---
title: "Robert Hawkins · Stanford University — author profile and papers"
description: "Robert Hawkins, Stanford University: 5 papers on Elamur Research (2019–2025), h-index 1 — affiliations, topics, co-authors and who cites…"
canonical: "https://research.elamur.ai/free/en/authors/robert-hawkins/"
---
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# Robert Hawkins

Robert Hawkins has 5 papers in our library, in 2019–2025, most of them on [English](https://md.research.elamur.ai/free/en/topics/english/), [Language models & pretraining](https://md.research.elamur.ai/free/en/topics/language-models/), [Question answering](https://md.research.elamur.ai/free/en/topics/question-answering/); often with [Noah D. Goodman](https://md.research.elamur.ai/free/en/authors/noah-d-goodman/), [Michael C. Frank](https://md.research.elamur.ai/free/en/authors/michael-c-frank/), [Michael Franke](https://md.research.elamur.ai/free/en/authors/michael-franke/). 2 of them are among the papers read by [Mova, the project](https://md.research.elamur.ai/free/en/projects/mova/).

5 papers in our library · 2019–2025

[OpenAlex](https://openalex.org/A5123211316) · [ORCID](https://orcid.org/0000-0001-9089-8544) · [**h-index 1**](https://openalex.org/authors/A5123211316) · [19 works](https://openalex.org/works?filter=author.id:A5123211316) · [1 citations](https://openalex.org/works?filter=author.id:A5123211316&sort=cited_by_count:desc) OpenAlex, 2026-10-14

[📄 5 works in our library](https://md.research.elamur.ai/free/en/authors/robert-hawkins/#papers) · [🔗 Cited 42 times in our library](https://md.research.elamur.ai/free/en/authors/robert-hawkins/cited-by/) · [5 more in our library without a page yet](#also) · [⭐ Paper Stars ranking: #6558](https://md.research.elamur.ai/free/en/paper-stars/page/66/#star-6558)

The profile is the library's match of the name; two people with one name are not always told apart.

Elsewhere: [Google Scholar](https://scholar.google.com/citations?view_op=search_authors&mauthors=Robert+Hawkins) · [Semantic Scholar](https://www.semanticscholar.org/search?q=Robert+Hawkins) · [dblp](https://dblp.org/search?q=Robert+Hawkins) · [ACL Anthology](https://aclanthology.org/search/?q=Robert+Hawkins)

## Affiliations

[🎓**Stanford University** Stanford · United States 2014–2026 · 6 papersEducation 2014–2019 · PhD, PsychologyEmployment since 2024 · Assistant Professor, Linguistics*current*](https://md.research.elamur.ai/free/en/universities/stanford-university/) · [🎓**University of Wisconsin–Madison** Madison · United States 2023–2024Employment 2023–2024 · Assistant Professor, Psychology](https://md.research.elamur.ai/free/en/universities/university-of-wisconsin-madison/) · [🎓**Princeton University** Princeton · United States 2019–2023Employment 2019–2023 · Associate Research Scholar, Princeton Neuroscience Institute](https://md.research.elamur.ai/free/en/universities/princeton-university/) · [🎓**Indiana University** Bloomington · United States 2010–2014Education 2010–2014 · BS, Cognitive Science & Mathematics](https://md.research.elamur.ai/free/en/universities/indiana-university/)

From the bylines of their papers (OpenAlex, 2026-10-14), ORCID and Wikidata; institutions on papers are matched by machine.

## Fields, topics and concepts

Of its works in our library, with the number of works on each.

📚 Shelves 11 The field of science this work belongs to (OpenAlex fields).[Arts and Humanities · 5 works](https://md.research.elamur.ai/free/en/shelves/arts-and-humanities/) · [Language and Linguistics · 4 works](https://md.research.elamur.ai/free/en/shelves/arts-and-humanities/language-and-linguistics/) · [Artificial Intelligence · 4 works](https://md.research.elamur.ai/free/en/shelves/computer-science/artificial-intelligence/) · [Computer Science · 4 works](https://md.research.elamur.ai/free/en/shelves/computer-science/) · [Cultural Studies · 1 work](https://md.research.elamur.ai/free/en/shelves/social-sciences/cultural-studies/) · [Experimental and Cognitive Psychology · 1 work](https://md.research.elamur.ai/free/en/shelves/psychology/experimental-and-cognitive-psychology/) · [Psychology · 1 work](https://md.research.elamur.ai/free/en/shelves/psychology/) · [Social Sciences · 1 work](https://md.research.elamur.ai/free/en/shelves/social-sciences/) · [Decision Sciences · 1 work](https://md.research.elamur.ai/free/en/shelves/decision-sciences/) · [General Decision Sciences · 1 work](https://md.research.elamur.ai/free/en/shelves/decision-sciences/general-decision-sciences/) · [Philosophy · 1 work](https://md.research.elamur.ai/free/en/shelves/arts-and-humanities/philosophy/)

