Lecture by Joseph MacInnes “Diffusion models of reaction time data”

Joseph MacInnes - Assistant Professor at the School of Psychology, HSE

On Thursday, June 16 Joseph MacInnes held a seminar “Diffusion models of reaction time data”.
Lecture abstract: Diffusion models suggest that responses in perceptual tasks can be understood as a build-up of information to reach the appropriate response criterion.  A number of variations in details exist but they share the idea of modelling perceptual decisions as an accumulation of evidence.  These accumulators have been shown successful in modelling decision tasks single choice reaction time tasks and can also play a role in models of visual search. Not only do diffusion models accurately generate the typical skewed distributions of correct and incorrect reaction times found in perceptual tasks, but the accumulation process itself maps well onto observed activation in the Superior Colliculus, Frontal Eye Fields and the lateral intraparietal area (LIP). Lecterer presented a number of diffusion models used in recent studies as well as a new temporal onset diffusion model that incorporates multiple temporal signals.