TY  - JOUR
A1  - Krügel, André
A1  - Rothkegel, Lars
A1  - Engbert, Ralf
T1  - No exception from Bayes’ rule
BT  - the presence and absence of the range effect for saccades explained
JF  - Journal of vision
N2  - In an influential theoretical model, human sensorimotor control is achieved by a Bayesian decision process, which combines noisy sensory information and learned prior knowledge. A ubiquitous signature of prior knowledge and Bayesian integration in human perception and motor behavior is the frequently observed bias toward an average stimulus magnitude (i.e., a central-tendency bias, range effect, regression-to-the-mean effect). However, in the domain of eye movements, there is a recent controversy about the fundamental existence of a range effect in the saccadic system. Here we argue that the problem of the existence of a range effect is linked to the availability of prior knowledge for saccade control. We present results from two prosaccade experiments that both employ an informative prior structure (i.e., a nonuniform Gaussian distribution of saccade target distances). Our results demonstrate the validity of Bayesian integration in saccade control, which generates a range effect in saccades. According to Bayesian integration principles, the saccadic range effect depends on the availability of prior knowledge and varies in size as a function of the reliability of the prior and the sensory likelihood.
KW  - saccades
KW  - saccadic accuracy
KW  - range effect
KW  - Bayesian sensorimotor
KW  - integration
KW  - central-tendency bias
Y1  - 2020
U6  - https://doi.org/10.1167/jov.20.7.15
SN  - 1534-7362
VL  - 20
IS  - 7
PB  - ARVO
CY  - Rockville
ER  - 
TY  - JOUR
A1  - Seelig, Stefan A.
A1  - Rabe, Maximilian Michael
A1  - Malem-Shinitski, Noa
A1  - Risse, Sarah
A1  - Reich, Sebastian
A1  - Engbert, Ralf
T1  - Bayesian parameter estimation for the SWIFT model of eye-movement control during reading
JF  - Journal of mathematical psychology
N2  - Process-oriented theories of cognition must be evaluated against time-ordered observations. Here we present a representative example for data assimilation of the SWIFT model, a dynamical model of the control of fixation positions and fixation durations during natural reading of single sentences. First, we develop and test an approximate likelihood function of the model, which is a combination of a spatial, pseudo-marginal likelihood and a temporal likelihood obtained by probability density approximation Second, we implement a Bayesian approach to parameter inference using an adaptive Markov chain Monte Carlo procedure. Our results indicate that model parameters can be estimated reliably for individual subjects. We conclude that approximative Bayesian inference represents a considerable step forward for computational models of eye-movement control, where modeling of individual data on the basis of process-based dynamic models has not been possible so far.
KW  - dynamical models
KW  - reading
KW  - eye movements
KW  - saccades
KW  - likelihood function
KW  - Bayesian inference
KW  - MCMC
KW  - interindividual differences
Y1  - 2020
U6  - https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jmp.2019.102313
SN  - 0022-2496
SN  - 1096-0880
VL  - 95
PB  - Elsevier
CY  - San Diego
ER  -