Abstract
The negative correlation between speed and accuracy in perceptual decision making is often explained as a tradeoff, where lowered decision boundaries under time pressure result in faster but more error-prone responses. Corresponding implementations in sequential sampling models confirmed the success of this account, which has led to the prevalent assumption that a second component of decision making, the efficiency of perceptual processing, is largely independent from temporal demands. To test the generality of this claim, we examined time pressure effects on decisions under conflict. Data from a flanker task were fit with a sequential sampling model that incorporates two successive phases of response selection, driven by the output of an early and late stage of stimulus selection, respectively. The fits revealed the canonical decrease of response boundaries with increasing time pressure. In addition, time pressure reduced the duration of non-decisional processes and impaired the early stage of stimulus selection, together with the subsequent first phase of response selection. The results show that the relation between speed and accuracy not only relies on the strategic adjustment of response boundaries but involves variations of processing efficiency. The findings support recent evidence of drift rate modulations in response to time pressure in simple perceptual decisions and confirm their validity in the context of more complex tasks.
Similar content being viewed by others
References
Abdi, H., & Williams, L. J. (2010). Jackknife. In N. Salkind (Ed.), Encyclopedia of Research Design (pp. 655–661). Thousand Oaks: Sage.
Bausenhart, K. M., Rolke, B., Seibold, V. C., & Ulrich, R. (2010). Temporal preparation influences the dynamics of information processing: evidence for early onset of information accumulation. Vision Research, 50(11), 1025–1034. doi:10.1016/j.visres.2010.03.011.
Bogacz, R., Wagenmakers, E.-J., Forstmann, B. U., & Nieuwenhuis, S. (2010). The neural basis of the speed-accuracy tradeoff. Trends in Neurosciences, 33(1), 10–16. doi:10.1016/j.tins.2009.09.002.
Brent, R. P. (1973). Algorithms for function minimization without derivatives. Englewood-Cliffs: Prentice-Hall.
Brown, S., & Heathcote, A. (2005). A ballistic model of choice response time. Psychological Review, 112(1), 117–128. doi:10.1037/0033-295X.112.1.117.
Brown, S., & Heathcote, A. (2008). The simplest complete model of choice response time: linear ballistic accumulation. Cognitive Psychology, 57(3), 153–178. doi:10.1016/j.cogpsych.2007.12.002.
Busemeyer, J. R., & Townsend, J. T. (1993). Decision field theory: a dynamic-cognitive approach to decision making in an uncertain environment. Psychological Review, 100(3), 432–459.
Carrasco, M., & McElree, B. (2001). Covert attention accelerates the rate of visual information processing. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, 98(9), 5363–5367. doi:10.1073/pnas.081074098.
Dambacher, M., & Hübner, R. (2013). Investigating the speed-accuracy trade-off: better use deadlines or response signals? Behavior Research Methods, 45(3), 702–717. doi:10.3758/s13428-012-0303-0.
Dambacher, M., Hübner, R., & Schlösser, J. (2011). Monetary incentives in speeded perceptual decision: effects of penalizing errors versus slow responses. Frontiers in Psychology, 2, 248. doi:10.3389/fpsyg.2011.00248.
Diederich, A., & Busemeyer, J. R. (2006). Modeling the effects of payoff on response bias in a perceptual discrimination task: bound-change, drift-rate-change, or two-stage-processing hypothesis. Perception and Psychophysics, 68(2), 194–207.
Dosher, B. A. (1976). The retrieval of sentences from memory: a speed-accuracy study. Cognitive Psychology, 8(3), 291–310. doi:10.1016/0010-0285(76)90009-8.
Efron, B. (1979). Bootstrap methods: another look at the jackknife. The Annals of Statistics, 7(1), 1–26.
Efron, B. (1982). The jackknife, the bootstrap and other resampling plans. Montpelier: Capital City Press.
Eriksen, B. A., & Eriksen, C. W. (1974). Effects of noise letters upon the identification of a target letter in a nonsearch task. Perception and Psychophysics, 16(1), 143–149. doi:10.3758/BF03203267.
Evans, J. S. B. T., & Stanovich, K. E. (2013). Dual-process theories of higher cognition: advancing the debate. Perspectives on Psychological Science, 8(3), 223–241. doi:10.1177/1745691612460685.
Fitts, P. M. (1954). The information capacity of the human motor system in controlling the amplitude of movement. Journal of Experimental Psychology, 121(3), 262–269.
Forstmann, B. U., Anwander, A., Schäfer, A., Neumann, J., Brown, S., Wagenmakers, E.-J., et al. (2010). Cortico-striatal connections predict control over speed and accuracy in perceptual decision making. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, 107(36), 15916–15920. doi:10.1073/pnas.1004932107.
Forstmann, B. U., Dutilh, G., Brown, S., Neumann, J., von Cramon, D. Y., Ridderinkhof, K. R., et al. (2008). Striatum and pre-SMA facilitate decision-making under time pressure. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, 105(45), 17538–17542. doi:10.1073/pnas.0805903105.
