The book summarizes the application of signal detection theory to the analysis an measurement of humn observer's sensor sysem. The theory provides a way to analyze what had been called the threshold or sensory limen, the basic unit of all discrimination studies, whether human or animal. The book outlines the theory of statisical decision making and its application to a variety of common psychophysical processes. It shows how signal detection theory can be used to separate sensory and decision aspects of responses in dicrimination. The concepts of the ideal observer and energy detector are presented and compared with human auditory detection data. Signal detection theory is appliced to a variety of other substanditive problemsin sensory psychology. Signal Detection Theory and Psychology is an invaluable book for psychologists dealing with sensory perception, especailly auditory, for psychologists studying discrimination in other cognitivie processes, and for human factor engineers dealing with man/machine interfaces.

The Oxford Handbook of the Philosophy of Perception is a survey by leading philosophical thinkers of contemporary issues and new thinking in philosophy of perception. It includes sections on the history of the subject, introductions to contemporary issues in the epistemology, ontology and aesthetics of perception, treatments of the individual sense modalities and of the things we perceive by means of them, and a consideration of how perceptual information is integrated and consolidated. New analytic tools and applications to other areas of philosophy are discussed in depth. Each of the forty-five entries is written by a leading expert, some collaborating with younger figures; each seeks to introduce the reader to a broad range of issues. All contain new ideas on the topics covered; together they demonstrate the vigour and innovative zeal of a young field. The book is accessible to anybody who has an intellectual interest in issues concerning perception.

In this book, prominent social scientists describe quantitative models in economics, history, sociology, political science, and psychology.

Psychophysics: A Practical Introduction, Second Edition, is the primary scientific tool for understanding how the physical world of colors, sounds, odors, movements, and shapes translates into the sensory world of sight, hearing, touch, taste, and smell; in other words, how matter translates into mind. This timely revision provides a unique introduction to the techniques for researching and understanding how the brain translates the external physical world to the internal world of sensation. The revision expands and refines coverage of the basic tools of psychophysics research and better integrates the theory with the supporting software. The new edition continues to be the only book to combine, in a single volume, the principles underlying the science of psychophysical measurement and the practical tools necessary to analyze data from psychophysical experiments. The book, written in a tutorial style, will appeal to new researchers as well as to seasoned veterans. This introduction to psychophysics research methods will be of interest to students, scholars and researchers within sensory neuroscience, vision research, behavioral neuroscience, and the cognitive sciences. - Presents a large variety of analytical methods explained for the non-expert - Provides a novel classification scheme for psychophysics experiments - Disseminates the pros and cons of different psychophysical procedures - Contains practical tips for designing psychophysical experiments

Detection Theory is an introduction to one of the most important tools for analysis of data where choices must be made and performance is not perfect. Originally developed for evaluation of electronic detection, detection theory was adopted by psychologists as a way to understand sensory decision making, then embraced by students of human memory. It has since been utilized in areas as diverse as animal behavior and X-ray diagnosis. This book covers the basic principles of detection theory, with separate initial chapters on measuring detection and evaluating decision criteria. Some other features include: *complete tools for application, including flowcharts, tables, pointers, and software; *student-friendly language; *complete coverage of content area, including both one-dimensional and multidimensional models; *separate, systematic coverage of sensitivity and response bias measurement; *integrated treatment of threshold and nonparametric approaches; *an organized, tutorial level introduction to multidimensional detection theory; *popular discrimination paradigms presented as applications of multidimensional detection theory; and *a new chapter on ideal observers and an updated chapter on adaptive threshold measurement. This up-to-date summary of signal detection theory is both a self-contained reference work for users and a readable text for graduate students and other researchers learning the material either in courses or on their own.

