Associate Professor Christopher Donkin

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University role:

Associate Director

Email:

c.donkin@unsw.edu.au

ABOUT ME

Personal Website: www2.psy.unsw.edu.au/Users/CDonkin/

Biography

My research interests are in Cognitive Psychology. I am interested in memory, decision-making, attention, and categorization. My work is in developing quantitative models for cognition. More recently, I have also become interested in Bayesian statistics.

Education

PhD in Quantitative Psychology (University of Newcastle, 2010)
BPsych (Hons. Class 1, 2005)
BMath (2006)

RESEARCH

Research Goals

To understand human cognition
Develop and test mathematical models of behaviour
To encourage researchers to consider their choice of statistical inference

Research in Detail

I develop and test mathematical models of cognition, including theories of short-term memory, how people make decisions, how people classify and categorize the world, and how people deploy their attention in complex tasks.

Research Grants

ARC DIscovery Project Grant - 2019-2021, Evidence-accumulation models of external influences on decision making. $425,000
ARC Discovery Project Grant - 2017-2019, A process model of visual working memory. $295,000.
ARC Discovery Project Grant - 2016-2018, Unifying decisions from experience and description. $290,558.
ARC Discovery Project Grant - 2013 to 2015, A new approach to understanding decision making. $229,000.
ARC Discovery Early Career Award - 2013 to 2015, A model based approach to investigating short-term memory: Exploiting response time distributions. $374,943.

Current Student Projects (PhD and Honours)

PhD - Jennifer Sloane - Medical decision making and interruptions

PhD - Garston Liang - Medical decision making and meta-cognition

PhD - Ed Stewart - Visual working memory and eye tracking

PhD - Aba Szollosi - A new approach to understanding decisions from experience

PhD - Luke Mills - Reading interference through reading decision-making modelsPhD - Jeremy Ngo - Bias and sequential effects in decision making

PhD - Arthur Kary - Studying bias in judgement through iterated learning

PhD - Ashley Luckman - Decision making under uncertainty: Risk and Delay

Supervision Opportunities/Areas

I am looking to supervise people in all areas of Cognitive Psychology. This includes human memory, decision-making, attention, categorization, and many other exciting areas.

Advice for prospective students

If you want to do a PhD in Psychology, learn to write computer code, and become comfortable with data and statistics. These things turn out to really matter.

TEACHING & OUTREACH

Courses I teach

PSYC2001: Research Methods 2

PSYC3211: Cognitive Science

Professional affiliations and service positions

Associate Editor at Behavior Research Methods (2015-2018)
Associate Editor at Experimental Psychology (2015-2018)
Governing board member of Society for Mathematical Psychology (2017-)
Board member of Women in Mathematical Psychology

Research

Field of Research (FOR) Tag:

Cognitive Science

Psychology and Cognitive Sciences

Decision Making

Socio-economic Objective (SEO) tags:

Expanding Knowledge in Psychology and Cognitive Sciences

Behavioural and cognitive sciences

Publications related to this Person

Book Chapters

Donkin C; Rae B; Heathcote A; Brown S, 2015, 'Why Is Accurately Labeling Simple Magnitudes So Hard? A Past, Present, and Future Look at Simple Perceptual Judgment', in The Oxford Handbook of Computational and Mathematical Psychology, Oxford University Press, USA, http://dx.doi.org/10.1093/oxfordhb/9780199957996.013.6

Cousineau D; Donkin C; Dumesnil É, 2015, 'Unitization of features following extended training in a visual search task', in Cognitive Modeling in Perception and Memory: A Festschrift for Richard M. Shiffrin, pp. 4 - 15

Journal articles

Ayling L; Henry A; Tracy S; Donkin C; Kasparian NA; Welsh AW, 2019, 'How well do women understand and remember information in labour versus in late pregnancy? A pilot randomised study', Journal of Obstetrics and Gynaecology, vol. 39, pp. 913 - 921, http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/01443615.2019.1575341

Szollosi A; Liang G; Konstantinidis E; Donkin C; Newell BR, 2019, 'Simultaneous Underweighting and Overestimation of Rare Events: Unpacking a Paradox', Journal of Experimental Psychology: General, http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/xge0000603

