ORCID Profile
0000-0003-4324-5537
Current Organisation
University of Tasmania
Does something not look right? The information on this page has been harvested from data sources that may not be up to date. We continue to work with information providers to improve coverage and quality. To report an issue, use the Feedback Form.
Research Topics
In Research Link Australia (RLA), "Research Topics" refer to ANZSRC FOR and SEO codes. These topics are either sourced from ANZSRC FOR and SEO codes listed in researchers' related grants or generated by a large language model (LLM) based on their publications.
Top 5 Research Topics
ANZSRC Field of Research (FoR)
Psychology | Cognitive Science | Learning, Memory, Cognition And Language | Decision Making | Computer Perception, Memory and Attention | Sensory Processes, Perception And Performance | Psychological Methodology, Design And Analysis | Sensory Processes, Perception and Performance | Psychological Methodology, Design and Analysis | Developmental Psychology And Ageing | Neurocognitive Patterns And Neural Networks | Forensic Psychology
ANZSRC Socio-Economic Objective (SEO)
Expanding Knowledge in Psychology and Cognitive Sciences | Behavioural and cognitive sciences | Road Public Transport | Expanding Knowledge in Law and Legal Studies | National Security | Personnel |
Related Links
Publications
Advance preparation in task-switching: converging evidence from behavioral, brain activation, and model-based approaches
Publisher: Frontiers Media SA
Date: 2010
Extending the Failure-to-Engage theory of task switch costs
Publisher: Elsevier BV
Date: 07-2014
DOI: 10.1016/J.COGPSYCH.2014.02.003
Abstract: Failure-to-Engage (FTE, De Jong, 2000) theory explains slowed response time after switching tasks as in part due to participants sometimes failing to prepare. Brown et al. (2006) rejected FTE because, in an alternating-runs paradigm, they did not observe fixed crossing point between response-time distributions that it predicts. We replicated these findings in a cued-task paradigm that allowed us to separately examine the effects of response-to-target interval and cue-to-target interval. These results guided an extension of FTE that was tested in a further experiment and shown to be able to accommodate the effects of the interval manipulations as well as both task and cue switching. We then apply a new modeling approach to obtain direct estimates of the probability of preparation and conclude that De Jong's insights about preparation failure provide a tractable framework that can explain aspects of all of the four major task-switching phenomena identified by Monsell (2003).
Building a Transdisciplinary Expert Consensus on the Cognitive Drivers of Performance Under Pressure: An International Multi-panel Delphi Study
Publisher: Research Square Platform LLC
Date: 10-03-2022
DOI: 10.21203/RS.3.RS-1071626/V1
Abstract: The ability to perform optimally under pressure is critical across many occupations, including the military, first responders, and competitive sport, and depends on a range of cognitive factors. How common these key performance factors are across application domains remains unclear. The current study sought to integrate existing knowledge in the performance field in the form of a transdisciplinary expert consensus on the cognitive mechanisms that underlie performance under pressure. International experts were recruited from four performance domains (i. Defence ii. Competitive Sport iii. Civilian High-stakes and iv. Performance Neuroscience). Experts rated constructs from the Research Domain Criteria (RDoC) framework (in addition to several expert-suggested constructs) across successive rounds, until all constructs reached consensus for inclusion or were eliminated. Finally, included constructs were ranked for their relative importance. Sixty-eight experts completed the first Delphi round, with 94% of experts retained by the end of the Delphi process. Seven of the ten constructs that reached transdisciplinary consensus came from the Cognitive Systems domain including: 1) Attention 2) Cognitive Control—Goal Selection, Updating, Representation & Maintenance 3) Cognitive Control—Performance Monitoring 4) Cognitive Control—Response Selection & Inhibition/Suppression 5) Working memory—Flexible Updating 6) Working memory—Active Maintenance and 7) Working memory—Interference Control. Other constructs that reached transdisciplinary consensus were Self-knowledge, Arousal, and Shifting (an expert-suggested construct). Our results identify a set of transdisciplinary neuroscience-informed constructs, validated through Delphi consensus. This expert consensus is critical to standardising cognitive assessment and informing mechanism-targeted interventions in the broader field of human performance optimisation.
An integrated model of choices and response times in absolute identification.
Publisher: American Psychological Association (APA)
Date: 04-2008
Temporally specific miRNA expression patterns in the dorsal and ventral striatum of addiction-prone rats
Publisher: Wiley
Date: 13-06-2017
DOI: 10.1111/ADB.12520
Abstract: MicroRNAs (miRNAs) within the ventral and dorsal striatum have been shown to regulate addiction-relevant behaviours. However, it is unclear how cocaine experience alone can alter the expression of addiction-relevant miRNAs within striatal subregions. Further, it is not known whether differential expression of miRNAs in the striatum contributes to in idual differences in addiction vulnerability. We first examined the effect of cocaine self-administration on the expression of miR-101b, miR-137, miR-212 and miR-132 in nucleus accumbens core and nucleus accumbens shell (NAcSh), as well as dorsomedial striatum and dorsolateral striatum (DLS). We then examined the expression of these same miRNAs in striatal subregions of animals identified as being 'addiction-prone', either immediately following self-administration training or following extinction and relapse testing. Cocaine self-administration was associated with changes in miRNA expression in a regionally discrete manner within the striatum, with the most marked changes occurring in the nucleus accumbens core. When we examined the miRNA profile of addiction-prone rats following self-administration, we observed increased levels of miR-212 in the dorsomedial striatum. After extinction and relapse testing, addiction-prone rats showed significant increases in the expression of miR-101b, miR-137, miR-212 and miR-132 in NAcSh, and miR-137 in the DLS. This study identifies temporally specific changes in miRNA expression consistent with the engagement of distinct striatal subregions across the course of the addiction cycle. Increased dysregulation of miRNA expression in NAcSh and DLS at late stages of the addiction cycle may underlie habitual drug seeking, and may therefore aid in the identification of targets designed to treat addiction.
Two routes to expertise in mental rotation
Publisher: Wiley
Date: 15-05-2013
DOI: 10.1111/COGS.12042
Abstract: The ability to imagine objects undergoing rotation (mental rotation) improves markedly with practice, but an explanation of this plasticity remains controversial. Some researchers propose that practice speeds up the rate of a general-purpose rotation algorithm. Others maintain that performance improvements arise through the adoption of a new cognitive strategy-repeated exposure leads to rapid retrieval from memory of the required response to familiar mental rotation stimuli. In two experiments we provide support for an integrated explanation of practice effects in mental rotation by combining behavioral and EEG measures in a way that provides more rigorous inference than is available from either measure alone. Before practice, participants displayed two well-established signatures of mental rotation: Both response time and EEG negativity increased linearly with rotation angle. After extensive practice with a small set of stimuli, both signatures of mental rotation had all but disappeared. In contrast, after the same amount of practice with a much larger set both signatures remained, even though performance improved markedly. Taken together, these results constitute a reversed association, which cannot arise from variation in a single cause, and so they provide compelling evidence for the existence of two routes to expertise in mental rotation. We also found novel evidence that practice with the large but not the small stimulus set increased the magnitude of an early visual evoked potential, suggesting increased rotation speed is enabled by improved efficiency in extracting three-dimensional information from two-dimensional stimuli.
A consensus guide to capturing the ability to inhibit actions and impulsive behaviors in the stop-signal task
Publisher: eLife Sciences Publications, Ltd
Date: 29-04-2019
DOI: 10.7554/ELIFE.46323
Abstract: Response inhibition is essential for navigating everyday life. Its derailment is considered integral to numerous neurological and psychiatric disorders, and more generally, to a wide range of behavioral and health problems. Response-inhibition efficiency furthermore correlates with treatment outcome in some of these conditions. The stop-signal task is an essential tool to determine how quickly response inhibition is implemented. Despite its apparent simplicity, there are many features (ranging from task design to data analysis) that vary across studies in ways that can easily compromise the validity of the obtained results. Our goal is to facilitate a more accurate use of the stop-signal task. To this end, we provide 12 easy-to-implement consensus recommendations and point out the problems that can arise when they are not followed. Furthermore, we provide user-friendly open-source resources intended to inform statistical-power considerations, facilitate the correct implementation of the task, and assist in proper data analysis.
Dissociating speed and accuracy in absolute identification: the effect of unequal stimulus spacing
Publisher: Springer Science and Business Media LLC
Date: 13-08-2008
DOI: 10.1007/S00426-008-0158-2
Abstract: Identification accuracy for sets of perceptually discriminable stimuli ordered on a single dimension (e.g., line length) is remarkably low, indicating a fundamental limit on information processing capacity. This surprising limit has naturally led to a focus on measuring and modeling choice probability in absolute identification research. We show that choice response time (RT) results can enrich our understanding of absolute identification by investigating dissociation between RT and accuracy as a function of stimulus spacing. The dissociation is predicted by the SAMBA model of absolute identification (Brown, Marley, Dockin, & Heathcote, 2008), but cannot easily be accommodated by other theories. We show that SAMBA provides an accurate, parameter free, account of the dissociation that emerges from the architecture of the model and the physical attributes of the stimuli, rather than through numerical adjustment. This violation of the pervasive monotonic relationship between RT and accuracy has implications for model development, which are discussed.
