Task reliability considerations in computational psychiatry

Hedge, Craig ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-6145-3319, Bompas, Aline ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-6957-2694 and Sumner, Petroc ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-0536-0510 2020. Task reliability considerations in computational psychiatry. Biological Psychiatry: Cognitive Neuroscience and Neuroimaging 5 (9) , pp. 837-839. 10.1016/j.bpsc.2020.05.004

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Abstract

Measuring psychological abilities or traits is trickier than it seems from the published literatures ( 1 ). We try to study abstract psychological constructs like ‘inhibition’ or ‘impulsivity’, but we can only measure these indirectly through behaviours such as reaction times or self-report ratings. When we apply these measures in clinical and individual differences research, our goal is typically to understand why a patient group appear to be (e.g.) more ‘impulsive’ than healthy controls, or to use measures of ‘inhibition’ to predict a clinical outcome. There are many potential pitfalls and wrong turns in the path towards achieving this goal. In our recent work, we have shown that our intuitions about what makes a good cognitive task can sometimes lead us astray ( 2 , 3 ). Here, we discuss how these issues intersect with the goals of computational psychiatry.

Item Type:	Article
Date Type:	Publication
Status:	Published
Schools:	Psychology
Publisher:	Elsevier
ISSN:	2451-9022
Date of First Compliant Deposit:	22 May 2020
Date of Acceptance:	13 May 2020
Last Modified:	22 Nov 2024 08:15
URI:	https://orca.cardiff.ac.uk/id/eprint/131892

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