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The applicability of deadline models: Comment on Glickman, Gray, and Morales (2005)

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 January 2025

Jeffrey N. Rouder
Jeffrey N. Rouder*
Affiliation:
University of Missouri-Columbia
*
Requests for reprints should be sent to Jeffrey N. Rouder, Department of Psychological Sciences, 210 McAlester Hall, University of Missouri, Columbia, MO 65211, USA. E-mail: rouderj@missouri.edu
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Abstract

Glickman, Gray, and Morales (this issue) propose a statistical model for measuring the unobserved latency of stimulus-controlled processes. The model accounts for both speed and accuracy and does so by assuming that participants set an internal deadline. If a stimulus-controlled response is not produced by the deadline, the participant then guesses. The applicability of the model is discussed in this comment. The deadline model yields specific predictions for the case in which stimulus difficulty is manipulated in a within-block manner. In this case, it is reasonable to assume that stimulus difficulty does not affect the deadline. It is shown that in common perceptual and cognitive domains, extant data do not fully meet these predictions. Hence, practitioners need be aware of the possibility and consequences of model misspecification.

Keywords

Race modelDeadline Model Speed-Accuracy Trade-offRT modeling
Type
Original Paper
Information
Psychometrika , Volume 70 , Issue 3 , September 2005 , pp. 427 - 430
Copyright
Copyright © 2005 The Psychometric Society

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Footnotes

This research is supported by NSF grant SES - 0095919 to J. Rouder, D. Sun, and P. Speckman.

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