Teaching signal detection theory with pseudoscience

Frontiers in Psychology

Nicole D. Anderson¹ 

关键词: signal detection;    pseudoscience;    pedagogy;    decision-making;    scientific thinking;   

DOI  :  10.3389/fpsyg.2015.00762

学科分类：心理学（综合）

来源: Frontiers

【 摘 要 】

Signal detection theory (SDT) is a technique that can be used to evaluate sensitivity in decision-making. Initially developed by radar researchers in the early 1950s (Peterson et al., 1954), the value of SDT was quickly recognized by cognitive scientists and adapted for application in human decision-making (Tanner and Swets, 1954; Green and Swets, 1966). The general premise of SDT is that decisions are made against a background of uncertainty, and the goal of the decision-maker is to tease out the decision signal from background noise. SDT can be applied to any binary decision-making situation where the response of the decision maker can be compared to the actual presence or absence of the target. The advantage of SDT as a measure of decision-making is that it provides a unitless measure of sensitivity, regardless of subject bias, that can be compared to other sensitivities over widely different situations.

【 授权许可】

CC BY