Models of Decision Making

Weighting or besting? Speeded multi-attribute choice

The last few weeks, I’ve been very busy with the logistics of organizing a mid-size conference that will be held this summer.  Some of the decisions, like the city and the approximate timing, have been made for me, but I’ve had to choose between competing hotels, make a schedule with talks, workshops, symposia, keynotes, breaks, […]

Continue Reading

Shrinking boundaries during sequences of sequential sampling

It’s hot, very hot. And you are traipsing through the jungles of Sumatra in pursuit of that final bilingual participant who is as conversant in Minangkabau as she is in English. You need to test her in your lexical decision task to fulfil the sample size requirements of your OSF preregistration. You nervously scan the […]

Continue Reading

Bringing a friend along for the ride: Why are we slower to respond when we’re talking to someone else while driving?

A computational model of mental processing speed in drivers who are holding a conversation suggests that having a passenger in the car is not a distraction, but it does make us more cautious and slower to make decisions. A reality of living in much of the United States and many other parts of the world […]

Continue Reading

When EZ does it: Simpler models are sometimes better than their complex cousins

You are in the cognitive laboratory to participate in an experiment.  A tight cluster of 300 lines at various orientations is projected onto the screen in front of you. Are they predominantly tilted to the left or to the right? The experimenter has instructed you to respond as quickly as possible by pressing one of […]

Continue Reading