Can Decision Criteria Interchange Locations? Some Positive Evidence

Signal detection theory (SDT) explains decision making in the yes/no detection task by postulating a single fixed criterion that is used to select responses to the noisy sensory input (Green & Swets, 1966). It is accepted that the criterion may have its own variance, but since in this paradigm criterion variance is indistinguish able from that due to the sensory processes, it is lumped with the latter for purposes of analysis. But if we consider more complex paradigms in which more than one criterion must be maintained simultaneously, such as the rating procedure, the possibility of variation in the location of criteria—whether or not the criterion variance can be separately estimated— raises a new problem, because such variation may affect the interrelations between the criteria. This problem will be examined in the present article.

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