Guy Hawkins

Dr. Guy Hawkins is an Associate Professor in the School of Psychological Sciences at the University of Newcastle, Australia. His research focuses on developing and testing computational and mathematical models of cognitive processes, with a primary interest in decision-making. His work spans from low-level speeded perceptual decisions through to high-level cognition, including statistical reasoning and consumer preferences.

Dr. Hawkins earned his PhD in 2013 and his Bachelor of Psychology (Honours 1) in 2008, both at the University of Newcastle. Prior to his current position, he held postdoctoral research positions at the University of Amsterdam's Brain and Cognition Center (2014-2016) and UNSW Sydney (2013-2014). In 2017, he was awarded an Australian Research Council Discovery Early Career Researcher Award (DECRA).

His research examines the decision mechanisms and strategies that people use to select consumer products and service options. A key finding is that people make fewer reasoning errors when information is presented as counts ('8 out of 10') rather than probabilities ('80%'). This has practical applications in healthcare, where physicians could describe prognoses using counts to help patients make better-informed treatment choices. His work also investigates how people update their decision caution relative to time constraints and option quality.

Dr. Hawkins' recent publications reveal a strong focus on evidence accumulation models, decision-making under time pressure, and the relationship between cognitive processes and neural activity. His research often employs computational modeling approaches to understand the psychological processes underlying decision behavior.

• 2024 John Keats Early Career Award, Society for Mathematical Psychology
• 2020 William K. Estes Early Career Award, Society for Mathematical Psychology
• 2018 Fellow of the Psychonomic Society
• 2017 Australian Research Council Discovery Early Career Researcher Award
• 2017 Vice-Chancellor's Award for Early Career Research and Innovation Excellence, University of Newcastle
• 2013 Clifford T. Morgan Best Article Award, Psychonomic Society

Dr. Hawkins collaborates extensively with researchers across the globe, including at universities in Australia, USA, Canada, UK, The Netherlands, and Norway. He is part of the Newcastle Cognition Laboratory and the Functional Neuroimaging Laboratory. His current research projects include investigating cognitive neuroscience frameworks for attentional control, evaluating human-machine interfaces in vehicles, and studying perceptual inference anomalies in schizophrenia.