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Mathematical Psychology
Parker Smith, Yanjun Liu, James T. Townsend, Trish van Zandt

LAST MODIFIED: 29 JULY 2020

DOI: 10.1093/OBO/9780199828340-0266

Introduction

Mathematical psychology is that branch of psychology focusing on the use of mathematical and computational models to explain and
predict human behavior. Typical areas of interest are memory, attention, problem solving, perception, decision making, and motor control.
The field developed from the measurement problems encountered in psychophysics with a focus on behavioral responses. It has evolved
with improvements in technology such as advanced computer systems and brain imaging systems, which have spurred the growth of
neuroscience. As the number of tools for research in the field grows, the sophistication and complexity of models have grown. However, a
unique characteristic of mathematical psychology is its potential role in all branches of psychology. All “substantive” areas of psychology
(e.g., clinical, social, and developmental) could have both empirical and mathematical foundations. As the field grows in complexity and
nuance, it is making more and more contributions in these wider areas.

Textbooks and Central Texts

There are a number of important textbooks that, while old, are still used in the early 21st century to teach mathematical psychology at the
graduate level, and that are still used as important references. Newer texts include historical surveys and modern computational
approaches that were not in practice when mathematical psychology became recognized as a distinct discipline. Batchelder, et al. 2016
updates Luce, et al. 1963. Luce, et al. 1963 was the first, classic attempt to review the literature on mathematical psychology and present
mathematical psychology as a unified discipline. Batchelder, et al. 2016 provides a comprehensive summary of modern mathematical
psychology. Busemeyer, et al. 2015 gives another comprehensive review of modern mathematical psychology. Laming 1973 is a review of
mathematical psychology narrowly focused on questions arising in the modeling of memory, but providing a comprehensive presentation of
the problem of information accumulation in simple choice, a problem that drives much of modern research in cognition. Restle and Greeno
1970 is a less well known textbook in which the presentation of materials is strongly influenced by behaviorism and mathematical learning
theory. Coombs, et al. 1970 is the first textbook accessible to undergraduates, which remains an important historical reference that includes
a number of important foundational topics.

Batchelder, W. H., H. Colonius, E. Dzhafarov, and J. I. Myung, eds. 2016. New handbook of mathematical psychology. Vols. 1–2.
Cambridge, UK: Cambridge Univ. Press.
An updated edition of Luce et al.’s 1963 classic Handbook of Mathematical Psychology that presents the discipline of mathematical
psychology in a modern context.

Busemeyer, J. R., and A. Diederich. 2010. Cognitive modeling. Los Angeles: SAGE.
An introductory textbook dealing with specific issues involved in the construction and evaluation of models for cognitive psychology.

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Busemeyer, J. R., Z. Wang, J. T. Townsend, and A. Eidels. 2015. The Oxford handbook of computational and mathematical
psychology. New York: Oxford Univ. Press.
Another comprehensive review of modern mathematical psychology.

Coombs, C. H., R. M. Dawes, and A. Tversky. 1970. Mathematical psychology: An elementary introduction. Oxford: Prentice-Hall.
The first textbook on mathematical psychology, it is an important historical reference that includes a number of important foundational
topics.

Laming, D. R. J. 1973. Mathematical psychology. London: Academic Press.

Another foundational reference, not as broad as other texts of its time, but with more treatment of information accumulation topics and
problems involved with modeling of memory.

Luce, R. D., R. R. Bush, and E. Galanter, eds. 1963. Handbook of mathematical psychology. Vol. 1. Oxford: John Wiley.
The first, classic attempt to review the literature on mathematical psychology and present mathematical psychology as a unified discipline.

Restle, F., and J. G. Greeno. 1970. Introduction to mathematical psychology. Oxford: Addison-Wesley.
A less well known textbook in which the presentation of materials is strongly influenced by behaviorism and mathematical learning theory.

Scholarly Journals

There are two journals devoted exclusively to publishing work in mathematical psychology, and several other journals that publish
mathematical psychology together with other related research. The Journal of Mathematical Psychology and Computational Brain and
Behavior publish exclusively mathematical psychology and were founded by the Society for Mathematical Psychology. Psychometrika and
the British Journal of Mathematical and Statistical Psychology publish articles in mathematical psychology as well as psychometrics and
methodology. Behavior Research Methods often publishes papers on techniques for modeling and statistical evaluation of models.
Cognitive Psychology, Psychological Review, and Psychonomic Bulletin and Review publish, among other things, mathematical models that
explain cognition and behavior.

Behavior Research Methods. 1968–.

An outlet for publishing new equipment, software, and statistical procedures. It often features software for model fitting and statistical
methods unique to psychological data.

British Journal of Mathematical & Statistical Psychology. 1947–.

Adheres closely to the original makeup of the Society for Mathematical Psychology, by publishing work in classic psychometrics together
with mathematical psychology and statistical modeling.

Cognitive Psychology. 1970–.

A journal similar to Psychological Review, although more narrowly focused on cognitive phenomena. The modeling in this journal tends to
be more mathematically sophisticated and/or detailed than that of other journals (save the Journal of Mathematical Psychology).

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Computational Brain and Behavior. 2018–.

A relatively new journal that focuses more specifically on statistical, dynamic models of cognition. These models frequently rely on computer
simulation and hence less on traditional methods of analysis. These models are also often more closely linked to neurophysiology and/or
neurophysiological measurements than those that appear in the Journal of Mathematical Psychology.

Journal of Mathematical Psychology. 1964 –.