Racing to remember: A theory of decision control in event-based prospective memory.
Publisher: American Psychological Association (APA)
Date: 11-2018
DOI: 10.1037/REV0000113
Abstract: Event-based prospective memory (PM) requires remembering to perform intended deferred actions when particular stimuli or events are encountered in the future. We propose a detailed process theory within Braver's (2012) proactive and reactive framework of the way control is maintained over the competing demands of prospective memory decisions and decisions associated with ongoing task activities. The theory is instantiated in a quantitative "Prospective Memory Decision Control" (PMDC) architecture, which uses linear ballistic evidence accumulation (Brown & Heathcote, 2008) to model both PM and ongoing decision processes. Prospective control is exerted via decision thresholds, as in Heathcote, Loft, and Remington's (2015) "Delay Theory" of the impact of PM demands on ongoing-task decisions. However, PMDC goes beyond Delay Theory by simultaneously accounting for both PM task decisions and ongoing task decisions. We use Bayesian estimation to apply PMDC to experiments manipulating PM target focality (i.e., the extent to which the ongoing task directs attention to the features of PM targets processed at encoding) and the relative importance of the PM task. As well as confirming Delay Theory's proactive control of ongoing task thresholds, the comprehensive account provided by PMDC allowed us to detect both proactive control of the PM accumulator threshold and reactive control of the relative rates of the PM and ongoing-task evidence accumulation processes. We discuss potential extensions of PMDC to account for other factors that may be prevalent in real-world PM, such as failures of memory retrieval. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2018 APA, all rights reserved).
Strategic attention and decision control support prospective memory in a complex dual-task environment
Publisher: Elsevier BV
Date: 10-2019
DOI: 10.1016/J.COGNITION.2019.05.011
Abstract: Human performance in complex multiple-task environments depends critically on the interplay between cognitive control and cognitive capacity. In this paper we propose a tractable computational model of how cognitive control and capacity influence the speed and accuracy of decisions made in the event-based prospective memory (PM) paradigm, and in doing so test a new quantitative formulation that measures two distinct components of cognitive capacity (gain and focus) that apply generally to choices among two or more options. Consistent with prior work, in iduals used proactive control (increased ongoing task thresholds under PM load) and reactive control (inhibited ongoing task accumulation rates to PM items) to support PM performance. In iduals used cognitive gain to increase the amount of resources allocated to the ongoing task under time pressure and PM load. However, when demands exceeded the capacity limit, resources were reallocated (shared) between ongoing task and PM processes. Extending previous work, in iduals used cognitive focus to control the quality of processing for the ongoing and PM tasks based on the particular demand and payoff structure of the environment (e.g., higher focus for higher priority tasks lower focus under high time pressure and with PM load). Our model provides the first detailed quantitative understanding of cognitive gain and focus as they apply to evidence accumulation models, which - along with cognitive control mechanisms - support decision-making in complex multiple-task environments.
Linear Deterministic Accumulator Models of Simple Choice
Publisher: Frontiers Media SA
Date: 2012
Correlated racing evidence accumulator models
Publisher: Elsevier BV
Date: 06-2020
Prospective memory in the red zone: Cognitive control and capacity sharing in a complex, multi-stimulus task.
Publisher: American Psychological Association (APA)
Date: 12-2019
DOI: 10.1037/XAP0000224
Abstract: Remembering to perform a planned action upon encountering a future event requires event-based Prospective Memory (PM). PM is required in many human factors settings in which operators must process a great deal of complex, uncertain information from an interface. We study event-based PM in such an environment. Our task, which previous research has found is very demanding (Palada, Neal, Tay, & Heathcote, 2018), requires monitoring ships as they cross the ocean on a display. We applied the Prospective Memory Decision Control Model (Strickland, Loft, Remington, & Heathcote, 2018) to understand the cognitive mechanisms that underlie PM performance in such a demanding environment. We found evidence of capacity sharing between monitoring for PM items and performing the ongoing surveillance task, whereas studies of PM in simpler paradigms have not (e.g., Strickland et al., 2018). We also found that participants applied proactive and reactive control (Braver, 2012) to adapt to the demanding task environment. Our findings illustrate the value of human factors simulations to study capacity sharing between competing task processes. They also illustrate the value of cognitive models to illuminate the processes underlying adaptive behavior in complex environments. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2019 APA, all rights reserved).
The falsifiability of actual decision-making models
Publisher: American Psychological Association (APA)
Date: 2014
DOI: 10.1037/A0037771
Abstract: Jones and Dzhafarov (2014) provided a useful service in pointing out that some assumptions of modern decision-making models require additional scrutiny. Their main result, however, is not surprising: If an infinitely complex model was created by assigning its parameters arbitrarily flexible distributions, this new model would be able to fit any observed data perfectly. Such a hypothetical model would be unfalsifiable. This is exactly why such models have never been proposed in over half a century of model development in decision making. Additionally, the main conclusion drawn from this result-that the success of existing decision-making models can be attributed to assumptions about parameter distributions-is wrong. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2014 APA, all rights reserved).
Target learning in event-based prospective memory.
Publisher: American Psychological Association (APA)
Date: 08-2022
DOI: 10.1037/XLM0000900
Abstract: Event-based prospective memory (PM) tasks require in iduals to remember to perform a previously planned action when they encounter a specific event. Often, the natural environments in which PM tasks occur are embedded are constantly changing, requiring humans to adapt by learning. We examine one such adaptation by integrating PM target learning with the prospective memory decision control (PMDC) cognitive model. We apply this augmented model to an experiment that manipulated exposure to PM targets, comparing a single-target PM condition where the target was well learned from the outset, to a multiple-target PM condition with less initial PM target exposure, allowing us to examine the effect of continued target learning opportunities. Single-target PM accuracy was near ceiling whereas multiple-target PM accuracy was initially poorer but improved throughout the course of the experiment. PM response times were longer for the multiple- compared with single-target PM task but this difference also decreased over time. The model indicated that PM trial evidence accumulation rates, and the inhibition of competing responses, were initially higher for single compared to multiple PM targets, but that this difference decreased over time due to the learning of multiple-targets over the target repetitions. These outcomes provide insight into how the processes underlying event-based PM can dynamically evolve over time, and a modeling framework to further investigate the effect of learning on event-based PM decision processes. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2022 APA, all rights reserved).
The simplest complete model of choice response time: Linear ballistic accumulation
Publisher: Elsevier BV
Date: 11-2008
DOI: 10.1016/J.COGPSYCH.2007.12.002
Abstract: We propose a linear ballistic accumulator (LBA) model of decision making and reaction time. The LBA is simpler than other models of choice response time, with independent accumulators that race towards a common response threshold. Activity in the accumulators increases in a linear and deterministic manner. The simplicity of the model allows complete analytic solutions for choices between any number of alternatives. These solutions (and freely-available computer code) make the model easy to apply to both binary and multiple choice situations. Using data from five previously published experiments, we demonstrate that the LBA model successfully accommodates empirical phenomena from binary and multiple choice tasks that have proven difficult for other theoretical accounts. Our results are encouraging in a field beset by the tradeoff between complexity and completeness.
Using evidence accumulation modeling to quantify the relative contributions of spatial attention and saccade preparation in perceptual tasks.
Publisher: American Psychological Association (APA)
Date: 04-2020
DOI: 10.1037/XHP0000723
The cognitive load of narrative lies
Publisher: Wiley
Date: 27-05-2019
DOI: 10.1002/ACP.3567
Global semantic similarity effects in recognition memory: Insights from BEAGLE representations and the diffusion decision model
Publisher: Elsevier BV
Date: 04-2020
Asymmetric Compression of Representational Space for Object Animacy Categorization under Degraded Viewing Conditions
Publisher: MIT Press
Date: 12-2017
DOI: 10.1162/JOCN_A_01177
Abstract: Animacy is a robust organizing principle among object category representations in the human brain. Using multivariate pattern analysis methods, it has been shown that distance to the decision boundary of a classifier trained to discriminate neural activation patterns for animate and inanimate objects correlates with observer RTs for the same animacy categorization task [Ritchie, J. B., Tovar, D. A., & Carlson, T. A. Emerging object representations in the visual system predict reaction times for categorization. PLoS Computational Biology, 11, e1004316, 2015 Carlson, T. A., Ritchie, J. B., Kriegeskorte, N., Durvasula, S., & Ma, J. Reaction time for object categorization is predicted by representational distance. Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience, 26, 132–142, 2014]. Using MEG decoding, we tested if the same relationship holds when a stimulus manipulation (degradation) increases task difficulty, which we predicted would systematically decrease the distance of activation patterns from the decision boundary and increase RTs. In addition, we tested whether distance to the classifier boundary correlates with drift rates in the linear ballistic accumulator [Brown, S. D., & Heathcote, A. The simplest complete model of choice response time: Linear ballistic accumulation. Cognitive Psychology, 57, 153–178, 2008]. We found that distance to the classifier boundary correlated with RT, accuracy, and drift rates in an animacy categorization task. Split by animacy, the correlations between brain and behavior were sustained longer over the time course for animate than for inanimate stimuli. Interestingly, when examining the distance to the classifier boundary during the peak correlation between brain and behavior, we found that only degraded versions of animate, but not inanimate, objects had systematically shifted toward the classifier decision boundary as predicted. Our results support an asymmetry in the representation of animate and inanimate object categories in the human brain.
