Lecture 1

Question 1

Behavioral data science, what is that

Answer 1

a multidisciplinary scientific field that aims to facilitate understanding, prediction, and change of human behavior through the analysis of behaviourally defined variables as they arise in large datasets, typically gathered using modern digital technology and analyzed with techniques for detecting patterns from high-dimensional data

Question 2

it is highly multidimensional, but what fields are close important

Answer 2

• psychology
• mathematical modeling
• statistics etc

With psychology: mathematical psychology

Question 3

understanding

Answer 3

construction of psychological theories to explain behavior

Question 4

prediction

Answer 4

application of statistical models to predict behavior

Question 5

Change

Answer 5

development of interventions to change behavior

Question 6

the topic is quite …. but the models and theories quite…

Answer 6

difficult
simple

Question 7

welk woordje in een zin kan verwijzen naar dat het om data gaat?

Answer 7

“which”

Question 8

drift rate quantifies

Answer 8

Task difficulty or subject ability

how steep that line is.

Question 9

Boundary separation (a) quantifies

Answer 9

response caution and is responsible for the speed-accuracy tradeoff.

If you are told to make fewer errors, you set your boundaries wider, you will make fewer errors but it will take you longer. Because this process is noisy

Question 10

Starting point z reflects?

Answer 10

a priori biases due to say, proportion or payoff manipulations that favor one response over the other

Question 11

behavioral data science is about understanding, prediction and change of human behavior - explain these

Answer 11

• understanding: construction of psychological theories to explain behavior
• predicition: application of statistical models to predict behaviour
• Change: development of interventions to change behavior

Question 12

When they say that the vocabulary that is being used in data science has a sort of ‘lingua franca’, what do they mean with that?

Answer 12

certain different fields may have difficulty talking to eachother about their different sciences and the jargon belonging to it, but data science and its vocabulary is shared across sciences

Question 13

Data:

Answer 13

representations of observations.;
pete correctly solved IQ test item 36 (observation)
The row that represents Pete has a 1 in the column that represents the IQ item (representation)

Question 14

What do rows represent

Answer 14

cases

Question 15

What do columns represent

Answer 15

features/properties/attributions.
The values in the colums represent a variable

Question 16

Vanuit data analyseer je ‘phenomena’ wat houdt dat in?

Answer 16

Robust features of the world
- the positive manifold of intelligence, the robust correlation between insomnia and depression, the effect of time pressure on accuracy.

note: phenomena are not themselves data

Question 17

Is phenomena, data?

Answer 17

No, phenomena are evidenced by patterns in the data. Data are representations of things that happened at a very specific time and place and situation: phenomena are more general!

Question 18

What are theories

Answer 18

sets of principles or ideas of how the world works.
- there are many kinds of theories, but we are often interested in explanatory theories: a set of principles that aims to explain phenomena. It describes a world in which the phenomena would follow as a matter of course.

Question 19

How do data and theories relate to phenomena

Answer 19

data establish phenomena, and theories explain phenomena

Question 20

Wat is de taak in de lexical decision task?

Answer 20

Deelnemers beoordelen of een letterreeks een bestaand woord is of niet-woord door een toets in te drukken.

Question 21

Welke twee metingen zijn belangrijk in de lexical decision task?

Answer 21

Reactietijd (RT) en nauwkeurigheid (aantal correcte antwoorden).

Question 22

Waarom wordt de lexical decision task gebruikt?

Answer 22

Om te meten hoe gemakkelijk lexicale representaties uit het geheugen worden geactiveerd.

Question 23

Wat is een bekend fenomeen dat uit de lexical decision task naar voren komt?

Answer 23

Woorden met hoge frequentie worden sneller herkend dan woorden met lage frequentie.

Question 24

Hoe worden deelnemers geïnstrueerd bij de lexical decision task?

Answer 24

Ze moeten zo snel en accuraat mogelijk reageren.

Question 25

Wat is het effect van leeftijd op de prestaties in de lexical decision task?

Answer 25

Oudere volwassenen reageren langzamer dan jongere volwassenen.

Question 26

Wat stelt de “general slowing” hypothese?

Answer 26

Dat alle cognitieve processen langzamer verlopen bij oudere volwassenen.

Question 27

In het fictieve voorbeeld van vier deelnemers, hoe presteren ouderen in vergelijking met jongeren?

Answer 27

Ouderen zijn 50-100 ms langzamer, maar iets accurater dan jongeren.

Question 28

Wat is een probleem met standaardanalyses van de lexical decision task?

Answer 28

Ze negeren vaak nauwkeurigheid en focussen alleen op reactietijd.

Question 29

Waarom is het problematisch om alleen RT te analyseren? Noem 4 redenen.

