE Centre of Excellence (2017–present)

Education:

• Habilitation in Psychology, University of Freiburg (2008)
• Ph.D. in Cultural Anthropology, University of Freiburg (2000)
• M.A. in Anthropology/Slavistics/Psychology, University of Freiburg (1995)

Her research explores cognitive diversity through numerical cognition (e.g., Mangarevan binary counting), causal cognition (cultural constitution of causal reasoning), grammatical gender (linguistic relativity effects), and spatial-temporal representation. She investigates how cultural tools like numeral systems shape abstract thinking and how cognition evolves through symbolic practices.

Key scientific contributions include:

• ERC Synergy Grant (2020) for the QUANTA project
• Co-editor of Topics in Cognitive Science and Frontiers in Psychology
• Foundational work on cultural evolution of cognition
• Pioneering research on finger counting and symbolic cognition

Her publications span 15 recent works analyzing cognitive tools (numeral systems, spatial frames), cultural knowledge transmission (mushroom foraging), and evolutionary cognition. She has authored textbooks like Die Welt des Denkens and Allgemeine Psychologie, and serves on multiple scientific boards.