People

Ralf Kurvers

Principal Investigator

Behavioral Biology

Max Plank InsitiTU Berlinte for HU Berlinman Development

Center for Adaptive Rationality

 

Email:

Phone: +49 30 8240 6472

 

Photo: SCIoI

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Ralf Kurvers

Ralf Kurvers

Photo: SCIoI

Ralf Kurvers is a behavioural biologist working on individual and collective decision-making in human and non-human animals. His work links information processing and decision making at the individual level, to the spread of information through social interactions, and emerging collective responses.

Projects

Ralf Kurvers is member of:

• Project 26: The collective dynamics underlying personal and social information integration
• Project 34: Weighing personal and social information in cooperative problem solving
• Project 51: Navigating the explore-exploit trade off in collective search
Burton, J. W., Lopez-Lopez, E., Hechtlinger, S., Rahwan, Z., Aeschbach, S., Bakker, M. A., Becker, J. A., Berditchevskaia, A., Berger, J., Brinkmann, L., Flek, L., Herzog, S. M., Huang, S., Kapoor, S., Narayanan, A., Nussberger, A.-M., Yasseri, T., Nickl, P., Almaatouq, A., … Hertwig, R. (2024). How large language models can reshape collective intelligence. Nature Human Behaviour, 8(9), 1643–1655. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41562-024-01959-9
Deffner, D., Mezey, D., Kahl, B., Schakowski, A., Romanczuk, P., Wu, C. M., & Kurvers, R. (2024). Collective incentives reduce over-exploitation of social information in unconstrained human groups. Nature Communications. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-024-47010-3
Gollwitzer, A., Tump, A. N., Martel, C., Sultan, M., & Kurvers, R. (2024). A New Framework for Understanding and Intervening on False News Sharing. OSF. https://doi.org/10.31234/osf.io/pxn29
Kuroda, K., Tump, A. N., & Kurvers, R. (2024). Individual differences in speed–accuracy trade-off drive human group dynamics. OSF. https://doi.org/10.31234/osf.io/jv7nw
Mezey, D., Deffner, D., Kurvers, R. H., & Romanczuk, P. (2024). Visual social information use in collective foraging. PLoS Computational Biology, 20, 1–24. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pcbi.1012087
Sultan, M., Tump, A. N., Ehmann, N., Lorenz-Spreen, P., Hertwig, R., Gollwitzer, A., & Kurvers, R. H. J. M. (2024). Susceptibility to online misinformation: A systematic meta-analysis of demographic and psychological factors. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, 121(47), e2409329121. https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.2409329121
Tump, A. N., Wollny-Hutarsch, D., Molleman, L., & Kurvers, R. H. (2024). Earlier social information has a stronger influence on judgments. Scientific Reports. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-023-50345-4
Wu, C., Deffner, D., Kahl, B., Meder, B., Ho, M., & Kurvers, R. (2024). Adaptive mechanisms of social and asocial learning in immersive collective foraging. Nature Communications, 3539. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-025-58365-6
Kurvers, R. H., Nuzzolese, A. G., Russo, A., Barabucci, G., Herzog, S. M., & Trianni, V. (2023). Automating hybrid collective intelligence in open-ended medical diagnostics. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.2221473120
Tump, A., Deffner, D., Pleskac, T., Romanczuk, P., & Kurvers, R. (2023). A cognitive computational approach to social and collective decision-making. Perspectives on Psychological Science. https://doi.org/10.1177/17456916231186964
Hansen, M., Krause, S., Dhellemmes, F., Pacher, K., Kurvers, R., Domenici, P., & Krause, J. (2022). Mechanisms of prey division in striped marlin, a marine group hunting predator. Communications Biology. https://doi.org/10.1038/s42003-022-03951-3
Sultan, M., Tump, A. N., Geers, M., Lorenz-Spreen, P., Herzog, S. M., & Kurvers, R. H. J. M. (2022). Time Pressure Reduces Misinformation Discrimination Ability But Does Not Alter Response Bias. Scientific Reports. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-022-26209-8
Tump, A. N., Wolf, M., Romanczuk, P., & Kurvers, R. (2022). Avoiding costly mistakes in groups: The evolution of error management in collective decision making. PLOS Computational Biology. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pcbi.1010442
Tump, A., Pleskac, T., Romanczuk, P., & Kurvers, R. (2022). How the cognitive mechanisms underlying fast choices influence information spread and response bias amplification in groups. Proceedings of the 44th Annual Conference of the Cognitive Science Society, 44, 658–664. https://escholarship.org/uc/item/5m540872#main
Demandt, N., Bierbach, D., Kurvers, R. H. J. M., Krause, J., Kurtz, J., & Scharsack, J. P. (2021). Parasite infection impairs the shoaling behaviour of uninfected shoal members under predator attack. Behavioral Ecology and Sociobiology. https://doi.org/10.1007/s00265-021-03080-7
Kurvers, R. H. J. M., Herzog, S. M., Hertwig, R., Krause, J., & Wolf, M. (2021). Pooling decisions decreases variation in response bias and accuracy. IScience, 24(7), 102740. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.isci.2021.102740
Tump, A. N., Pleskac, T. J., & Kurvers, R. H. J. M. (2020). Wise or mad crowds? The cognitive mechanisms underlying information cascades. Science Advances, 6(29), eabb0266. https://doi.org/10.1126/sciadv.abb0266
Kurvers, R. H. J. M., Herzog, S. M., Hertwig, R., Krause, J., Moussaid, M., Argenziano, G., Zalaudek, I., Carney, P. A., & Wolf, M. (2019). How to detect high-performing individuals and groups: Decision similarity predicts accuracy. Science Advances, 5(11), eaaw9011. https://doi.org/10.1126/sciadv.aaw9011

Research

An overview of our scientific work

See our Research Projects