Modeling competitions are a promising method for advancing psychological science. In this commentary to Erev et al. (Psychological Review, 2017, 124, p. 369), we highlight how this promise could be enhanced through modifying competition structures to produce insights more directly in line with the goals of promoting psychological knowledge. We argue that a single criterion on which models is compared

Ratcliff, Voskuilen, and McKoon (2018) presented data and model-based analyses that provided strong evidence for across-trial variability in evidence entering the decision process in several perceptual tasks. They did this using a double-pass procedure in which exactly the same stimuli are presented on two widely-separated trials. If there were only random variability (i.e., the first and second presentations

We present a unified model of the dynamics of goal-directed motivation and decision-making. The model-referred to as the GOAL architecture-provides a quantitative framework for integrating theories of goal pursuit and for relating their predictions to different types of data. The GOAL architecture proposes that motivation changes over time according to three gradients that capture the effects of the

When making decisions, animals must trade off the benefits of information harvesting against the opportunity cost of prolonged deliberation. Deciding when to stop accumulating information and commit to a choice is challenging in natural environments, where the reliability of decision-relevant information may itself vary unpredictably over time (variable variance or "heteroscedasticity"). We asked humans

Several measurement models have been proposed for data from the continuous-reproduction paradigm for studying visual working memory (WM): The original mixture model (Zhang & Luck, 2008) and its extension (Bays et al., 2009); the interference measurement model (IMM; Oberauer et al., 2017), and the target confusability competition (TCC) model (Schurgin et al., 2020). This article describes a space of

From the beginning of research on serial memory, chaining theories and position coding theories have been pitted against each other. The central question is whether items are associated with each other or with a set of position codes that are independent of the items. Around the turn of this century, the debate focused on serial recall tasks and patterns of error data that chaining models could not

Many comparisons involve sequentially presented stimuli, as perforce the case in comparisons of temporal intervals. Interactions of such stimuli are as inevitable as the spatial interactions that yield color and brightness contrast. A memory-trace theory of perception (TToP) is developed and applied to time perception. Duration is estimated based on the memorial strength of the stimuli that signal

We present a theory of how people reason about properties. Such inferences have been studied since Aristotle's invention of Western logic. But, no previous psychological theory gives an adequate account of them, and most theories do not go beyond syllogistic inferences, such as: All the bankers are architects; Some of the chefs are bankers; What follows? The present theory postulates that such assertions

We introduce the Category Abstraction Learning (CAL) model, a cognitive framework formally describing category learning built on similarity-based generalization, dissimilarity-based abstraction, two attention learning mechanisms, error-driven knowledge structuring, and stimulus memorization. Our hypotheses draw on an array of empirical and theoretical insights connecting reinforcement and category

Much categorization behavior can be explained by family resemblance: New items are classified by comparison with previously learned exemplars. However, categorization behavior also shows a variety of dimensional biases, where the underlying space has so-called "separable" dimensions: Ease of learning categories depends on how the stimuli align with the separable dimensions of the space. For example

Mood is an integrative and diffuse affective state that is thought to exert a pervasive effect on cognition and behavior. At the same time, mood itself is thought to fluctuate slowly as a product of feedback from interactions with the environment. Here we present a new computational theory of the valence of mood-the Integrated Advantage model-that seeks to account for this bidirectional interaction

Belief in beings without physical bodies is prevalent in present and past religions, from all-powerful gods to demonic spirits to guardian angels to immortal souls. Many scholars have explained this prevalence by a quirk in how we conceptualize persons, intuitively representing their minds as separable from their bodies. Infants have both a folk psychology (for representing the mental states of intentional

To make informed decisions in natural environments that change over time, humans must update their beliefs as new observations are gathered. Studies exploring human inference as a dynamical process that unfolds in time have focused on situations in which the statistics of observations are history-independent. Yet, temporal structure is everywhere in nature and yields history-dependent observations

The theory of mental accounting is often used to understand how people evaluate multiple outcomes or events. However, a model predicting which outcomes are associated with the same mental account and evaluated jointly, versus different accounts and evaluated separately, has remained elusive. We develop a framework that incorporates an online, bottom-up process of similarity and categorization into

Information stored in memory influences the formation of preferences and beliefs in most everyday decision tasks. The richness of this information, and the complexity inherent in interacting memory and decision processes, makes the quantitative model-driven analysis of such decisions very difficult. In this article we present a general framework that can address the theoretical and methodological barriers

