ArticlePsychonomic bulletin & review2019
A statistical test for the optimality of deliberative time allocation.
Article in Psychonomic bulletin & review, 2019. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 5 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
5 citing papers in PubMed.
- Information sampling and Bayesian belief formation in statistical judgment.Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America · 2025Article
- A random-object-kinematogram plugin for web-based research: implementing oriented objects enables varying coherence levels and stimulus congruency levels.Behavior research methods · 2023Article
- The framing of choice nudges prolonged processing in the evaluation of food images.Frontiers in psychology · 2023Article
- Magnitude-sensitive reaction times reveal non-linear time costs in multi-alternative decision-making.PLoS computational biology · 2022Article
- Setting the space for deliberation in decision-making.Cognitive neurodynamics · 2021Review
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Authors and funding
1 author.
Funding
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Abstract
Whenever we make a choice, we must also decide how much time to spend making it. Many theories of decision-making crucially assume that this deliberation perfectly balances the costs of time expenditure and the benefits of better decisions. However, might we "overthink" or "underthink" decisions? Here, I propose and implement a method to precisely determine whether people are optimally spending their time on deliberation, accounting for individual preferences. This test evaluates the consistency of underlying preferences for time when incentives change, which is a necessary condition for optimality. This enables a more comprehensive analysis of rationality in a variety of contexts. I demonstrate how the test can reveal departures from optimality using two motion discrimination experiments in which I vary task difficulty and monetary incentives.
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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.