The form of the forgetting curve and the fate of memories
Publisher: Elsevier BV
Date: 02-2011
Altering the primacy bias—How does a prior task affect mismatch negativity?
Publisher: Wiley
Date: 26-02-2014
DOI: 10.1111/PSYP.12190
Abstract: The role in which two tones are first encountered in an unattended oddball sequence affects how deviance detection, reflected by mismatch negativity, treats them later when the roles reverse: a "primacy bias." We tested whether this effect is modulated by previous behavioral relevance assigned to the two tones. To this end, sequences in which the roles of the two tones alternated were preceded by a go/no-go task in which tones were presented with equal probability. Half of the participants were asked to respond to the short sounds, the other half to long sounds. Primacy bias was initially abolished but returned dependent upon the go-stimulus that the participant was assigned. Results demonstrate a long-term impact of prior learning on deviance detection, and that even when prior importance/equivalence is learned, the bias ultimately returns. Results are discussed in terms of persistent go-stimulus specific changes in responsiveness to sound.
Increasing capacity: Practice effects in absolute identification.
Publisher: American Psychological Association (APA)
Date: 2011
DOI: 10.1037/A0022215
Abstract: In most of the long history of the study of absolute identification--since Miller's (1956) seminal article--a severe limit on performance has been observed, and this limit has resisted improvement even by extensive practice. In a startling result, Rouder, Morey, Cowan, and Pfaltz (2004) found substantially improved performance with practice in the absolute identification of line lengths, albeit for only 3 participants and in a somewhat atypical paradigm. We investigated the limits of this effect and found that it also occurs in more typical paradigms, is not limited to a few virtuoso participants or due to relative judgment strategies, and generalizes to some (e.g., line inclination and tone frequency) but not other (e.g., tone loudness) dimensions. We also observed, apart from differences between dimensions, 2 unusual aspects of improvement with practice: (a) a positive correlation between initial performance and the effect of practice and (b) a large reduction in a characteristic trial-to-trial decision bias with practice.
The Lognormal Race: A Cognitive-Process Model of Choice and Latency with Desirable Psychometric Properties
Publisher: Springer Science and Business Media LLC
Date: 13-02-2014
DOI: 10.1007/S11336-013-9396-3
Abstract: We present a cognitive process model of response choice and response time performance data that has excellent psychometric properties and may be used in a wide variety of contexts. In the model there is an accumulator associated with each response option. These accumulators have bounds, and the first accumulator to reach its bound determines the response time and response choice. The times at which accumulator reaches its bound is assumed to be lognormally distributed, hence the model is race or minima process among lognormal variables. A key property of the model is that it is relatively straightforward to place a wide variety of models on the logarithm of these finishing times including linear models, structural equation models, autoregressive models, growth-curve models, etc. Consequently, the model has excellent statistical and psychometric properties and can be used in a wide range of contexts, from laboratory experiments to high-stakes testing, to assess performance. We provide a Bayesian hierarchical analysis of the model, and illustrate its flexibility with an application in testing and one in lexical decision making, a reading skill.
A Cautionary Note on Evidence-Accumulation Models of Response Inhibition in the Stop-Signal Paradigm
Publisher: Springer Science and Business Media LLC
Date: 30-03-2020
DOI: 10.1007/S42113-020-00075-X
Abstract: The stop-signal paradigm is a popular procedure to investigate response inhibition—the ability to stop ongoing responses. It consists of a choice response time (RT) task that is occasionally interrupted by a stop stimulus signaling participants to withhold their response. Performance in the stop-signal paradigm is often formalized as race between a set of go runners triggered by the choice stimulus and a stop runner triggered by the stop signal. We investigated whether evidence-accumulation processes, which have been widely used in choice RT analysis, can serve as the runners in the stop-signal race model and support the estimation of psychologically meaningful parameters. We examined two types of the evidence-accumulation architectures: the racing Wald model (Logan et al. 2014) and a novel proposal based on the lognormal race (Heathcote and Love 2012). Using a series of simulation studies and fits to empirical data, we found that these models are not measurement models in the sense that the data-generating parameters cannot be recovered in realistic experimental designs.
Investigating the effects of ongoing-task bias on prospective memory
Publisher: SAGE Publications
Date: 09-04-2020
Abstract: Event-based prospective memory (PM) refers to the cognitive processes required to perform a planned action upon encountering a future event. Event-based PM studies engage participants in an ongoing task (e.g., lexical decision-making) with an instruction to make an alternative PM response to certain items (e.g., items containing “tor”). The Prospective Memory Decision Control (PMDC) model, which provides a quantitative process account of ongoing-task and PM decisions, proposes that PM and ongoing-task processes compete in a race to threshold. We use PMDC to test whether, as proposed by the Delay Theory of PM costs, PM can be improved by biasing decision-making against a specific ongoing-task choice, so that the PM process is more likely to win the race. We manipulated bias in a lexical decision task with an accompanying PM intention. In one condition, a bias was induced against deciding items were words, and in another, a bias was induced against deciding items were non-words. The bias manipulation had little effect on PM accuracy but did affect the types of ongoing-task responses made on missed PM trials. PMDC fit the observed data well and verified that the bias manipulation had the intended effect on ongoing-task processes. Furthermore, although simulations from PMDC could produce an improvement in PM accuracy due to ongoing-task bias, this required implausible parameter values. These results illustrate the importance of understanding event-based PM in terms of a comprehensive model of the processes that interact to determine all aspects of task performance.
The fragile nature of contextual preference reversals: Reply to Tsetsos, Chater, and Usher (2015).
Publisher: American Psychological Association (APA)
Date: 10-2015
DOI: 10.1037/A0039656
Abstract: Trueblood, Brown, and Heathcote (2014) developed a new model, called the multiattribute linear ballistic accumulator (MLBA), to explain contextual preference reversals in multialternative choice. MLBA was shown to provide good accounts of human behavior through both qualitative analyses and quantitative fitting of choice data. Tsetsos, Chater, and Usher (2015) investigated the ability of MLBA to simultaneously capture 3 prominent context effects (attraction, compromise, and similarity). They concluded that MLBA must set a "fine balance" of competing forces to account for all 3 effects simultaneously and that its predictions are sensitive to the position of the stimuli in the attribute space. Through a new experiment, we show that the 3 effects are very fragile and that only a small subset of people shows all 3 simultaneously. Thus, the predictions that Tsetsos et al. generated from the MLBA model turn out to match closely real data in a new experiment. Support for these predictions provides strong evidence for the MLBA. A corollary is that a model that can "robustly" capture all 3 effects simultaneously is not necessarily a good model. Rather, a good model captures patterns found in human data, but cannot accommodate patterns that are not found.
Urgency, leakage, and the relative nature of information processing in decision-making.
Publisher: American Psychological Association (APA)
Date: 2021
DOI: 10.1037/REV0000255
Using response time modeling to understand the sources of dual-task interference in a dynamic environment.
Publisher: American Psychological Association (APA)
Date: 10-2019
DOI: 10.1037/XHP0000672
Abstract: This article examines the causes of dual-task interference in a time pressured dynamic environment. Resource sharing theories are often used as a theoretical framework to understand dual-task interference. These frameworks propose that resources from a limited pool of information-processing capacity are reallocated toward the primary task as task load increases and, as a result, secondary-task performance declines if the total demand exceeds capacity limit. However, tests of resource models have relied on behavioral results that could be because of a number of different cognitive processes, including changes in response caution, rate of information processing, nondecision processes, and response biases. We applied evidence-accumulation models to quantify the cognitive processes underlying performance in a dual-task paradigm to examine the causes underlying dual-task interference. We fit performance in time-pressured environment on both a primary classification task and a secondary detection task using evidence-accumulation models. Under greater time pressure, the rate of information processing increased for the primary task while response caution decreased, whereas the rate of information processing for the secondary task declined with greater time pressure. Assuming the rate of evidence accumulation is proportional to available capacity these results are consistent with resource theory and highlight the value of evidence-accumulation models for understanding the complex set of processes underlying dual-task interference. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2019 APA, all rights reserved).
Not Just for Consumers
Publisher: SAGE Publications
Date: 22-04-2013
Abstract: Context effects—preference changes that depend on the availability of other options—have attracted a great deal of attention among consumer researchers studying high-level decision tasks. In the experiments reported here, we showed that these effects also arise in simple perceptual-decision-making tasks. This finding casts doubt on explanations limited to consumer choice and high-level decisions, and it indicates that context effects may be amenable to a general explanation at the level of the basic decision process. We demonstrated for the first time that three important context effects from the preferential-choice literature—similarity, attraction, and compromise effects—all occurred within a single perceptual-decision task. Not only do our results challenge previous explanations for context effects proposed by consumer researchers, but they also challenge the choice rules assumed in theories of perceptual decision making.
