A map of decoy influence in human multialternative choice, PNAS 2020
with Vickie Li*, Konstantinos Tsetsos, and Christopher Summerfield

Choices between two goods can be swayed by a third, less appealing "decoy" option. Here, we mapped how diecoys with different attributes affect human decisions. We used these data to arbitrate between different extant models of contextual influence. We showed that the rich pattern of decoy influence can be captured by a theory of relative information-processing, grounded in neural normalization. We further compared different formulations of this theory using a large, flexible, nested model of neural normalization. This new model allowed us to distill the features of relative processing that drive the observed decoy effects. * This work was co-led by Dr Vickie Li who designed, built and conducted the experiment with human volunteers. pdf   data & code

How do (perceptual) distracters distract?, PLOS Computational Biology 2022
with Katarzyna Rudzka, Hannah E. Smithson, Christopher Summerfield

When we make a perceptual decision about a target stimulus in the presence of other, irrelevant stimuli (distracters), our choices are less accurate. Past research has explained this effect as the result of a "competition" between targets and distracters for our attention. In this article, we showed that this classical story cannot account in full for perceptual distraction. Instead, across three experiments, we found that distracters exert an interactive influence on perceptual choices: accurate decisions are facilitated when targets and distracters are more similar. This distracter effect naturally falls out of a theory that the brain encodes information in a relative fashion. pdf   data & code

Green nudges: applying behavioural economics to the fight against climate change, PsyPAG 2020 with Mirela Zaneva

In this commentary, we review different approaches to "nudging" consumer behaviors towards greener choices. We propose a framework to maximize the potential positive impact of green nudges. While this article focuses on existing approaches for individual behavior change, we agree with other researchers who have advocated that, to address the climate emergency, we need comprehensive, systemic changes, focusing on the system in which individual behaviors are embedded. pdf

Automaticity in Stimulus-Parity Synaesthesia, i-Perception 2017 with Rebekah C. White, Mihaela D. Duta, and Kate Nation

Stimulus-parity synaesthetes experience many non-numeric stimuli (including shapes and colors) as odd or even. Here, we assess whether those associations are automatic through a speeded reaction time task, inspired by a colored shape sorter toy. We found that a synaesthetic participant had trouble sorting "odd" shapes into "even" colored slots, as evidenced by her slower reaction times. Our non-synaesthetic control participants did not exhibit this parity-congruence effect. These results suggest that synaesthetic stimulus-parity associations occur in an involuntary, "automatic" fashion. pdf