The first journal devoted exclusively to mathematical psychology. It publishes empirical and theoretical papers examining questions of
measurement, mathematical representations of mental phenomena, and statistical models of cognition. It also publishes tutorials and book
reviews.

Psychological Review. 1894–.

The premier journal in experimental psychology. As its title implies, this journal publishes literature reviews that summarize research in
specific, focused areas. Most of these reviews are also accompanied by mathematical or computational models that attempt to provide
comprehensive explanations for the body of research summarized in the paper.

Psychometrika. 1936–.
A journal presenting mostly work in traditional psychometrics and quantitative psychology. It also publishes statistical modeling in cognitive
psychology when those statistics involve new methods of potential general interest.

Psychonomic Bulletin & Review. 1994–.

A journal devoted to both empirical and theoretical problems in cognition (primarily, but occasionally other areas as well). Both longer
theoretical and mathematical modeling papers are published as well as brief (usually empirical) papers.

History

The history of mathematical psychology can be divided into two eras: its roots in the mid-19th century, established by researchers in
astronomy, physiology, and philosophy, and its modern roots from the early 20th century during and after World War II.

Roots of Mathematical Psychology

Mathematical psychology has its origins not in psychology but in astronomy. Astronomical measurements were made by observing the time
at which cosmic entities passed over locations on a wire grid. Astronomers were aware of the fact that different observers would perceive
the passage times differently, a problem that was known as the “personal equation.” These differences, due to a kind of mental refractory
period that occurs when people try to coordinate responses to two stimuli at the same time, inspired Friedrich Bessel (b. 1784–d. 1846) to
use math to understand cognitive processes. Duncombe 1945 provides a history of the personal equation and its place in the history of
mathematical psychology. This work was followed by the development of psychophysics. Ernest Weber (b. 1795–d. 1878) and Gustav
Fechner (b. 1801–d. 1887) formulated equations that attempted to measure psychological experience as a function of the intensity of a
physical stimulus; Fechner 1860 is the classic first publication in this area. At the same time, F. C. Donders (b. 1818–d. 1889) developed an
empirical approach to measuring the amount of time it took to perform mental tasks. In Donders 1969 he designed a series of tasks such
that the time to perform the simpler tasks could be subtracted from the time to perform more complex tasks, thus giving insight into how the
brain organizes different processes. These early beginnings were stalled by the advent of Watson and Skinner’s behaviorism, which casts
doubt on our ability to construct theories about the internal, unobservable mental processes underlying behavior. Hull 1952 nonetheless
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uses mathematics to describe a theory of learning and motivation. At the same time, academic institutions and the military showed great
interest in examining and measuring the mental aptitudes of individuals. To assign soldiers to tasks that were best fitting for them and so
optimize their performance, L. L. Thurstone served with the Army and the Institute of Government Research. As the founder of the
Psychometric Society, L. L. Thurstone continued to make contributions to measurement and psychophysical theories even as experimental
psychology was dominated by radical behaviorists (see Thurstone 1952). Van Zandt and Townsend 2012 gives an historical overview of the
field of mathematical psychology, and Luce 1999 provides a similar overview with a discussion of issues that remain unresolved from
modern mathematical psychology’s beginnings.

Donders, F. C. 1969. On the speed of mental processes. Acta Psychologica 30:412–431.

A translation (by W. G. Koster) of Donders’ original study on the “method of subtraction.” Originally published 1868.

Duncombe, R. L. 1945. Personal equation in astronomy. Popular Astronomy 53.2–13, 63–76, 110–121.
The story of the personal equation and how it inspired the mathematician Bessel to do research in what would now be called mathematical
psychology.

Fechner, G. T. 1860. Elemente der Psychophysik. Edited by W. M. Wundt. Leipzig: Breitkopf and Härtel.
Fechner’s original publication that founded the field of psychophysics.

Hull, C. L. 1952. A behavior system: An introduction to behavior theory concerning the individual organism. New Haven, CT: Yale
Univ. Press.
A mathematical approach to behavior; specifically, learning and conditioning in the behaviorist framework.

Luce, R. D. 1999. Where is mathematical modeling in psychology headed? Theory and Psychology 9:723–737.
Speculations on the future of mathematical psychology, inspired by unresolved issues.

Thurstone, L. L. 1952. L. L. Thurstone. In A history of psychology in autobiography. Vol. 4. Edited by E. G. Boring, H. S. Langfeld,
and H. W. R. M. Yerkes, 295–321. Worcester, MA: Clark Univ. Press.
L. L. Thurstone’s autobiography, outlining his contributions to mathematical psychology and psychometrics during the rise and fall of
behaviorism.

Van Zandt, T., and J. T. Townsend. 2012. Mathematical psychology. In APA handbook of research methods in psychology. Vol. 2.
Edited by H. Cooper, 369–386. Washington, DC: APA Books.
A history and survey of modern mathematical psychology.

