In this postscript the authors summarize where Sun, Tweney, and Wang (see record 2010-06891-015) now agree with their original analysis and where differences of opinion remain. Sun et al.'s (see record 2010-06891-018) postscript contrasted two positions, one emphasizing the "limited and finite nature of people's experience" and one emphasizing the…

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…

This article develops a parsimonious descriptive model of individual choice and valuation in the kinds of experiments that constitute a substantial part of the literature relating to decision making under risk and uncertainty. It suggests that many of the best known "regularities" observed in those experiments may arise from a tendency for…

Signal detection theory (SDT) makes the frequently challenged assumption that decision criteria have no variance. An extended model, the Law of Categorical Judgment, relaxes this assumption. The long accepted equation for the law, however, is flawed: It can generate negative probabilities. The correct equation, the Law of Categorical Judgment…

A wealth of empirical evidence has now accumulated concerning animals' categorizing photographs of real-world objects. Although these complex stimuli have the advantage of fostering rapid category learning, they are difficult to manipulate experimentally and to represent in formal models of behavior. We present a solution to the representation…

Following G. T. Fechner (1966), thresholds have been conceptualized as the amount of intensity needed to transition between mental states, such as between a states of unconsciousness and consciousness. With the advent of the theory of signal detection, however, discrete-state theory and the corresponding notion of threshold have been discounted.…

The authors propose a simple behavioral economic model (BEM) describing how reinforcement and interval timing interact. The model assumes a Weber-law-compliant logarithmic representation of time. Associated with each represented time value are the payoffs that have been obtained for each possible response. At a given real time, the response with…

Reports an error in "Finding Useful Questions: On Bayesian Diagnosticity, Probability, Impact, and Information Gain" by Jonathan D. Nelson (Psychological Review, 2005[Oct], Vol 112[4], 979-999). In Table 13, the data should indicate that 7% of females had short hair and 93% of females had long hair. The calculations and discussion in the article…

It is suggested that theorists may develop both independence and exclusivity forms of multiple-process models, allowing choice between them to be made on empirical rather than a priori grounds. This theoretical approach is adopted in the specific case of memory retrival (Author/LMO)

A scheme is described for locally Bayesian parameter updating in models structured as successions of component functions. The essential idea is to back-propagate the target data to interior modules, such that an interior component's target is the input to the next component that maximizes the probability of the next component's target. Each layer…

The relationship between luminance (i.e., the photometric intensity of light) and its perception (i.e., sensations of lightness or brightness) has long been a puzzle. In addition to the mystery of why these perceptual qualities do not scale with luminance in any simple way, "illusions" such as simultaneous brightness contrast, Mach bands,…

Analysis of binary choice behavior in iterated tasks with immediate feedback reveals robust deviations from maximization that can be described as indications of 3 effects: (a) a payoff variability effect, in which high payoff variability seems to move choice behavior toward random choice; (b) underweighting of rare events, in which alternatives…

Individuals are typically more likely to continue to interact with people if they have a positive impression of them. This article shows how this sequential sampling feature of impression formation can explain several biases in impression formation. The underlying mechanism is the sample bias generated when the probability of interaction depends…

This article models the cognitive processes underlying learning and sequential choice in a risk-taking task for the purposes of understanding how they occur in this moderately complex environment and how behavior in it relates to self-reported real-world risk taking. The best stochastic model assumes that participants incorrectly treat outcome…

Bernoulli's framework of expected utility serves as a model for various psychological processes, including motivation, moral sense, attitudes, and decision making. To account for evidence at variance with expected utility, the authors generalize the framework of fast and frugal heuristics from inferences to preferences. The priority heuristic…