Recent experiments reveal that 6- to 12-month-old infants can learn probabilities and reason with them. In this work, we present a novel computational system called Neural Probability Learner and Sampler (NPLS) that learns and reasons with probabilities, providing a computationally sufficient mechanism to explain infant probabilistic learning and inference. In 24 computer simulations, NPLS shows how

Infants, children, and adults have been shown to track co-occurrence across ambiguous naming situations to infer the referents of new words. The extensive literature on this cross-situational word learning (CSWL) ability has produced support for two theoretical accounts-associative learning (AL) and hypothesis testing (HT)-but no comprehensive model of the behavior. We propose Word-Object Learning

Diffusion models of evidence accumulation have successfully accounted for the distributions of response times and choice probabilities from many experimental tasks, but recently their assumption that evidence is accumulated at a constant rate to constant decision boundaries has been challenged. One model assumes that decision-makers seek to optimize their performance by using decision boundaries that

Motor control is a fundamental process that underlies all voluntary behavioral responses. Several different theories based on different principles (task dynamics, equilibrium-point theory, passive-motion paradigm, active inference, optimal control) account for specific aspects of how actions are produced, but fail to provide a unified view on this problem. Here, we propose a concise theory of motor

Psychological science has typically conceptualized a good life in terms of either hedonic or eudaimonic well-being. We propose that psychological richness is another, neglected aspect of what people consider a good life. Unlike happy or meaningful lives, psychologically rich lives are best characterized by a variety of interesting and perspective-changing experiences. We present empirical evidence

In the first year of life, infants' word learning is slow, laborious, and requires repeated exposure to word-referent co-occurrences. In contrast, by 14-18 months, infants learn words from just a few labeling events, use joint attention and eye gaze to decipher word meaning, and begin to use speech to communicate about absent things. We propose that this remarkable advancement in word learning results

Nonlinear probability weighting allows cumulative prospect theory (CPT) to account for key phenomena in decision making under risk (e.g., certainty effect, fourfold pattern of risk attitudes). It describes the impact of risky outcomes on preferences in terms of a rank-dependent nonlinear transformation of their objective probabilities. The attentional Drift Diffusion Model (aDDM) formalizes the finding

Across a broad range of stimulus types and tasks (16 stimulus types × 26 tasks, 1,744 observers in total), the present study employed an individual-item differences analysis to extract the factors of visual-attentional processing. Three orthogonal factors were identified and they can be summarized as an FVS 2.0 framework: featural, visual, and spatial strengths. Apart from one exception (low-level

Perceptual confidence is an evaluation of the validity of our perceptual decisions. We present here a complete generative model that describes how confidence judgments result from some confidence evidence. The model that generates confidence evidence has two main parameters, confidence noise and confidence boost. Confidence noise reduces the sensitivity to the confidence evidence, and confidence boost

People often take nondiagnostic information into account when revising their beliefs. A probability judgment decreases due to nondiagnostic information represents the well-established "dilution effect" observed in many domains. Surprisingly, the opposite of the dilution effect called the "confirmation effect" has also been observed frequently. The present work provides a unified cognitive model that

Debates concerning social learning in the behavioral and the developmental cognitive sciences have largely ignored the literature on social influence in the affective sciences despite having arguably the same object of study. We argue that this is a mistake and that no complete model of social learning can exclude an affective aspect. In addition, we argue that including affect can advance the somewhat

We propose a novel modeling framework for characterizing the time course of change detection based on information held in visual short-term memory (VSTM). Specifically, we seek to answer whether change detection is better captured by a first-order integration model, in which information is pooled from each location, or a second-order integration model, in which each location is processed independently

Contemporary models of categorization typically tend to sidestep the problem of how information is initially encoded during decision making. Instead, a focus of this work has been to investigate how, through selective attention, stimulus representations are "contorted" such that behaviorally relevant dimensions are accentuated (or "stretched"), and the representations of irrelevant dimensions are ignored

Repetition appears to be part of error correction and action preparation in all domains that involve producing an action sequence. The present work contends that the ubiquity of repetition is due to its role in resolving a problem inherent to planning and retrieval of action sequences: the Problem of Retrieval. Repetitions occur when the production to perform next is not activated enough to be executed

In a sequence of otherwise equal sounds, listeners tend to hear a series of trochees (groups of two sounds with an initial beat) when every other sound is louder; they tend to hear a series of iambs (groups of two sounds with a final beat) when every other sound is longer. The article presents evidence that this so-called "Iambic-Trochaic Law" (ITL) is a consequence of the way listeners parse the signal