Early Modern Mathematical Psychology

Modern mathematical psychology and cognitive psychology approach human beings as information processing machines, taking in a
multitude of sensory information and using it to form a perception of their surroundings. With this information, people can make choices and
perform evaluations of the external world. Signal detection theory and information theory arose from work on communication systems
immediately after World War II. Communication engineers were concerned about how signals could be distinguished from noise and how

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well a system could transmit those signals. Scientists working on these problems recognized quickly that the language that was being used
to describe telephone lines could easily be used to characterize human cognition (“detection,” “information transmitted”), and soon these
concepts were applied to problems in perception and decision making. Shannon and Weaver 1949 on communication theory inspired
psychologists dealing with engineering problems to view humans as communication systems. Swets, et al. 1961 applies signal detection
theory to perception and decision making, and Attneave 1954 applies information theory to problems in stimulus identification. At the same
time that engineers were solving problems in perception and decision making, psychologists trained as behaviorists were applying
mathematical and statistical principles to describe complex behaviors as a result of learned (conditioned) associations between rewards
and those behaviors. Bush and Mosteller 1955 and Estes 1950 promote the idea that stimuli and responses can be broken down into
component elements and associated with each other gradually over time, using models such as Markov chains and more complex
stochastic process theories.

Attneave, F. 1954. Applications of information theory to psychology: A summary of basic concepts, methods, and results. New
York: Holt, Rinehard, and Winston.
A comprehensive survey of the use of information theory to explain behavior in perception and decision making.

Bush, R. R., and F. Mosteller. 1955. Stochastic models for learning. New York: Wiley.
The first text to apply a wide variety of stochastic models to problems of learning and memory.

Estes, W. K. 1950. Toward a statistical theory of learning. Psychological Review 57:276–286.

A groundbreaking paper in which stimulus sampling theory was proposed. Here Estes applied mathematical and statistical concepts to
problems in classical conditioning and instrumental learning. Stimulus sampling theory was later applied to problems in memory,
identification, and choice.

Shannon, C. E., and W. Weaver. 1949. The mathematical theory of communication. Urbana: Univ. of Illinois Press.
This text established the field of information theory, in which concepts such as entropy, complexity, and the unit of measurement called the
“bit” were introduced.

Swets, J. A., W. P. Tanner, and T. G. Birdsall. 1961. Decision processes in perception. Psychological Review 68:301–340.
This paper was the first time signal detection theory was applied to a problem in human psychology. Signal detection theory is now the
basis of measuring discriminability across a wide range of areas of study, including perception, memory, decision making, and test theory.

Notable Advancements and Models

While mathematical psychology extends into all areas of experimental psychology, its most notable influences have been in the
understanding of human cognition. This includes decision making, categorization and memory, as well as the advancement of statistical
methodology in the development and testing of models.

Human Decision Making as Information Accumulation

Perhaps the most influential idea to come from modern mathematical psychology’s beginnings is that decision making (from the very simple
to the very complex) is guided by a process in which a person accumulates information toward different possible responses over time. This
idea has been presented and tested in a number of landmark papers and books, including Audley and Pike 1965, Luce 1986, Ratcliff and

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Smith 2004, and Townsend and Ashby 1983 (pp. 272–289). Models of information accumulation share a number of common elements: first,
presentation of a stimulus leads to a growth of evidence toward (or away) from different possible responses to that stimulus; second, a
response to the stimulus is made when the evidence reaches some critical level. Because a great many complicated human behaviors can
be viewed as sequences of decisions, theories of information accumulation have been used to explain behavior in most, if not all, areas of
psychology. There are a number of information accumulation models that have been very successful in explaining behavior. Ratcliff 1978 is
the first application of the drift diffusion model to recognition memory, and it is now the most popular and most successful information
accumulation model. Because the mathematics describing the drift diffusion model can be complex, Brown and Heathcote 2008 presents
an approximation called the linear ballistic accumulator that is simpler to implement. Most information accumulation models are restricted to
explaining fast, simple decisions between few (usually two) alternatives. Smith 2016 demonstrates a model that can be applied to problems
with a much larger number of possible responses. However, the time frame of the processes described by these models is only around
1500 milliseconds. Decisions that occur over longer time periods (involving large purchases, marriage choices, career paths, etc.) are more
complex and the ways that information is accumulated for these tend to change over time. These complexities mean that simpler
information accumulation models cannot account for these kinds of behaviors.

Audley, R. J., and A. R. Pike. 1965. Some alternative stochastic models of choice. British Journal of Mathematical and Statistical
Psychology 18.2: 207–225.
An application of renewal processes to choice response problems.

Brown, S. D., and A. Heathcote. 2008. The simplest complete model of choice response time: Linear ballistic accumulation.
Cognitive Psychology 57:153–178.
The linear ballistic accumulator is an approximation to the drift diffusion model, in which the mathematics are greatly simplified.

Luce, R. D. 1986. Response times: Their role in inferring elementary mental organization. New York: Oxford Univ. Press.
A comprehensive review of the data and theories surrounding the measurement of response times in cognitive psychology.

Ratcliff, R. 1978. A theory of memory retrieval. Psychological Review 85.2: 59–108.

The first application of a Wiener process (Brownian motion with drift) to a choice problem in psychology.

Ratcliff, R., and P. L. Smith. 2004. A comparison of sequential sampling models for two-choice reaction time. Psychological
Review 111.2: 333–367.
This paper tests a number of different information accumulation models to determine which ones best account for data in choice response
tasks.

Smith, P. L. 2016. Diffusion theory of decision making in continuous report. Psychological Review 123.4: 425–451.
A new information accumulation mode that can account for choice behavior when the number of possible choices is very large (or infinite,
such as when a person can indicate a choice along a continuous response scale).

Townsend, J. T., and F. G. Ashby. 1983. The stochastic modeling of elementary psychological processes. Cambridge, UK:
Cambridge Univ. Press.
Townsend and Ashby discuss race renewal models, in which information is accumulated simultaneously toward multiple alternatives.

