title: An area theorem for the same-different experiment.
abstract: If observers in a same-different experiment base their decisions on the absolute difference between observations on a trial, the area under the receiver operating characteristic equals the maximum proportion of correct decisions that an unbiased independent-observations observer could attain. Even though the differencing strategy is suboptimal, the area measure yields an index of optimal performance.
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychology, University of Auckland, New Zealand. j.irwin@auckland.ac.nz
authors.forename: R J
authors.initials: RJ
authors.lastname: Irwin
authors.forename: M J
authors.initials: MJ
authors.lastname: Hautus
authors.forename: J C
authors.initials: JC
authors.lastname: Butcher
mesh_terms: D003627:Data Interpretation, Statistical; D006801:Humans; D007600:Judgment / Q000502:physiology*; D011601:Psychophysics / Q000706:statistics & numerical data*; D012372:ROC Curve; D017603:Signal Detection, Psychological / Q000502:physiology*; D013647:Task Performance and Analysis