Peter Kvam is an Assistant Professor in the Psychology Department at The Ohio State University. He received his B.S. in Psychology and B.A. in Mathematics and Sociology from Indiana University in 2012 and his Ph.D. in Psychology from Michigan State University in 2017. After visiting positions at the Max Planck Institute in Berlin and the University of Tasmania, he completed postdoctoral fellowships at Indiana University and The Ohio State University in 2017-2019. He was previously a faculty member at the University of Florida from 2019-2024 before joining the department in 2024.

Research Interests

My work investigates the cognitive mechanisms underlying many types of decisions, ranging from visual perception to judgments about the value of complex multi-attribute consumer products. His current focus is on how people navigate complex, dynamic, multi-alternative and continuous decisions – such as bidding for homes in competitive housing markets where options appear and disappear over time. As part of this effort, he uses machine learning and artificial intelligence to test and create computational models of human behavior – allowing us to develop new theories of latent (cognitive, neural) processes in a data-driven way.

Awards, Honors and Recognition

2024: William K. Estes Early Career Award, Society for Mathematical Psychology
2024: Finalist, Exeter Prize for Research in Experimental Economics, Decision Theory and Behavioral Economics
2024: Best Poster Award, UF Center for Addiction Research and Education [CARE] Annual Symposium (awarded for “Cognitive Mechanisms of Subjective Value in Health Outcomes”)
2023: APS Rising Star Award, Association for Psychological Science
2022: Best Poster Award, MathPsych / ICCM 2022, Society for Mathematical Psychology (awarded for “Measuring preference for gains and losses under delay and risk”)
2022: University of Florida Research Promotion Initiative Award, Office of Strategic Communications & Marketing (awarded for “Rational inference strategies and the genesis of polarization and extremism”)
2021: Fellowship in the Psychonomic Society
2021: R. Duncan Luce Outstanding Paper Award, Best Article in Journal of Mathematical Psychology from 2018-2020 (awarded for “A geometric framework for modeling decisions among arbitrarily many alternatives”)
2018: Early Career Award Runner-up, Society for Experimental Psychology & Cognitive Science (APA Division 3)
2017: Travel Award, Society for Mathematical Psychology & International Conference on Cognitive Modeling
2016: Young Scientist Travel Award, Cognitive Science Program, Indiana University
2015: Student Travel Award, Society for Mathematical Psychology
2014: Cognitive Science Program Travel Award, Michigan State University
2014: Teaching Assistant Award, Michigan State University
2014: Student Travel Award, Society for Mathematical Psychology
2013: Conference Travel Award, Council of Graduate Students [COGS], Michigan State University
2012: Excellence in Research Award, Department of Psychological & Brain Sciences, Indiana University
2012: Hutton Honors College Research Award, Indiana University

Selected Publications

Kvam, P. D., Sokratous, K.*, & Fitch, A. K.* (in press). Decisions among shifting choice alternatives reveal option-general representations of evidence. Psychological Review.

Kvam, P. D., Sokratous, K.*, Fitch, A. K.*, & Hintze, A. (2024). Using artificial intelligence to fit, compare, evaluate, and discover computational models of decision behavior. Decision, Advance online publication.

Kvam, P. D., Marley, A. A. J., & Heathcote, A. (2023). A unified theory of discrete and continuous responding. Psychological Review, 130(2), 368–400. [2024 Exeter Prize finalist]

Sokratous, K.*, Fitch, A. K.*, & Kvam, P. D. (2023). How to ask twenty questions and win: Machine learning tools for assessing preferences from small samples of willingness-to-pay prices. Journal of Choice Modelling 48, 100418.

Kvam, P. D., Alaukik, A.*, Mims, C.*, Martemyanova, A.* & Baldwin, M. W. (2022). Optimal inference strategies and the genesis of polarization and extremism. Scientific Reports, 12, 7344.

Kvam, P. D., Busemeyer, J. R., & Pleskac, T. J. (2021). Temporal oscillations in preference strength: Evidence for an open system model of constructed preference. Scientific Reports, 11, 8169.

Kvam, P. D. & Turner, B. M. (2021). Reconciling similarity across models of continuous selections. Psychological Review 128(4), 766–786.

Kvam, P. D., Romeu, R. J., Turner, B. M., Vassileva, J., & Busemeyer, J. R. (2021). Testing the factor structure underlying behavior using joint cognitive models: Impulsivity in delay discounting and Cambridge gambling tasks. Psychological Methods, 26(1), 18–37.

Kvam, P. D., & Busemeyer, J. R. (2020). A distributional and dynamic theory of pricing and preference. Psychological Review, 127(6), 1053–1078.

Kvam, P. D. (2019). A geometric framework for modeling decisions among arbitrarily many alternatives. Journal of Mathematical Psychology, 91, 14--37. [2021 R. Duncan Luce award]

Kvam, P. D., Pleskac, T. J., Yu, S., & Busemeyer, J. R. (2015). Interference effects of choice on confidence: Quantum characteristics of evidence accumulation.  Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 112 (34), 10645--10650.