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Dr James Yearsley

Senior Lectureship in Psychology

School of Health & Medical Sciences Department of Psychology and Neuroscience

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About

Overview

I work in the field of mathematical psychology, specifically trying to build and test computational models of non-normative decision making. These can be anything from simple perceptual decisions about shapes or moving dots, to much more complex choices, such as how to split a windfall between yourself and a charity. In many such decisions people don't always behave rationally.

I am particularly interested in models of human decision making based on the mathematics of quantum theory. These models try to explain different types of decision making errors as arising from a more general issue with the way events are represented in the brain. More generally my work tries to uncover the mechanisms that underlie decision making errors and biases, with the aim of predicting when people are likely to make errors, in order to help them make better choices.

One of the themes in my research is building and testing models of behavior, rather than just performing statistical tests on data. This can help us achieve a better understanding of the processes underlying human reasoning, but it brings its own set of challenges. I am therefore also interested in issues such as model fitting and model comparison using Bayesian methods. Some of my recent work has involved fitting models of serial recall using approximate Bayesian computation methods, which had previously never been quantitatively fit to data before.

Recently, I have collaborated on projects applying cognitive modelling techniques to answer questions in clinical and social psychology, where the use of formal models is still relatively uncommon.

I currently teach one half of the first year quantitative methods course, PS1007. I also teach on the first year cognitive approaches to mind and behaviour module, PS1003. In addition I provide additional maths support to new undergraduate students to help them tackle the research methods modules in the first year.

Qualifications

  • PhD, Imperial College London, United Kingdom, October 2007 - September 2011
  • MSci, Imperial College London, United Kingdom, October 2003 - July 2007

Employment

  • Senior Lecturer, City, University of London, United Kingdom, August 2020 - present
  • Lecturer, Department of Psychology, City, University of London, UK, October 2017 - September 2020
  • Postdoctoral Research Associate, Vanderbilt University, United States, November 2015 - September 2017
  • Postdoctoral Research Associate, City, University of London, United Kingdom, October 2013 - October 2015
  • Postdoctoral Research Associate, University of Cambridge, United Kingdom, October 2011 - September 2013

Publications

Publications by category

Chapters (2)

  • Pothos, E.M. and Yearsley, J.M. (2023). Quantum Cognition: Quo Vadis? The Quantum-Like Revolution (pp. 281-297). Springer International Publishing. ISBN 9783031129858.
  • Barque Duran, A., Pothos, E.M., Yearsley, J.M., Hampton, J.A., Busemeyer, J.R. and Trueblood, J.S. (2016). Similarity Judgments: From Classical to Complex Vector Psychological Spaces. Advanced Series on Mathematical Psychology (pp. 415-448). WORLD SCIENTIFIC.

Conference papers and proceedings (16)

  • Pothos, E.M., Yearsley, J.M., Wang, Z., Kvam, P.D. and Busemeyer, J.R. Full Day Tutorial on Quantum Theory in Cognitive Modeling. .
  • Pothos, E.M., Busemeyer, J.R., Pleskac, T., Yearsley, J.M., Tenenbaum, J.B., Goodman, N.D.... Shiffrin, R.M. Extending Rationality. .
  • Yearsley, J.M., Pothos, E.M. and Barqué-Duran, A. Empirical constraints on computational level models of interference effects in human probabilistic judgements. .
  • Yearsley, J.M., Yuan, D. and Trueblood, J.S. Perceived similarity mediates violations of independence in probabilistic judgments. .
  • Barque-Duran, A., Pothos, E.M., Yearsley, J.M. and Hampton, J.A. The impact of the Digital Age in Moral Judgments. .
  • Yearsley, J.M. and Pothos, E.M. Intermediate Judgments Inhibit Belief Updating: Zeno's Paradox in Decision Making. .
  • Yearsley, J.M., Trueblood, J.S. and Pothos, E.M. When are representations of causal events quantum versus classical? .
  • Trueblood, J.S., Yearsley, J.M., Kvam, P., Wang, Z. and Busemeyer, J.R. Full Day Tutorial on Quantum Models of Cognition and Decision. .
  • Trueblood, J.S., Yearsley, J.M., Wang, Z. and Busemeyer, J.R. Full Day Tutorial on Quantum Models of Cognition and Decision. .
  • Barque-Duran, A., Pothos, E.M., Yearsley, J.M. and Hampton, J.A. Moral Dynamics In Everyday Life: How Does Morality Evolve In Time? .
  • Yearsley, J.M., Pothos, E.M., Duran, A.B. and Hampton, J.A. Diagnosticity: Some theoretical and empirical progress. .
  • Yearsley, J.M. and Pothos, E.M. Towards an Empirical test of Realism in Cognition. .
  • Yearsley, J.M., Pothos, E.M., Hampton, J.A. and Barque Duran, A. Towards a Quantum Probability Theory of Similarity Judgments. .doi:10.1007/978-3-319-15931-7_11
  • Diósi, L., Elze, H.-.T., Fronzoni, L., Halliwell, J., Prati, E., Vitiello, G.... Yearsley, J. DICE 2012 : Spacetime Matter Quantum Mechanics – from the Planck scale to emergent phenomena. .doi:10.1088/1742-6596/442/1/011001
  • Yearsley, J.M. A review of the decoherent histories approach to the arrival time problem in quantum theory. .doi:10.1088/1742-6596/306/1/012056
  • Yearsley, J.M. The propagator for the step potential using the path decomposition expansion. .doi:10.1088/1742-6596/174/1/012072

Journal articles (44)