🧭 Topics 3 Research subjects and languages the work is about.[English · 2 works](https://md.research.elamur.ai/free/en/topics/english/) · [Language models & pretraining · 1 work](https://md.research.elamur.ai/free/en/topics/language-models/) · [Question answering · 1 work](https://md.research.elamur.ai/free/en/topics/question-answering/)

## Works by year

### 2020s

[**2025** 2 papers](https://md.research.elamur.ai/free/en/authors/robert-hawkins/year/2025/) · [**2021** 1 paper](https://md.research.elamur.ai/free/en/authors/robert-hawkins/year/2021/) · [**2020** 1 paper](https://md.research.elamur.ai/free/en/authors/robert-hawkins/year/2020/)

### 2010s

[**2019** 1 paper](https://md.research.elamur.ai/free/en/authors/robert-hawkins/year/2019/)

## Papers

The most cited first (OpenAlex and our library).

1. **[Characterizing the dynamics of learning in repeated reference games](https://md.research.elamur.ai/free/en/papers/hawkins-2019-characterizing-dynamics-learning-repeated-reference/)** *(2019 · 67 citations)* When two people repeatedly talk about the same hard-to-name objects, their wording changes over time. Hawkins, Frank and Goodman study this process with a large online version of the classic tangram reference game. One player, the director, describes a target shape. The other, the matcher, has to pick it out of…
2. **[Continual Adaptation for Efficient Machine Communication](https://md.research.elamur.ai/free/en/papers/hawkins-2020-continual-adaptation-efficient-machine-communication/)** *(2020 · 38 citations)* Neural language models can reproduce the conventions in their training data, but unlike people they cannot invent new shorthand with a specific partner during an interaction.
3. **[A pragmatic account of the weak evidence effect](https://md.research.elamur.ai/free/en/papers/barnett-2021-pragmatic-account-weak-evidence-effect/)** *(2021 · 7 citations)* The weak evidence effect occurs when an argument that only slightly supports a conclusion leaves listeners less convinced of it.
4. **[Comparing human and LLM politeness strategies in free production](https://md.research.elamur.ai/free/en/papers/zhao-2025-comparing-human-llm-politeness-strategies/)** *(2025 · 6 citations)* The study replicates Yoon et al. (2020) with LLMs. A speaker gives feedback on a performance rated 0–3 hearts, with the goal of being informative, kind, or both, and chooses among «was / wasn't» + terrible, bad, good, amazing. Models of 70B parameters and more reproduce the human pattern (Spearman up to 0.75): with…
5. **[Integrating Neural and Symbolic Components in a Model of Pragmatic Question-Answering](https://md.research.elamur.ai/free/en/papers/tsvilodub-2025-integrating-neural-symbolic-components-model/)** *(2025 · 1 citation)* The case is over-informative answering: asked «Do you have iced tea?» in a café that has iced coffee, soda and Chardonnay, people answer «No, but we have iced coffee».

## All works

10 works of theirs in our library, the most cited first; 5 with a page here, the others link their original until we summarise them.