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Bayesian Models of Cognition

Bayesian models describe the probabilities with which people will take certain actions or make certain responses. These models focus on
the changing or adapting of expected outcomes based on previously gained information. The idea is that a person should change their
expectations about the likely outcome of his or her response as a function of past experience. If a person behaves optimally (i.e., in such a
way that reward is maximized), then he or she should update his or her expectations according to Bayes’ rule. Bayesian models have
grown in popularity because they not only quantify what the “best” response in a particular circumstance should be, but they are able to
predict how people learn to use information and make inferences. Jones and Love 2011 reviews the contributions of these models, which
have been applied to problems across the cognitive spectrum, including perception, learning, memory, decision making, language
processing, and motor control. Griffiths, et al. 2008 and Tenenbaum, et al. 2006 also survey these models and their contributions to
psychological theory.

Griffiths, T. L., C. Kemp, and J. B. Tenenbaum. 2008. Bayesian models of cognition. In The Cambridge handbook of computational
psychology. Edited by R. Sun, 59–100. New York: Cambridge Univ. Press.
This chapter is a survey of Bayesian models and their application in cognitive psychology.

Jones, M., and B. Love. 2011. Bayesian fundamentalism or enlightenment? On the explanatory status and theoretical
contributions of Bayesian models of cognitions. Behavioral and Brain Sciences 34:169–231.
A review of Bayesian models in cognitive psychology and the limitations and psychological implications of models rooted in rational
principles.

Tenenbaum, J. B., T. L. Griffiths, and C. Kemp. 2006. Theory-based Bayesian models of inductive learning and reasoning. Trends
in Cognitive Science 10:309–318.
This paper gives a briefer overview of Bayesian models and how they are applied to problems in higher-level cognition (e.g., inductive
reasoning).

Prospect Theory

Kahneman and Tversky 1979 is the first work to describe prospect theory, which is a cognitive model that tries to explain how people’s
preferences among choices that involve risk change as a function of how much might be gained or lost. This theory is noteworthy because it
earned Daniel Kahneman the Nobel Prize in Economics, the first time a psychologist has earned this distinction. Prospect theory forms the
core of many theories of economic choice. It describes how the perceived utility of an amount of money changes with a person’s reference
point (e.g., how poor or wealthy they are), and also explains why people are “loss-averse,” that is, why they dislike the loss of some amount
of money more than they like the gain of that same amount of money. Tversky and Kahneman 1992 is a later generalization of prospect
theory to account for some of the original theory’s failures to account for human behavior.

Kahneman, D., and A. Tversky. 1979. Prospect theory: An analysis of decision under risk. Econometrica 47:263–291.
The groundbreaking paper that introduced prospect theory.

Tversky, Amos, and Daniel Kahneman. 1992. Advances in prospect theory: Cumulative representation of uncertainty. Journal of
Risk and Uncertainty 5.4: 297–323.
The paper that modified prospect theory; in particular, the authors proposed that perception of loss and risk depended not only on a
person’s reference point, but also on how he or she perceives probability.

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Categorization

Categorization is the task that a person performs when he or she tries to determine what kind of something an object is. This sort of
judgment is critical to determining the actions that a person takes in response to perceiving that object. For example, if one determined that
an object was a bear (a kind of large, dangerous animal), the actions one would take in response to seeing it would be very different if one
instead determined than the object was a chair (a kind of furniture that can be sat on). This area is important because, like problems of
simple choice, a great many complex human behaviors can be viewed as being the result of solving a categorization problem. In fact, there
is a great deal of overlap between studies of categorization and those of simple choice. There are two major mathematical models of
categorization. Ashby and Townsend 1986 discusses general recognition theory, a multidimensional extension of signal detection theory.
Ashby 2000 is a version of general recognition theory that could account for random behavior. Nosofsky 1986 contains the generalized
context model and Nosofsky and Palmeri 1997 is a version of it that could account for response times. These two model varieties were
evaluated by Rouder and Ratcliff 2006. Models of categorization address problems of a range of complexity, including those involved in
simple perception to those involved in speech perception and learning. Problems in the processing of “big data,” including machine learning
and data mining, make use of mathematical models of categorization. Cohen and Lefebvre 2017 provides an extensive review.

Ashby, F. G. 2000. A stochastic version of general recognition theory. Journal of Mathematical Psychology 44:310–329.
An adaptation of general recognition theory to account for response times.

Ashby, F. G., and J. T. Townsend. 1986. Varieties of perceptual independence. Psychological Review 93:154–179.
The first publication to introduce general recognition theory, the multidimensional extension of signal detection theory. It has been applied to
a range of problems in perception and categorization.

Cohen, H., and C. Lefebvre. 2017. Handbook of categorization in cognitive science. Amsterdam: Elsevier Science.
A wide-ranging survey of theories, models, and practical applications in the field of categorization.

Nosofsky, R. M. 1986. Attention, similarity, and the identification-categorization relationship. Journal of Experimental Psychology:
General 115.1: 39–57.
The first publication to introduce the generalized context model.

Nosofsky, R. M., and T. J. Palmeri. 1997. An exemplar-based random walk model of speeded classification. Psychological Review
104.2: 266–300.
An important extension of the generalized context model to account for response times.

Rouder, J. N., and R. Ratcliff. 2006. Comparing exemplar- and rule-based theories of categorization. Current Directions in
Psychological Science 15.1: 9–13.
An evaluation of the most popular models of categorization, in terms of how well they can account for categorization performance.