Krefeld-Schwalb A; Donkin C; Newell BR; Scheibehenne B, 2019, 'Empirical comparison of the adjustable spanner and the adaptive toolbox models of choice', Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning Memory and Cognition, vol. 45, pp. 1151 - 1165, http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/xlm0000641

Dutilh G; Annis J; Brown SD; Cassey P; Evans NJ; Grasman RPPP; Hawkins GE; Heathcote A; Holmes WR; Krypotos AM, 2019, 'The Quality of Response Time Data Inference: A Blinded, Collaborative Assessment of the Validity of Cognitive Models', Psychonomic Bulletin and Review, vol. 26, pp. 1051 - 1069, http://dx.doi.org/10.3758/s13423-017-1417-2

Oberauer K; Lewandowsky S; Awh E; Brown GDA; Conway A; Cowan N; Donkin C; Farrell S; Hitch GJ; Hurlstone MJ, 2018, 'Benchmarks provide common ground for model development: Reply to Logie (2018) and Vandierendonck (2018)', Psychological Bulletin, vol. 144, pp. 972 - 977, http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/bul0000165

Oberauer K; Lewandowsky S; Awh E; Brown GDA; Conway A; Cowan N; Donkin C; Farrell S; Hitch GJ; Hurlstone MJ, 2018, 'Benchmarks for models of short-term and working memory', Psychological Bulletin, vol. 144, pp. 885 - 958, http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/bul0000153

Navarro DJ; Perfors A; Kary A; Brown SD; Donkin C, 2018, 'When Extremists Win: Cultural Transmission Via Iterated Learning When Populations Are Heterogeneous', Cognitive Science, vol. 42, pp. 2108 - 2149, http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/cogs.12667

Baribault B; Donkin C; Little DR; Trueblood JS; Oravecz Z; Van Ravenzwaaij D; White CN; De Boeck P; Vandekerckhove J, 2018, 'Metastudies for robust tests of theory', Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, vol. 115, pp. 2607 - 2612, http://dx.doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1708285114

Potter KW; Donkin C; Huber DE, 2018, 'The elimination of positive priming with increasing prime duration reflects a transition from perceptual fluency to disfluency rather than bias against primed words', Cognitive Psychology, vol. 101, pp. 1 - 28, http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.cogpsych.2017.11.004

Reimers S; Donkin C; Le Pelley ME, 2018, 'Perceptions of randomness in binary sequences: Normative, heuristic, or both?', Cognition, vol. 172, pp. 11 - 25, http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.cognition.2017.11.002

Luckman A; Donkin C; Newell BR, 2018, 'Can a single model account for both risky choices and inter-temporal choices? Testing the assumptions underlying models of risky inter-temporal choice', Psychonomic Bulletin and Review, vol. 25, pp. 785 - 792, http://dx.doi.org/10.3758/s13423-017-1330-8

Luckman A; Donkin C; Newell BR, 2017, 'People Wait Longer when the Alternative is Risky: The Relation Between Preferences in Risky and Inter-temporal Choice', Journal of Behavioral Decision Making, vol. 30, pp. 1078 - 1092, http://dx.doi.org/10.1002/bdm.2025

Mannion DJ; Donkin C; Whitford TJ, 2017, 'No apparent influence of psychometrically-defined schizotypy on orientation-dependent contextual modulation of visual contrast detection', PeerJ, vol. 2017, http://dx.doi.org/10.7717/peerj.2921

Taylor R; Thomson H; Sutton D; Donkin C, 2017, 'Does working memory have a single capacity limit?', Journal of Memory and Language, vol. 93, pp. 67 - 81, http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.jml.2016.09.004

van Ravenzwaaij D; Donkin C; Vandekerckhove J, 2017, 'The EZ diffusion model provides a powerful test of simple empirical effects', Psychonomic Bulletin and Review, vol. 24, pp. 547 - 556, http://dx.doi.org/10.3758/s13423-016-1081-y

Ferreira MB; Mata A; Donkin C; Sherman SJ; Ihmels M, 2016, 'Analytic and heuristic processes in the detection and resolution of conflict', Memory and Cognition, vol. 44, pp. 1050 - 1063, http://dx.doi.org/10.3758/s13421-016-0618-7

