Response Time Constraints on Category Learning (2016-2017)

Theories of associative learning and decision-making are among the most mathematically well-developed in psychology. However, theories of learning do not account for the time course of decision-making, and theories of decision-making do not account for how decision-relevant information is learned. This research will develop an integrated theoretical framework linking core principles of associative learning theories with sequential sampling models of the time course of decision-making. The new theory will provide a quantitative account of how incremental associative learning processes drive changes in cognitive representations that, in turn, account for known changes in the time course of decision-making.