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Full-Text Articles in Social and Behavioral Sciences

Statistical Analyses Of The Resilience Function, Joseph W. Houpt, Daniel R. Little Jan 2016

Statistical Analyses Of The Resilience Function, Joseph W. Houpt, Daniel R. Little

Psychology Faculty Publications

The extent to which distracting information influences decisions can be informative about the nature of the underlying cognitive and perceptual processes. In a recent paper, a response time-based measure for quantifying the degree of interference (or facilitation) from distracting information termed resilience was introduced. Despite using a statistical measure, the analysis was limited to qualitative comparisons between different model predictions. In this paper, we demonstrate how statistical procedures from workload capacity analysis can be applied to the new resilience functions. In particular, we present an approach to null-hypothesis testing of resilience functions and a method based on functional principal components …


Faster Than The Speed Of Rejection: Object Identification Processes During Visual Search For Multiple Targets, Hayward J. Godwin, Stephen Walenchok, Joseph W. Houpt, Michael C. Hout, Stephen D. Goldinger Jan 2015

Faster Than The Speed Of Rejection: Object Identification Processes During Visual Search For Multiple Targets, Hayward J. Godwin, Stephen Walenchok, Joseph W. Houpt, Michael C. Hout, Stephen D. Goldinger

Joseph W. Houpt

When engaged in a visual search for two targets, participants are slower and less accurate in their responses, relative to their performance when searching for singular targets. Previous work on this “dual-target cost” has primarily focused on the breakdown of attention guidance when looking for two items. Here, we investigated how object identification processes are affected by dual-target search. Our goal was to chart the speed at which distractors could be rejected, in order to assess whether dual-target search impairs object identification. To do so, we examined the capacity coefficient, which measures the speed at which decisions can be made, …


Can Two Dots Form A Gestalt? Measuring Emergent Features With The Capacity Coefficient, Robert X.D. Hawkins, Joseph W. Houpt, Ami Eidels, James T. Townsend Jan 2015

Can Two Dots Form A Gestalt? Measuring Emergent Features With The Capacity Coefficient, Robert X.D. Hawkins, Joseph W. Houpt, Ami Eidels, James T. Townsend

Joseph W. Houpt

While there is widespread agreement among vision researchers on the importance of some local aspects of visual stimuli, such as hue and intensity, there is no general consensus on a full set of basic sources of information used in perceptual tasks. Gestalt theories place particular value on emergent features, which are based on the higher-order relationships among elements of a stimulus rather than local properties. Thus, arbitrating between different accounts of features is an important step in arbitrating between local and Gestalt theories of perception in general. In this paper, we present the capacity coefficient from Systems Factorial Technology (SFT) …


Working Memory’S Workload Capacity, Andrew Heathcote, James R. Coleman, Ami Eidels, Jason M. Watson, Joseph W. Houpt, David L. Strayer Jan 2015

Working Memory’S Workload Capacity, Andrew Heathcote, James R. Coleman, Ami Eidels, Jason M. Watson, Joseph W. Houpt, David L. Strayer

Joseph W. Houpt

We examined the role of dual-task interference in working memory using a novel dual 2-back task that requires a redundant-target response (i.e., that neither the auditory nor visual stimulus occurred two back vs. one or both occurred two back) on every trial. Comparisons with performance on single 2 back trials (i.e., with only auditory or only visual stimuli) showed dual-task demands reduced both speed and accuracy. Our task design enabled a novel application of Townsend and Nozawa’s (1995) workload capacity measure, which revealed that the decrement in dual 2-back performance was mediated by sharing of a limited amount of processing …


Holding A Stick At Both Ends: On Faces And Expertise, Assaf Harel, Dwight J. Kravitz, Chris I. Baker Jun 2014

Holding A Stick At Both Ends: On Faces And Expertise, Assaf Harel, Dwight J. Kravitz, Chris I. Baker

Psychology Faculty Publications

Ever since Diamond and Carey's (1986) seminal work, object expertise has often been viewed through the prism of face perception (for a thorough discussion, see Tanaka and Gauthier, 1997; Sheinberg and Tarr, 2010). According to Wong and Wong (2014, W&W), however, this emphasis has simply been a response to the question of modularity of face perception, and has not been about expertise in and of itself. It is precisely this conflation of questions of expertise and modularity, the consequent focus on FFA, and the detrimental effect this had on the field of object expertise research that we discussed as part …


A New Perspective On Visual Word Processing Efficiency, Joseph W. Houpt, James T. Townsend, Christopher Donkin Jan 2014

A New Perspective On Visual Word Processing Efficiency, Joseph W. Houpt, James T. Townsend, Christopher Donkin

Joseph W. Houpt

As a fundamental part of our daily lives, visual word processing has received much attention in the psychological literature. Despite the well established advantage of perceiving letters in a word or in a pseudoword over letters alone or in random sequences using accuracy, a comparable effect using response times has been elusive. Some researchers continue to question whether the advantage due to word context is perceptual. We use the capacity coefficient, a well established, response time based measure of efficiency to provide evidence of word processing as a particularly efficient perceptual process to complement those results from the accuracy domain.