Notable Areas

Mathematical psychology has emphasized the importance of quantifying psychological concepts and developing models that make
quantitative and qualitative predictions about human behavior. This is a very broad emphasis that has influenced a wide swath of research

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areas in psychology.

Decision Making

Decision making is an area of research that examines the cognitive processes responsible for expressing preferences, choosing between
alternatives, and making judgments about the probability of different outcomes. Gigerenzer and Selten 2002; Kahneman, et al. 1982; Janis
and Mann 1977; and Yates 1990 are surveys from a variety of perspectives. A common experimental paradigm in this area asks people to
gamble, and they are asked to choose between gambles they would like to play. These gambles are presented as outcome pairs that state
how much money may be won or lost, together with the odds of winning or losing. A large body of literature in psychology and economics is
devoted to behavior in these kinds of experiments, in which the values won or lost and the odds of each are varied. Examples of these
include Savage 1972 and Tzeng and Huang 2011.

Gigerenzer, G., and R. Selten, eds. 2002. Bounded rationality: The adaptive toolbox. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
This book summarizes a wide range of suboptimal and adaptive decisional strategies in different decision paradigms.

Janis, I. L., and L. Mann. 1977. Decision making: A psychological analysis of conflict, choice, and commitment. New York: Free
Press.
A general descriptive theory of how people make decisions under stress.

Kahneman, D., P. Slovic, and A. Tversky, eds. 1982. Judgment under uncertainty: Heuristics and biases. Cambridge, MA:
Cambridge Univ. Press.
This book presents the different heuristics that people use and the biases that they display in a wide range of environmental settings, from
laboratory experiments to social, medical, and political situations, among others.

Savage, L. J. 1972. The foundations of statistics. New York: Dover.

This classic text presents different ways of viewing probabilities and how these different interpretations of probabilities relate to and affect
human decision making.

Tzeng, G. H., and J. J. Huang. 2011. Multiple attribute decision making: Methods and applications. Boca Raton, FL: CRC.
Introduces methods for structuring preferences and determining choices in situations where choice options are complex, varying on multiple
dimensions.

Yates, J. F. 1990. Judgment and decision making. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall.
A comprehensive review of research in judgment and decision making.

Sensation, Psychophysics, and Perception

The study of sensation begins with how our sensory organs capture energy and information from the outside world and transmit this
information to the brain. This area of research is perhaps the richest in mathematical psychology, because it is far easier to quantify
relationships between physical stimuli and the sensations they provoke than it is to quantify more complex behaviors (e.g., language).
Psychophysics, which links physical intensity of stimuli to psychological experience, is reviewed in Gescheider 2013. Green and Swets

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1966 links psychophysics and signal detection to provide a system for measuring perceptual discriminability and response bias that has
extended throughout experimental psychology. Gescheider 2013 provides a review of work in psychophysics, and Schiffman 1990 links
sensation and perception to neural function. Sensation and perception are intertwined with higher-order phenomena such as attention,
which controls those sensations that most influence perception. James 1890 is the first formal treatise on attention, while Kahneman 1973
and Posner and Petersen 1990 are later texts linking attention to perception and neural function. Schwartz and Krantz 2017 is a recent
textbook suitable for undergraduates. Falmagne 1985 is a textbook suitable for graduate students.

Falmagne, J.-C. 1985. Elements of psychophysical theory. New York: Oxford Univ. Press.
A graduate-level textbook that uses modern measurement theory to re-examine classic psychophysical problems. The title of the book is an
homage to the groundbreaking Fechner 1860 (see Roots of Mathematical Psychology).

Gescheider, G. A. 2013. Psychophysics: The fundamentals. Florence: Taylor and Francis.

A textbook that reviews the theories and methods of modern psychophysics.

Green, D. M., and J. A. Swets. 1966. Signal detection theory and psychophysics. Vol. 1. New York: Wiley.
This book presents a computational framework describing how people perceive information in noisy contexts and how discriminability of
stimuli interact with response biases.

James, W. 1890. Attention. In The principles of psychology. Vol. 1. By W. James, 402–458. New York: Henry Holt.
This historical chapter is the first formal, scientific discussion of concepts important to attention, including sensation and perception.

Kahneman, D. 1973. Attention and effort. Vol. 1063. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall.
This book discusses the role of attention in perception and in performance and reviews the research in this domain.

Posner, M. I., and S. E. Petersen. 1990. The attention system of the human brain. Annual Review of Neuroscience 13.1: 25–42.
This chapter reviews research on attention from three perspectives: brain anatomy, neural networks in different anatomical areas, and
specific computations necessary for different attentional functions.

Schiffman, H. R. 1990. Sensation and perception: An integrated approach. New York: John Wiley.
This book describes the principles of sensation and perception from a bio-behavioral perspective, stressing specialized anatomy,
physiological mechanisms, and functional behavior with adaptive consequences.

Schwartz, B. L., and J. H. Krantz. 2017. Sensation and perception. Los Angeles: SAGE.
A modern textbook reviewing the field of sensation and perception.

Motor Control

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The study of motor control includes the cognitive processes involved in planning, executing, and coordinating physical movements. Flash
and Sejnowski 2001 and Winter 2009 provide reviews of computational approaches to motor control, and Schmidt, et al. 2018 is a text that
introduces the field of motor control. Some applications of computational and mathematical work in this field include problems in spatial
perception, proprioception, attention, and learning.

Flash, T., and T. J. Sejnowski. 2001. Computational approaches to motor control. Current Opinion in Neurobiology 11.6: 655–662.
A review of computational, neurobiological models of motor control.

