How do people monitor the correctness of their answers? A self-consistency model is proposed for the process underlying confidence judgments and their accuracy. In answering a 2-alternative question, participants are assumed to retrieve a sample of representations of the question and base their confidence on the consistency with which the chosen…

In "Assessing the Belief Bias Effect With ROCs: It's a Response Bias Effect," Dube, Rotello, and Heit (2010) examined the form of receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curves for reasoning and the effects of belief bias on measurement indices that differ in whether they imply a curved or linear ROC function. We concluded that the ROC…

We present a signal detection-like model termed the stochastic detection and retrieval model (SDRM) for use in studying metacognition. Focusing on paradigms that relate retrieval (e.g., recall or recognition) and confidence judgments, the SDRM measures (1) variance in the retrieval process, (2) variance in the confidence process, (3) the extent to…

How can humans acquire relational representations that enable analogical inference and other forms of high-level reasoning? Using comparative relations as a model domain, we explore the possibility that bottom-up learning mechanisms applied to objects coded as feature vectors can yield representations of relations sufficient to solve analogy…

The dual-stage two-phase (DSTP) model is introduced as a formal and general model of selective attention that includes both an early and a late stage of stimulus selection. Whereas at the early stage information is selected by perceptual filters whose selectivity is relatively limited, at the late stage stimuli are selected more efficiently on a…

This article analyzes latent variable models from a cognitive psychology perspective. We start by discussing work by Tuerlinckx and De Boeck (2005), who proved that a diffusion model for 2-choice response processes entails a 2-parameter logistic item response theory (IRT) model for individual differences in the response data. Following this line…

The 3 most often-used performance measures in the cognitive and decision sciences are choice, response or decision time, and confidence. We develop a random walk/diffusion theory--2-stage dynamic signal detection (2DSD) theory--that accounts for all 3 measures using a common underlying process. The model uses a drift diffusion process to account…

The authors present 3 decision-tree models of categorization adapted from T. Trabasso, H. Rollins, and E. Shaughnessy (1971) and use them to provide a quantitative account of categorization response times, choice proportions, and typicality judgments at the individual-participant level. In Experiment 1, the decision-tree models were fit to…

Visual word identification requires readers to code the identity and order of the letters in a word and match this code against previously learned codes. Current models of this lexical matching process posit context-specific letter codes in which letter representations are tied to either specific serial positions or specific local contexts (e.g.,…

What is the root cause of word frequency effects on lexical decision times? W. S. Murray and K. I. Forster (2004) argued that such effects are linear in rank frequency, consistent with a serial search model of lexical access. In this article, the authors (a) describe a method of testing models of such effects that takes into account the…

Trial-to-trial variation in word-pronunciation times exhibits 1/f scaling. One explanation is that human performances are consequent on multiplicative interactions among interdependent processes-interaction dominant dynamics. This article describes simulated distributions of pronunciation times in a further test for multiplicative interactions and…

During the last 25 years, prospect theory and its successor, cumulative prospect theory, replaced expected utility as the dominant descriptive theories of risky decision making. Although these models account for the original Allais paradoxes, 11 new paradoxes show where prospect theories lead to self-contradiction or systematic false predictions.…

In our comment on Wixted, we argued that most of the concerns he initially raised reflect misconceptions about the dual-process signal-detection (DPSD) model's underlying assumptions (e.g., threshold recollection can, in fact, be graded, and no task or population is expected to provide process-pure measures). Wixted's response does not directly…

E. Brandstatter, G. Gigerenzer, and R. Hertwig (2006) contended that their priority heuristic, a type of lexicographic semiorder model, is more accurate than cumulative prospect theory (CPT) or transfer of attention exchange (TAX) models in describing risky decisions. However, there are 4 problems with their argument. First, their heuristic is not…

The authors identify 2 major types of statistical data from which semantic representations can be learned. These are denoted as "experiential data" and "distributional data". Experiential data are derived by way of experience with the physical world and comprise the sensory-motor data obtained through sense receptors. Distributional data, by…