Signal detection theory

Appendix

Takashi Yamauchi
Texas A&M University
 How do you measure the sensitivity of
stimulus (color, sound, light) perception?

Measure threshold
 How do you compare Gennas
threshold and Casadys threshold?
Do an experiment. OK, but how?

Present many stimuli that require yes

responses and no responses.
Change the stimulus intensity, and calculate the
average detection.
Experiment

Target = ?

Ch 1 4
Casa Genn
dy a

Fig. 1-13, p. 14
Whats the problem with
this?
Genna and Casady are different.
1. Genna likes basketball; Casady
likes football.
2. Genna loves surfing; Casady
likes hunting.
3. Genna like sushi; Casady like
pasta.
Compare Gennas threshold and
Casadys threshold?

Mentally represent the stimuli

Yes / NO

Casady may tend to say YES more often than

Genna.
Genna may tend to say NO more often than
 Casa Genn
So, the thresholds dy a
measured in this way
may simply reflect how
Genna and Casady are
different in their
attitudes, but not in
their perceptual
sensitivity per se.
Fig. 1-13, p. 14
 The same situation arises simply by
changing the pay-off scale of the experiment
Rewarded when you find stimuli (e.g., car
mechanics, psychiatrist, surgeon)

Rewarded when you dont make mistakes

(e.g., career advisor, drug test, judge)
 How can we measure
Gennas and Casadys
perceptual thresholds free
from these variables?
 Signal Detection theory
SDT is extremely powerful.
It can be applied to any test situation
that involves yes no responses.
memory test (did you see it or not?)
clinical test (does the drug (therapy) work
or not?)
Mechanical test (does this new engine work
or not?)
Software implementation (does this
software give what the user wants or not).
 Signal Detection theory
important technical terms (very important)
 SDT (conceptual
background)
Assume that your task is to judge whether a
stimulus is blue or green.
If you feel the stimulus is blue, you say yes.
If you feel the stimulus is green, you say no.
Further assume that you are shown two
stimuli one at a time in 1 million trials.

Your feeling

Very green Very blue

 Lets record your internal representation
of the stimuli after 1 million trials.

Your feeling

Very green Very blue

 Lets simulate your decision criterion.
When you are more conservative, the bar shifts to the right.
When you are more liberal, the bar shifts to the left.

NO YES

Your feeling

Very green Very blue

 Lets create histograms for the responses
made for the two stimuli.

NO YES

Your feeling

Very green Very blue

 Lets create histograms for the responses
made for the two stimuli.

NO YES

Your feeling

Very green Very blue

 Lets create histograms for the responses
made for the two stimuli.

NO YES

Your feeling

Very green Very blue

 What do these histograms tell you?
You have 1 million
responses. Each bin
represents
the number of trials Out of 1 million
you had a particular NO YES trials, how many
feeling. times you felt
very blue.

Out of 1 million
trials, how many
times you felt
very green.

Very green Your feeling Very blue

 What do these histograms tell you?
You have 1 million
responses. Each bin
represents Out of 1 million
the number of trials trials, how many
you had a particular NO YES times you said
feeling. yes?

Out of 1 million
trials, how many
times you said
No?

Very green Your feeling Very blue

 Lets generalize a bit
how many times
you said yes?
You have infinitely
many trials and your
histograms are Given the stimuli
divided into very were blue, how
small bins. NO YES many times you
said yes?

how many times

Given the stimuli
you said No?
were green, how
many times you
said yes?

Your feeling

Very green Very blue

 Stimuli were present
(signal)

Stimuli were absent

(noise)

NO YES
Your feeling

Very uncertain Very certain

 Calculate
hit =
False alarm =

NO YES
Your feeling

Very uncertain Very certain

 Your hit, FA, miss, and correct rejection are still
influenced by the decision criterion you have.
How do you measure the sensitivity?
How do you measure d?
d=Z2-Z1
Z2

Z1

NO YES
Assume that both signal and
noise are normally distributed
(bell curves)

Standardize the normal

distributions N(0, 1)

The area below the standard

normal distribution corresponds
to the probability.
d = Z2 Z1

Calculate Z1 and Z2 from hit

and false alarm scores
 Signal Detection theory
important technical terms (very important)
Homework

Calculate:
Hit =
False alarm=
Miss =
Correct rejection =
d =