Retest reliability of the parameters of the Ratcliff diffusion model.

Abstract

In the recent years, there is a growing interest to use the Ratcliff Diffusion Model (1978) for diagnostic purposes as the parameters of the model capture interindividual differences in specific cognitive processes. The parameters are estimated using reaction time data from binary classification tasks. For a potential diagnostic application of parameter values sufficient reliability is a necessary precondition. In two studies, each with two sessions separated by 1 week, the retest reliability of the diffusion model parameters was assessed. In Study 1, 105 participants completed a lexical decision task and a recognition memory task. In Study 2, 128 participants worked on an associative priming task. Results show that the reliability of the main parameters of the Ratcliff Diffusion Model (in particular of the speed of information accumulation and the threshold separation with rs > 0.70 for all three tasks) is satisfying. Besides, we analyzed the influence of the number of trials on the retest reliability using different estimation methods (Kolmogorov-Smirnov, Maximum Likelihood, Chi-square and EZ) and both empirical and simulated datasets.