Lufityanto G; Donkin C; Pearson J, 2016, 'Measuring Intuition: Nonconscious Emotional Information Boosts Decision Accuracy and Confidence', Psychological Science, vol. 27, pp. 622 - 634, http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/0956797616629403

Donkin C; Kary A; Tahir F; Taylor R, 2016, 'Resources masquerading as slots: Flexible allocation of visual working memory', Cognitive Psychology, vol. 85, pp. 30 - 42, http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.cogpsych.2016.01.002

Nosofsky RM; Donkin C, 2016, 'Qualitative contrast between knowledge-limited mixed-state and variable-resources models of visual change detection', Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning Memory and Cognition, vol. 42, pp. 1507 - 1525, http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/xlm0000268

Nosofsky RM; Donkin C, 2016, 'Response-time evidence for mixed memory states in a sequential-presentation change-detection task', Cognitive Psychology, vol. 84, pp. 31 - 62, http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.cogpsych.2015.11.001

Cassey P; Hawkins GE; Donkin C; Brown SD, 2016, 'Using alien coins to test whether simple inference is Bayesian', Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning Memory and Cognition, vol. 42, pp. 497 - 503, http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/xlm0000188

Kary A; Taylor R; Donkin C, 2016, 'Using Bayes factors to test the predictions of models: A case study in visual working memory', Journal of Mathematical Psychology, vol. 72, pp. 210 - 219, http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.jmp.2015.07.002

Hawkins GE; Hayes BK; Donkin C; Pasqualino M; Newell BR, 2015, 'A Bayesian latent-mixture model analysis shows that informative samples reduce base-rate neglect', Decision, vol. 2, pp. 306 - 318, http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/dec0000024

Endres MJ; Houpt JW; Donkin C; Finn PR, 2015, 'Working memory capacity and redundant information processing efficiency.', Front Psychol, vol. 6, pp. 594, http://dx.doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2015.00594

Pearson D; Donkin C; Tran SC; Most SB; Le Pelley ME, 2015, 'Cognitive control and counterproductive oculomotor capture by reward-related stimuli', Visual Cognition, vol. 23, pp. 41 - 66, http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/13506285.2014.994252

Donkin C; Chan V; Tran S, 2015, 'The effect of blocking inter-trial interval on sequential effects in absolute identification', Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology, vol. 68, pp. 129 - 143, http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/17470218.2014.939665

Donkin C; Nosofsky R; Gold J; Shiffrin R, 2014, 'Verbal labeling, gradual decay, and sudden death in visual short-term memory', Psychonomic Bulletin and Review, vol. 22, pp. 170 - 178, http://dx.doi.org/10.3758/s13423-014-0675-5

Donkin C; Newell BR; Kalish M; Dunn JC; Nosofsky RM, 2014, 'Identifying Strategy Use in Category Learning Tasks: A Case for More Diagnostic Data and Models', Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning Memory and Cognition, http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/xlm0000083

Donkin C; Tran SC; Nosofsky R, 2014, 'Landscaping analyses of the ROC predictions of discrete-slots and signal-detection models of visual working memory', Attention, Perception, and Psychophysics, vol. 76, pp. 2103 - 2116, http://dx.doi.org/10.3758/s13414-013-0561-7

Ben-David BM; Eidels A; Donkin C, 2014, 'Effects of aging and distractors on detection of redundant visual targets and capacity: Do older adults integrate visual targets differently than younger adults?', PLoS ONE, vol. 9, http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0113551

Donkin C; Tran SC; Le Pelley M, 2014, 'Location-based errors in change detection: A challenge for the slots model of visual working memory', Memory and Cognition, http://dx.doi.org/10.3758/s13421-014-0487-x

Donkin C; Van Maanen L, 2014, 'Piéron's Law is not just an artifact of the response mechanism', Journal of Mathematical Psychology, vol. 62-63, pp. 22 - 32, http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.jmp.2014.09.006

Vlassova A; Donkin C; Pearson J, 2014, 'Unconscious information changes decision accuracy but not confidence', Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, vol. 111, pp. 16214 - 16218, http://dx.doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1403619111

Rae B; Heathcote A; Donkin C; Averell L; Brown S, 2014, 'The hare and the tortoise: Emphasizing speed can change the evidence used to make decisions', Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning Memory and Cognition, vol. 40, pp. 1226 - 1243, http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/a0036801