Are All Types Of Expertise Created Equal? Car Experts Use Different Spatial Frequency Scales For Subordinate Categorization Of Cars And Faces, Assaf Harel, Shlomo Bentin Jun 2013

Are All Types Of Expertise Created Equal? Car Experts Use Different Spatial Frequency Scales For Subordinate Categorization Of Cars And Faces, Assaf Harel, Shlomo Bentin

Psychology Faculty Publications

A much-debated question in object recognition is whether expertise for faces and expertise for non-face objects utilize common perceptual information. We investigated this issue by assessing the diagnostic information required for different types of expertise. Specifically, we asked whether face categorization and expert car categorization at the subordinate level relies on the same spatial frequency (SF) scales. Fifteen car experts and fifteen novices performed a category verification task with spatially filtered images of faces, cars, and airplanes. Images were categorized based on their basic (e.g. ‘‘car’’) and subordinate level (e.g. ‘‘Japanese car’’) identity. The effect of expertise was not evident …


Systems Factorial Technology With R, Joseph W. Houpt, Leslie M. Blaha, John P. Mcintire, Paul R. Havig, James T. Townsend Jan 2013

Systems Factorial Technology With R, Joseph W. Houpt, Leslie M. Blaha, John P. Mcintire, Paul R. Havig, James T. Townsend

Joseph W. Houpt

Systems Factorial Technology (SFT) comprises a set of powerful nonparametric models and measures, together with a theory-driven experiment methodology termed the Double Factorial Paradigm (DFP), for assessing the cognitive information processing mechanisms supporting the processing of multiple sources of information in a given task. We provide an overview of the model-based measures of SFT together with a tutorial on designing a DFP experiment to take advantage of all SFT measures in a single experiment. Illustrative examples are given to highlight the breadth of applicability of these techniques across psychology. We further introduce and demonstrate a new package for performing SFT …


Capacity Coefficient Variations, Joseph W. Houpt, Andrew Heathcote, Ami Eidels, Nathan Medeiros-Ward, Jason Watson, David Strayer Nov 2012

Capacity Coefficient Variations, Joseph W. Houpt, Andrew Heathcote, Ami Eidels, Nathan Medeiros-Ward, Jason Watson, David Strayer

Joseph W. Houpt

The capacity coefficient has become an increasingly popular measure of efficiency under changes in workload. It has been used in applications ranging from psychophysical detection tasks to complex cognitive tasks, as well as in addressing questions in social and clinical psychology. The basic formulation compares response times to each stimulus property (or task) in isolation to response times with all stimulus properties (or tasks) at the same time. A number of variations on the basic capacity coefficient have been used, both in the experimental design and in the calculations, and many more are possible. Here we outline the theoretical reasons …


General Recognition Theory Extended To Include Response Times: Predictions For A Class Of Parallel Systems, Joseph W. Houpt, James T. Townsend, Noah H. Silbert Nov 2012

General Recognition Theory Extended To Include Response Times: Predictions For A Class Of Parallel Systems, Joseph W. Houpt, James T. Townsend, Noah H. Silbert

Joseph W. Houpt

No abstract provided.


Bayesian Approaches To Assessing Architecture And Stopping Rule, Joseph W. Houpt, A. Heathcote, A. Eidels, J. T. Townsend Jul 2012

Bayesian Approaches To Assessing Architecture And Stopping Rule, Joseph W. Houpt, A. Heathcote, A. Eidels, J. T. Townsend

Joseph W. Houpt

Much of scientific psychology and cognitive science can be viewed as a search to understand the mechanisms and dynamics of perception, thought and action. Two processing attributes of particular interest to psychologists are the architecture, or temporal relationships between sub-processes of the system, and the stopping rule, which dictates how many of the sub-processes must be completed for the system to finish. The Survivor Interaction Contrast (SIC) is a powerful tool for assessing the architecture and stopping rule of a mental process model. Thus far, statistical analysis of the SIC has been limited to null-hypothesis- significance tests. In this talk …


Bayesian Approaches To Assessing Architecture And Stopping Rule, Joseph W. Houpt, Andrew Heathcote, Ami Eidels, J. T. Townsend Jul 2012

Bayesian Approaches To Assessing Architecture And Stopping Rule, Joseph W. Houpt, Andrew Heathcote, Ami Eidels, J. T. Townsend