Answer 29

Deelnemers moeten én snel én accuraat reageren. Er is een trade-off tussen snelheid en nauwkeurigheid. Geen procesmodel: het blijft speculatief. Geen decompositie van onderliggende processen.

Question 30

Wat is een oplossing voor het analyseren van data uit de lexical decision task?

Answer 30

Het gebruik van een procesmodel, zoals het diffusion model van Ratcliff.

Question 31

Wat doet het diffusion model van Ratcliff?

Answer 31

- describes how noisy evidence is accumulated over time - describes data from simple decision-making experiments - allows manifest behaviour to be decomposed into latent psychological processes.

Question 32

Wat maakt het diffusion model nuttig in psychologie?

Answer 32

Het kan observeerbaar gedrag opdelen in latente psychologische processen.

Question 33

Welke historische figuren hielden zich bezig met ideeën verwant aan het diffusion model?

Answer 33

Norbert Wiener (Wiener-proces) en Robert Brown (Brownse beweging).

Question 34

What is the core idea of the Ratcliff Diffusion Model?

Answer 34

It models decision-making as a process where noisy evidence is accumulated over time until a threshold is reached

Question 35

What type of process is used in the Ratcliff Diffusion Model to describe decision-making?

Answer 35

Sequential sampling of noisy information.

Question 36

What does "diffusion of evidence" mean in the Ratcliff model?

Answer 36

It refers to how evidence is gradually and noisily accumulated over time during decision-making.

Question 37

What is the "drift rate" in the Ratcliff Diffusion Model?

Answer 37

The average rate at which evidence accumulates toward one decision; reflects signal strength or clarity.

Question 38

What does a higher drift rate indicate in the diffusion model?

Answer 38

Faster and more accurate decision-making, as the evidence is clearer or stronger.

Question 39

In a lexical decision task, what does the x-axis represent in a diffusion model plot?

Answer 39

The amount of accumulated evidence over time.

Question 40

What do the decision boundaries in the diffusion model represent?

Answer 40

Thresholds for making a decision (e.g., "word" vs. "non-word").

Question 41

What does it mean when the evidence hits the decision threshold?

Answer 41

A decision is made and a response is initiated.

Question 42

Why can errors occur in the diffusion model, even if evidence is accumulated?

Answer 42

Because the evidence is noisy and the distributions for word vs. non-word may overlap.

Question 43

What is "non-decision time" in the Ratcliff model?

Answer 43

The time needed for processes like encoding the stimulus and executing the motor response (e.g., pressing a key).

Question 44

What does the overlap between word and non-word evidence curves indicate?

Answer 44

That decisions are probabilistic and errors can occur due to noise in the evidence.

Question 45

What drives the evidence accumulation in the lexical decision task, according to the model?

Answer 45

Repeated draws from the underlying lexical dimension (wordness vs. non-wordness).

Question 46

drift rate

Answer 46

quantifies task difficulty or subject ability

Question 47

boundary seperation (a)

Answer 47

quantifies response caution and is responsible for the speed-accuracy trade of (distance between word and non word threshold)

Question 48

Starting point (z)

Answer 48

reflects a priori biases. For example when proportion of word and non words are being manipulated, say 80% of the letter strings you already had where words, you are more likely to expect that the next one is also 'word'. Which is why the starting point in the diagram above is also a bit leaning towards the word threshold

Question 49

Non-decision time (Ter)

Answer 49

measures the time peope need to encode the simulus and execute the response

Question 50

When everyone has the same drift rate, what does that mean

Answer 50

that everyone has the same ability to process/task difficulty

Question 51

When some people have wide boundary separation, what does that mean

Answer 51

they are more cautious and the younger participants have narrower boundary separation, indicating their willingness to take more risks

Question 52

Example of a theory construction methodology

Answer 52

1. identify a set of phenomena that you want to explain 2. come up with a proto-theory - formalise both the proto-theory and the phenomena - evaluate how well the resulting formal theory actually explains the phenomena - overall evaluation of the theory

Question 53

The main take-aways of the acrophobia affects vr ding

Answer 53

- the model acts as a thinking tool: it allows us to see where we're wrong - the model is precise: detailed model predicitons can be connected to detailed vr data - the model allows us to simulate interventions in the system and the model therapy - non of this is achievable with purely verbal theory (this does not mean verbal theories are unimportant!!)

Question 54

What is the speed accuracy trade off and how does the diffusion model account for it?

Answer 54

The SAT is the general ability of people to increase accuracy at the cost of taking more time. The diffusion model accounts for it by being able to increase accuracy by widening the distance between the two response thresholds (the boundary separation: dicisions will take longer to terminate at a boundary, but those that do are less likely to do so in error because you are increasing response caution