In both space and time, proximity plays an important role in the formation of perceived groups, objects, and scenes. Proximity is especially critical in the temporal domain where there are constraints-pauses or delays between neighboring events, that when of sufficient size, defeat the grouping processes that underlay temporal integration. A framework is developed where temporal proximity constraints

Computational modeling of cognition allows latent psychological variables to be measured by means of adjustable model parameters. The estimation and interpretation of the parameters are impaired, however, if parameters are strongly intercorrelated within the model. We point out that strong parameter interdependencies are especially likely to emerge in models that combine a subjective value function

Deaf and hard of hearing (DHH) children who are not exposed to fluent sign language from birth generally fall behind their hearing peers in mathematics. These disparities are pervasive and emerge as young as 3 years old and continue throughout adulthood. While these limitations have been well-documented, there has been little attempt to empirically explain why one consequence of deafness seems to reflect

It is popular in psychology to hypothesize that representations of exact number are innately determined-in particular, that biology has endowed humans with a system for manipulating quantities which forms the primary representational substrate for our numerical and mathematical concepts. While this perspective has been important for advancing empirical work in animal and child cognition, here we examine

Signal detection theory (SDT) plays a central role in the characterization of human judgments in a wide range of domains, most prominently in recognition memory. But despite its success, many of its fundamental properties are often misunderstood, especially when it comes to its testability. The present work examines five main properties that are characteristic of existing SDT models of recognition

How do people make causal judgments about physical events? We introduce the counterfactual simulation model (CSM) which predicts causal judgments in physical settings by comparing what actually happened with what would have happened in relevant counterfactual situations. The CSM postulates different aspects of causation that capture the extent to which a cause made a difference to whether and how the

Recently developed models of decision-making have provided accounts of the cognitive processes underlying choice on tasks where responses can fall along a continuum, such as identifying the color or orientation of a stimulus. Even though nearly all of these models seek to extend diffusion decision processes to a continuum of response options, they vary in terms of complexity, tractability, and their

We advance a novel computational model that characterizes formally the ways we perceive or misperceive bodily symptoms, in the context of panic attacks. The computational model is grounded within the formal framework of Active Inference, which considers top-down prediction and attention dynamics as key to perceptual inference and action selection. In a series of simulations, we use the computational

Secrecy is a common and consequential human experience, and yet the literature lacks an integrative theoretical model that captures this broad experience. Whereas initial research focused on concealment (an action a person may take to keep a secret), recent literature documents the broader experience of having a secret. For instance, even if a secret is not being concealed in the moment, one's mind

We present an agent-based model for studying the societal implications of attitude change theories. Various psychological theories of persuasive communication at the individual level are implemented as simulation experiments. The model allows us to investigate the effects of contagion and assimilation, motivated cognition, polarity, source credibility, and idiosyncratic attitude formation. Simulations

Describing, analyzing, and explaining patterns in eye movement behavior is crucial for understanding visual perception. Further, eye movements are increasingly used in informing cognitive process models. In this article, we start by reviewing basic characteristics and desiderata for models of eye movements. Specifically, we argue that there is a need for models combining spatial and temporal aspects

The dual-basis theory of metamemory suggests that people evaluate their memory performance based on both processing experience during the memory process and their prior beliefs about overall memory ability. However, few studies have proposed a formal computational model to quantitatively characterize how processing experience and prior beliefs are integrated during metamemory monitoring. Here, we introduce

Where do we "go" when we recollect our past? When remembering a past event, it is intuitive to imagine some part of ourselves mentally "jumping back in time" to when the event occurred. I propose an alternative view, inspired by recent evidence from my lab and others, as well as by reexamining existing models of episodic recall that suggests that this notion of mentally revisiting any specific moment

Humans use prior knowledge to efficiently solve novel tasks, but how they structure past knowledge during learning to enable such fast generalization is not well understood. We recently proposed that hierarchical state abstraction enabled generalization of simple one-step rules, by inferring context clusters for each rule. However, humans' daily tasks are often temporally extended, and necessitate

The dynamics of decision-making have been widely studied over the past several decades through the lens of an overarching theory called sequential sampling theory (SST). Within SST, choices are represented as accumulators, each of which races toward a decision boundary by drawing stochastic samples of evidence through time. Although progress has been made in understanding how decisions are made within

