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, Honors and Recognition

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

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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.