Psychology Faculty Publications

Much of scientific psychology and cognitive science can be viewed as a search to understand the mechanisms and dynamics of perception, thought and action. Two processing attributes of particular interest to psychologists are the architecture, or temporal relationships between sub-processes of the system, and the stopping rule, which dictates how many of the sub-processes must be completed for the system to finish. The Survivor Interaction Contrast (SIC) is a powerful tool for assessing the architecture and stopping rule of a mental process model. Thus far, statistical analysis of the SIC has been limited to null-hypothesis- significance tests. In this talk …


General Recognition Theory Extended To Include Response Times: Predictions For A Class Of Parallel Systems, James T. Townsend, Joseph W. Houpt, Noah H. Silbert Jan 2012

General Recognition Theory Extended To Include Response Times: Predictions For A Class Of Parallel Systems, James T. Townsend, Joseph W. Houpt, Noah H. Silbert

Joseph W. Houpt

General Recognition Theory (GRT; Ashby & Townsend, 1986) is a multidimensional theory of classification. Originally developed to study various types of perceptual independence, it has also been widely employed in diverse cognitive venues, such as categorization. The initial theory and applications have been static, that is, lacking a time variable and focusing on patterns of responses, such as confusion matrices. Ashby proposed a parallel, dynamic stochastic version of GRT with application to perceptual independence based on discrete linear systems theory with imposed noise \citep{Ash89}. The current study again focuses on cognitive/perceptual independence within an identification classification paradigm. We extend stochastic …


General Recognition Theory Extended To Include Response Times: Predictions For A Class Of Parallel Systems, James T. Townsend, Joseph W. Houpt, Noah H. Silbert Jan 2012

General Recognition Theory Extended To Include Response Times: Predictions For A Class Of Parallel Systems, James T. Townsend, Joseph W. Houpt, Noah H. Silbert

Psychology Faculty Publications

General Recognition Theory (GRT; Ashby & Townsend, 1986) is a multidimensional theory of classification. Originally developed to study various types of perceptual independence, it has also been widely employed in diverse cognitive venues, such as categorization. The initial theory and applications have been static, that is, lacking a time variable and focusing on patterns of responses, such as confusion matrices. Ashby proposed a parallel, dynamic stochastic version of GRT with application to perceptual independence based on discrete linear systems theory with imposed noise (Ashby, 1989). The current study again focuses on cognitive/perceptual independence within an identification classification paradigm. We extend …


Configuration As A Source Of Information, Joseph W. Houpt, Robert D. Hawkins, Ami Eidels, James T. Townsend, Michael J. Wenger Nov 2011

Configuration As A Source Of Information, Joseph W. Houpt, Robert D. Hawkins, Ami Eidels, James T. Townsend, Michael J. Wenger

Joseph W. Houpt

No abstract provided.


Configuration As A Source Of Information, Joseph W. Houpt, Robert D. Hawkins, Ami Eidels, James T. Townsend, Michael J. Wenger Nov 2011

Configuration As A Source Of Information, Joseph W. Houpt, Robert D. Hawkins, Ami Eidels, James T. Townsend, Michael J. Wenger

Psychology Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.


Fundamental Properties Of Simple Emergent Feature Processing, Robert D. Hawkins, Joseph W. Houpt, Ami Eidels, James T. Townsend, Michael J. Wenger Nov 2011

Fundamental Properties Of Simple Emergent Feature Processing, Robert D. Hawkins, Joseph W. Houpt, Ami Eidels, James T. Townsend, Michael J. Wenger

Joseph W. Houpt

No abstract provided.


Fundamental Properties Of Simple Emergent Feature Processing, Robert D. Hawkins, Joseph W. Houpt, Ami Eidels, James T. Townsend, Michael J. Wenger Nov 2011

Fundamental Properties Of Simple Emergent Feature Processing, Robert D. Hawkins, Joseph W. Houpt, Ami Eidels, James T. Townsend, Michael J. Wenger

Psychology Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.


From Deep Space 9 To The Gamma Quadrant!, James T. Townsend, Joseph W. Houpt Jul 2011

From Deep Space 9 To The Gamma Quadrant!, James T. Townsend, Joseph W. Houpt

Joseph W. Houpt

No abstract provided.


A Statistical Test For The Capacity Coefficient, Joseph W. Houpt, James T. Townsend Jul 2011

A Statistical Test For The Capacity Coefficient, Joseph W. Houpt, James T. Townsend

Joseph W. Houpt

No abstract provided.


General Recognition Theory Extended To Include Response Times: Predictions For A Class Of Parallel Systems, Joseph W. Houpt, James T. Townsend, Noah H. Silbert Jul 2011

General Recognition Theory Extended To Include Response Times: Predictions For A Class Of Parallel Systems, Joseph W. Houpt, James T. Townsend, Noah H. Silbert

Joseph W. Houpt

No abstract provided.


A Statistical Test For The Capacity Coefficient, Joseph W. Houpt, James T. Townsend Jul 2011

A Statistical Test For The Capacity Coefficient, Joseph W. Houpt, James T. Townsend

Psychology Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.


