Dr. Roald Steiner

Biography

Roald Steiner joined Veyra Institute in 2018 following a postdoctoral fellowship at the Centre for Perceptual and Cognitive Systems in Halvern, where he developed computational models of confidence calibration in sequential sampling tasks. He completed his PhD in cognitive neuroscience at the University of Teldrim in 2015, with a dissertation on drift-diffusion model extensions for time-varying stimulus streams. His undergraduate training in experimental psychology and mathematics was undertaken at Orveld College, from which he graduated with first-class honours in 2010.

At Veyra, Steiner founded the Perception & Decision Lab to address fundamental questions about how neural systems accumulate noisy sensory evidence and translate it into committed choices. The lab combines psychophysical experiments, electrophysiology, and computational modelling to study the mechanisms underlying perceptual decisions across modalities — particularly the role of metacognitive monitoring in regulating the speed–accuracy trade-off. A key strand of work has focused on cross-modal binding: how the brain integrates asynchronous visual, auditory, and tactile streams into coherent percepts before committing to a decision. The lab's open-source toolbox AccumKit is used by over thirty research groups worldwide for fitting hierarchical drift-diffusion models to reaction-time and confidence data.

Steiner serves on the programme committee of the annual Veyra Symposium on Brain and Behaviour and is a founding member of the Institute's cross-divisional Uncertainty in Minds and Machines initiative. He has led three externally funded research programmes totalling approximately 4.9 million cr in direct costs, and currently supervises four doctoral students and two postdoctoral researchers. He teaches the graduate course Computational Models of Decision-Making each autumn semester and contributes to the Institute's interdisciplinary module on perception and action.

Research interests

Selected publications

1. Steiner R, Falkner A, Oduya M. "Hierarchical drift-diffusion modelling of confidence and choice in multisensory tasks." Journal of Computational Cognitive Neuroscience, 11(2): 134–152, 2025. VEYRA-DOI: 10.veyra/VX-2507
2. Steiner R, Verhoeven C. "Metacognitive gain control during evidence accumulation: a neural and behavioural account." Proceedings of the Teldrim Conference on Cognitive and Neural Systems (TCCNS), pp. 210–224, 2024. VEYRA-DOI: 10.veyra/VX-2412
3. Oduya M, Steiner R, Halgren P. "Temporal recalibration of audiovisual binding windows under sustained cognitive load." Annals of Perceptual Science, 18(4): 301–318, 2023. VEYRA-DOI: 10.veyra/VX-2309
4. Steiner R, Ravelo N. "Bayesian models of cross-modal confidence: predictions and limits." Topics in Cognitive Computation, 6: 55–72, 2022. VEYRA-DOI: 10.veyra/VX-2214
5. Falkner A, Steiner R. "AccumKit: an open-source toolbox for hierarchical sequential sampling models." Journal of Open Neuroscience Software, 4(1): 12–19, 2021. VEYRA-DOI: 10.veyra/VX-2103
6. Steiner R, Bekele S, Varnum J. "Speed–accuracy trade-off modulation by endogenous and exogenous uncertainty signals." Psychological Review of Cognitive Systems, 29(3): 441–459, 2021. VEYRA-DOI: 10.veyra/VX-2116

Current group members

Postdoctoral researchers

• Dr. Anya Falkner — drift-diffusion model extensions, metacognitive calibration
• Dr. Chidi Verhoeven — electrophysiology of evidence accumulation, neural oscillations

Doctoral students

• Miriam Oduya — cross-modal binding and temporal recalibration (Year 3)
• Soren Halgren — Bayesian models of perceptual confidence (Year 2)
• Petra Bekele — individual differences in evidence accumulation thresholds (Year 2)
• Yann Varnum — multisensory decision-making under cognitive load (Year 1)