Modeling Conditional Dependence of Response Accuracy and Response Time with the Diffusion Item Response Theory Model

Inhan Kang (), Paul Boeck and Roger Ratcliff
Additional contact information
Inhan Kang: The Ohio State University
Paul Boeck: The Ohio State University
Roger Ratcliff: The Ohio State University

Psychometrika, 2022, vol. 87, issue 2, No 13, 725-748

Abstract: Abstract In this paper, we propose a model-based method to study conditional dependence between response accuracy and response time (RT) with the diffusion IRT model (Tuerlinckx and De Boeck in Psychometrika 70(4):629–650, 2005, https://doi.org/10.1007/s11336-000-0810-3 ; van der Maas et al. in Psychol Rev 118(2):339–356, 2011, https://doi.org/10.1080/20445911.2011.454498 ). We extend the earlier diffusion IRT model by introducing variability across persons and items in cognitive capacity (drift rate in the evidence accumulation process) and variability in the starting point of the decision processes. We show that the extended model can explain the behavioral patterns of conditional dependency found in the previous studies in psychometrics. Variability in cognitive capacity can predict positive and negative conditional dependency and their interaction with the item difficulty. Variability in starting point can account for the early changes in the response accuracy as a function of RT given the person and item effects. By the combination of the two variability components, the extended model can produce the curvilinear conditional accuracy functions that have been observed in psychometric data. We also provide a simulation study to validate the parameter recovery of the proposed model and present two empirical applications to show how to implement the model to study conditional dependency underlying data response accuracy and RTs.

Keywords: diffusion IRT model; response time; psychological process; conditional dependency; process modeling (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2022
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (4)

Downloads: (external link)
http://link.springer.com/10.1007/s11336-021-09819-5 Abstract (text/html)
Access to the full text of the articles in this series is restricted.

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:spr:psycho:v:87:y:2022:i:2:d:10.1007_s11336-021-09819-5

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
http://www.springer. ... gy/journal/11336/PS2

DOI: 10.1007/s11336-021-09819-5

Access Statistics for this article

Psychometrika is currently edited by Irini Moustaki

More articles in Psychometrika from Springer, The Psychometric Society
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Sonal Shukla () and Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing ().