A fundamental issue in the design and the interpretation of experimental studies of perception relates to the question of whether the participants in these experiments could perform the perceptual task assigned to them using another feature, or cue, than that intended by the experimenter. An approach frequently used by auditory- and…

Birnbaum raised important challenges to testing transitivity. We summarize why an approach based on counting response patterns does not solve these challenges. Foremost, we show why parsimonious tests of transitivity require at least 5 choice alternatives. While the approach of Regenwetter, Dana, and Davis-Stober achieves high power with modest…

[Correction Notice: An erratum for this article was reported in Vol 119(2) of Psychological Review (see record 2012-06153-001). In the article, incorrect versions of figures 3 and 6 were included. Also, Table 8 should have included the following information in the table footnote "P(A V) = probability of acquittal given unanimous verdict." All…

The present study proposes and examines the multidimensional vector (MDV) model framework as a modeling schema for choice response times. MDV extends the Thurstonian model, as well as signal detection theory, to classification tasks by taking into account the influence of response properties on stimulus discrimination. It is capable of accounting…

In decisions from experience, there are 2 experimental paradigms: sampling and repeated-choice. In the sampling paradigm, participants sample between 2 options as many times as they want (i.e., the stopping point is variable), observe the outcome with no real consequences each time, and finally select 1 of the 2 options that cause them to earn or…

Signal detection theory forms the core of many current models of cognition, including memory, choice, and categorization. However, the classic signal detection model presumes the a priori existence of fixed stimulus representations--usually Gaussian distributions--even when the observer has no experience with the task. Furthermore, the classic…

The current authors reply to a response by Bowers on a comment by the current authors on the original article. A typical problem in any discussion about grandmother cells is that there is not a general consensus about what should be called as such. Here, we discuss possible interpretations in turn and contrast them with what we find in our own…

A long tradition of psychological research has lamented the systematic errors and biases in people's perception of the characteristics of sequences generated by a random mechanism such as a coin toss. It is proposed that once the likely nature of people's actual experience of such processes is taken into account, these "errors" and "biases"…

The author briefly responds to a number of terminological, theoretical, and empirical issues raised in some postscripts. The goal is not to respond to each outstanding point but rather to address some comments that in his view confuse rather than clarify matters. He responds to Plaut and McClelland and Quian Quiroga and Kreiman in turn.

Jans, Peters, and De Weerd (2010) examined the studies demonstrating that spatial attention can be split across 2 noncontiguous target locations. They find all these studies to be flawed and conclude that spatial attention only selects a single location at any given time. They do, however, suggest that there could be exceptional circumstances that…

Plaut and McClelland (2010) and Quian Quiroga and Kreiman both challenged my characterization of localist and distributed representations. They also challenged the biological plausibility of grandmother cells on conceptual and empirical grounds. This reply addresses these issues in turn. The premise of my argument is that grandmother cells in…

Reading is a highly complex task involving a precise integration of vision, attention, saccadic eye movements, and high-level language processing. Although there is a long history of psychological research in reading, it is only recently that imaging studies have identified some neural correlates of reading. Thus, the underlying neural mechanisms…

We formalize and provide tests of a set of logical-rule models for predicting perceptual classification response times (RTs) and choice probabilities. The models are developed by synthesizing mental-architecture, random-walk, and decision-bound approaches. According to the models, people make independent decisions about the locations of stimuli…

A belief bias effect in syllogistic reasoning (Evans, Barston, & Pollard, 1983) is observed when subjects accept more valid than invalid arguments and more believable than unbelievable conclusions and show greater overall accuracy in judging arguments with unbelievable conclusions. The effect is measured with a contrast of contrasts, comparing…

Research has shown that animals and humans habituate on a variety of behavioral and physiological responses to repeated presentations of food cues, and habituation is related to amount of food consumed and cessation of eating. The purpose of this article is to provide an overview of experimental paradigms used to study habituation, integrate a…