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Order effects in two-alternative forced-choice tasks invalidate adaptive threshold estimates.

Miguel A García-Pérez1, Rocío Alcalá-Quintana2

  • 1Departamento de Metodología, Facultad de Psicología, Universidad Complutense, Campus de Somosaguas, 28223, Madrid, Spain. miguel@psi.ucm.es.

Behavior Research Methods
|April 2, 2020
PubMed
Summary
This summary is machine-generated.

Adaptive methods for estimating thresholds in two-alternative forced-choice (2AFC) tasks overestimate results when presentation order affects performance. New methods are needed to accurately measure thresholds in these conditions.

Keywords:
Adaptive methodsIndecision modelPsychometric functionPsychophysicsThreshold

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Area of Science:

  • Psychophysics
  • Perceptual science
  • Human factors

Background:

  • Adaptive psychophysical methods are standard for estimating thresholds in two-alternative forced-choice (2AFC) tasks.
  • These methods assume an invariant psychometric function, an assumption increasingly challenged by empirical data.

Purpose of the Study:

  • To investigate the impact of presentation order effects on the accuracy of adaptive threshold estimation methods.
  • To evaluate the validity of current adaptive methods when psychometric functions are not invariant.

Main Methods:

  • Simulation studies were conducted to model the performance of adaptive methods under varying presentation orders.
  • An empirical study with human observers was performed to validate simulation findings.

Main Results:

  • Simulation results demonstrated significant overestimation of thresholds by adaptive methods when order effects were present.
  • Empirical data corroborated the simulations, confirming the overestimation of thresholds.

Conclusions:

  • The assumption of psychometric function invariance is critical for adaptive methods in 2AFC tasks.
  • Threshold estimates from adaptive methods may be invalid when presentation order effects are not accounted for.
  • Alternative methods are required for accurate threshold estimation in the presence of order effects.