Schmidt, R. A., T. D. Lee, C. Winstein, G. Wulf, and H. N. Zelaznik. 2018. Motor control and learning: A behavioral emphasis.
Champaign, IL: Human Kinetics.
An introductory textbook surveying the field of motor control and motor learning.

Winter, D. A. 2009. Biomechanics and motor control of human movement. Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley.
A text that views motor control as a collection of problems to be solved by a biomechanical system.

Foundational Measurement

A recurrent issue in psychology is the problem of measurement. How can we objectively measure (using a numerical scale) that which is
inherently subjective (e.g., intelligence, pain, pleasantness, etc.)? To contrast the science of psychology to physics, we see that physics has
units of measurement which are said to lie on ratio scales (e.g., mass, length, pressure, and so forth). In psychology, there are very few
such scales. Foundational measurement is concerned with the development and application of measurement scales in psychology—very
frequently, application of these scales is to problems in perception. Mathematical psychologists have been instrumental in developing
scales that are weaker than ratio scales. In foundational measurement, these scales are derived from axioms. An axiom is a mathematical
statement that a sensible measurement system should satisfy, but that is usually left untested. For example, if we present a stimulus of high
intensity, we should expect that the psychological effect of that stimulus should be greater than if we had presented a stimulus of lower
intensity. Laying out the foundation of a measurement system axiomatically can lead to algebraic systems that make predictions about what
measurements should arise under changes in stimulus conditions. The classic texts that comprehensively review theories and problems of
measurement in psychology are the Foundations of Measurement volumes written by Krantz, Luce, Suppes, and Tversky. There are three
volumes in the Foundations series, published at different times. Krantz, et al. 1971 is the first volume in the series and contains introductory
fundamental measurement and moves through the construction of additive and polynomial scales of measurement. Suppes, et al. 1989 is
the second volume and includes the development of more complex geometric and probabilistic representations. Luce, et al. 1990 completes
the series with nonadditive representations and discussions of scale invariance and axiomatization. Falmagne 1986 is a good basic
introduction to foundational measurement and the axiomatic approach. Colonius and Dzhafarov 2006 presents some modern approaches to
the measurement problem in sensation and perception. Narens and Luce 1986 and Luce and Narens 1987 provide discussions of how
complex measurement structures are possible and how they might explain some findings in decision making. Narens 2007 presents the
issue of meaningfulness, or how qualitative theories might be addressed with or linked to mathematical models.

Cliff, N. 1992. Article commentary: Abstract measurement theory and the revolution that never happened. Psychological Science
3.3: 186–190.
Discusses why measurement theory was not as influential in experimental psychology and psychometrics as it was once thought it would
be.

Colonius, H., and E. N. Dzhafarov, eds. 2006. Measurement and representation of sensation. Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum.
A collection of chapters that discuss problems in measurement and propose new approaches to dealing with them.
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Falmagne, J.-C. 1986. Psychophysical measurement and theory. In Handbook of perception and performance. Vol. 1. Edited by
K. R. Boff, L. Kaufman, and J. P. Thomas, 1-1–1-66. New York: John Wiley.
An introductory chapter that outlines the fundamental axioms of measurement as applied to basic sensation of stimulus intensities.

Krantz, D. H., R. D. Luce, P. Suppes, and A. Tversky. 1971. Foundations of measurement. Vol. 1. New York: Academic Press.
The first textbook on measurement in psychology, particularly as applied to problems in sensation and psychophysics.

Luce, R. D., D. H. Krantz, P. Suppes, and A. Tversky. 1990. Foundations of measurement. Vol. 3. New York: Academic Press.
The final volume in the Foundations series, discussing more general characteristics of measurement scales.

Luce, R. D., and L. Narens. 1987. Measurement scales on the continuum. Science 236.19: 1527–1532.
Discusses what kinds of scales are mathematically possible.

Narens, L. 2007. Introduction to the theories of measurement and meaningfulness and the use of symmetry in science. Mahwah,
NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum.
An introduction to measurement with a particular focus on how qualitative or “meaningful” concepts may be linked to mathematical models.

Narens, L., and R. D. Luce. 1986. Measurement: The theory of numerical assignments. Psychological Bulletin 99:166–180.
Discusses how complex scales of measurement can explain some puzzling findings in decision making.

Suppes, P., D. H. Krantz, R. D. Luce, and A. Tversky. 1989. Foundations of measurement. Vol. 2. New York: Academic Press.
The second volume in the Foundations series, discussing more complex measurement scales.

Cognitive Architecture

Most strategies of mathematical modeling involve fitting theoretically determined or parametric probability distributions to psychological
(behavioral or neurological) data. Work in determining cognitive architecture is nonparametric or distribution-free, so that conclusions about
how the cognitive system is organized may be drawn regardless of the probability distributions or other random structures that produce the
data. Two major approaches in this area are systems factorial technology and state-trace analysis. Systems factorial technology is
introduced in Townsend and Nozawa 1995 and reviewed in Little, et al. 2017. It consists of a suite of mathematical methodologies for
uncovering a number of critical aspects of psychological characteristics and structures such as mental architecture (how separate
processes are arranged and/or ordered), decisional stopping rules, stochastic dependence of various mechanisms, and workload capacity.
State-trace analysis, introduced in Bamber 1979 and reviewed in Dunn and Kalish 2018, is a distribution-free methodology for determining
whether or not two or more psychological (e.g., perceptual, cognitive, or action-based) subprocesses are functions of the same underlying
fundamental causes.

