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        <title>Calculation of signal detection theory measures</title>
        <author>Stanislaw</author>
        <author>Todorov</author>
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        <bibl>
          <title>Calculation of signal detection theory measures</title>
          <date>1999</date>
          <publisher>Behavior Research Methods, Instruments, &amp; Computers</publisher>
          <idno type="DOI">10.3758/bf03207704</idno>
          
          <idno type="record">stanislaw1999-calculation-of-signal-detection-th</idno>
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          <note type="rights">open-access</note>
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              who="build_paper_edition.py">0 spans located by searching the stored text for the quote's exact words, allowing any whitespace between them</change>
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        <label>method</label>
        <note type="quotation-withheld">Quotation withheld because this record is not cleared for redistribution.</note>
      </span>
      <span xml:id="t1" type="phenomenon" ana="#phenomenon" resp="#paper">
        <label>signal detection theory measures of sensitivity and response bias</label>
        <note type="quotation-withheld">Quotation withheld because this record is not cleared for redistribution.</note>
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      <span xml:id="t2" type="method" ana="#method" resp="#paper">
        <label>review</label>
        <term>review</term>
        <note type="quotation-withheld">Quotation withheld because this record is not cleared for redistribution.</note>
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      <span xml:id="t3" type="mechanisms" ana="#mechanisms[0]" resp="#tagger">
        <label>mechanisms</label>
        <term>Signal detection theory is underused because textbooks describe the theory but omit the computational methods needed to implement it.</term>
        <note type="quotation-withheld">Quotation withheld because this record is not cleared for redistribution.</note>
      </span>
      <span xml:id="t4" type="mechanisms" ana="#mechanisms[1]" resp="#tagger">
        <label>mechanisms</label>
        <term>Moving the criterion shifts hit and false-alarm rates together, so a liberal criterion inflates both; only reducing the overlap of the signal and noise distributions can raise hits while lowering false alarms.</term>
        <note type="quotation-withheld">Quotation withheld because this record is not cleared for redistribution.</note>
      </span>
      <span xml:id="t5" type="mechanisms" ana="#mechanisms[2]" resp="#tagger">
        <label>mechanisms</label>
        <term>Ordinary least squares yields biased ROC slope and intercept estimates because it assumes only one variable carries error, while both rate z scores are measured with sampling error.</term>
        <note type="quotation-withheld">Quotation withheld because this record is not cleared for redistribution.</note>
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      <span xml:id="t6" type="mechanisms" ana="#mechanisms[3]" resp="#tagger" cert="0.9">
        <label>Textbooks describe the theory and then decline to give the calculation - the paper quotes one concluding a nine-page treatment with the statement that the measures can be calculated by a procedure it will not discuss. Fewer than half the studies that could use SDT do.</label>
        <term>a theory is under-used because its methods are omitted, not doubted</term>
        <note type="quotation-withheld">Quotation withheld because this record is not cleared for redistribution.</note>
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      <span xml:id="t7" type="limitations" ana="#limitations[0]" resp="#tagger" cert="1.0">
        <label>The two assumptions d-prime rests on cannot be tested in the task where d-prime is most used; rating tasks are required instead.</label>
        <note>what this limits: a d-prime computed from a yes/no task: the paper states the d-prime assumptions cannot actually be tested in yes/no tasks and that rating tasks are required to test them</note>
        <note type="quotation-withheld">Quotation withheld because this record is not cleared for redistribution.</note>
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        <label>One of the two assumptions is singled out as particularly doubtful for some yes/no tasks.</label>
        <note>what this limits: d-prime as a pure sensitivity measure in a yes/no task: the paper states the assumptions may not be tenable and that equality of the signal and noise standard deviations is particularly suspect</note>
        <note type="quotation-withheld">Quotation withheld because this record is not cleared for redistribution.</note>
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      <span xml:id="t9" type="limitations" ana="#limitations[2]" resp="#tagger" cert="1.0">
        <label>The common bias measure carries its own assumption about how responses are generated.</label>
        <note>what this limits: a beta value reported as response bias: its use assumes</note>
        <note type="quotation-withheld">Quotation withheld because this record is not cleared for redistribution.</note>
      </span>
      <span xml:id="t10" type="limitations" ana="#limitations[3]" resp="#tagger" cert="0.85">
        <label>The paper&#x27;s case that the barrier is now gone rests on a comparison rather than a measurement - that software makes the analysis no harder than a t test.</label>