Reconsidering electrophysiological markers of response inhibition in light of trigger failures in the stop‐signal task
Publisher: Wiley
Date: 29-07-2020
DOI: 10.1111/PSYP.13619
When the Brain Takes a Break: A Model-Based Analysis of Mind Wandering
Publisher: Society for Neuroscience
Date: 03-12-2014
DOI: 10.1523/JNEUROSCI.2062-14.2014
Abstract: Mind wandering is an ubiquitous phenomenon in everyday life. In the cognitive neurosciences, mind wandering has been associated with several distinct neural processes, most notably increased activity in the default mode network (DMN), suppressed activity within the anti-correlated (task-positive) network (ACN), and changes in neuromodulation. By using an integrative multimodal approach combining machine-learning techniques with modeling of latent cognitive processes, we show that mind wandering in humans is characterized by inefficiencies in executive control (task-monitoring) processes. This failure is predicted by a single-trial signature of (co)activations in the DMN, ACN, and neuromodulation, and accompanied by a decreased rate of evidence accumulation and response thresholds in the cognitive model.
Opportunity for verbalization does not improve visual change detection performance: A state-trace analysis
Publisher: Springer Science and Business Media LLC
Date: 10-06-2016
Drawing conclusions from choice response time models: A tutorial using the linear ballistic accumulator
Publisher: Elsevier BV
Date: 04-2011
Distribution-free tests of stochastic dominance for small samples
Publisher: Elsevier BV
Date: 10-2010
Titrating decision processes in the mental rotation task.
Publisher: American Psychological Association (APA)
Date: 10-2015
DOI: 10.1037/A0039706
Abstract: Shepard and Metzler's (1971) seminal mental-rotation task-which requires participants to decide if 1 object is a rotated version of another or its mirror image-has played a central role in the study of spatial cognition. We provide the first quantitative model of behavior in this task that is comprehensive in the sense of simultaneously providing an account of both error rates and the full distribution of response times. We used Brown and Heathcote's (2008) model of choice processing to separate out the contributions of mental rotation and decision stages. This model-based titration process was applied to data from a paradigm where converging evidence supported performance being based on rotation rather than other strategies. Stimuli were similar to Shepard and Metzler's block figures except a long major axis made rotation angle well defined for mirror stimuli, enabling comprehensive modeling of both mirror and normal responses. Results supported a mental rotation stage based on Larsen's (2014) model, where rotation takes a variable amount of time with a mean and variance that increase linearly with rotation angle. Differences in response threshold differences were largely responsible for mirror responses being slowed, and for errors increasing with rotation angle for some participants. (PsycINFO Database Record
Assessing Theoretical Conclusions With Blinded Inference to Investigate a Potential Inference Crisis
Publisher: SAGE Publications
Date: 17-09-2019
Abstract: Scientific advances across a range of disciplines hinge on the ability to make inferences about unobservable theoretical entities on the basis of empirical data patterns. Accurate inferences rely on both discovering valid, replicable data patterns and accurately interpreting those patterns in terms of their implications for theoretical constructs. The replication crisis in science has led to widespread efforts to improve the reliability of research findings, but comparatively little attention has been devoted to the validity of inferences based on those findings. Using an ex le from cognitive psychology, we demonstrate a blinded-inference paradigm for assessing the quality of theoretical inferences from data. Our results reveal substantial variability in experts’ judgments on the very same data, hinting at a possible inference crisis.
Item recognition memory and the receiver operating characteristic
Publisher: American Psychological Association (APA)
Date: 2003
Modeling interaction as a complex system
Publisher: Informa UK Limited
Date: 30-01-2020
A dissociation between similarity effects in episodic face recognition
Publisher: Springer Science and Business Media LLC
Date: 10-2009
DOI: 10.3758/PBR.16.5.824
Recollection and confidence in two-alternative forced choice episodic recognition
Publisher: Elsevier BV
Date: 02-2010
Not so primitive: context-sensitive meta-learning about unattended sound sequences
Publisher: American Physiological Society
Date: 2013
Abstract: Mismatch negativity (MMN), an evoked response potential elicited when a “deviant” sound violates a regularity in the auditory environment, is integral to auditory scene processing and has been used to demonstrate “primitive intelligence” in auditory short-term memory. Using a new multiple-context and -timescale protocol we show that MMN magnitude displays a context-sensitive modulation depending on changes in the probability of a deviant at multiple temporal scales. We demonstrate a primacy bias causing asymmetric evidence-based modulation of predictions about the environment, and we demonstrate that learning how to learn about deviant probability (meta-learning) induces context-sensitive variation in the accessibility of predictive long-term memory representations that underpin the MMN. The existence of the bias and meta-learning are consistent with automatic attributions of behavioral salience governing relevance-filtering processes operating outside of awareness.
Converging measures of workload capacity
Publisher: Springer Science and Business Media LLC
Date: 12-2010
DOI: 10.3758/PBR.17.6.763
The Quality of Response Time Data Inference: A Blinded, Collaborative Assessment of the Validity of Cognitive Models
Publisher: Springer Science and Business Media LLC
Date: 15-02-2018
Diffusion versus linear ballistic accumulation: Different models for response time with different conclusions about psychological mechanisms?
Publisher: American Psychological Association (APA)
Date: 06-2012
DOI: 10.1037/A0028189
Abstract: Two similar classes of evidence-accumulation model have dominated theorizing about rapid binary choice: diffusion models and racing accumulator pairs. Donkin, Brown, Heathcote, and Wagenmakers (2011) examined mimicry between the Ratcliff diffusion (RD Ratcliff & Smith, 2004) and the linear ballistic accumulator (LBA Brown & Heathcote, 2008), the 2 least similar models from each class that provide a comprehensive account of a set benchmark phenomena in rapid binary choice. Where conditions differed only in the rate of evidence accumulation (the most common case in past research), simulations showed the models supported equivalent psychological inferences. In contrast, differences in 2 other parameters of key psychological interest, response caution (the amount of information required for a decision), and nondecision time, traded-off when fitting 1 model to data simulated from the other, implying the potential for ergent inferences about latent cognitive processes. However, Donkin, Brown, Heathcote, and Wagenmakers did not find such inconsistencies between fits of the RD and LBA models in a survey of data sets from paradigms using a range of experimental manipulations. We examined a further data set, collected by Dutilh, Vandekerckhove, Tuerlinckx, and Wagenmakers (2009), which used a manipulation not surveyed by Donkin, Brown, Heathcote, and Wagenmakers's practice. Dutilh et al.'s RD model fits indicated that practice had large effects on all three types of parameters. We show that in this case the LBA provides a different and simpler account of practice effects. Implications for evidence accumulation modelling are discussed.
Item effects in recognition memory for words
Publisher: Elsevier BV
Date: 2010
Modeling cognitive load effects of conversation between a passenger and driver
Publisher: Springer Science and Business Media LLC
Date: 23-05-2017
DOI: 10.3758/S13414-017-1337-2
Abstract: Cognitive load from secondary tasks is a source of distraction causing injuries and fatalities on the roadway. The Detection Response Task (DRT) is an international standard for assessing cognitive load on drivers' attention that can be performed as a secondary task with little to no measurable effect on the primary driving task. We investigated whether decrements in DRT performance were related to the rate of information processing, levels of response caution, or the non-decision processing of drivers. We had pairs of participants take part in the DRT while performing a simulated driving task, manipulated cognitive load via the conversation between driver and passenger, and observed associated slowing in DRT response time. Fits of the single-bound diffusion model indicated that slowing was mediated by an increase in response caution. We propose the novel hypothesis that, rather than the DRT's sensitivity to cognitive load being a direct result of a loss of information processing capacity to other tasks, it is an indirect result of a general tendency to be more cautious when making responses in more demanding situations.
Evidence for different types of errors being associated with different types of post-error changes
Publisher: Springer Science and Business Media LLC
Date: 06-01-2020
DOI: 10.3758/S13423-019-01675-W
Abstract: Errors in simple choice tasks result in systematic changes in the response time and accuracy of subsequent trials. We propose that there are at least two different causes of choice errors - response speed and evidence quality, which result in different types of post-error changes. We explore these differences in types of errors and post-error changes in two recognition memory experiments with speed versus accuracy emphasis conditions that differentially produce response-speed and evidence-quality errors. Under conditions that give rise to more response-speed errors, we find evidence of traditional post-error slowing. Under conditions that give rise to evidence-quality errors, we find evidence of post-error speeding. We propose a broadening of theories of cognitive control to encompass maladaptive as well as adaptive strategies, and discuss implications for the use of post-error changes to measure cognitive control.
Systematic Parameter Reviews in Cognitive Modeling: Towards a Robust and Cumulative Characterization of Psychological Processes in the Diffusion Decision Model
Publisher: Frontiers Media SA
Date: 21-01-2021
DOI: 10.3389/FPSYG.2020.608287
Abstract: Parametric cognitive models are increasingly popular tools for analyzing data obtained from psychological experiments. One of the main goals of such models is to formalize psychological theories using parameters that represent distinct psychological processes. We argue that systematic quantitative reviews of parameter estimates can make an important contribution to robust and cumulative cognitive modeling. Parameter reviews can benefit model development and model assessment by providing valuable information about the expected parameter space, and can facilitate the more efficient design of experiments. Importantly, parameter reviews provide crucial—if not indispensable—information for the specification of informative prior distributions in Bayesian cognitive modeling. From the Bayesian perspective, prior distributions are an integral part of a model, reflecting cumulative theoretical knowledge about plausible values of the model's parameters (Lee, 2018 ). In this paper we illustrate how systematic parameter reviews can be implemented to generate informed prior distributions for the Diffusion Decision Model (DDM Ratcliff and McKoon, 2008 ), the most widely used model of speeded decision making. We surveyed the published literature on empirical applications of the DDM, extracted the reported parameter estimates, and synthesized this information in the form of prior distributions. Our parameter review establishes a comprehensive reference resource for plausible DDM parameter values in various experimental paradigms that can guide future applications of the model. Based on the challenges we faced during the parameter review, we formulate a set of general and DDM-specific suggestions aiming to increase reproducibility and the information gained from the review process.
