{"status":"ok","message-type":"work","message-version":"1.0.0","message":{"indexed":{"date-parts":[[2026,2,21]],"date-time":"2026-02-21T13:32:47Z","timestamp":1771680767577,"version":"3.50.1"},"update-to":[{"DOI":"10.1371\/journal.pcbi.1010312","type":"new_version","label":"New version","source":"publisher","updated":{"date-parts":[[2022,8,29]],"date-time":"2022-08-29T00:00:00Z","timestamp":1661731200000}}],"reference-count":26,"publisher":"Public Library of Science (PLoS)","issue":"8","license":[{"start":{"date-parts":[[2022,8,17]],"date-time":"2022-08-17T00:00:00Z","timestamp":1660694400000},"content-version":"vor","delay-in-days":0,"URL":"http:\/\/creativecommons.org\/licenses\/by\/4.0\/"}],"funder":[{"DOI":"10.13039\/100010663","name":"H2020 European Research Council","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","award":["817492-SAMPLING"],"award-info":[{"award-number":["817492-SAMPLING"]}],"id":[{"id":"10.13039\/100010663","id-type":"DOI","asserted-by":"publisher"}]}],"content-domain":{"domain":["www.ploscompbiol.org"],"crossmark-restriction":false},"short-container-title":["PLoS Comput Biol"],"abstract":"<jats:p>Human cognition is fundamentally noisy. While routinely regarded as a nuisance in experimental investigation, the few studies investigating properties of cognitive noise have found surprising structure. A first line of research has shown that inter-response-time distributions are heavy-tailed. That is, response times between subsequent trials usually change only a small amount, but with occasional large changes. A second, separate, line of research has found that participants\u2019 estimates and response times both exhibit long-range autocorrelations (i.e., 1\/<jats:italic>f<\/jats:italic> noise). Thus, each judgment and response time not only depends on its immediate predecessor but also on many previous responses. These two lines of research use different tasks and have distinct theoretical explanations: models that account for heavy-tailed response times do not predict 1\/<jats:italic>f<\/jats:italic> autocorrelations and vice versa. Here, we find that 1\/<jats:italic>f<\/jats:italic> noise and heavy-tailed response distributions co-occur in both types of tasks. We also show that a statistical sampling algorithm, developed to deal with patchy environments, generates both heavy-tailed distributions and 1\/<jats:italic>f<\/jats:italic> noise, suggesting that cognitive noise may be a functional adaptation to dealing with a complex world.<\/jats:p>","DOI":"10.1371\/journal.pcbi.1010312","type":"journal-article","created":{"date-parts":[[2022,8,17]],"date-time":"2022-08-17T17:43:12Z","timestamp":1660758192000},"page":"e1010312","update-policy":"https:\/\/doi.org\/10.1371\/journal.pcbi.corrections_policy","source":"Crossref","is-referenced-by-count":11,"title":["Understanding the structure of cognitive noise"],"prefix":"10.1371","volume":"18","author":[{"ORCID":"https:\/\/orcid.org\/0000-0003-0133-9551","authenticated-orcid":true,"given":"Jian-Qiao","family":"Zhu","sequence":"first","affiliation":[]},{"given":"Pablo","family":"Le\u00f3n-Villagr\u00e1","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[]},{"given":"Nick","family":"Chater","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[]},{"ORCID":"https:\/\/orcid.org\/0000-0003-0442-4372","authenticated-orcid":true,"given":"Adam N.","family":"Sanborn","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[]}],"member":"340","published-online":{"date-parts":[[2022,8,17]]},"reference":[{"key":"pcbi.1010312.ref001","volume-title":"Noise: A Flaw in Human Judgment","author":"D Kahneman","year":"2021"},{"issue":"5","key":"pcbi.1010312.ref002","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"371","DOI":"10.1086\/257106","article-title":"An experimental measurement of utility","volume":"59","author":"F Mosteller","year":"1951","journal-title":"Journal of Political Economy"},{"issue":"5205","key":"pcbi.1010312.ref003","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"1837","DOI":"10.1126\/science.7892611","article-title":"1\/f noise in human cognition","volume":"267","author":"DL Gilden","year":"1995","journal-title":"Science"},{"issue":"1","key":"pcbi.1010312.ref004","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"255","DOI":"10.1016\/j.physa.2007.07.001","article-title":"Human memory retrieval as L\u00e9vy foraging","volume":"385","author":"T Rhodes","year":"2007","journal-title":"Physica A: Statistical Mechanics and its Applications"},{"issue":"4","key":"pcbi.1010312.ref005","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"296","DOI":"10.1111\/j.1467-9280.1997.tb00441.x","article-title":"Fluctuations in the time required for elementary decisions","volume":"8","author":"DL Gilden","year":"1997","journal-title":"Psychological Science"},{"issue":"2","key":"pcbi.1010312.ref006","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"431","DOI":"10.1037\/a0027373","article-title":"Optimal foraging in semantic memory","volume":"119","author":"TT Hills","year":"2012","journal-title":"Psychological Review"},{"issue":"6756","key":"pcbi.1010312.ref007","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"911","DOI":"10.1038\/44831","article-title":"Optimizing the success of random searches","volume":"401","author":"GM Viswanathan","year":"1999","journal-title":"Nature"},{"issue":"3","key":"pcbi.1010312.ref008","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"331","DOI":"10.1037\/0096-3445.132.3.331","article-title":"HSelf-organization of cognitive performance","volume":"132","author":"GC Van Orden","year":"2003","journal-title":"Journal of Experimental Psychology: General"},{"issue":"4","key":"pcbi.1010312.ref009","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"422","DOI":"10.1137\/1010093","article-title":"Fractional Brownian motions, fractional noises and applications","volume":"10","author":"BB Mandelbrot","year":"1968","journal-title":"SIAM Review"},{"issue":"19","key":"pcbi.1010312.ref010","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"7169","DOI":"10.1073\/pnas.1121201109","article-title":"Foraging success of biological L\u00e9vy flights recorded in situ","volume":"109","author":"NE Humphries","year":"2012","journal-title":"Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences"},{"issue":"4","key":"pcbi.1010312.ref011","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"661","DOI":"10.1137\/070710111","article-title":"Power-law distributions in empirical data","volume":"51","author":"A Clauset","year":"2009","journal-title":"SIAM review"},{"key":"pcbi.1010312.ref012","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"427","DOI":"10.1080\/713665836","article-title":"Scaling in financial prices: III. 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