Related Experiment Video
Updated: Nov 20, 2025
06:35
Examining Recall Memory in Infancy and Early Childhood Using the Elicited Imitation Paradigm
Published on: April 28, 2016
34.8K
Cognitive models of optimal sequential search with recall.
Sudeep Bhatia1, Lisheng He2, Wenjia Joyce Zhao3
1University of Pennsylvania, United States.
Cognition
|January 23, 2021
Summary
People often use suboptimal thresholds in sequential search tasks. However, cognitive models reveal that this behavior aligns with optimal search when accounting for risk aversion, effort costs, and decision errors, demonstrating resource-rational decision-making.
Area of Science:
- Cognitive Psychology
- Decision Science
- Behavioral Economics
Background:
- Everyday decisions frequently involve sequential search, where options are evaluated one by one at a cost.
- Optimal strategies typically employ threshold rules to balance search costs against potential rewards.
- Previous research indicates human search thresholds are often lower than theoretically optimal values.
Purpose of the Study:
- To investigate the reasons behind seemingly suboptimal stopping thresholds in sequential search behavior.
- To evaluate cognitive models that incorporate psychological factors influencing search decisions.
- To determine if observed behavior is consistent with resource-rational decision-making under specific conditions.
Main Methods:
- Development and application of various cognitive models.
- Parametric model fitting to individual participant data from search tasks.
- Analysis of search behavior considering factors like risk aversion, effort cost, and decision error.
Main Results:
- Participant search behavior aligns with optimal strategies when risk aversion, psychological effort costs, and decision errors are considered.
- Observed stopping thresholds can be explained by models incorporating these psychological factors.
- Decision makers exhibit resource-rational behavior, maximizing stochastic risk-averse utility.
Conclusions:
- Human sequential search behavior is not necessarily suboptimal but can be explained by resource-rationality.
- Psychological factors such as risk aversion and effort significantly influence search strategy.
- Threshold models provide a valuable framework for understanding both computational and algorithmic aspects of search.
More Related Videos
05:58Using Rapid Serial Visual Presentation to Measure Set-Specific Capture, a Consequence of Distraction While Multitasking
Published on: August 29, 2018
9.1K
05:15The Spatial Memory Game: Testing the Relationship Between Spatial Language, Object Knowledge, and Spatial Cognition
Published on: February 19, 2018
11.1K
Related Concept Videos
01:12Retrieval
279
Retrieval is the process of getting information out of memory storage and back into conscious awareness. This ability is essential for daily tasks like brushing hair and teeth, driving to work, and performing job duties. Retrieval occurs in three ways: recall, recognition, and relearning.
Recall involves accessing information without cues, such as during an essay test, where individuals must retrieve facts and concepts from memory unaided. Another example is remembering the name of a colleague...
Recall involves accessing information without cues, such as during an essay test, where individuals must retrieve facts and concepts from memory unaided. Another example is remembering the name of a colleague...
279
01:03Serial Position Effect
345
The serial position effect is a cognitive phenomenon where individuals are more likely to recall the first and last items in a list compared to those in the middle. This effect is divided into the primacy effect and the recency effect. The primacy effect is observed when the initial items in a list are remembered better. This occurs because these items are rehearsed more frequently or receive more elaborative processing, allowing them to be encoded into long-term memory more effectively. For...
345
01:34Woodward–Hoffmann Selection Rules and Microscopic Reversibility
3.5K
Electrocyclic reactions, cycloadditions, and sigmatropic rearrangements are concerted pericyclic reactions that proceed via a cyclic transition state. These reactions are stereospecific and regioselective. The stereochemistry of the products depends on the symmetry characteristics of the interacting orbitals and the reaction conditions. Accordingly, pericyclic reactions are classified as either symmetry-allowed or symmetry-forbidden. Woodward and Hoffmann presented the selection criteria for...
3.5K
01:29Mechanistic Models: Compartment Models in Algorithms for Numerical Problem Solving
178
Mechanistic models play a crucial role in algorithms for numerical problem-solving, particularly in nonlinear mixed effects modeling (NMEM). These models aim to minimize specific objective functions by evaluating various parameter estimates, leading to the development of systematic algorithms. In some cases, linearization techniques approximate the model using linear equations.
In individual population analyses, different algorithms are employed, such as Cauchy's method, which uses a...
In individual population analyses, different algorithms are employed, such as Cauchy's method, which uses a...
178
01:21Cognitive Learning
842
Cognitive learning is based on purposive behavior, incidental learning, and insight learning.
E. C. Tolman's theory of purposive behavior emphasizes that much behavior is goal-directed. He argued that to understand behavior, we must look at the entire sequence of actions leading to a goal. For instance, high school students study hard, not just due to past reinforcement but also to achieve the goal of getting into a good college.
Tolman introduced the idea that behavior is influenced by...
E. C. Tolman's theory of purposive behavior emphasizes that much behavior is goal-directed. He argued that to understand behavior, we must look at the entire sequence of actions leading to a goal. For instance, high school students study hard, not just due to past reinforcement but also to achieve the goal of getting into a good college.
Tolman introduced the idea that behavior is influenced by...
842
00:48Optimal Foraging
12.9K
How animals obtain and eat their food is called foraging behavior. Foraging can include searching for plants and hunting for prey and depends on the species and environment.
12.9K