Donkin C; Little DR; Houpt JW, 2014, 'Assessing the speed-accuracy trade-off effect on the capacity of information processing', Journal of Experimental Psychology: Human Perception and Performance, vol. 40, pp. 1183 - 1202, http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/a0035947

Endres MJ; Donkin C; Finn PR, 2014, 'An information processing/associative learning account of behavioral disinhibition in externalizing psychopathology', Experimental and Clinical Psychopharmacology, vol. 22, pp. 122 - 132, http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/a0035166

Houpt JW; Townsend JT; Donkin C, 2014, 'A new perspective on visual word processing efficiency', Acta Psychologica, vol. 145, pp. 118 - 127, http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.actpsy.2013.10.013

Donkin C; Nosofsky RM; Gold JM; Shiffrin RM, 2013, 'Discrete-slots models of visual working-memory response times', Psychological Review, vol. 120, pp. 873 - 902, http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/a0034247

Little DR; Nosofsky RM; Donkin C; Denton SE, 2013, 'Logical rules and the classification of integral-dimension stimuli', Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning Memory and Cognition, vol. 39, pp. 801 - 820, http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/a0029667

Donkin C; Nosofsky RM, 2012, 'A Power-Law Model of Psychological Memory Strength in Short- and Long-Term Recognition', Psychological Science, vol. 23, pp. 625 - 634, http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/0956797611430961

Donkin C; Nosofsky RM, 2012, 'The structure of short-term memory scanning: An investigation using response time distribution models', Psychonomic Bulletin and Review, vol. 19, pp. 363 - 394, http://dx.doi.org/10.3758/s13423-012-0236-8

King JA; Donkin C; Korb FM; Egner T, 2012, 'Model-based analysis of context-specific cognitive control', Frontiers in Psychology, vol. 3, http://dx.doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2012.00358

Donkin C; Brown S; Heathcote A; Wagenmakers EJ, 2011, 'Diffusion versus linear ballistic accumulation: Different models but the same conclusions about psychological processes?', Psychonomic Bulletin and Review, vol. 18, pp. 61 - 69, http://dx.doi.org/10.3758/s13423-010-0022-4

Dodds P; Donkin C; Brown SD; Heathcote A, 2011, 'Increasing capacity: Practice effects in absolute identification', Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning Memory and Cognition, vol. 37, pp. 477 - 492, http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/a0022215

Nosofsky RM; Little DR; Donkin C; Fific M, 2011, 'Short-Term Memory Scanning Viewed as Exemplar-Based Categorization', Psychological Review, vol. 118, pp. 280 - 315, http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/a0022494

Donkin C; Brown S; Heathcote A, 2011, 'Drawing conclusions from choice response time models: A tutorial using the linear ballistic accumulator', Journal of Mathematical Psychology, vol. 55, pp. 140 - 151, http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.jmp.2010.10.001

Dodds P; Donkin C; Brown SD; Heathcote A; Marley AAJ, 2011, 'Stimulus-specific learning: Disrupting the bow effect in absolute identification', Attention, Perception, and Psychophysics, vol. 73, pp. 1977 - 1986, http://dx.doi.org/10.3758/s13414-011-0156-0

Eidels A; Donkin C; Brown SD; Heathcote A, 2010, 'Converging measures of workload capacity', Psychonomic Bulletin and Review, vol. 17, pp. 763 - 771, http://dx.doi.org/10.3758/PBR.17.6.763

Donkin C; Brown SD; Heathcote A, 2009, 'ChoiceKey: A real-time speech recognition program for psychology experiments with a small response set', Behavior Research Methods, vol. 41, pp. 154 - 162, http://dx.doi.org/10.3758/BRM.41.1.154

Donkin C; Brown SD; Heathcote A; Marley AAJ, 2009, 'Dissociating speed and accuracy in absolute identification: The effect of unequal stimulus spacing', Psychological Research, vol. 73, pp. 308 - 316, http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s00426-008-0158-2

Donkin C; Brown SD; Heathcote A, 2009, 'The overconstraint of response time models: Rethinking the scaling problem', Psychonomic Bulletin and Review, vol. 16, pp. 1129 - 1135, http://dx.doi.org/10.3758/PBR.16.6.1129