Signal detection theory--as developed in electrical engineering and based on statistical decision theory--was first applied to human sensory discrimination 40 years ago. The theoretical intent was to provide a valid model of the discrimination process; the methodological intent was to provide reliable measures of discrimination acuity in specific sensory tasks. An analytic method of detection theory, called the relative operating characteristic (ROC), can isolate the effect of the placement of the decision criterion, which may be variable and idiosyncratic, so that a pure measure of intrinsic discrimination acuity is obtained. For the past 20 years, ROC analysis has also been used to measure the discrimination acuity or inherent accuracy of a broad range of practical diagnostic systems. It was widely adopted by methodologists in the field of information retrieval, is increasingly used in weather forecasting, and is the generally preferred method in clinical medicine, primarily in radiology. This book attends to both themes, ROC analysis in the psychology laboratory and in practical diagnostic settings, and to their essential unity. The focus of this book is on detection and recognition as fundamental tasks that underlie most complex behaviors. As defined here, they serve to distinguish between two alternative, confusable stimulus categories, which may be perceptual or cognitive categories in the psychology laboratory, or different states of the world in practical diagnostic tasks. This book on signal detection theory in psychology was written by one of the developers of the theory, who co-authored with D.M. Green the classic work published in this area in 1966 (reprinted in 1974 and 1988). This volume reviews the history of the theory in engineering, statistics, and psychology, leading to the separate measurement of the two independent factors in all discrimination tasks, discrimination acuity and decision criterion. It extends the previous book to show how in several areas of psychology--in vigilance and memory--what had been thought to be discrimination effects were, in reality, effects of a changing criterion. The book shows that data plotted in terms of the relative operating characteristic have essentially the same form across the wide range of discrimination tasks in psychology. It develops the implications of this ROC form for measures of discrimination acuity, pointing up the valid ones and identifying several common, but invalid, ones. The area under the binormal ROC is seen to be supported by the data; the popular measures d' and percent correct are not. An appendix describes the best, current programs for fitting ROCs and estimating their parameters, indices, and standard errors. The application of ROC analysis to diagnostic tasks is also described. Diagnostic accuracy in a wide range of tasks can be expressed in terms of the ROC area index. Choosing the appropriate decision criterion for a given diagnostic setting--rather than considering some single criterion to be natural and fixed--has a major impact on the efficacy of a diagnostic process or system. Illustrated here by separate chapters are diagnostic systems in radiology, information retrieval, aptitude testing, survey research, and environments in which imminent dangerous conditions must be detected. Data from weather forecasting, blood testing, and polygraph lie detection are also reported. One of these chapters describes a general approach to enhancing the accuracy of diagnostic systems.

A comprehensive treatment of the skills and techniques needed for visual psychophysics, from basic tools to sophisticated data analysis. Vision is one of the most active areas in biomedical research, and visual psychophysical techniques are a foundational methodology for this research enterprise. Visual psychophysics, which studies the relationship between the physical world and human behavior, is a classical field of study that has widespread applications in modern vision science. Bridging the gap between theory and practice, this textbook provides a comprehensive treatment of visual psychophysics, teaching not only basic techniques but also sophisticated data analysis methodologies and theoretical approaches. It begins with practical information about setting up a vision lab and goes on to discuss the creation, manipulation, and display of visual images; timing and integration of displays with measurements of brain activities and other relevant techniques; experimental designs; estimation of behavioral functions; and examples of psychophysics in applied and clinical settings. The book's treatment of experimental designs presents the most commonly used psychophysical paradigms, theory-driven psychophysical experiments, and the analysis of these procedures in a signal-detection theory framework. The book discusses the theoretical underpinnings of data analysis and scientific interpretation, presenting data analysis techniques that include model fitting, model comparison, and a general framework for optimized adaptive testing methods. It includes many sample programs in Matlab with functions from Psychtoolbox, a free toolbox for real-time experimental control. Once students and researchers have mastered the material in this book, they will have the skills to apply visual psychophysics to cutting-edge vision science.

This volume on Visual Psychophysics documents the current status of research aimed toward understanding the intricacies of the visual mechanism and its laws of operation in intact human perceivers. As can be seen from the list of contributors, the problems of vision engage the interest and experimental ingenuity of investi gators from a variety of disciplines. Thus we find authors affiliated with depart ments of biology, medical and physiological physics, ophthalmology, physics, physiology and anatomy, psychology, laboratories of neurophysiology, medical clinics, schools of optometry, visual and othcr types of research institutes. A continuing interplay between psychophysical studies and physiological work is everywhere evident. As more information about the physiological basis of vision accumulates, and new studies and analyses of receptor photochemistry and the neurophysiology of retina and brain appear, psychophysical studies of the intact organism become more sharply focused, sometimes more complex, and often more specialized. Technological advances have increased the variety and precision of the stimulus controls, and advances in measurement techniques have reopened old problems and stimulated the investigation of new ones. In some cases, new concepts are being drawn in to help further our under standing of the laws by which the visual mechanism operates; in other cases, ideas enunciated long ago have been reevaluated, developed more fully, and reified in terms of converging evidence from both psychophysical experiments and unit recordings from visual cells.