The hare and the tortoise: Emphasizing speed can change the evidence used to make decisions.
Publisher: American Psychological Association (APA)
Date: 2014
DOI: 10.1037/A0036801
Abstract: Decision-makers effortlessly balance the need for urgency against the need for caution. Theoretical and neurophysiological accounts have explained this tradeoff solely in terms of the quantity of evidence required to trigger a decision (the "threshold"). This explanation has also been used as a benchmark test for evaluating new models of decision making, but the explanation itself has not been carefully tested against data. We rigorously test the assumption that emphasizing decision speed versus decision accuracy selectively influences only decision thresholds. In data from a new brightness discrimination experiment we found that emphasizing decision speed over decision accuracy not only decreases the amount of evidence required for a decision but also decreases the quality of information being accumulated during the decision process. This result was consistent for 2 leading decision-making models and in a model-free test. We also found the same model-based results in archival data from a lexical decision task (reported by Wagenmakers, Ratcliff, Gomez, & McKoon, 2008) and new data from a recognition memory task. We discuss discuss implications for theoretical development and applications.
Anticipatory reconfiguration elicited by fully and partially informative cues that validly predict a switch in task
Publisher: Springer Science and Business Media LLC
Date: 06-2009
DOI: 10.3758/CABN.9.2.202
Cognitive control and capacity for prospective memory in complex dynamic environments.
Publisher: American Psychological Association (APA)
Date: 12-2019
DOI: 10.1037/XGE0000599
Abstract: Performing deferred actions in the future relies upon Prospective Memory (PM). Often, PM demands arise in complex dynamic tasks. Not only can PM be challenging in such environments, the processes required for PM may affect the performance of other tasks. To adapt to PM demands in such environments, humans may use a range of strategies, including flexible allocation of cognitive resources and cognitive control mechanisms. We sought to understand such mechanisms by using the Prospective Memory Decision Control (Strickland, Loft, Remington, & Heathcote, 2018) model to provide a comprehensive, quantitative account of dual task performance in a complex dynamic environment (a simulated air traffic control conflict detection task). We found that PM demands encouraged proactive control over ongoing task decisions, but that this control was reduced at high time pressure to facilitate fast responding. We found reactive inhibitory control over ongoing task processes when PM targets were encountered, and that time pressure and PM demand both affect the attentional system, increasing the amount of cognitive resources available. However, as demands exceeded the capacity limit of the cognitive system, resources were reallocated (shared) between the ongoing and PM tasks. As the ongoing task used more resources to compensate for additional time pressure demands, it drained resources that would have otherwise been available for PM task processing. This study provides the first detailed quantitative understanding of how attentional resources and cognitive control mechanisms support PM and ongoing task performance in complex dynamic environments. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2019 APA, all rights reserved).
A new framework for modeling decisions about changing information: The Piecewise Linear Ballistic Accumulator model
Publisher: Elsevier BV
Date: 03-2016
Brain and Behavior in Decision-Making
Publisher: Public Library of Science (PLoS)
Date: 03-07-2014
Computing Bayes factors for evidence-accumulation models using Warp-III bridge sampling
Publisher: Springer Science and Business Media LLC
Date: 21-11-2020
DOI: 10.3758/S13428-019-01290-6
Abstract: Over the last decade, the Bayesian estimation of evidence-accumulation models has gained popularity, largely due to the advantages afforded by the Bayesian hierarchical framework. Despite recent advances in the Bayesian estimation of evidence-accumulation models, model comparison continues to rely on suboptimal procedures, such as posterior parameter inference and model selection criteria known to favor overly complex models. In this paper, we advocate model comparison for evidence-accumulation models based on the Bayes factor obtained via Warp-III bridge s ling. We demonstrate, using the linear ballistic accumulator (LBA), that Warp-III s ling provides a powerful and flexible approach that can be applied to both nested and non-nested model comparisons, even in complex and high-dimensional hierarchical instantiations of the LBA. We provide an easy-to-use software implementation of the Warp-III s ler and outline a series of recommendations aimed at facilitating the use of Warp-III s ling in practical applications.
Decision processes and the slowing of simple choices in schizophrenia.
Publisher: American Psychological Association (APA)
Date: 11-2015
DOI: 10.1037/ABN0000117
Abstract: In iduals diagnosed with schizophrenia have slowed response times (RT). We examined the role of decision processes in the slowing of simple choice responses. We updated Schatz's (1998) meta-analysis of deficits in speed and extend it to systematically examine the effects of schizophrenia on choice accuracy. We then report an experiment requiring decisions about motion direction, which we analyzed using an evidence accumulation model of choice, the linear ballistic accumulator (LBA Brown & Heathcote, 2008). By simultaneously taking into account all aspects of behavior, the LBA was more sensitive to deficits than mean RT or accuracy alone. It also identified the 2 underlying causes of slowing: more cautious decisions (i.e., requiring more evidence before making a decision) and perceptual deficits. The schizophrenia group displayed strong sequential effects that were captured by the response on the previous trial affecting the relative amount of evidence required for choice in the LBA. These results illustrate that evidence accumulation models provide a sensitive tool that can be used to identify the cognitive mechanisms causing slowing in schizophrenia.
Referential delusions of communication and reality discrimination deficits in psychosis
Publisher: Wiley
Date: 09-2008
Author response: A new model of decision processing in instrumental learning tasks
Publisher: eLife Sciences Publications, Ltd
Date: 18-12-2020
When learning gets stuck: An automatic bias that alters probability sampling in the unattended auditory environment
Publisher: Elsevier BV
Date: 09-2012
The best of times and the worst of times are interchangeable
Publisher: American Psychological Association (APA)
Date: 07-2014
DOI: 10.1037/DEC0000012
Slow down and remember to remember! A delay theory of prospective memory costs.
Publisher: American Psychological Association (APA)
Date: 04-2015
DOI: 10.1037/A0038952
Abstract: Event-based prospective memory (PM) requires a deferred action to be performed when a target event is encountered in the future. In iduals are often slower to perform a concurrent ongoing task when they have PM task requirements relative to performing the ongoing task in isolation. Theories differ in their detailed interpretations of this PM cost, but all assume that the PM task shares limited-capacity resources with the ongoing task. In what was interpreted as support of this core assumption, diffusion model fits reported by Boywitt and Rummel (2012) and Horn, Bayen, and Smith (2011) indicated that PM demands reduced the rate of accumulation of evidence about ongoing task choices. We revaluate this support by fitting both the diffusion and linear ballistic accumulator (Brown & Heathcote, 2008) models to these same data sets and 2 new data sets better suited to model fitting. There was little effect of PM demands on evidence accumulation rates, but PM demands consistently increased the evidence required for ongoing task response selection (response thresholds). A further analysis of data reported by Lourenço, White, and Maylor (2013) found that participants differentially adjusted their response thresholds to slow responses associated with stimuli potentially containing PM targets. These findings are consistent with a delay theory account of costs, which contends that in iduals slow ongoing task responses to allow more time for PM response selection to occur. Our results call for a fundamental reevaluation of current capacity-sharing theories of PM cost that until now have dominated the PM literature.
The multiattribute linear ballistic accumulator model of context effects in multialternative choice.
Publisher: American Psychological Association (APA)
Date: 04-2014
DOI: 10.1037/A0036137
Abstract: Context effects occur when a choice between 2 options is altered by adding a 3rd alternative. Three major context effects--similarity, compromise, and attraction--have wide-ranging implications across applied and theoretical domains, and have driven the development of new dynamic models of multiattribute and multialternative choice. We propose the multiattribute linear ballistic accumulator (MLBA), a new dynamic model that provides a quantitative account of all 3 context effects. Our account applies not only to traditional paradigms involving choices among hedonic stimuli, but also to recent demonstrations of context effects with nonhedonic stimuli. Because of its computational tractability, the MLBA model is more easily applied than previous dynamic models. We show that the model also accounts for a range of other phenomena in multiattribute, multialternative choice, including time pressure effects, and that it makes a new prediction about the relationship between deliberation time and the magnitude of the similarity effect, which we confirm experimentally.
Practice increases the efficiency of evidence accumulation in perceptual choice
Publisher: American Psychological Association (APA)
Date: 2005
DOI: 10.1037/0096-1523.31.2.289
Abstract: Most models of choice response time base decisions on evidence accumulated over time. A fundamental distinction among these models concerns whether each piece of evidence is equally weighted (lossless accumulation) or unequally weighted (leaky accumulation). The authors tested a hypothesis derived from A. Heathcote and S. Brown's (2002) self-exciting expert competitor (SEEXC) model of skill acquisition: that evidence accumulation becomes less leaky with practice. The hypothesis was supported by observation that the effects of prime stimuli increased with practice. The authors used metacontrast masked primes, which could not be consciously discriminated by most participants, to avoid methodological problems associated with conscious strategy changes. The form of the law of practice in the data is also shown to be consistent with the SEEXC model.
