Brandon M. Turner is a Professor in the Psychology Department at The Ohio State University. He received a B.S. from Missouri State University in mathematics and psychology in 2008, a MAS in statistics from The Ohio State University in 2010, and a Ph.D. from The Ohio State University in 2011. He then spent one year as a postdoctoral researcher at University of California, Irvine, and two years as a postdoctoral fellow at Stanford University. His research interests include dynamic models of cognition and perceptual decision making, efficient methods for performing likelihood-free and likelihood-informed Bayesian inference, and unifying behavioral and neural explanations of cognition. His current focus is on understanding how selective attention causes "cognitive inertia", a pattern of information search that is dictated by previous allocations of attention, and how curated information (e.g., Google, YouTube) can harm or distort learning.

Awards and Honors

• 2024: Fred Brown Research Award, The Ohio State University Department of Psychology
   
• 2021–2022: Mid-career Faculty Excellence Award, The Ohio State University
   
• 2019: CAREER Award, National Science Foundation 
   
• 2019: Early Career Award, Psychonomic Society
   
• 2016: William K. Estes Early Career Award, Society for Mathematical Psychology
   
• 2016: Fred Brown Research Award, The Ohio State University Department of Psychology
   
• 2014: R. Duncan Luce Best Paper Award 2011-13, Society for Mathematical Psychology 
   
• 2012: Ruth L. Kirschstein National Research Service Award (NRSA), National Institutes of Health
   
• 2012: Psychometrika Dissertation Award, Psychometric Society 
   
• 2011: Bennet B. Murdock Award, CEMS
   
• 2011: Graduate Student Research Excellence Award, The Ohio State University
   
• 2011: Institute for Perception Award
   
• 2009–2011: Student Travel Award, Society for Mathematical Psychology
   
• 2008: Arbuckle Leadership Award, Missouri State University
   
• 2008: Maxwell Research Award, Missouri State University
   
• 2008: Top Paper Award, Kappa Mu Epsilon Honor Society
   
• 2007: Top Poster Award, Great Plains Psychology Conference

Selected Publications 

• Weichart, E. R., Galdo, M. Sloutsky, V. M., and Turner, B. M. (in press). As Within, so Without; As Above, so Below: Common Mechanisms Can Support Between- and Within-Trial Learning Dynamics. In press at Psychological Review.
   
• Galdo, M., Weichart, E. R., Sloutsky, V. M., and Turner, B. M. (2022). The Quest for Simplicity in Human Learning: Identifying the Constraints on Attention. Cognitive Psychology, 138, 101508.
   
• Kirkpatrick, R. P., Turner, B. M., and Sederberg, P. B. (2021). Equal Evidence Perceptual Tasks Suggest a Key Role for Interactive Competition in Decision-Making. Psychological Review, 128(6), 1051–1087.
   
• Kvam, P. D., and Turner, B. M. (2021). Reconciling similarity across models of continuous selections. Psychological Review, 128(4), 766–786.
   
• Bahg, G., Evans, D., Galdo, M., and Turner, B. M. (2020). Gaussian process linking functions for mind, brain, and behavior. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. 117, 29398-29406
   
• Weichart, E. R., Turner, B. M., and Sederberg, P. B. (2020). A model of dynamic, within-trial conflict resolution for decision making. Psychological Review, 127, 749-777.
   
• Turner, B. M. (2019). Toward a common representational framework for adaptation. Psychological Review. 126, 660-692.
   
• Turner, B. M., Schley, D. R., Muller, C., and Tsetsos, K. (2018). Competing models of multi-attribute, multi-alternative preferential choice. Psychological Review, 125, 329-362.
   
• Turner, B. M. and Van Zandt, T. (2018). Approximating Bayesian inference through model simulation. Trends in Cognitive Science. 22, 826-840.
   
• Turner, B. M., Van Maanen, L., Forstmann, B. U. (2015). Informing cognitive abstractions through neuroimaging: The Neural Drift Diffusion Model. Psychological Review. 122, 312-336.
   
• Turner, B. M., Dennis, S., and Van Zandt, T. (2013). Likelihood-free Bayesian analysis of memory models. Psychological Review. 120, 667-678.
   
• Turner, B. M., Van Zandt, T., and Brown, S. (2011). A dynamic, stimulus-driven model of signal detection. Psychological Review. 118, 583-613.