Super Financial Security: Improving Flexibility, Trust and Communication. This project aims to address the significant worldwide challenge of how to safeguard financial wellbeing at older ages. In doing so it aims to investigate three important and interconnected influences on retirement preparation: flexible choice architecture, trust formation and effective communication. The project aims to use a combination of innovative modelling, experimental and field-based approaches. The principal expec ....Super Financial Security: Improving Flexibility, Trust and Communication. This project aims to address the significant worldwide challenge of how to safeguard financial wellbeing at older ages. In doing so it aims to investigate three important and interconnected influences on retirement preparation: flexible choice architecture, trust formation and effective communication. The project aims to use a combination of innovative modelling, experimental and field-based approaches. The principal expected outcomes are insights into the factors that guide superannuation choice, build trust with superannuation providers, and ensure clear and effective communication with members.Read moreRead less
Information design, cognitive abilities and macro-economic stability. This project aims to improve our understanding of individual decision making in financial markets and its implications for macro-economic stability. Using laboratory and internet experiments, models of adaptive choice behaviour will be developed and validated. The project will help to gain insight into how past information, and the way it is presented, affects investment decisions, which individual characteristics matter for d ....Information design, cognitive abilities and macro-economic stability. This project aims to improve our understanding of individual decision making in financial markets and its implications for macro-economic stability. Using laboratory and internet experiments, models of adaptive choice behaviour will be developed and validated. The project will help to gain insight into how past information, and the way it is presented, affects investment decisions, which individual characteristics matter for decisions, and how this behaviour translates into the evolution of aggregate macro-economic variables. The expected outcomes of the project will have the potential to improve the design of tools for better individual financial decision making, to stabilize volatile markets and to enhance economic welfare.Read moreRead less
Discovery Early Career Researcher Award - Grant ID: DE200100692
Funder
Australian Research Council
Funding Amount
$417,842.00
Summary
Stopping in the Real World: Cognitive Architectures for Selective Stopping. Response inhibition is the ability to stop actions that are in progress but become no longer appropriate, such as halting an order to launch a missile strike when a civilian vehicle is detected. The project focuses on people’s ability to either stop all planned actions or selectively stop some actions while allowing others to occur. The goal is to develop methodology to reliably measure the time it takes to stop actions, ....Stopping in the Real World: Cognitive Architectures for Selective Stopping. Response inhibition is the ability to stop actions that are in progress but become no longer appropriate, such as halting an order to launch a missile strike when a civilian vehicle is detected. The project focuses on people’s ability to either stop all planned actions or selectively stop some actions while allowing others to occur. The goal is to develop methodology to reliably measure the time it takes to stop actions, investigate the psychological mechanisms involved in stopping, and develop tools for defence-related personnel and job selection. The project provides significant benefits by enabling the study of how response inhibition ensures that appropriate actions occur and how failures of inhibition result in inappropriate actions. Read moreRead less
Discovery Early Career Researcher Award - Grant ID: DE200101130
Funder
Australian Research Council
Funding Amount
$426,770.00
Summary
Beyond Response Time and Choice: Understanding Changes of Mind in Decisions. The project aims to provide novel experimental insight into how people change their minds during decisions, through identifying the cognitive architecture that reflects the behaviour that we observe from people. The project is significant because it provides a substantially deeper understanding of the cognitive decision process and how it changes over time, as opposed to previous research focusing on only the final resp ....Beyond Response Time and Choice: Understanding Changes of Mind in Decisions. The project aims to provide novel experimental insight into how people change their minds during decisions, through identifying the cognitive architecture that reflects the behaviour that we observe from people. The project is significant because it provides a substantially deeper understanding of the cognitive decision process and how it changes over time, as opposed to previous research focusing on only the final response that people make. The expected outcome is a comprehensive understanding of the human decision process through cognitive models that provide an accurate reflection of this mental process. The benefit is an improved understanding of decisions, which are a fundamental part of everyday human life.Read moreRead less
Exploration, Generalisation and the Development of Learning Traps. This project addresses three fundamental questions about human decision-making; 1) how does exploratory choice lead to “learning traps”, persistent patterns of poor decision-making that cause us to miss rewards and experience losses? 2) how does susceptibility to traps change with age? 3) what strategies prevent traps or facilitate escape? The project will advance our understanding of the cognitive processes underlying adult and ....Exploration, Generalisation and the Development of Learning Traps. This project addresses three fundamental questions about human decision-making; 1) how does exploratory choice lead to “learning traps”, persistent patterns of poor decision-making that cause us to miss rewards and experience losses? 2) how does susceptibility to traps change with age? 3) what strategies prevent traps or facilitate escape? The project will advance our understanding of the cognitive processes underlying adult and child decision-making, using innovative experimental paradigms and computational modeling. Expected outcomes include a novel computational model that explains developmental change in trap formation. The results will guide strategies for improved decision-making in educational, financial, and social settings.Read moreRead less
