# The diffusion model’s drift rate parameter primarily reflects efficiency, rather than speed, of evidence accumulation

## TL;DR

The study shows that the drift rate in the diffusion model reflects evidence accumulation efficiency, not speed, and is linked to higher cognitive abilities.

## Contribution

The research introduces a distinction between evidence accumulation speed and efficiency using racing accumulator models.

## Key findings

- The drift rate (v) is more strongly related to evidence accumulation efficiency (EEA) than speed (SEA).
- EEA correlates with general cognitive ability, working memory, and executive function.
- SEA explains less than 1% of variance in cognitive measures.

## Abstract

Applications of the diffusion decision model (DDM) to the study of cognitive individual differences consistently find that the model’s drift rate (v) parameter forms a cohesive factor across many tasks and relates to measures of higher-order cognitive functioning, including general cognitive ability and working memory. This parameter is often interpreted as a measure of “processing speed,” a traditional psychometric construct thought to reflect an individual’s basic speed of information processing across tasks. However, conceptual differences between v and traditional notions of processing speed make this mapping far from straightforward. Racing accumulator models, which provide a more flexible and comprehensive account of behavioral data than the DDM, allow for the speed with which individuals accumulate evidence to be dissociated from the efficiency with which they accumulate task-relevant evidence (versus task-irrelevant evidence). We applied the DDM and a racing accumulator model to three tasks across three independent datasets to gauge the extent to which v parameter findings from the cognitive individual differences literature reflect speed of evidence accumulation (SEA) versus efficiency of evidence accumulation (EEA). Across all tasks, v was more strongly related to EEA than SEA. EEA was consistently related to measures of general cognitive ability, working memory, and executive function whereas SEA explained <1% of the variance in each. These findings suggest individual differences in the DDM’s v parameter, and its relations with higher-order cognitive abilities, primarily reflect EEA rather than SEA and challenge the widespread practice of equating v with the traditional “processing speed” construct.

The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.3758/s13423-026-02861-3.