Department of Psychology, University of Florida.
Cognitive Science Program, Indiana University.
Psychol Methods. 2021 Feb;26(1):18-37. doi: 10.1037/met0000264. Epub 2020 Mar 5.
Neurocognitive tasks are frequently used to assess disordered decision making, and cognitive models of these tasks can quantify performance in terms related to decision makers' underlying cognitive processes. In many cases, multiple cognitive models purport to describe similar processes, but it is difficult to evaluate whether they measure the same latent traits or processes. In this article, we develop methods for modeling behavior across multiple tasks by connecting cognitive model parameters to common latent constructs. This approach can be used to assess whether 2 tasks measure the same dimensions of cognition, or actually improve the estimates of cognitive models when there are overlapping cognitive processes between 2 related tasks. The approach is then applied to connecting decision data on 2 behavioral tasks that evaluate clinically relevant deficits, the delay discounting task and Cambridge gambling task, to determine whether they both measure the same dimension of impulsivity. We find that the discounting rate parameters in the models of each task are not closely related, although substance users exhibit more impulsive behavior on both tasks. Instead, temporal discounting on the delay discounting task as quantified by the model is more closely related to externalizing psychopathology like aggression, while temporal discounting on the Cambridge gambling task is related more to response inhibition failures. The methods we develop thus provide a new way to connect behavior across tasks and grant new insights onto the different dimensions of impulsivity and their relation to substance use. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2021 APA, all rights reserved).
神经认知任务常用于评估障碍性决策，这些任务的认知模型可以根据与决策者潜在认知过程相关的术语来量化表现。在许多情况下，多个认知模型都声称可以描述类似的过程，但很难评估它们是否测量了相同的潜在特征或过程。在本文中，我们通过将认知模型参数与常见的潜在结构联系起来，开发了跨多个任务建模行为的方法。这种方法可用于评估 2 项任务是否测量了认知的相同维度，或者在 2 项相关任务之间存在重叠认知过程时，实际上是否可以改善认知模型的估计。然后，我们将该方法应用于连接评估临床相关缺陷的 2 项行为任务（延迟折扣任务和剑桥赌博任务）的决策数据，以确定它们是否都测量了冲动的同一维度。我们发现，虽然物质使用者在这两个任务上都表现出更冲动的行为，但每个任务模型的折扣率参数之间没有密切的关系。相反，模型中量化的延迟折扣任务的时间折扣与像攻击这样的外化精神病理学更密切相关，而剑桥赌博任务的时间折扣则与反应抑制失败更相关。因此，我们开发的方法提供了一种连接任务间行为的新方法，并深入了解冲动的不同维度及其与物质使用的关系。（PsycInfo 数据库记录（c）2021 APA，保留所有权利）。
