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Decision research and strategy classification

Judgment and decision research studies how people decide between multiple alternatives (e.g., between different products). Psychological theories make different assumptions about which information people consider in their decisions. In our research, we develop statistical methods to test and compare such different theories against each other. Furthermore, we use these methods to investigate substantive questions about decision behavior.

Wisdom of crowds & judgment aggregation:

• Kloft, M., Siepe, B. S., & Heck, D. W. (in press). The interval consensus model: Aggregating continuous bounded interval responses. Psychometrika. https://doi.org/10.1017/psy.2025.10058
• Mayer, M., & Heck, D. W. (2023). Cultural consensus theory for two-dimensional location judgments. Journal of Mathematical Psychology, 113, 102742. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jmp.2022.102742
• Mayer, M., & Heck, D. W. (2025). Modeling dependent group judgments: A computational model of sequential collaboration. Psychonomic Bulletin & Review, 32, 1142–1164. https://doi.org/10.3758/s13423-024-02619-9
• Mayer, M., Heck, D. W., & Kimmerle, J. (2025). Opting out in computer-supported sequential collaboration. Computers in Human Behavior, 165, 108527. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.chb.2024.108527
• Mayer, M., & Heck, D. W. (2024). Sequential collaboration: The accuracy of dependent, incremental judgments. Decision, 11, 212–237. https://doi.org/10.1037/dec0000193
• Mayer, M., Broß, M., & Heck, D. (2023). Expertise determines frequency and accuracy of contributions in sequential collaboration. Judgment and Decision Making, 18, E2. https://doi.org/10.1017/jdm.2023.3

Decision models:

• Bröder, A., Platzer, C., & Heck, D. W. (2021). Salience effects in memory-based decisions: an improved replication. Journal of Cognitive Psychology, 33, 64–76. https://doi.org/10.1080/20445911.2020.1869752
• Heck, D. W., Seiling, L., & Bröder, A. (2020). The love of large numbers revisited: A coherence model of the popularity bias. Cognition, 195, 104069. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cognition.2019.104069
• Heck, D. W., Hilbig, B. E., & Moshagen, M. (2017). From information processing to decisions: Formalizing and comparing probabilistic choice models. Cognitive Psychology, 96, 26-40. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cogpsych.2017.05.003