Bamber, D. 1979. State-trace analysis: A method of testing simple theories of causation. Journal of Mathematical Psychology
19.2: 137–181.
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The introduction of state-trace analysis.

Dunn, J. C., and M. L. Kalish. 2018. State-trace analysis. Cham, Switzerland: Springer International.
A review of state-trace analysis and its applications.

Little, D., N. Altieri, M. Fific, and C. T. Yang, eds. 2017. Systems factorial technology: A theory driven methodology for the
identification of perceptual and cognitive mechanisms. London: Academic Press.
A review of systems factorial technology.

Townsend, J. T., and G. Nozawa. 1995. Spatio-temporal properties of elementary perception: An investigation of parallel, serial,
and coactive theories. Journal of Mathematical Psychology 39.4: 321–359.
The first paper to present systems factorial technology as a comprehensive approach to testing theories of cognitive architecture.

Cognitive Modeling

Cognitive modeling is an area focusing on constructing mathematical and computational models that simulate how humans solve problems
or process information. Busemeyer and Diederich 2010 and Lee and Wagenmakers 2014 are textbooks that review the mathematical and
statistical methods used in model construction and testing. Representative examples of this domain include reinforcement learning models
as presented in Sutton and Barto 2018, Shiffrin and Schneider 1977 on controlled and automatic processes, and categorization and
information accumulation models as discussed in Notable Advancements and Models. Batchelder and Riefer 1990 uses processing trees
as a way to break a cognitive process into separate unobservable components and then estimate the probabilities associated with each.
Levine 2018 provides a survey of cognitive modeling with special emphasis on the relation between cognitive and neural structures. An
important component of cognitive modeling research is the development of statistical methods for fitting, evaluating, and distinguishing
between different models. Myung and Pitt 1997 reviews literature on model selection and Morey, et al. 2016 discusses the use of Bayes
factors to quantify the strength of evidence for alternative models. Shiffrin, et al. 2008 discusses model selection and evaluation in the
context of Bayesian hierarchical models.

Batchelder, W. H., and D. M. Riefer. 1990. Multinomial processing models of source monitoring. Psychological Review 97.4: 548–
564.
A seminal paper on the use of multinomial processing models for decomposing a cognitive process into component stages.

Busemeyer, J. R., and A. Diederich. 2010. Cognitive modeling. Los Angeles: SAGE.
An introductory textbook on developing and testing models specific to human cognition, including important statistical and computational
approaches.

Lee, M. D., and E. J. Wagenmakers. 2014. Bayesian cognitive modeling: A practical course. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge Univ.
Press.
A textbook on cognitive modeling that focuses on Bayesian models and how to develop code to implement them.

Levine, D. S. 2018. Introduction to neural and cognitive modeling. New York: Routledge.

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A textbook that reviews the theories of different cognitive functions and their organization, with emphasis on neural networks and computer
simulation.

Morey, R. D., J. W. Romeijn, and J. N. Rouder. 2016. The philosophy of Bayes factors and the quantification of statistical evidence.
Journal of Mathematical Psychology 72:6–18.
A general introduction to the use of Bayes factors in model selection.

Myung, I. J., and M. A. Pitt. 1997. Applying Occam’s razor in modeling cognition: A Bayesian approach. Psychonomic Bulletin &
Review 4.1: 79–95.
Reviews methods for testing between different models from a Bayesian perspective.

Shiffrin, R. M., M. D. Lee, W. Kim, and E.-J. Wagenmakers. 2008. A survey of model evaluation approaches with a tutorial on
hierarchical Bayesian methods. Cognitive Science 32:1248–1284.
Another review of methods to evaluate goodness-of-fit of different models and model comparisons with a special emphasis on Bayesian
hierarchical models.

Shiffrin, R. M., and W. Schneider. 1977. Controlled and automatic human information processing: II. Perceptual learning,
automatic attending and a general theory. Psychological Review 84.2: 127.
A classic paper that presents an example of a complex model that explains attention and learning.

Sutton, R. S., and A. G. Barto. 2018. Reinforcement learning: An introduction. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
A textbook on reinforcement learning, which is fundamental to research in artificial intelligence and machine learning.

Classification: Identification and Categorization

The study of how people separate objects and events of the world into separate classes is extremely important in psychology. Two critical
special cases are identification, where every object to be classified has a single name or designation (e.g., Mr. Ichabod Crane) and
categorization, where multiple objects go into the same class (e.g., the category of all African animals). In addition to the work described in
Notable Advancements and Models, work on categorization has a rich history. Rosch 1978 and Mervis and Rosch 1981 were perhaps the
first to argue that categorization problems were central to artificial intelligence and machine learning. Reed 1972 and Anderson 1991
discuss how categories are learned. This work forms part of the foundation of research in “big data” and data analytics, as demonstrated by
Frermann and Lapata 2019 and Sanders and Nosofsky 2018.

Anderson, J. R. 1991. The adaptive nature of human categorization. Psychological Review 98.3: 409.
Links Anderson’s ACT model of learning and memory to the problem of categorization.

Frermann, L., and M. Lapata. 2019. Categorization in the wild: Generalizing cognitive models to naturalistic data across
languages. arXiv preprint arXiv:1902.08830.
Generalizes categorization models to large-scale noisy data from the natural environment across different languages and cultures.

