Dr Brent Alsop
 Contact
Details
Tel 64 3 479 7615
Email balsop@psy.otago.ac.nz
Behavioural Models of Choice and Signal Detection
Most environments confront human and other animals with choices.
These can range from a major corporation making financial
decisions to ducks foraging for food on a lake. My research
examines the way the distribution of resources in an environment
determines humans’ and animals’ choices.
Controlled environments are arranged in which animals “forage”
for food by making different responses. Each response might
produce, for example, different rates, amounts, or delays
of food. We can measure how these factors influence various
aspects of the animals’ behaviour (such as its rate
and distribution) and then derive quantitative models describing
these processes. Other research investigates how the consequences
of choices influence judgements about ambiguous stimuli.
These signal-detection experiments look at the effects of
reward and response cost on the speed, accuracy, and bias
of human and animal observers’ judgements. Again, the
goal is to derive quantitative descriptions of the relation
between these factors.
Alsop, B. (1998). Receiver operating characteristics from
non-human animals: Some implications and directions for research
with humans. Psychonomic Bulletin & Review, 5, 239-252.
Johnstone, V., & Alsop, B. (1999). Signal presentation
ratios and reinforcer ratios in signal detection procedures.
Journal of the Experimental Analysis of Behavior, 72, 1-20.
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