ArticleThe Behavioral and brain sciences2018
Suboptimality in perceptual decision making.
Article in The Behavioral and brain sciences, 2018. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 136 papers.
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The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
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Who cites it
136 citing papers in PubMed.
- Did you see the sound? A Bayesian assessment on cross-modal perception in low vision.Journal of vision · 2026Article
- Decoupling Choice from Motor Response Reduces Choice-History Effects.bioRxiv : the preprint server for biology · 2026Article
- Learning new perceptual skills: Individual differences in the computations that integrate novel sensory cues into depth perception.iScience · 2026Article
- The act of detecting a stimulus contaminates measures of conscious experience with decision biases.Nature communications · 2026Article
- A novel bias-free approach for robust perceptual threshold estimation.Behavior research methods · 2026Article
- Distilling noise characteristics and prior expectations in multisensory causal inference.PLoS computational biology · 2026Article
- Selective encoding of priors for flexible categorization but not Bayesian inference in the frontal eye field.bioRxiv : the preprint server for biology · 2026Article
- Type-1 and type-2 decisions feature computational noise of similar magnitude.Communications psychology · 2026Article
- Metacognitive efficiency in learned value-based choice.PLoS computational biology · 2026Article
- Sensory integration, temporal prediction, and rule discovery reflect interdependent inference processes.Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America · 2026Article
- The influence of visibility and prevalence rate on visual search.Journal of vision · 2026Article
- Visual confidence accurately tracks increasing internal noise with eccentricity in peripheral vision.bioRxiv : the preprint server for biology · 2026Article
- Not proportional after all: Investigating speed perception with the beep-speed illusion.Attention, perception & psychophysics · 2026Article
- Confidence in naturalistic decision making.Neuroscience of consciousness · 2026Article
- Multisensory suppressive neurons can implement Bayesian-like nonlinearly weighted sensory combination.Frontiers in human neuroscience · 2026Article
- Integrating computational modeling, neuroimaging, and neuromodulation to decompose perceptual decision-making in healthy aging: a review of methods, findings, and gaps.Frontiers in aging neuroscience · 2026Review
- Did you see the sound? A Bayesian Perspective on Crossmodal Perception in Low Vision.bioRxiv : the preprint server for biology · 2025Article
- Curriculum effects in multitask learning through the lens of contextual inference.Current opinion in neurobiology · 2025Review
- Information sampling and Bayesian belief formation in statistical judgment.Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America · 2025Article
- The myth of the Bayesian brain.European journal of applied physiology · 2025Review
76 more citing papers are in PubMed but not listed here.
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Authors and funding
2 authors.
Funding
Abstract
Human perceptual decisions are often described as optimal. Critics of this view have argued that claims of optimality are overly flexible and lack explanatory power. Meanwhile, advocates for optimality have countered that such criticisms single out a few selected papers. To elucidate the issue of optimality in perceptual decision making, we review the extensive literature on suboptimal performance in perceptual tasks. We discuss eight different classes of suboptimal perceptual decisions, including improper placement, maintenance, and adjustment of perceptual criteria; inadequate tradeoff between speed and accuracy; inappropriate confidence ratings; misweightings in cue combination; and findings related to various perceptual illusions and biases. In addition, we discuss conceptual shortcomings of a focus on optimality, such as definitional difficulties and the limited value of optimality claims in and of themselves. We therefore advocate that the field drop its emphasis on whether observed behavior is optimal and instead concentrate on building and testing detailed observer models that explain behavior across a wide range of tasks. To facilitate this transition, we compile the proposed hypotheses regarding the origins of suboptimal perceptual decisions reviewed here. We argue that verifying, rejecting, and expanding these explanations for suboptimal behavior - rather than assessing optimality per se - should be among the major goals of the science of perceptual decision making.
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Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.