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Mervis, C. B., and E. Rosch. 1981. Categorization of natural objects. Annual Review of Psychology 32.1: 89–115.
A review article focusing on categorization of natural objects (i.e., objects that are not constructed for the purpose of an experiment),
emphasizing the role of work in memory and artificial intelligence in modeling categorization.

Reed, S. K. 1972. Pattern recognition and categorization. Cognitive Psychology 3.3: 382–407.
An early paper exploring how people learn to categorize from repeated exposure to category exemplars.

Rosch, E. 1978. Principles of categorization. In Cognition and categorization. Edited by E. Rosch and B. B. Lloyd, 28–49. Hillsdale,
NJ: Erlbaum.
Reviews the foundation of categorization and emphasizes the role that category structure plays in categorization.

Sanders, C., and R. M. Nosofsky. 2018. Using deep-learning representations of complex natural stimuli as input to psychological
models of classification. In Proceedings of the 40th Annual Meeting of the Cognitive Science Society (CogSci 2018). Vol. 1, 1025–
1030. Madison, Wisconsin.
Demonstrates that convolutional, neural networks–derived representations of stimuli together with a formal psychological classification
model can predict how complex natural stimuli are categorized.

Neural Modeling

Neural models attempt to explain behavior by taking into account the underlying neurophysiology and neuroanatomy of the nervous system
and brain. The degree of complexity and adherence to actual neural structures and characteristics varies widely but generally tends to
depart from the type of modeling based on automata (e.g., digital computers). Amit 1992, Bullmore and Sporns 2009, Smith 1993, and
Sporns 2010 are examples of how mathematical approaches to neural computation are being used to model brain function. MacGregor
2012 treats neural function as a problem in signal processing. Krizhevsky, et al. 2012 provides an example of how a neural network model
can perform complex classification.

Amit, D. J. 1992. Modeling brain function: The world of attractor neural networks. Cambridge, MA: Cambridge Univ. Press.
This book reviews the physical properties of individual neurons and relates these properties to problems in biology, computer science,
psychology, neurology, and cognitive science, among other disciplines.

Bullmore, E., and O. Sporns. 2009. Complex brain networks: Graph theoretical analysis of structural and functional systems.
Nature Reviews: Neuroscience 10.3: 186.
Links principles of graph theory to the study of complex brain networks.

Krizhevsky, A., I. Sutskever, and G. E. Hinton. 2012. Imagenet classification with deep convolutional neural networks. In Advances
in neural information processing systems 25. Edited by P. Bartlett, F. C. N. Pereira, C. J. C. Burges, L. Bottou, and K. Q.
Weinberger, 1097–1105. Red Hook, NY: Curran.
An application of deep convolutional neural network models to image classification.

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MacGregor, R., ed. 2012. Neural modeling: Electrical signal processing in the nervous system. New York: Springer Science &
Business Media.
Reviews a number of quantitative methods to characterize and simulate how nervous systems process electrical signals.

Smith, M. 1993. Neural networks for statistical modeling. Vol. 115. New York: Van Nostrand Reinhold.
A review of the kinds of statistical computations neural networks can perform.

Sporns, O. 2010. Networks of the brain. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.

A review of neural network theory and its ability to explain how the different structures of the brain work together.

Cognition

Cognition is a subfield of psychology that can include almost any of the above topics but generally tends to deal with higher-order
processes. Pylyshyn 1984 argues that cognition can be modeled as a form of computation and, in particular, that cognition uses encoding
schemes that are similar to those used by digital computers. This view is echoed by Jackendoff 1983, which argues that language was also
a form of computation operating on meaningful symbols. While many cognitive models are focused on this lower symbolic level of
processing, such as the classic memory model in Gillund and Shiffrin 1984, some mathematical approaches, such as that of Anderson
2013, attempt to construct quite massive perceptual, cognitive, and action structures that can handle a very wide spectrum of human
cognition.

Anderson, J. R. 2013. The architecture of cognition. Hove, UK: Psychology Press.

Presents the ACT* model of cognition, which is based on the development and modification of production rules to solve cognitive problems.

Gillund, G., and R. M. Shiffrin. 1984. A retrieval model for both recognition and recall. Psychological Review 91.1: 1–67.
A classic memory model that was the first to explain behavior in both recognition and recall tasks.

Jackendoff, R. 1983. Semantics and cognition. Vol. 8. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
This text argues that language is related to other perceptual and cognitive functions through semantics.

Pylyshyn, Z. W. 1984. Computation and cognition. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.

Emphasizes the importance of symbolic representations in cognition and the role of computation performed on those representations.

Organizations

There are three organizations dedicated to promoting mathematical psychology, and they differ only in their geographical locations. Their
memberships overlap considerably. The European Mathematical Psychology Group is located in Europe, and its conferences have taken
place in all European countries. The Society for Mathematical Psychology was formed in the United States. Its meetings have taken place
in the United States, Canada, Europe, and Japan. The Australasian Mathematical Psychology Conference takes place in Australia.

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The Australasian Mathematical Psychology Conference.

The Australasian Mathematical Psychology Conference is a gathering of mathematical psychologists from Australia and parts of Asia.

European Mathematical Psychology Group.

The European Mathematical Psychology Group is a group of researchers and scientists in mathematical psychology, and is in a way a
branch of the Society of Mathematical Psychology. However, the group is not considered an official society.

Society for Mathematical Psychology.

The Society for Mathematical Psychology works to innovate and communicate ideas in related research. The society also runs the Journal
of Mathematical Psychology (cited under Scholarly Journals).

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