Establishing the separable contributions of spatial attention and saccade preparation across tasks with varying acuity demands.
Publisher: American Psychological Association (APA)
Date: 02-2021
DOI: 10.1037/XHP0000881
Modeling the effects of methylphenidate on interference and evidence accumulation processes using the conflict linear ballistic accumulator
Publisher: Springer Science and Business Media LLC
Date: 13-07-2019
Recollection and familiarity in recognition memory: Evidence from ROC curves
Publisher: Elsevier BV
Date: 11-2006
The design and analysis of state-trace experiments
Publisher: American Psychological Association (APA)
Date: 2012
DOI: 10.1037/A0025809
Abstract: State-trace analysis (Bamber, 1979) addresses a question of interest in many areas of psychological research: Does 1 or more than 1 latent (i.e., not directly observed) variable mediate an interaction between 2 experimental manipulations? There is little guidance available on how to design an experiment suited to state-trace analysis, despite its increasing use, and existing statistical methods for state-trace analysis are problematic. We provide a framework for designing and refining a state-trace experiment and statistical procedures for the analysis of accuracy data using Klugkist, Kato, and Hoijtink's (2005) method of estimating Bayes factors. The statistical procedures provide estimates of the evidence favoring 1 versus more than 1 latent variable, as well as evidence that can be used to refine experimental methodology.
Adjustments of Response Threshold during Task Switching: A Model-Based Functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging Study
Publisher: Society for Neuroscience
Date: 12-10-2011
DOI: 10.1523/JNEUROSCI.2390-11.2011
Abstract: Adjustment of response threshold for speed compared with accuracy instructions in two-choice decision-making tasks is associated with activation in the fronto-striatal network, including the pre-supplementary motor area (pre-SMA) and striatum (Forstmann et al., 2008). In contrast, increased response conservativeness is associated with activation of the subthalamic nucleus (STN) (Frank et al., 2007). We investigated the involvement of these regions in trial-by-trial adjustments of response threshold in humans, using a cued-trials task-switching paradigm. Fully and partially informative switch cues produced more conservative thresholds than repeat cues. Repeat cues were associated with higher activation in pre-SMA and striatum than switch cues. For all cue types, in idual variability in response threshold was associated with activation level in pre-SMA, with higher activation linked to lower threshold setting. In the striatum, this relationship was found for repeat cues only. These findings support the notion that pre-SMA biases the striatum to lower response threshold under more liberal response regimens. In contrast, a high threshold for switch cues was associated with greater activation in right STN, consistent with increasing response caution under conservative response regimens. We conclude that neural models of response threshold adjustment can help explain executive control processes in task switching.
ChoiceKey: A real-time speech recognition program for psychology experiments with a small response set
Publisher: Springer Science and Business Media LLC
Date: 02-2009
DOI: 10.3758/BRM.41.1.154
Modeling distracted performance
Publisher: Elsevier BV
Date: 08-2019
DOI: 10.1016/J.COGPSYCH.2019.05.002
Abstract: The sustained attention to response task (SART) has been the primary method of studying the phenomenon of mind wandering. We develop and experimentally test the first integrated cognitive process model that quantitatively explains all stationary features of behavioral performance in the SART. The model assumes that performance is generated by a competitive race between a stimulus-related decision process and a stimulus-unrelated rhythmic response process. We propose that the stimulus-unrelated process entrains to timing regularities in the task environment, and is unconditionally triggered as a habit or 'insurance policy' to protect against the deleterious effects of mind wandering on ongoing task performance. For two SART experiments the model provided a quantitatively precise account of a range of previously reported trends in choice, response time and self-reported mind wandering data. It also accounted for three previously unidentified features of response time distributions that place critical constraints on cognitive models of performance in situations when people might engage in task-unrelated thoughts. Furthermore, the parameters of the rhythmic race model were meaningfully associated with participants' self-reported distraction, even though the model was never informed by these data. In a validation test, we disrupted the latent rhythmic component with a manipulation of inter-trial-interval variability, and showed that the architecture of the model provided insight into its counter-intuitive effect. We conclude that performance in the presence of mind wandering can be conceived as a competitive latent decision vs. rhythmic response process. We discuss how the rhythmic race model is not restricted to the study of distraction or mind wandering it is applicable to any domain requiring repetitive responding where evidence accumulation is assumed to be an underlying principle of behavior.
Diffusion versus linear ballistic accumulation: different models but the same conclusions about psychological processes?
Publisher: Springer Science and Business Media LLC
Date: 16-11-2010
Variability in Proactive and Reactive Cognitive Control Processes Across the Adult Lifespan
Publisher: Frontiers Media SA
Date: 2011
The overconstraint of response time models: Rethinking the scaling problem
Publisher: Springer Science and Business Media LLC
Date: 12-2009
Real-Time Prediction of Fluctuations in Cognitive Workload
Publisher: Center for Open Science
Date: 09-08-2019
Abstract: Human operators often experience large fluctuations in cognitive workload that can lead to sub-optimal performance, ranging from overload to neglect. Help from automated support systems could potentially address this issue, but to do so the system would ideally need to be aware of real-time changes in operators’ cognitive workload, so it can provide help in times of peak demand and take advantage of troughs to elicit operator engagement. We used the ISO standard Detection Response Task (DRT) to measure cognitive workload approximately every 4 seconds in a demanding task requiring monitoring and refuelling of a fleet of unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs). We showed that the DRT provided a valid measure that can detect changes in workload due to changes in the number of UAVs. We used a cross-validation analysis to assess whether measures related to task performance immediately preceding the DRT could be used to predict detection performance as a proxy for cognitive workload. Although the simple occurrence of task events had weak predictive ability, composite measures that tapped operators’ situational awareness with respect to fuel levels were much more effective. We conclude that real-time prediction of operators’ cognitive workload shows promise as an avenue for improved human-automation teaming.
An R package for state-trace analysis
Publisher: Springer Science and Business Media LLC
Date: 18-07-2012
DOI: 10.3758/S13428-012-0232-Y
Abstract: State-trace analysis (Bamber, Journal of Mathematical Psychology, 19, 137-181, 1979) is a graphical analysis that can determine whether one or more than one latent variable mediates an apparent dissociation between the effects of two experimental manipulations. State-trace analysis makes only ordinal assumptions and so, is not confounded by range effects that plague alternative methods, especially when performance is measured on a bounded scale (such as accuracy). We describe and illustrate the application of a freely available GUI driven package, StateTrace, for the R language. StateTrace automates many aspects of a state-trace analysis of accuracy and other binary response data, including customizable graphics and the efficient management of computationally intensive Bayesian methods for quantifying evidence about the outcomes of a state-trace experiment, developed by Prince, Brown, and Heathcote (Psychological Methods, 17, 78-99, 2012).
Mismatch negativity (MMN) to pitch change is susceptible to order-dependent bias
Publisher: Frontiers Media SA
Date: 25-06-2014
Equally flexible and optimal response bias in older compared to younger adults.
Publisher: American Psychological Association (APA)
Date: 09-2019
DOI: 10.1037/PAG0000339
Abstract: Base-rate neglect is a failure to sufficiently bias decisions toward a priori more likely options. Given cognitive and neurocognitive model-based evidence indicating that, in speeded choice tasks, (a) age-related slowing is associated with higher and less flexible overall evidence thresholds (response caution) and (b) gains in speed and accuracy in relation to base-rate bias require flexible control of choice-specific evidence thresholds (response bias), it was hypothesized that base-rate neglect might increase with age due to compromised flexibility, and so optimality, of response bias. We administered a computer-based perceptual discrimination task to 20 healthy older (63-78 years) and 20 younger (18-28 years) adults where base-rate direction was either variable or constant over trials and so required more or less flexible bias control. Using an evidence accumulation model of response times and accuracy (specifically, the Linear Ballistic Accumulator model Brown & Heathcote, 2008), age-related slowing was attributable to higher response caution, and gains in speed and accuracy per base-rate bias were attributable to response bias. Both age groups were less biased than required to achieve optimal accuracy, and more so when base-rate direction changed frequently. However, bias was closer to optimal among older than younger participants, especially when base-rate direction was constant. We conclude that older participants performed better than younger participants because of their greater emphasis on accuracy, and that, by making greater absolute and equivalent relative adjustments of evidence thresholds in relation to base-rate bias, flexibility of bias control is at most only slightly compromised with age. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2019 APA, all rights reserved).