        <note type="quotation-withheld">Quotation withheld because this record is not cleared for redistribution.</note>
      </span>
      <span xml:id="t11" type="transfers" ana="#transfers[0]" resp="#tagger" cert="0.8">
        <label>signal detection theory, carried into psychology to quantify discrimination between two stimulus types - and it brought its vocabulary with it, so psychological stimuli are still called &#x27;signal&#x27; and &#x27;noise&#x27;</label>
        <note type="quotation-withheld">Quotation withheld because this record is not cleared for redistribution.</note>
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      <span xml:id="t12" type="concepts" ana="#concepts[0]" resp="#paper">
        <label>d&#x27; assumptions</label>
        <term>d&#x27; assumptions</term>
        <note type="quotation-withheld">Quotation withheld because this record is not cleared for redistribution.</note>
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        <label>response bias</label>
        <term>response bias</term>
        <note type="quotation-withheld">Quotation withheld because this record is not cleared for redistribution.</note>
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      <span xml:id="t14" type="concepts" ana="#concepts[2]" resp="#paper">
        <label>signal detection theory</label>
        <term>signal detection theory</term>
        <note type="quotation-withheld">Quotation withheld because this record is not cleared for redistribution.</note>
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      <span xml:id="t15" type="concepts" ana="#concepts[3]" resp="#paper" cert="0.95">
        <label>signal</label>
        <term>signal</term>
        <note type="quotation-withheld">Quotation withheld because this record is not cleared for redistribution.</note>
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      <span xml:id="t16" type="concepts" ana="#concepts[4]" resp="#paper" cert="0.95">
        <label>noise</label>
        <term>noise</term>
        <note type="quotation-withheld">Quotation withheld because this record is not cleared for redistribution.</note>
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      <span xml:id="t17" type="concepts" ana="#concepts[5]" resp="#paper" cert="0.9">
        <label>recognition memory</label>
        <term>recognition memory</term>
        <note type="quotation-withheld">Quotation withheld because this record is not cleared for redistribution.</note>
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      <span xml:id="t18" type="concepts" ana="#concepts[6]" resp="#paper" cert="0.9">
        <label>medical diagnosis</label>
        <term>medical diagnosis</term>
        <note type="quotation-withheld">Quotation withheld because this record is not cleared for redistribution.</note>
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      <span xml:id="t19" type="senses" ana="#senses[0]" resp="#tagger" cert="1.0">
        <label>the d&#x27; assumptions - NAMED AND UNTESTABLE IN PLACE: normality and equal standard deviations, which the paper says cannot be tested in the yes/no task itself</label>
        <note type="quotation-withheld">Quotation withheld because this record is not cleared for redistribution.</note>
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      <span xml:id="t20" type="senses" ana="#senses[1]" resp="#tagger" cert="1.0">
        <label>discriminability versus response bias - the distinction the paper says is so critical that it is illustrated with five examples from widely disparate areas of study</label>
        <note type="quotation-withheld">Quotation withheld because this record is not cleared for redistribution.</note>
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      <span xml:id="t21" type="senses" ana="#senses[2]" resp="#tagger" cert="0.95">
        <label>signal / noise - in this paper NOT perceptual stimuli but whichever two categories a domain must discriminate: old/new items, lies/truths, guilty/innocent defendants, diseased/well patients. The words are inherited from perception and the referents are not</label>
        <note type="quotation-withheld">Quotation withheld because this record is not cleared for redistribution.</note>
      </span>
      <span xml:id="t22" type="claim_relations" ana="#claim_relations[0]" resp="#tagger">
        <label>extends → Grier (1971)</label>
        <note type="quotation-withheld">Quotation withheld because this record is not cleared for redistribution.</note>
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      <span xml:id="t23" type="claim_relations" ana="#claim_relations[1]" resp="#tagger">
        <label>contradicts → Macmillan and Creelman (1996)</label>
        <note type="quotation-withheld">Quotation withheld because this record is not cleared for redistribution.</note>
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        <label>signal —distinct-from→ noise</label>
        <term>signal</term>
        <term>noise</term>
        <note>differs in: NOTHING FIXED - the contrast is whatever the domain supplies. Across the seven applications listed in one sentence it is old against new, lie against truth, guilty against innocent, diseased against well. The pair names a CONTRAST STRUCTURE, not two things · strength of the relation: 0.9</note>
        <note type="quotation-withheld">Quotation withheld because this record is not cleared for redistribution.</note>
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      <span xml:id="t25" type="content_tags" ana="#content_tags.statistics[0]" resp="#tagger">
        <label>d&#x27; (sensitivity index)</label>
        <term>d&#x27; (sensitivity index)</term>
