What cognitive processes drive response biases? A diffusion model analysis

Fábio P. Leite and Roger Ratcliff

Judgment and Decision Making, 2011, vol. 6, issue 7, 651-687

Abstract: We used a diffusion model to examine the effects of response-bias manipulations on response time (RT) and accuracy data collected in two experiments involving a two-choice decision making task. We asked 18 subjects to respond “low” or “high” to the number of asterisks in a 10×10 grid, based on an experimenter-determined decision cutoff. In the model, evidence is accumulated until either a “low” or “high” decision criterion is reached, and this, in turn, initiates a response. We performed two experiments with four experimental conditions. In conditions 1 and 2, the decision cutoff between low and high judgments was fixed at 50. In condition 1, we manipulated the frequency with which low- and high-stimuli were presented. In condition 2, we used payoff structures that mimicked the frequency manipulation. We found that manipulating stimulus frequency resulted in a larger effect on RT and accuracy than did manipulating payoff structure. In the model, we found that manipulating stimulus frequency produced greater changes in the starting point of the evidence accumulation process than did manipulating payoff structure. In conditions 3 and 4, we set the decision cutoff at 40, 50, or 60 (Experiment 1) and at 45 or 55 (Experiment 2). In condition 3, there was an equal number of low- and high-stimuli, whereas in condition 4 there were unequal proportions of low- and high-stimuli. The model analyses showed that starting-point changes accounted for biases produced by changes in stimulus proportions, whereas evidence biases accounted for changes in the decision cutoff.

Date: 2011
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.cambridge.org/core/product/identifier/ ... type/journal_article link to article abstract page (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:cup:judgdm:v:6:y:2011:i:7:p:651-687_7

Access Statistics for this article

More articles in Judgment and Decision Making from Cambridge University Press Cambridge University Press, UPH, Shaftesbury Road, Cambridge CB2 8BS UK.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Kirk Stebbing ().