Racing Against The Clock: Evidence-Based Vs. Time-Based Decisions
Publisher: Center for Open Science
Date: 29-01-2020
Abstract: Classical dynamic theories of decision making assume that responses are triggered by accumulating a threshold amount of information. Recently, there has been a growing appreciation that the passage of time also plays a role in triggering responses. We propose that decision processes are composed of two diffusive accumulation mechanisms---one evidence-based and one time-based---that compete in an independent race architecture. We show that this Timed Racing Diffusion Model (TRDM) provides a unified, comprehensive and quantitatively accurate explanation of key decision phenomena---including the effects of implicit and explicit deadlines and the relative speed of correct and error responses under speed-accuracy tradeoffs---without requiring additional mechanisms that have been criticized as being ad-hoc in theoretical motivation and difficult to estimate, such as trial-to-trial variability parameters, collapsing thresholds, or urgency signals. In contrast, our addition is grounded in a widely validated account of time-estimation performance, enabling the same mechanism to simultaneously account for interval estimation and decision making with an explicit deadline.
Working memory’s workload capacity
Publisher: Springer Science and Business Media LLC
Date: 12-05-2015
DOI: 10.3758/S13421-015-0526-2
Abstract: We examined the role of dual-task interference in working memory using a novel dual two-back task that requires a redundant-target response (i.e., a response that neither the auditory nor the visual stimulus occurred two back versus a response that one or both occurred two back) on every trial. Comparisons with performance on single two-back trials (i.e., with only auditory or only visual stimuli) showed that dual-task demands reduced both speed and accuracy. Our task design enabled a novel application of Townsend and Nozawa's (Journal of Mathematical Psychology 39: 321-359, 1995) workload capacity measure, which revealed that the decrement in dual two-back performance was mediated by the sharing of a limited amount of processing capacity. Relative to most other single and dual n-back tasks, performance measures for our task were more reliable, due to the use of a small stimulus set that induced a high and constant level of proactive interference. For a version of our dual two-back task that minimized response bias, accuracy was also more strongly correlated with complex span than has been found for most other single and dual n-back tasks.
Accumulating evidence about what prospective memory costs actually reveal.
Publisher: American Psychological Association (APA)
Date: 10-2017
DOI: 10.1037/XLM0000400
Abstract: Event-based prospective memory (PM) tasks require participants to substitute an atypical PM response for an ongoing task response when presented with PM targets. Responses to ongoing tasks are often slower with the addition of PM demands ("PM costs"). Prominent PM theories attribute costs to capacity-sharing between the ongoing and PM tasks, which reduces the rate of processing of the ongoing task. We modeled PM costs using the Linear Ballistic Accumulator and the Diffusion Decision Model in a lexical-decision task with nonfocal PM targets defined by semantic categories. Previous decision modeling, which attributed costs to changes in caution rather than rate of processing (Heathcote et al., 2015 Horn & Bayen, 2015), could be criticized on the grounds that the PM tasks included did not sufficiently promote capacity-sharing. Our semantic PM task was potentially more dependent on lexical decision resources than previous tasks (Marsh, Hicks, & Cook, 2005), yet costs were again driven by changes in threshold and not by changes in processing speed (drift rate). Costs resulting from a single target focal PM task were also driven by threshold changes. The increased thresholds underlying nonfocal and focal costs were larger for word trials than nonword trials. As PM targets were always words, this suggests that threshold increases are used to extend the time available for retrieval on PM trials. Under nonfocal conditions, but not focal conditions, the nonword threshold also increased. Thus, it seems that only nonfocal instructions cause a global threshold increase because of greater perceived task complexity. (PsycINFO Database Record
Asymmetric compression of representational space for object animacy categorization under degraded viewing conditions
Publisher: Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory
Date: 21-07-2017
DOI: 10.1101/166660
Abstract: Animacy is a robust organizing principle amongst object category representations in the human brain. Using multivariate pattern analysis methods (MVPA), it has been shown that distance to the decision boundary of a classifier trained to discriminate neural activation patterns for animate and inanimate objects correlates with observer reaction times for the same animacy categorization task (Carlson, Ritchie, Kriegeskorte, Durvasula, & Ma, 2014 Ritchie, Tovar, & Carlson, 2015). Using MEG decoding, we tested if the same relationship holds when a stimulus manipulation (degradation) increases task difficulty, which we predicted would systematically decrease the distance of activation patterns from the decision boundary, and increase reaction times. In addition, we tested whether distance to the classifier boundary correlates with drift rates in the Linear Ballistic Accumulator (Brown & Heathcote, 2008). We found that distance to the classifier boundary correlated with reaction time, accuracy, and drift rates in an animacy categorization task. Split by animacy, the correlations between brain and behavior were sustained for longer over the time course for animate than for inanimate stimuli. Interestingly, when examining the distance to the classifier boundary during the peak correlation between brain and behavior, we found that only degraded versions of animate, but not inanimate, objects had systematically shifted towards the classifier decision boundary as predicted. Our results support an asymmetry in the representation of animate and inanimate object categories in the human brain.
Anodal tDCS over the Motor Cortex on Prepared and Unprepared Responses in Young Adults
Publisher: Public Library of Science (PLoS)
Date: 05-2015
A dynamic model of deciding not to choose.
Publisher: American Psychological Association (APA)
Date: 2021
DOI: 10.1037/XGE0000770
Switch‐specific and general preparation map onto different ERP components in a task‐switching paradigm
Publisher: Wiley
Date: 16-08-2010
DOI: 10.1111/J.1469-8986.2010.01115.X
Abstract: We examined whether the cue-locked centroparietal positivity is associated with switch-specific or general preparation processes. If this positivity (300-400 ms) indexes switch-specific preparation, faster switch trials associated with smaller RT switch cost should have a larger positivity as compared to slower switch trials, but no such association should be evident for repeat trials. We extracted ERP waveforms corresponding to semi-deciles of each participant's RT distribution (i.e., fastest to slowest 5% of trials) for switch and repeat conditions. Consistent with a switch-specific preparation process, centroparietal positivity litude was linked to slower RT and larger RT switch cost for switch but not repeat trials. A later pre-target negativity (500-600 ms) was inversely correlated with RT for both switch and repeat trials, consistent with a general anticipatory preparation processes.
Faster action reprogramming, but not stopping, with proactive cues: Combining EMG and computational modelling in response-selective stop signal tasks
Publisher: Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory
Date: 12-07-2023
DOI: 10.1101/2023.07.11.548624
Abstract: The ability to stop simple ongoing actions has been extensively studied using the stop signal task, but less is known about inhibition in more complex scenarios. Here we used a task requiring bimanual responses to go stimuli, but selective inhibition of only one of those responses following a stop signal. We assessed how proactive cues affect the nature of both the responding and stopping processes, and the well-documented “stopping delay” in the continuing action following successful stopping. In this task, estimates of the speed of inhibition based on a simple-stopping model are inappropriate, and have produced inconsistent findings about the effects of proactive control on motor inhibition. We instead used a multi-modal approach, based on improved methods of detecting and interpreting partial electromyographical (EMG) responses and the recently proposed SIS ( simultaneously inhibit and start ) model of selective stopping behaviour. Our results provide clear and converging evidence that proactive cues reduce the stopping delay effect by slowing bimanual responses and speeding unimanual responses, with a negligible effect on the speed of the stopping process.
What controls gain in gain control? Mismatch negativity (MMN), priors and system biases
Publisher: Springer Science and Business Media LLC
Date: 17-12-2013
DOI: 10.1007/S10548-013-0344-4
Abstract: Repetitious patterns enable the auditory system to form prediction models specifying the most likely characteristics of subsequent sounds. Pattern deviations elicit mismatch negativity (MMN), the litude of which is modulated by the size of the deviation and confidence in the model. Todd et al. (Neuropsychologia 49:3399-3405, 2011 J Neurophysiol 109:99-105, 2013) demonstrated that a multi-timescale sequence reveals a bias that profoundly distorts the impact of local sound statistics on the MMN litude. Two sounds alternate roles as repetitious "standard" and rare "deviant" rapidly (every 0.8 min) or slowly (every 2.4 min). The bias manifests as larger MMN to the sound first encountered as deviant in slow compared to fast changing sequences, but no difference for the sound first encountered as a standard. We propose that the bias is due to how Bayesian priors shape filters of sound relevance. By examining the time-course of change in MMN litude we show that the bias manifests immediately after roles change but rapidly disappears thereafter. The bias was reflected in the response to deviant sounds only (not in response to standards), consistent with precision estimates extracted from second order patterns modulating gain differentially for the two sounds. Evoked responses to deviants suggest that pattern extraction and reactivation of priors can operate over tens of minutes or longer. Both MMN and deviant responses establish that: (1) priors are defined by the most proximally encountered probability distribution when one exists but (2) when no prior exists, one is instantiated by sequence onset characteristics and (3) priors require context interruption to be updated.
Two processes are not necessary to understand memory deficits
Publisher: Cambridge University Press (CUP)
Date: 2019
DOI: 10.1017/S0140525X1900181X
Abstract: Bastin et al. propose a dual-process model to understand memory deficits. However, results from state-trace analysis have suggested a single underlying variable in behavioral and neural data. We advocate the usage of unidimensional models that are supported by data and have been successful in understanding memory deficits and in linking to neural data.
