Professor Philip Smith heads the Vision and Attention Laboratory in the Melbourne School of Psychological Sciences. The lab carries out experimental studies and computational modelling of human cognitive processes.

The specific focus is on developing dynamic models of how processes of perception, attention, memory, and decision making act in concert to translate perception into action. Two particular areas of current interest are visual working and evidence accumulation models of decision making. Smith has carried out research in all of the main models of evidence accumulation, including accumulator models, counter models, and random walk and diffusion models. He is the developer of the circular diffusion model of continuous-outcome decision making and one of the current projects in the lab is to generalize the model to higher dimensions. Smith also co-heads the Negotiation Laboratory, which is concerned with studying the interpersonal processes that allow negotiating parties to reach optimal agreements. He is a former Head of the Melbourne School of Psychological Sciences (2008-2013) and a former Editor-in-Chief of the Journal of Mathematical Psychology (2014-2018). He is a member of the Society for Mathematical Psychology, a fellow of the Psychonomic Society, and a member of the editorial advisory boards of the Journal of Mathematical Psychology and Cognitive Psychology.