        <note type="quotation-withheld">Quotation withheld because this record is not cleared for redistribution.</note>
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        <label>A&#x27; (nonparametric sensitivity measure)</label>
        <term>A&#x27; (nonparametric sensitivity measure)</term>
        <note type="quotation-withheld">Quotation withheld because this record is not cleared for redistribution.</note>
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      <span xml:id="t27" type="content_tags" ana="#content_tags.statistics[2]" resp="#tagger">
        <label>beta (likelihood-ratio response bias measure)</label>
        <term>beta (likelihood-ratio response bias measure)</term>
        <note type="quotation-withheld">Quotation withheld because this record is not cleared for redistribution.</note>
      </span>
      <span xml:id="t28" type="content_tags" ana="#content_tags.statistics[3]" resp="#tagger">
        <label>regression (ordinary least squares)</label>
        <term>regression (ordinary least squares)</term>
        <note type="quotation-withheld">Quotation withheld because this record is not cleared for redistribution.</note>
      </span>
      <span xml:id="t29" type="content_tags" ana="#content_tags.statistics[4]" resp="#tagger">
        <label>correlation</label>
        <term>correlation</term>
        <note type="quotation-withheld">Quotation withheld because this record is not cleared for redistribution.</note>
      </span>
      <span xml:id="t30" type="content_tags" ana="#content_tags.statistics[5]" resp="#tagger">
        <label>ROC curve fitting (slope and intercept in z space)</label>
        <term>ROC curve fitting (slope and intercept in z space)</term>
        <note type="quotation-withheld">Quotation withheld because this record is not cleared for redistribution.</note>
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      <span xml:id="t31" type="content_tags" ana="#content_tags.findings[0]" resp="#tagger">
        <label>The major contribution of signal detection theory to psychology is that it separates response bias from sensitivity.</label>
        <note type="quotation-withheld">Quotation withheld because this record is not cleared for redistribution.</note>
      </span>
      <span xml:id="t32" type="content_tags" ana="#content_tags.findings[1]" resp="#tagger">
        <label>Despite wide acceptance of the theory, fewer than half of the studies to which signal detection theory applies actually use it.</label>
        <note type="quotation-withheld">Quotation withheld because this record is not cleared for redistribution.</note>
      </span>
      <span xml:id="t33" type="content_tags" ana="#content_tags.findings[2]" resp="#tagger">
        <label>Fitting ROC data by ordinary least squares gives biased slope and intercept estimates, because in rating tasks both the hit-rate and the false-alarm-rate z scores carry sampling error rather than only one of them.</label>
        <note type="quotation-withheld">Quotation withheld because this record is not cleared for redistribution.</note>
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      <span xml:id="t34" type="content_tags" ana="#content_tags.findings[3]" resp="#tagger">
        <label>In the worked example OLS gave the misleading impression that the signal and noise distributions have equal standard deviations.</label>
        <note type="quotation-withheld">Quotation withheld because this record is not cleared for redistribution.</note>
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      <span xml:id="t35" type="content_tags" ana="#content_tags.findings[4]" resp="#tagger">
        <label>The violated equal-variance assumption explains why the d&#x27; values from different criteria varied so widely.</label>
        <note type="quotation-withheld">Quotation withheld because this record is not cleared for redistribution.</note>
      </span>
      <span xml:id="t36" type="content_tags" ana="#content_tags.findings[5]" resp="#tagger">
        <label>Lookup tables are an inaccurate route to SDT measures because they force hit and false-alarm rates to be rounded, usually to two significant digits, and some published tables contain wrong entries.</label>
        <note type="quotation-withheld">Quotation withheld because this record is not cleared for redistribution.</note>
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      <span xml:id="t37" type="content_tags" ana="#content_tags.definitions[0]" resp="#tagger">
        <label>criterion</label>
        <term>criterion</term>
        <note type="quotation-withheld">Quotation withheld because this record is not cleared for redistribution.</note>
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      <span xml:id="t38" type="content_tags" ana="#content_tags.definitions[3]" resp="#tagger">
        <label>response bias</label>
        <term>response bias</term>
        <note type="quotation-withheld">Quotation withheld because this record is not cleared for redistribution.</note>
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      <span xml:id="t39" type="content_tags" ana="#content_tags.definitions[4]" resp="#tagger">
        <label>d&#x27;</label>
        <term>d&#x27;</term>
        <note type="quotation-withheld">Quotation withheld because this record is not cleared for redistribution.</note>
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      <span xml:id="t40" type="content_tags" ana="#content_tags.definitions[5]" resp="#tagger">
        <label>the d&#x27; assumptions</label>
        <term>the d&#x27; assumptions</term>
        <note type="quotation-withheld">Quotation withheld because this record is not cleared for redistribution.</note>
