Tapas Ranjan Rath

About Me

I am a Ph.D. candidate at the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Kanpur, India, specializing in cognitive science and decision-making research. My current work explores the influence of context effects on decision-making and the role of cognitive biases in shaping human judgment.

With a background in Electronics and Instrumentation Engineering, I bring an interdisciplinary perspective to cognitive science, combining experimental design, statistical analysis, and computational modeling.

Skills

R (lme4, brms)
Python (Pandas, SciPy)
Experimental Design (PsychoPy, JavaScript)
Eye Tracking (Eyelink 1000 Plus)

Research

PhD Research

I work on context effects in decision-making, exploring how different options influence choices. I primarily use vanilla JavaScript for both offline and online experiments and rely on Python and R for statistics, data analysis, and visualization.

Current Projects

Investigating the Intention-Action Selection Link in the Sense of Agency within Recommender Systems.
Studying how recommendations influence users' perceived control and decision-making.

Future Directions

Sense of Agency in Agentic AI
Exploring how people perceive their control when working with autonomous AI systems.
Player Sense of Agency in Multiplayer Online Games
Understanding decision-making and agency in interactive digital environments.

Journals and Conferences

Pair-wise Comparison Difficulty Mediates the Attraction Effect, T. R. Rath, N. Srivastava, and N. Srinivasan.
Psychonomic Bulletin & Review. Status: Under Review.
Re-evaluating the Numerical-Perceptual Distinction in the Attraction Effect, T. R. Rath and Vijay Marupudi.
CogSci2025. Status: Accepted for full publication.
De-obfuscating Context Effects in Decision-Making: A Simulation Study, T. R. Rath, N. Srivastava, and N. Srinivasan.
[Paper presented at Virtual MathPsych/ICCM 2024. Via mathpsych.org/presentation/1357]. Status: Manuscript in preparation for Journal of Mathematical Psychology.
Attribute trade-off difficulty modulates the asymmetric-dominance of the decoy, T. R. Rath, N. Srivastava, and N. Srinivasan.
Presented at Annual Conference of Cognitive Science, IIT Bombay, December 2024.
Perceptual stimuli with difficult-to-trade-off attribute values show a positive attraction effect.
T. R. Rath, N. Srivastava, and N. Srinivasan.
Presented at Annual Meeting of the Society for Judgment and Decision Making, November 22-25, 2024, New York City, USA.