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.
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