Reactive control processes contributing to residual switch cost and mixing cost across the adult lifespan
Publisher: Frontiers Media SA
Date: 30-04-2014
Getting more from accuracy and response time data: Methods for fitting the linear ballistic accumulator
Publisher: Springer Science and Business Media LLC
Date: 11-2009
A new model of decision processing in instrumental learning tasks
Publisher: eLife Sciences Publications, Ltd
Date: 27-01-2021
DOI: 10.7554/ELIFE.63055
Abstract: Learning and decision-making are interactive processes, yet cognitive modeling of error-driven learning and decision-making have largely evolved separately. Recently, evidence accumulation models (EAMs) of decision-making and reinforcement learning (RL) models of error-driven learning have been combined into joint RL-EAMs that can in principle address these interactions. However, we show that the most commonly used combination, based on the diffusion decision model (DDM) for binary choice, consistently fails to capture crucial aspects of response times observed during reinforcement learning. We propose a new RL-EAM based on an advantage racing diffusion (ARD) framework for choices among two or more options that not only addresses this problem but captures stimulus difficulty, speed-accuracy trade-off, and stimulus-response-mapping reversal effects. The RL-ARD avoids fundamental limitations imposed by the DDM on addressing effects of absolute values of choices, as well as extensions beyond binary choice, and provides a computationally tractable basis for wider applications.
Posterior distribution analysis of the retention of briefly studied words
Publisher: Macquarie Centre for Cognitive Science
Date: 2010
DOI: 10.5096/ASCS20092
Integrating cognitive process and descriptive models of attitudes and preferences
Publisher: Wiley
Date: 11-10-2014
DOI: 10.1111/COGS.12094
Abstract: Discrete choice experiments—selecting the best and/or worst from a set of options—are increasingly used to provide more efficient and valid measurement of attitudes or preferences than conventional methods such as Likert scales. Discrete choice data have traditionally been analyzed with random utility models that have good measurement properties but provide limited insight into cognitive processes. We extend a well‐established cognitive model, which has successfully explained both choices and response times for simple decision tasks, to complex, multi‐attribute discrete choice data. The fits, and parameters, of the extended model for two sets of choice data (involving patient preferences for dermatology appointments, and consumer attitudes toward mobile phones) agree with those of standard choice models. The extended model also accounts for choice and response time data in a perceptual judgment task designed in a manner analogous to best–worst discrete choice experiments. We conclude that several research fields might benefit from discrete choice experiments, and that the particular accumulator‐based models of decision making used in response time research can also provide process‐level instantiations for random utility models.
What Do the Rules for the Wrong Game Tell Us About How to Play the Right Game?
Publisher: Springer Science and Business Media LLC
Date: 07-10-2019
Sequence effects support the conflict theory of N2 and P3 in the Go/NoGo task
Publisher: Elsevier BV
Date: 03-2010
DOI: 10.1016/J.IJPSYCHO.2009.11.002
Abstract: In two-choice tasks the preceding sequence of stimuli robustly influences both the P3 ERP component and reaction time (RT) to the current stimulus. We examined sequence effects in both two-choice and Go/NoGo tasks to distinguish between inhibition and conflict accounts of the N2 and P3 components. RT results suggested similar subjective expectancies were generated in the Go/NoGo and two-choice task. N2 was increased for all unexpected stimuli, even when no response inhibition was required, consistent with a conflict interpretation. The Go/NoGo P3 results also suggested a conflict explanation, and that this conflict was reduced if the response had been recently performed. These results support a reconsideration of the roles of N2 and P3 in all inhibition and conflict tasks, and the Go/NoGo task in particular.
Accumulating advantages: A new conceptualization of rapid multiple choice.
Publisher: American Psychological Association (APA)
Date: 03-2020
DOI: 10.1037/REV0000166
Abstract: Independent racing evidence-accumulator models have proven fruitful in advancing understanding of rapid decisions, mainly in the case of binary choice, where they can be relatively easily estimated and are known to account for a range of benchmark phenomena. Typically, such models assume a one-to-one mapping between accumulators and responses. We explore an alternative independent-race framework where more than one accumulator can be associated with each response, and where a response is triggered when a sufficient number of accumulators associated with that response reach their thresholds. Each accumulator is primarily driven by the difference in evidence supporting one versus another response (i.e., that response's "advantage"), with secondary inputs corresponding to the total evidence for both responses and a constant term. We use Brown and Heathcote's (2008) linear ballistic accumulator (LBA) to instantiate the framework in a mathematically tractable measurement model (i.e., a model whose parameters can be successfully recovered from data). We show this "advantage LBA" model provides a detailed quantitative account of a variety of benchmark binary and multiple choice phenomena that traditional independent accumulator models struggle with in binary choice the effects of additive versus multiplicative changes to input values, and in multiple choice the effects of manipulations of the strength of lure (i.e., nontarget) stimuli and Hick's law. We conclude that the advantage LBA provides a tractable new avenue for understanding the dynamics of decisions among multiple choices. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2020 APA, all rights reserved).
An Introduction to Good Practices in Cognitive Modeling
Publisher: Springer New York
Date: 2015
Intertrial RT variability affects level of target‐related interference in cued task switching
Publisher: Wiley
Date: 04-08-2017
DOI: 10.1111/PSYP.12971
Abstract: In cued task switching, performance relies on proactive and reactive control processes. Proactive control is evident in the reduction in switch cost under conditions that promote advance preparation. However, the residual switch cost that remains under conditions of optimal proactive control indicates that, on switch trials, the target continues to elicit interference that is resolved using reactive control. We examined whether posttarget interference varies as a function of trial-by-trial variability in preparation. We investigated target congruence effects on behavior and target-locked ERPs extracted across the response time (RT) distribution, using orthogonal polynomial trend analysis (OPTA). Early N2, late N2, and P3b litudes were differentially modulated across the RT distribution. There was a large congruence effect on late N2 and P3b, which increased with RT for P3b litude, but did not vary with trial type. This suggests that target properties impact switch and repeat trials equally and do not contribute to residual switch cost. P3b litude was larger, and latency later, for switch than repeat trials, and this difference became larger with increasing RT, consistent with sustained carryover effects on highly prepared switch trials. These results suggest that slower, less prepared responses are associated with greater target-related interference during target identification and processing, as well as slower, more difficult decision processes. They also suggest that neither general nor switch-specific preparation can ameliorate the effects of target-driven interference. These findings highlight the theoretical advances achieved by integrating RT distribution analyses with ERP and OPTA to examine trial-by-trial variability in performance and brain function.
A diffusion decision model analysis of evidence variability in the lexical decision task
Publisher: Springer Science and Business Media LLC
Date: 06-03-2017
DOI: 10.3758/S13423-017-1259-Y
Abstract: The lexical-decision task is among the most commonly used paradigms in psycholinguistics. In both the signal-detection theory and Diffusion Decision Model (DDM Ratcliff, Gomez, & McKoon, Psychological Review, 111, 159-182, 2004) frameworks, lexical-decisions are based on a continuous source of word-likeness evidence for both words and non-words. The Retrieving Effectively from Memory model of Lexical-Decision (REM-LD Wagenmakers et al., Cognitive Psychology, 48(3), 332-367, 2004) provides a comprehensive explanation of lexical-decision data and makes the prediction that word-likeness evidence is more variable for words than non-words and that higher frequency words are more variable than lower frequency words. To test these predictions, we analyzed five lexical-decision data sets with the DDM. For all data sets, drift-rate variability changed across word frequency and non-word conditions. For the most part, REM-LD's predictions about the ordering of evidence variability across stimuli in the lexical-decision task were confirmed.
Related Organisations
Related Funding Activities
Discovery Projects - Grant ID: DP0881244
Start Date: 2008
End Date: 08-2011
Amount: $120,000.00
Funder: Australian Research Council
View Funded ActivityDiscovery Projects - Grant ID: DP120102907
Start Date: 06-2012
End Date: 06-2015
Amount: $134,000.00
Funder: Australian Research Council
View Funded ActivityDiscovery Projects - Grant ID: DP160101891
Start Date: 04-2016
End Date: 04-2019
Amount: $635,000.00
Funder: Australian Research Council
View Funded ActivityDiscovery Projects - Grant ID: DP110100234
Start Date: 2011
End Date: 03-2016
Amount: $544,155.00
Funder: Australian Research Council
View Funded ActivityDiscovery Projects - Grant ID: DP200100655
Start Date: 2020
End Date: 12-2023
Amount: $296,113.00
Funder: Australian Research Council
View Funded ActivityDiscovery Projects - Grant ID: DP0451223
Start Date: 2004
End Date: 12-2007
Amount: $105,000.00
Funder: Australian Research Council
View Funded ActivityDiscovery Projects - Grant ID: DP0209427
Start Date: 2002
End Date: 12-2004
Amount: $149,000.00
Funder: Australian Research Council
View Funded ActivityLinkage - International - Grant ID: LX0348125
Start Date: 11-2003
End Date: 12-2007
Amount: $38,700.00
Funder: Australian Research Council
View Funded ActivityDiscovery Projects - Grant ID: DP210100313
Start Date: 06-2021
End Date: 12-2024
Amount: $366,000.00
Funder: Australian Research Council
View Funded ActivityDiscovery Projects - Grant ID: DP150100272
Start Date: 06-2015
End Date: 06-2020
Amount: $757,800.00
Funder: Australian Research Council
View Funded ActivityDiscovery Projects - Grant ID: DP0558407
Start Date: 04-2005
End Date: 12-2008
Amount: $167,000.00
Funder: Australian Research Council
View Funded Activity