The value of time during decisions. This project aims to investigate how people value time during decision making. Using an innovative combination of carefully designed experiments and state-of-the-art mathematical cognitive models, this project expects to generate new knowledge regarding how efficiently people allocate time when making decisions, the factors that allow people to perform optimally and those that lead to suboptimal performance. The anticipated outcome of the project is a new fram ....The value of time during decisions. This project aims to investigate how people value time during decision making. Using an innovative combination of carefully designed experiments and state-of-the-art mathematical cognitive models, this project expects to generate new knowledge regarding how efficiently people allocate time when making decisions, the factors that allow people to perform optimally and those that lead to suboptimal performance. The anticipated outcome of the project is a new framework for understanding the optimality of human decision making. This outcome has the potential benefit of providing insight into decision mechanisms across a range of contexts, particularly ageing and models of applied decision making.Read moreRead less
Discovery Early Career Researcher Award - Grant ID: DE170100177
Funder
Australian Research Council
Funding Amount
$365,000.00
Summary
Cognitive models of mental architectures in consumer preference. This project aims to characterise the mental architecture of consumer preference, the decision mechanisms and strategies that people use to select products or service options. It uses carefully designed experiments and cognitive modelling of mental architectures that capitalise on the information in the product decisions people make and the time taken to make them. The project provides insight into how people reason with and use in ....Cognitive models of mental architectures in consumer preference. This project aims to characterise the mental architecture of consumer preference, the decision mechanisms and strategies that people use to select products or service options. It uses carefully designed experiments and cognitive modelling of mental architectures that capitalise on the information in the product decisions people make and the time taken to make them. The project provides insight into how people reason with and use information to inform their decisions. This will help organisations to improve products and services and engage with consumers, to create competitive advantage, improve customer service and ultimately stimulate the economy.Read moreRead less
Cognitive models of decision making in clinical populations. This cognitive science project aims to develop new methods for mathematical modelling of decision making, and to apply these methods to study decision making in people with problem drug use. Precise measures of the thought processes underlying decision making in drug users will help to direct efforts to prevent and treat drug problems.
Fake News and Post-Truth Impacts: Responses to Conflictive Uncertainty. Attributions of fake news and post-truth are symptoms of uncertainty arising from conflicting information. Little is known about human responses to conflictive uncertainty other than that people find it aversive. This project aims to identify the determinants of human attitudes towards conflictive uncertainty. The aims will be achieved via the development of measures of attitudes toward conflictive uncertainty, and studies i ....Fake News and Post-Truth Impacts: Responses to Conflictive Uncertainty. Attributions of fake news and post-truth are symptoms of uncertainty arising from conflicting information. Little is known about human responses to conflictive uncertainty other than that people find it aversive. This project aims to identify the determinants of human attitudes towards conflictive uncertainty. The aims will be achieved via the development of measures of attitudes toward conflictive uncertainty, and studies identifying the major influences thereof. Expected outcomes include advances in knowledge of how conflictive uncertainty attitudes relate to risk orientations, personality, and situational factors. Anticipated benefits include improved strategies for decision makers and communicators faced with conflictive uncertainty.Read moreRead less
Discovery Early Career Researcher Award - Grant ID: DE180101340
Funder
Australian Research Council
Funding Amount
$362,103.00
Summary
A new state of the art for understanding dynamic self-regulation. This project aims to develop and test a novel mathematical model that explains how people manage competing demands on their time and effort in a dynamic and uncertain environment. The project will use an integrative approach, bringing recent advances in mathematical psychology to bear on a problem of widespread interest within industrial and organisational psychology. The expected outcome is a quantitative theory that achieves a l ....A new state of the art for understanding dynamic self-regulation. This project aims to develop and test a novel mathematical model that explains how people manage competing demands on their time and effort in a dynamic and uncertain environment. The project will use an integrative approach, bringing recent advances in mathematical psychology to bear on a problem of widespread interest within industrial and organisational psychology. The expected outcome is a quantitative theory that achieves a level of precision, generality, and testability that is unmatched in the field. The project will provide the basic research that is needed to extend mathematical models of self-regulation to complex tasks involving rapid decision making.Read moreRead less