Download a brief description of my research program here
Measuring and modeling attention and information acquisition. I am interested in exploring the use of new technologies (i.e. eye-tracking) to reveal processes of attention and information use (i.e. response-tracking) in deliberation. That is, rather than simply examining indvidual’s overt decisions, I feel it is important to understand the underlying processes that give rise to these decisions. We are developing new metrics and analyses for considering these and other “process-tracing” data, as well as new methods for quantitative model comparison using process, choice, and RT data.
Response dynamics in decision making. Mentioned above, an “action dynamics” paradigm in cognitive science explores the development of the response associated with various tasks (cf. Rick Dale, Michael Spivey). Theoretically, this work extends our understanding of behavior by looking beyond the discrete button presses and instead looking at how manipulations can affect thought processes as revealed by the arm or hand in producing the response. This work thus suggests a decidedly “embodied” view of cognition, incorporating true perceptual-cognitive-motor interactions in a systems perspective. Our lab is applying this paradigm to standard decision tasks such as choices among gambles, the Iowa Gambling Task, consumer choices, and more.
Decision making under stress. People are often required to make decisions while being subjected to multiple stressors such as time pressure, performance pressure, or competition for attentional resources from secondary or non-relevant tasks. These circumstances are ubiquitous in both trivial decisions as well as those with significant consequences. This research provides an avenue towards a comprehensive understanding of how different stressors affect decision making by looking at multiple stressors (independently and collectively), how individual differences in working memory interact with different stressors, and the impact of changes in task complexity.
Behavioral interventions and applied domains. An important component of impactful research is to consider real-world applications of the basic scientific content. In decision research, this often takes the form of utilizing “nudges” or choice architecture to produce choices that benefit individual and/or societal welfare. I have offered both graduate and undergraduate seminars where students develop projects for local entities (e.g. dining halls) after introducing relevant concepts from cognitive and social psychology and translational examples from the BSPA and “nudge units” such as the UK’s Behavioural Insights Team. We also have a longstanding collaboration with Prof. Dr. Markus Raab, investigating various aspects of athletes’ decision processes. This research has provided an applied setting for testing the theoretical models we have developed, including a model for how people generate options in real, dynamic situations, and how they select from among them. Finally, our lab has begun adapting our research paradigms to real-world contexts such as using eye- and response-tracking to investigate racial biases in use of force decisions in threatening scenarios.
Presentation and representation of decision options. We have developed a series of experiments to systematically investigate how the representation format of choice options affects subsequent decision behavior. Previous research has distinguished between decisions based on (1) repeated experience with options and their outcomes; (2) explicit presentation of aggregated descriptions of such experiences; and (3) reliance on recalled (aggregated) descriptions. However, these different methods had not been formally manipulated in a single study, as we do. Additionally, we examine process measures and interactions involving several other manipulations.
Modes of thought. In many domains in psychology, a common (and usually controversial) supposition is that there are distinct and qualitatively different modes of thought; in cognitive psychology this suggests different modes of processing information, and decision making researchers have proposed “intuitive” and “analytic” dichotomies for arriving at a decision. We conjecture that a single information sampling model can more parsimoniously describe decision making behavior, and that behavior attributed to “intuitive” or “analytic” processes can arise from specific parameterization of this common model.