General Recognition Theory Extended To Include Response Times: Predictions For A Class Of Parallel Systems, Joseph W. Houpt, James T. Townsend, Noah H. Silbert Jul 2011

General Recognition Theory Extended To Include Response Times: Predictions For A Class Of Parallel Systems, Joseph W. Houpt, James T. Townsend, Noah H. Silbert

Psychology Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.


From Deep Space 9 To The Gamma Quadrant!, James T. Townsend, Joseph W. Houpt Jul 2011

From Deep Space 9 To The Gamma Quadrant!, James T. Townsend, Joseph W. Houpt

Psychology Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.


An Extension Of Sic Predictions To The Wiener Coactive Model, Joseph W. Houpt, James T. Townsend Jun 2011

An Extension Of Sic Predictions To The Wiener Coactive Model, Joseph W. Houpt, James T. Townsend

Psychology Faculty Publications

The survivor interaction contrasts (SIC) is a powerful measure for distinguishing among candidate models of human information processing. One class of models to which SIC analysis can apply are the coactive, or channel summation, models of human information processing. In general, parametric forms of coactive models assume that responses are made based on the first passage time across a fixed threshold of a sum of stochastic processes. Previous work has shown that the SIC for a coactive model based on the sum of Poisson processes has a distinctive down--up--down form, with an early negative region that is smaller than the …


An Extension Of Sic Predictions To The Wiener Coactive Model, Joseph W. Houpt, James T. Townsend Jun 2011

An Extension Of Sic Predictions To The Wiener Coactive Model, Joseph W. Houpt, James T. Townsend

Joseph W. Houpt

The survivor interaction contrasts (SIC) is a powerful measure for distinguishing among candidate models of human information processing. One class of models to which SIC analysis can apply are the coactive, or channel summation, models of human information processing. In general, parametric forms of coactive models assume that responses are made based on the first passage time across a fixed threshold of a sum of stochastic processes. Previous work has shown that the SIC for a coactive model based on the sum of Poisson processes has a distinctive down--up--down form, with an early negative region that is smaller than the …


A New Perspective On Visual Word Processing Efficiency, Joseph W. Houpt, James T. Townsend Apr 2011

A New Perspective On Visual Word Processing Efficiency, Joseph W. Houpt, James T. Townsend

Joseph W. Houpt

No abstract provided.


A New Perspective On Visual Word Processing Efficiency, Joseph W. Houpt, James T. Townsend Apr 2011

A New Perspective On Visual Word Processing Efficiency, Joseph W. Houpt, James T. Townsend

Psychology Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.


Nice Guys Finish Fast And Bad Guys Finish Last: Facilitatory Vs. Inhibitory Interaction In Parallel Systems, Ami Eidels, Joseph W. Houpt, Nicholas Altieri, Lei Pei, James T. Townsend Apr 2011

Nice Guys Finish Fast And Bad Guys Finish Last: Facilitatory Vs. Inhibitory Interaction In Parallel Systems, Ami Eidels, Joseph W. Houpt, Nicholas Altieri, Lei Pei, James T. Townsend

Joseph W. Houpt

Systems Factorial Technology is a powerful framework for investigating the fundamental properties of human information processing such as architecture (i.e., serial or parallel processing) and capacity (how processing efficiency is affected by increased workload). The Survivor Interaction Contrast (SIC) and the Capacity Coefficient are effective measures in determining these underlying properties, based on response-time data. Each of the different architectures, under the assumption of independent processing, predicts a specific form of the SIC along with some range of capacity. In this study, we explored SIC predictions of discrete-state (Markov process) and continuous-state (Linear Dynamic) models that allow for certain types …


Nice Guys Finish Fast And Bad Guys Finish Last: Facilitatory Vs. Inhibitory Interaction In Parallel Systems, Ami Eidels, Joseph W. Houpt, Nicholas Altieri, Lei Pei, James T. Townsend Apr 2011

Nice Guys Finish Fast And Bad Guys Finish Last: Facilitatory Vs. Inhibitory Interaction In Parallel Systems, Ami Eidels, Joseph W. Houpt, Nicholas Altieri, Lei Pei, James T. Townsend

Psychology Faculty Publications

Systems Factorial Technology is a powerful framework for investigating the fundamental properties of human information processing such as architecture (i.e., serial or parallel processing) and capacity (how processing efficiency is affected by increased workload). The Survivor Interaction Contrast (SIC) and the Capacity Coefficient are effective measures in determining these underlying properties, based on response-time data. Each of the different architectures, under the assumption of independent processing, predicts a specific form of the SIC along with some range of capacity. In this study, we explored SIC predictions of discrete-state (Markov process) and continuous-state (Linear Dynamic) models that allow for certain types …