Forstmann, B. U., Tittgemeyer, M., Wagenmakers, E.-J., Derrfuss, J., Imperati, D., & Brown, S. (2011). The speed-accuracy tradeoff in the elderly brain: a structural model-based approach. The Journal of Neuroscience, 31(47), 17242–17249. doi:10.1523/jneurosci.0309-11.2011.
Garrett, H.E. (1922). A study of the relation of accuracy to speed. Archives of Psychology, 56, 1–104.
Gegenfurtner, K. R. (1992). PRAXIS: Brent’s algorithm for function minimization. Behavior Research Methods, Instruments, and Computers, 24(4), 560–564. doi:10.3758/BF03203605.
Gratton, G., Coles, M. G. H., & Donchin, E. (1992). Optimizing the use of information: strategic control of activation of responses. Journal of Experimental Psychology: General, 121(4), 480–506.
Gray, H. L., & Schucany, W. R. (1972). The generalized jackknife statistic. New York: Marcel Dekker.
Harris, C. M., & Wolpert, D. M. (1998). Signal-dependent noise determines motor planning. Nature, 394(20), 780–784.
Heathcote, A., & Love, J. (2012). Linear deterministic accumulator models of simple choice. Frontiers in Psychology, 3, 292. doi:10.3389/fpsyg.2012.00292.
Heitz, R. P., & Schall, J. D. (2012). Neural mechanisms of speed-accuracy tradeoff. Neuron, 76(3), 616–628. doi:10.1016/j.neuron.2012.08.030.
Ho, T., Brown, S., van Maanen, L., Forstmann, B. U., Wagenmakers, E.-J., & Serences, J. T. (2012). The optimality of sensory processing during the speed-accuracy tradeoff. The Journal of Neuroscience, 32(23), 7992–8003. doi:10.1523/jneurosci0340-12.2012.
Hübner, R., & Schlösser, J. (2010). Monetary reward increases attentional effort in the flanker task. Psychonomic Bulletin and Review, 17(6), 821–826. doi:10.3758/pbr.17.6.821.
Hübner, R., Steinhauser, M., & Lehle, C. (2010). A dual-stage two-phase model of selective attention. Psychological Review, 117(3), 759–784. doi:10.1037/a0019471.
Hübner, R., & Töbel, L. (2012). Does attentional selectivity in the flanker task improve discretely or gradually? Frontiers in Psychology, 3, 434. doi:10.3389/fpsyg.2012.00434.
Ivanoff, J., Branning, P., & Marois, R. (2008). fMRI evidence for a dual process account of the speed-accuracy tradeoff in decision-making. PLoS One, 3(7), e2635. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0002635.
Jackson, P. R. (1986). Robust methods in statistics. In A. D. Lovie (Ed.), New developments in statistics for psychology and the social sciences (pp. 22–43). London: The British Psychological Society and Methuen.
Kleinsorge, T. (2001). The time course of effort mobilization and strategic adjustments of response criteria. Psychological Research, 65(3), 216–223.
Logan, G. D., & Gordon, R. D. (2001). Executive control of visual attention in dual-task situations. Psychological Review, 108(2), 393–434.
McElree, B., & Carrasco, M. (1999). The temporal dynamics of visual search: evidence for parallel processing in feature and conjunction searches. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Human Perception and Performance, 25(6), 1517–1539.
Miller, J., Patterson, T., & Ulrich, R. (1998). Jackknife-based method for measuring LRP onset latency differences. Psychophysiology, 35(1), 99–115.
Miller, J., Sproesser, G., & Ulrich, R. (2008). Constant versus variable response signal delays in speed–accuracy trade-offs: effects of advance preparation for processing time. Perception and Psychophysics, 70(5), 878–886.
Mosteller, F., & Tukey, J. (1977). Data analysis and regression. Reading: Addison-Wesley.
Osman, A., Lou, L., Müller-Gethmann, H., Rinkenauer, G., Mattes, S., & Ulrich, R. (2000). Mechanisms of speed–accuracy tradeoff: evidence from covert motor processes. Biological Psychology, 51(2–3), 173–199.
Palmer, J., Huk, A. C., & Shadlen, M. N. (2005). The effect of stimulus strength on the speed and accuracy of a perceptual decision. Journal of Vision, 5(5), 376–404. doi:http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/16097871.
Philiastides, M. G., Ratcliff, R., & Sajda, P. (2006). Neural representation of task difficulty and decision making during perceptual categorization: a timing diagram. The Journal of Neuroscience, 26(35), 8965–8975. doi:10.1523/jneurosci.1655-06.2006.
Rae, B., Heathcote, A., Donkin, C., Averell, L., & Brown, S. (2014). The hare and the tortoise: emphasizing speed can change the evidence used to make decisions. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory, and Cognition (in press).