Donkin C; Averell L; Brown S; Heathcote A, 2009, 'Getting more from accuracy and response time data: Methods for fitting the linear ballistic accumulator', Behavior Research Methods, vol. 41, pp. 1095 - 1110, http://dx.doi.org/10.3758/BRM.41.4.1095

Brown SD; Marley AAJ; Donkin C; Heathcote A, 2008, 'An Integrated Model of Choices and Response Times in Absolute Identification', Psychological Review, vol. 115, pp. 396 - 425, http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/0033-295X.115.2.396

Conference Papers

Lin D; Donkin C; Newell BR, 2015, 'The exemplar-confusion model: An account of biased probability estimates in decisions from description', Conference of the Cognitive Science Society, California, USA, pp. 1374 - 1379, presented at Conference of the Cognitive Science Society, California, USA, 23 - 25 July 2015, https://mindmodeling.org/cogsci2015/

Henderson A; Navarro; Donkin C, 2015, 'Quantifying the time course of similarity', Conference of the Cognitive Science Society, California, USA, pp. 908 - 913, presented at Conference of the Cognitive Science Society, California, USA, 23 - 25 July 2015, https://mindmodeling.org/cogsci2015/

Luckman A; Donkin C; Newell BR, 2015, 'Exploring the concept of utility: Are separate value functions required for risky and inter-temporal choice?', Conference of the Cognitive Science Society, California, USA, presented at Conference of the Cognitive Science Society, California, USA, 23 - 25 July 2015, https://mindmodeling.org/cogsci2015/

Donkin C; Shiffrin RM, 2011, 'Visual Search as a Combination of Automatic and Attentive Processes.', in Carlson LA; Hölscher C; Shipley TF (eds.), CogSci, cognitivesciencesociety.org, presented at Proceedings of the 33th Annual Meeting of the Cognitive Science Society, CogSci 2011, Boston, Massachusetts, USA, July 20-23, 2011, https://mindmodeling.org/cogsci2011/

Donkin C; Shiffrin RM; Brown S; Heathcote A, 2010, 'Does micro-variability make models more complex? A comparison between diffusive and linear evidence accumulation', in Ohlsson S; Catrambone R (eds.), COGNITION IN FLUX, COGNITIVE SCIENCE SOCIETY, INC, Portland, OR, pp. 1946 - 1951, presented at 32nd Annual Meeting of the Cognitive-Science-Society, Portland, OR, 11 - 14 August 2010, http://gateway.webofknowledge.com/gateway/Gateway.cgi?GWVersion=2&SrcApp=PARTNER_APP&SrcAuth=LinksAMR&KeyUT=WOS:000392421700474&DestLinkType=FullRecord&DestApp=ALL_WOS&UsrCustomerID=891bb5ab6ba270e68a29b250adbe88d1

Dodds P; Donkin C; Brown S; Heathcote A, 2010, 'Multidimensional Scaling Methods for Absolute Identification Data', in Ohlsson S; Catrambone R (eds.), COGNITION IN FLUX, COGNITIVE SCIENCE SOCIETY, INC, Portland, OR, pp. 2804 - 2809, presented at 32nd Annual Meeting of the Cognitive-Science-Society, Portland, OR, 11 - 14 August 2010, http://gateway.webofknowledge.com/gateway/Gateway.cgi?GWVersion=2&SrcApp=PARTNER_APP&SrcAuth=LinksAMR&KeyUT=WOS:000392421700663&DestLinkType=FullRecord&DestApp=ALL_WOS&UsrCustomerID=891bb5ab6ba270e68a29b250adbe88d1

Conference Abstracts

Ayling L; Henry A; Sana M; Tracy S; Kasparian N; Donkin C; Welsh AW, 2015, 'Assessing capacity for informed consent during labour: design and implementation of a research tool', in BJOG-AN INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF OBSTETRICS AND GYNAECOLOGY, WILEY-BLACKWELL, Vol. 122, pp. 323 - 323, http://gateway.webofknowledge.com/gateway/Gateway.cgi?GWVersion=2&SrcApp=PARTNER_APP&SrcAuth=LinksAMR&KeyUT=WOS:000356713000711&DestLinkType=FullRecord&DestApp=ALL_WOS&UsrCustomerID=891bb5ab6ba270e68a29b250adbe88d1

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