Cognitive modeling with spreadsheets

Abstract

Spreadsheet implementations of two different types of cognitive models - a neural network model and a statistical model - are presented. The two examples illustrate how to employ the facilities of spread-sheets, the spreadsheet data structure, array functions, the built-in function library, and the integrated optimizer, for building cognitive models. The two presented models are new extensions of existing models. They are used for simulating data from experiments illustrating that the extended versions are able to explain experimental results that could not be simulated by the original models. The whole simulation study demonstrates that spreadsheets are a handy tool, especially for researchers without programming knowledge who want to build cognitive models and for instructors teaching cognitive modeling.