Ratcliff, R. (1978). A theory of memory retrieval. Psychological Review, 85(2), 59–108.
Ratcliff, R. (1979). Group reaction time distributions and an analysis of distribution statistics. Psychological Bulletin, 86(3), 446–461.
Ratcliff, R., & McKoon, G. (2008). The diffusion decision model: theory and data for two-choice decision tasks. Neural Computation, 20(4), 873–922. doi:10.1162/neco.2008.12-06-420.
Ratcliff, R., & Rouder, J. N. (1998). Modeling response times for two-choice decisions. Psychological Science, 9(5), 347–356. doi:10.1111/1467-9280.00067.
Ratcliff, R., & Smith, P. L. (2004). A comparison of sequential sampling models for two-choice reaction time. Psychological Review, 111(2), 333–367. doi:10.1037/0033-295X.111.2.333.
Ratcliff, R., Thapar, A., & McKoon, G. (2003). A diffusion model analysis of the effects of aging on brightness discrimination. Perception and Psychophysics, 65(4), 523–535.
Reed, A. V. (1973). Speed-accuracy trade-off in recognition memory. Science, 181(4099), 574–576. doi:10.1126/science.181.4099.574.
Rinkenauer, G., Osman, A., Ulrich, R., Müller-Gethmann, H., & Mattes, S. (2004). On the locus of speed-accuracy trade-off in reaction time: inferences from the lateralized readiness potential. Journal of Experimental Psychology: General, 133(2), 261–282. doi:10.1037/0096-3445.133.2.261.
Seibold, V. C., Bausenhart, K. M., Rolke, B., & Ulrich, R. (2011). Does temporal preparation increase the rate of sensory information accumulation? Acta Psychologica, 137(1), 56–64. doi:10.1016/j.actpsy.2011.02.006.
Simon, J. R. (1990). The effects of an irrelevant directional cue on human information processing. In R. W. Proctor & T. G. Reeve (Eds.), Stimulus-response compatibility: an integrated perspective (pp. 31–86). Amsterdam: North-Holland.
Starns, J. J., Ratcliff, R., & McKoon, G. (2012). Evaluating the unequal-variance and dual-process explanations of zROC slopes with response time data and the diffusion model. Cognitive Psychology, 64(1–2), 1–34. doi:10.1016/j.cogpsych.2011.10.002.
Stroop, J. R. (1935). Studies of interference in serial verbal reactions. Journal of Experimental Psychology, 18(6), 643–662. doi:10.1037/h0054651.
Ulrich, R., & Miller, J. (2001). Using the jackknife-based scoring method for measuring LRP onset effects in factorial designs. Psychophysiology, 38(5), 816–827.
Usher, M., & McClelland, J. L. (2001). The time course of perceptual choice: the leaky, competing accumulator model. Psychological Review, 108(3), 550–592. doi:10.1037//0033-295X.108.3.550.
Van der Lubbe, R. H. J., Jaśkowski, P., Wauschkuhn, B., & Verleger, R. (2001). Influence of time pressure in a simple response task, a choice-by-location task, and the Simon task. Journal of Psychophysiology, 15(4), 241–255. doi:10.1027//0269-8803.15.4.241.
Van Veen, V., Krug, M. K., & Carter, C. S. (2008). The neural and computational basis of controlled speed-accuracy tradeoff during task performance. Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience, 20(11), 1952–1965. doi:10.1162/jocn.2008.20146.
Vandekerckhove, J., Tuerlinckx, F., & Lee, M.D. (2008). A Bayesian approach to diffusion process models of decision-making. In V. Sloutsky, B. Love, & K. McRae (Eds.), Proceedings of the 30th Annual Conference of the Cognitive Science Society (pp. 1429–1434). Austin.
Voss, A., Nagler, M., & Lerche, V. (2013). Diffusion models in experimental psychology: a practical introduction. Experimental Psychology, 60, 385–402. doi:10.1027/1618-3169/a000218.
White, C. N., Ratcliff, R., & Starns, J. J. (2011). Diffusion models of the flanker task: discrete versus gradual attentional selection. Cognitive Psychology, 63(4), 210–238. doi:10.1016/j.cogpsych.2011.08.001.
Wickelgren, W. A. (1977). Speed-accuracy tradeoff and information processing dynamics. Acta Psychologica, 41(1), 67–85. doi:10.1016/0001-6918(77)90012-9.
Acknowledgments
We thank Michaela Rach for data acquisition and Leendert van Maanen for valuable comments on a previous version of this article. This research was supported by the German Research Foundation (DFG) through research unit FOR 1882 Psychoeconomics.
Conflict of interest
The authors declare that no competing interests exist.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Dambacher, M., Hübner, R. Time pressure affects the efficiency of perceptual processing in decisions under conflict. Psychological Research 79, 83–94 (2015). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00426-014-0542-z
Received:
Accepted:
Published:
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00426-014-0542-z