Search for: All records

Abstract Retrospective judgments require decision-makers to gather information over time and integrate that information into a summary statistic like the average. Many retrospective judgments require putting equal weight on early and late information, in contrast to prospective judgments that involve predicting the future and so rely more on late information. We investigate how people weight information over time when continuously reporting the average stimulus strength in a sequence of displays. We investigate the consistency of these temporal profiles across perceptual and value-based tasks using both behavior and functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) data. We found that people display remarkably consistent temporal weighting functions across choice domains, with a generally strong recency bias and modest primacy bias. The fMRI data revealed evidence-tracking activity in the cuneus in both tasks and in the left dorsolateral prefrontal cortex in the value-based task. Finally, a network of cognitive control regions is more active for people who exhibit a stronger primacy vs. recency bias. Together, our behavioral findings indicate that people consistently overweight recency when evaluating past information, and the neural data suggest that overcoming this tendency may require cognitive control. 

Abstract Numerous studies have found that selective attention affects category learning. However, previous research did not distinguish between the contribution of focusing and filtering components of selective attention. This study addresses this issue by examining how components of selective attention affect category representation. Participants first learned a rule‐plus‐similarity category structure, and then were presented with category priming followed by categorization and recognition tests. Additionally, to evaluate the involvement of focusing and filtering, we fit models with different attentional mechanisms to the data. In Experiment 1, participants received rule‐based category training, with specific emphasis on a single deterministic feature (D feature). Experiment 2 added a recognition test to examine participants’ memory for features. Both experiments indicated that participants categorized items based solely on the D feature, showed greater memory for the D feature, were primed exclusively by the D feature without interference from probabilistic features (P features), and were better fit by models with focusing and at least one type of filtering mechanism. The results indicated that selective attention distorted category representation by highlighting the D feature and attenuating P features. To examine whether the distorted representation was specific to rule‐based training, Experiment 3 introduced training, emphasizing all features. Under such training, participants were no longer primed by the D feature, they remembered all features well, and they were better fit by the model assuming only focusing but no filtering process. The results coupled with modeling provide novel evidence that while both focusing and filtering contribute to category representation, filtering can also result in representational distortion. 

Evidence-accumulation models (EAMs) are powerful tools for making sense of human and animal decision-making behavior. EAMs have generated significant theoretical advances in psychology, behavioral economics, and cognitive neuroscience and are increasingly used as a measurement tool in clinical research and other applied settings. Obtaining valid and reliable inferences from EAMs depends on knowing how to establish a close match between model assumptions and features of the task/data to which the model is applied. However, this knowledge is rarely articulated in the EAM literature, leaving beginners to rely on the private advice of mentors and colleagues and inefficient trial-and-error learning. In this article, we provide practical guidance for designing tasks appropriate for EAMs, relating experimental manipulations to EAM parameters, planning appropriate sample sizes, and preparing data and conducting an EAM analysis. Our advice is based on prior methodological studies and the our substantial collective experience with EAMs. By encouraging good task-design practices and warning of potential pitfalls, we hope to improve the quality and trustworthiness of future EAM research and applications. 

When making decisions based on probabilistic outcomes, people guide their behavior using knowledge gathered through both indirect descriptions and direct experience. Paradoxically, how people obtain information significantly impacts apparent preferences. A ubiquitous example is the description-experience gap: individuals seemingly overweight low probability events when probabilities are described yet underweight them when probabilities must be experienced firsthand. A leading explanation for this fundamental gap in decision-making is that probabilities are weighted differently when learned through description relative to experience, yet a formal theoretical account of the mechanism responsible for such weighting differences remains elusive. We demonstrate how various learning and memory retention models incorporating neuroscientifically motivated learning mechanisms can explain why probability weighting and valuation parameters often are found to vary across description and experience. In a simulation study, we show how learning through experience can lead to systematically biased estimates of probability weighting when using a traditional cumulative prospect theory model. We then use hierarchical Bayesian modeling and Bayesian model comparison to show how various learning and memory retention models capture participants’ behavior over and above changes in outcome valuation and probability weighting, accounting for description and experience-based decisions in a within-subject experiment. We conclude with a discussion of how substantive models of psychological processes can lead to insights that heuristic statistical models fail to capture. 

Evidence accumulation models (EAMs) are powerful tools for making sense of human and animal decision-making behaviour. EAMs have generated significant theoretical advances in psychology, behavioural economics, and cognitive neuroscience, and are increasingly used as a measurement tool in clinical research and other applied settings. Obtaining valid and reliable inferences from EAMs depends on knowing how to establish a close match between model assumptions and features of the task/data to which the model is applied. However, this knowledge is rarely articulated in the EAM literature, leaving beginners to rely on the private advice of mentors and colleagues, and on inefficient trial-and-error learning. In this article, we provide practical guidance for designing tasks appropriate for EAMs, for relating experimental manipulations to EAM parameters, for planning appropriate sample sizes, and for preparing data and conducting an EAM analysis. Our advice is based on prior methodological studies and the authors’ substantial collective experience with EAMs. By encouraging good task design practices, and warning of potential pitfalls, we hope to improve the quality and trustworthiness of future EAM research and applications.