In eye-movement control during reading, advanced process-oriented models have been developed to reproduce behavioral data. So far, model complexity and large numbers of model parameters prevented rigorous statistical inference and modeling of interindividual differences. Here we propose a Bayesian approach to both problems for one representative computational model of sentence reading (SWIFT; Engbert

The term "Weber-Fechner law" is arguably the most widely used misnomer in psychological science. The unification reflects a failure to appreciate the logical independence and disparate implications of Weber's law and Fechner's law as well as some closely aligned ones. The present statement, long overdue, is meant to rectify this situation. I discuss the roots and derivations of the relevant laws, eschewing

Dual-process models of cognition distinguish relatively automatic from relatively controlled processes in terms of their interactive impact on perception, judgment, and behavior. Such models have advanced explanation and prediction in a variety of domains across psychology but have yet to be comprehensively applied to the pressing societal and public health problem of suicide. We propose a model of

Dual-process models of cognition distinguish relatively automatic from relatively controlled processes in terms of their interactive impact on perception, judgment, and behavior. Such models have advanced explanation and prediction in a variety of domains across psychology but have yet to be comprehensively applied to the pressing societal and public health problem of suicide. We propose a model of

Until recently, a commonly held view was that blindness resulted in enhanced auditory abilities, underpinned by the beneficial effects of cross-modal neuroplasticity. This viewpoint has been challenged by studies showing that blindness results in poorer performance for some auditory spatial tasks. It is now clear that visual loss does not result in a general increase or decrease in all auditory abilities

Until recently, a commonly held view was that blindness resulted in enhanced auditory abilities, underpinned by the beneficial effects of cross-modal neuroplasticity. This viewpoint has been challenged by studies showing that blindness results in poorer performance for some auditory spatial tasks. It is now clear that visual loss does not result in a general increase or decrease in all auditory abilities

According to the textbooks, blindsight is a neuropsychological condition characterized by preserved capacities for voluntary visual discrimination unaccompanied by visual awareness. So construed, blindsight precipitated a revolution in theorizing consciousness. In Phillips (Psychological Review, 2021), I argued that the textbooks are wrong and the revolution ill-founded. Blindsight is exclusively a

Phillips argues that blindsight is due to response criterion artifacts under degraded conscious vision. His view provides alternative explanations for some studies, but may not work well when one considers several key findings in conjunction. Empirically, not all criterion effects are decidedly nonperceptual. Awareness is not completely abolished for some stimuli, in some patients. But in other cases

Phillips argues that blindsight is due to response criterion artifacts under degraded conscious vision. His view provides alternative explanations for some studies, but may not work well when one considers several key findings in conjunction. Empirically, not all criterion effects are decidedly nonperceptual. Awareness is not completely abolished for some stimuli, in some patients. But in other cases

We are able to compare intensities across different sorts of stimuli, like in matching the brightness of visual stimuli of different hue, or the loudness of auditory stimuli of different spectral shapes. We can even match the brightness of a visual stimulus to the loudness of a tone, and vice versa. The term cross-dimensional matching is used to subsume these kinds of intra- and cross-modal tasks.

We are able to compare intensities across different sorts of stimuli, like in matching the brightness of visual stimuli of different hue, or the loudness of auditory stimuli of different spectral shapes. We can even match the brightness of a visual stimulus to the loudness of a tone, and vice versa. The term cross-dimensional matching is used to subsume these kinds of intra- and cross-modal tasks.

This article tests the conjecture that memory retrieval is attention turned inward by developing an episodic flanker task that is analogous to the well-known perceptual flanker task and by developing models of the spotlight of attention focused on a memory list. Participants were presented with a list to remember (ABCDEF) followed by a probe in which one letter was cued (# # C # # #). The task was

This article tests the conjecture that memory retrieval is attention turned inward by developing an episodic flanker task that is analogous to the well-known perceptual flanker task and by developing models of the spotlight of attention focused on a memory list. Participants were presented with a list to remember (ABCDEF) followed by a probe in which one letter was cued (# # C # # #). The task was

Memory limitations are known to constrain language comprehension and production, and have been argued to account for crosslinguistic word order regularities. However, a systematic assessment of the role of memory limitations in language structure has proven elusive, in part because it is hard to extract precise large-scale quantitative generalizations about language from existing mechanistic models

The language production system continually learns. The system adapts to recent experiences while also reflecting the experience accumulated over the lifetime. This article presents a theory that explains how speakers implicitly learn novel phonotactic patterns as they produce syllables. The learning is revealed in their speech errors. For example, if speakers produce syllable strings in which the consonant