Andrea L. Patalano

Andrea L. Patalano is a Professor of Psychology and faculty member in the Program in Neuroscience and Behavior at Wesleyan University. She directs the Reasoning and Decision Making (RDM) Lab located in Suite 401 of Judd Hall, where she conducts empirical research using behavioral tasks, neuroscience methods, and mathematical modeling. Her work receives funding from the National Science Foundation.

Her educational background includes a B.A. in Cognitive and Linguistic Sciences from Brown University and a Ph.D. in Psychology with specialization in Cognition and Cognitive Neuroscience from the University of Michigan. Prior to Wesleyan, she served as a research fellow at the Beckman Institute for Advanced Science and Technology (University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign) and at the Institut National de la Santé and de la Recherche Médicale in Paris.

Patalano's research examines adult human reasoning and decision-making processes, with specific focus on individual differences in decision strategies, category use in reasoning, and mechanisms underlying judgment. Her work investigates how cognitive and motivational factors influence choices, temporal discounting behaviors, probability transformations, and confidence in decision commitment. Current projects explore self-perceptions of decisiveness, electrophysiological correlates of temporal discounting, and consistency in probability transformations during decision making.

As an educator, she teaches courses in human cognition, judgment and decision making, concepts and categories, and statistics. Her lab has mentored numerous undergraduate researchers and postdoctoral associates who have gone on to pursue advanced degrees and academic careers.

The RDM Lab employs diverse methodologies including laboratory behavioral experiments, neuroscience techniques, and computational modeling. Located on the fourth floor of Judd Hall, the lab has conducted both in-person studies and remote research using platforms like Zoom. The lab maintains active collaborations through the Program in Neuroscience and Behavior and has contributed significantly to understanding the cognitive architecture of human decision processes.