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      <span xml:id="t41" type="content_tags" ana="#content_tags.definitions[7]" resp="#tagger">
        <label>receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curve</label>
        <term>receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curve</term>
        <note type="quotation-withheld">Quotation withheld because this record is not cleared for redistribution.</note>
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        <label>ROC area</label>
        <term>ROC area</term>
        <note type="quotation-withheld">Quotation withheld because this record is not cleared for redistribution.</note>
      </span>
      <span xml:id="t43" type="content_tags" ana="#content_tags.definitions[9]" resp="#tagger">
        <label>m-alternative forced-choice (mAFC) task</label>
        <term>m-alternative forced-choice (mAFC) task</term>
        <note type="quotation-withheld">Quotation withheld because this record is not cleared for redistribution.</note>
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      <span xml:id="t44" type="content_tags" ana="#content_tags.definitions[10]" resp="#tagger">
        <label>loglinear approach</label>
        <term>loglinear approach</term>
        <note type="quotation-withheld">Quotation withheld because this record is not cleared for redistribution.</note>
      </span>
      <span xml:id="t45" type="content_tags" ana="#content_tags.definitions[11]" resp="#tagger">
        <label>hits</label>
        <term>hits</term>
        <note type="quotation-withheld">Quotation withheld because this record is not cleared for redistribution.</note>
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      <span xml:id="t46" type="content_tags" ana="#content_tags.definitions[12]" resp="#tagger">
        <label>false alarms</label>
        <term>false alarms</term>
        <note type="quotation-withheld">Quotation withheld because this record is not cleared for redistribution.</note>
      </span>
      <span xml:id="t47" type="content_tags" ana="#content_tags.definitions[13]" resp="#tagger">
        <label>signal distribution</label>
        <term>signal distribution</term>
        <note type="quotation-withheld">Quotation withheld because this record is not cleared for redistribution.</note>
      </span>
      <span xml:id="t48" type="content_tags" ana="#content_tags.definitions[14]" resp="#tagger">
        <label>noise distribution</label>
        <term>noise distribution</term>
        <note type="quotation-withheld">Quotation withheld because this record is not cleared for redistribution.</note>
      </span>
      <span xml:id="t49" type="content_tags" ana="#content_tags.quantities[0]" resp="#tagger">
        <label>over 2,000 — citations to Green and Swets (1966) recorded in the Social Sciences Citation Index, used to argue SDT is widely accepted</label>
        <note type="quotation-withheld">Quotation withheld because this record is not cleared for redistribution.</note>
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      <span xml:id="t50" type="content_tags" ana="#content_tags.quantities[1]" resp="#tagger">
        <label>.9332 — hit rate in the illustrative Figure 1 example, the proportion of the signal distribution above the criterion</label>
        <note type="quotation-withheld">Quotation withheld because this record is not cleared for redistribution.</note>
      </span>
      <span xml:id="t51" type="content_tags" ana="#content_tags.quantities[2]" resp="#tagger">
        <label>50 signal trials and 25 noise trials — size of the hypothetical rating-task data set used for the worked computational example</label>
        <note type="quotation-withheld">Quotation withheld because this record is not cleared for redistribution.</note>
      </span>
      <span xml:id="t52" type="content_tags" ana="#content_tags.quantities[3]" resp="#tagger">
        <label>d&#x27; = 1.56 — sensitivity computed for the second criterion of the worked example (hit rate .92, false-alarm rate .44)</label>
        <note type="quotation-withheld">Quotation withheld because this record is not cleared for redistribution.</note>
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      <span xml:id="t53" type="content_tags" ana="#content_tags.quantities[4]" resp="#tagger">
        <label>A&#x27; = .84 — nonparametric sensitivity for the same pair of rates in the worked example</label>
        <note type="quotation-withheld">Quotation withheld because this record is not cleared for redistribution.</note>
      </span>
      <span xml:id="t54" type="content_tags" ana="#content_tags.quantities[5]" resp="#tagger">
        <label>slope of 1.28 and an intercept of 1.52 — ROCFIT&#x27;s fitted z-space ROC parameters for the example rating data, from which Az is computed</label>
        <note type="quotation-withheld">Quotation withheld because this record is not cleared for redistribution.</note>
      </span>
      <span xml:id="t55" type="content_tags" ana="#content_tags.quantities[6]" resp="#tagger">
        <label>r = .90 — correlation between hit-rate and false-alarm-rate z scores in the example, shown still to leave the two OLS slopes far apart</label>
        <note type="quotation-withheld">Quotation withheld because this record is not cleared for redistribution.</note>
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      <p><note type="rights">The full text of this article is not redistributable, so it is
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      grounding status remain. The article itself is at https://doi.org/10.3758/bf03207704.</note></p>
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