1. **[Characterizing the dynamics of learning in repeated reference games](https://md.research.elamur.ai/free/en/papers/hawkins-2019-characterizing-dynamics-learning-repeated-reference/) [Cognitive Science](https://md.research.elamur.ai/free/en/venues/cognitive-science/)**Robert D. Hawkins, Michael C. Frank, Noah D. Goodman*2019 · 67 citations*
2. **[Continual Adaptation for Efficient Machine Communication](https://md.research.elamur.ai/free/en/papers/hawkins-2020-continual-adaptation-efficient-machine-communication/) [Conference on Computational Natural Language Learning (CoNLL)](https://md.research.elamur.ai/free/en/venues/conll/)**Robert Hawkins, Minae Kwon, Dorsa Sadigh, et al.*2020 · 38 citations*
3. **[A pragmatic account of the weak evidence effect](https://md.research.elamur.ai/free/en/papers/barnett-2021-pragmatic-account-weak-evidence-effect/) [Open Mind](https://md.research.elamur.ai/free/en/venues/open-mind/)**Samuel A. Barnett, Thomas L. Griffiths, Robert D. Hawkins*2021 · 7 citations*
4. [**Comparing human and LLM politeness strategies in free production**Haoran Zhao, Robert D. Hawkins*English · 6 citations*](https://md.research.elamur.ai/free/en/papers/zhao-2025-comparing-human-llm-politeness-strategies/)
5. **[Accommodation and Epistemic Vigilance: A Pragmatic Account of Why LLMs Fail to Challenge Harmful Beliefs ↗](https://aclanthology.org/2026.acl-long.736/) Proceedings of the 64th Annual Meeting of the Association for Computational Linguistics (Volume 1: Long Papers) · no summary yet**Myra Cheng, Robert D. Hawkins, Dan Jurafsky*2026 · 4 citations*
6. **[Cognitive offloading and the speedup illusion in human-AI interaction ↗](https://arxiv.org/abs/2605.23177) arXiv (Cornell University) · no summary yet**Sunny Yu et al.*2026 · 1 citation*
7. **[The efficiency-gain illusion: People underestimate the rate of AI use and overestimate its benefits on simple tasks ↗](https://doi.org/10.17605/osf.io/v6zgy) no summary yet**Sunny Yu et al.*2026 · 1 citation*
8. [**Integrating Neural and Symbolic Components in a Model of Pragmatic Question-Answering**Polina Tsvilodub, Robert D. Hawkins, Michael Franke*English · 1 citation*](https://md.research.elamur.ai/free/en/papers/tsvilodub-2025-integrating-neural-symbolic-components-model/)
9. **[Understanding the Division of Cognitive Effort in Human-AI Interactions ↗](https://doi.org/10.17605/osf.io/3sq8a) no summary yet**Sunny Yu et al.*2026*
10. **[Understanding When People use AI on Different Cognitive Tasks ↗](https://doi.org/10.17605/osf.io/xp3td) no summary yet**Sunny Yu et al.*2026*

## Co-authors here

5 co-authors with a page, the most papers together first.

- [Noah D. Goodman](https://md.research.elamur.ai/free/en/authors/noah-d-goodman/) ×2
- [Michael C. Frank](https://md.research.elamur.ai/free/en/authors/michael-c-frank/)
- [Michael Franke](https://md.research.elamur.ai/free/en/authors/michael-franke/)
- [Polina Tsvilodub](https://md.research.elamur.ai/free/en/authors/polina-tsvilodub/)
- [Thomas L. Griffiths](https://md.research.elamur.ai/free/en/authors/thomas-l-griffiths/)

## Venues

Where their works here were published, the most works first, with the editions of those that have a page.

- [Cognitive Science](https://md.research.elamur.ai/free/en/venues/cognitive-science/): [Cognitive Science 2019](https://md.research.elamur.ai/free/en/venues/cognitive-science/2019/)
- [Conference on Computational Natural Language Learning (CoNLL)](https://md.research.elamur.ai/free/en/venues/conll/): [CoNLL 2020](https://md.research.elamur.ai/free/en/venues/conll/2020/)
- [Conference on Empirical Methods in Natural Language Processing (EMNLP)](https://md.research.elamur.ai/free/en/venues/emnlp/): [EMNLP 2025](https://md.research.elamur.ai/free/en/venues/emnlp/2025/)
- [Open Mind](https://md.research.elamur.ai/free/en/venues/open-mind/): [Open Mind 2021](https://md.research.elamur.ai/free/en/venues/open-mind/2021/)
- [Society for Computation in Linguistics (SCiL)](https://md.research.elamur.ai/free/en/venues/scil/): [SCiL 2025](https://md.research.elamur.ai/free/en/venues/scil/2025/)
- Proceedings of the 64th Annual Meeting of the Association for Computational Linguistics (Volume 1: Long Papers)

## Cited by

Papers of our library cite their works 42 times (of the 149,439 papers whose bibliographies we read); [14 citing papers with a page here →](https://md.research.elamur.ai/free/en/authors/robert-hawkins/cited-by/).

Updated 30 October 2026