Multi-stage decision model: Further developments and empirical tests
Final Report Abstract
The project focuses on further developing the multi-stage decision model and testing its predictions in binary choice situations. The underlying processes for each stage are stochastic processes, in particular, the Wiener process and the Ornstein-Uhlenbeck process. Both processes have been developed in physics/mathematics but enjoy high popularity in psychology and neuroscience to simultaneously account for choice responses (choice probabilities and choice response times). The multi-stage decision models include a) different attention-time distributions (i.e. how long the decision maker spent thinking about one attribute before switching to the next attribute); b) attribute orders (i.e in which order the decision makers considers the attributes; c) finite and infinite time horizon (i.e. is the time in which the decision maker has to make a decision limited or not (no answer is made until then); d) fixed and variables boundaries (i.e. the decision criterion is fixed and constant throughout the trials or not e.g. declining as time goes on. The models have been implemented to allow for estimating the entire distribution with the nondecision time conceived as random variable as well. Their quasi-closed form allows for estimating the parameters with maximum-likelihood estimations. Furthermore, the model has been successfully used as a framework for dual process models and tested in risky choice settings. The empirical part of this project experimentally tests the multi-stage model in discrimination and choice paradigms. To create and collect data with dynamic stimuli was far more difficult than anticipated.
Publications
- (2016). A Multistage Attention-Switching Model account for payoff effects on perceptual decision tasks with manipulated processing order. Decision, 3, 2, 81-114
Diederich, A.
(See online at https://doi.apa.org/doi/10.1037/dec0000041) - (2016). Multi-stage sequential sampling models with finite or infinite time horizon and variable boundaries. Journal of Mathematical Psychology, 74, 128–145
Diederich, A. & Oswald, P.
(See online at https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jmp.2016.02.010) - (2018). Multisensory perception reflects individual differences in processing temporal correlations. Scientific Reports
Nidiffer, A.R., Diederich, A., Ramachandran, R., & Wallace, M.T.
(See online at https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-018-32673-y) - (2019) A Dynamic Dual Process Model of Intertemporal Choice. Spanish Journal of Psychology, 22, e54, 1–13
Diederich, A., & Zhao, W.J.
(See online at https://doi.org/10.1017/sjp.2019.53)
