09:00 - 10:30
Parallel sessions 4
09:00 - 10:30
Room: HSZ - N4
Chair/s:
Nicola Schneider
The diffusion decision model (DDM) is a mathematical framework that jointly describes choice behavior and response time distributions, offering a process-level account of decision-making. Conceptualizing decisions as the accumulation of noisy evidence, the DDM has provided insights into the cognitive mechanisms underlying perception, attention, memory, and higher-order decision-making. Its flexibility and explanatory power have made it one of the most widely used tools in experimental psychology, bridging cognitive theory, mathematical modeling, and empirical research.
The increasing prominence of DDMs has spurred both conceptual and methodological developments. This symposium focuses on recent theoretical and computational advancements in the modeling of DDMs, including advances in estimation techniques, alternative stochastic dynamics to the Wiener process, and integrations with other modeling frameworks. Together, we aim to highlight new directions for enhancing theoretical and conceptual precision, modeling flexibility, and computational efficiency.
This symposium is the first part of a two-part series on DDMs at TeaP. While Part I emphasizes model development, theoretical extensions, and computational innovation, Part II turns to applied research, demonstrating how DDMs can help us better understand cognitive processes across different populations and domains. By being open to scholars from all areas of experimental psychology, the series offers a forum for presenting new ideas, establishing collaborations, and identifying future directions in the modeling of human cognition.
Submission 418
Context and Feedback Shape the Balance of Learning and Decision Dynamics: An RL–DDM Approach
SymposiumTalk-04
Presented by: Nicola Schneider
Nicola SchneiderAndreas Voss
Heidelberg University, Germany
Human decision-making in uncertain environments depends not only on how individuals learn from experience but also on how contextual factors modulate this learning. The present project investigates how environmental valence (win vs. loss domain), feedback availability (full vs. partial), and regulatory focus (exploration vs. exploitation emphasis) jointly shape value learning and evidence accumulation. N = 60 participants completed an adapted two-stage decision-making task in which transitions between states follow a Markovian structure, while the above manipulations induce systematic shifts in motivational and informational context. We compared model-free and hybrid (model-free + model-based) learning algorithms embedded within a reinforcement learning-diffusion decision model framework that maps subjective value differences onto drift rate and overall value context onto decision thresholds. This approach allowed us to quantify how learning strategies translate into temporal decision dynamics. We further tested the condition effects of environmental valence, feedback availability, and regulatory focus on cognitive parameters. Hierarchical Bayesian model comparison results reveal the best fit for hybrid learning algorithms. Both environmental valence and regulatory focus interact with learning rates, with higher learning rates in the win domain and a promotion focus, and lower learning rates in the loss domain and a prevention focus. Feedback availability influences non-decision time and accuracy. The study offers a way to characterize how motivational and informational factors modulate the interplay between model-free and model-based learning and the dynamics of evidence accumulation. We discuss how the findings advance a mechanistic understanding of adaptive decision-making.