From Metaphor to Computation: Constructing the Potential Landscape for Multivariate Psychological Formal Models

For psychological formal models, the stability of different phases is an important property for understanding individual differences and change processes. Many researchers use landscapes as a metaphor to illustrate the concept of stability, but so far there is no method to quantify the stability of a system’s phases. We here propose a method to construct the potential landscape for multivariate psychological models. This method is based on the generalized potential function defined by Wang et al. (2008) and Monte Carlo simulation. Based on potential landscapes we define three different types of stability for psychological phases: absolute stability, relative stability, and geometric stability. The panic disorder model by Robinaugh et al. (2019) is used as an example, to demonstrate how the method can be used to quantify the stability of states and phases, illustrate the influence of model parameters, and guide model modifications. An R package, simlandr, was developed to provide an implementation of the method.