Feature sampling in detection: implications for the measurement of perceptual independence.
The article presents the feature sampling signal detection (FS-SDT) model, an extension of the multivariate signal detection (SDT) model. The FS-SDT model assumes that, because of attentional shifts, different subsets of features are sampled for different presentations of the same multidimensional stimulus. Contrary to the SDT model, the FS-SDT model enables the estimation of pure perceptual effects that are uncontaminated by strategic attention shifts. The consideration of feature sampling in detection and identification opens a new perspective on the problem of measuring, respectively, the separability and integrality of stimulus dimensions. Disregarding feature sampling as a component process in detection and identification usually results in biased estimations of perceptual independence concepts relevant for judgments of whether stimulus dimensions are processed independently.
Macho
Siegfried
S
Department of Psychology, University of Fribourg, Switzerland. siegfried.macho@unifr.ch
D001288:Attention; D006801:Humans; D008960:Models, Psychological; D010465:Perception; D011582:Psychological Theory; D017603:Signal Detection, Psychological