A psychological detection method in environmental research

Abstract Environmental problems involve weak sensory signals such as ambient odors and transportation noise. This article deals with both the potentialities and limitations of a signal detection approach for monitoring odorous air pollution. The detection method has been applied to responses from human observers in four experiments. Two of the experiments focussed on methodological problems connected to olfactometry and physical-chemical detection procedures. The other two were field experiments that treated odor problems in traffic environments and areas around hog farms. The detection method separates effects of biased responding by the observer from the odor sensitivity measure. Thus the response criterion chosen by the observer cannot influence the measures obtained. The applicability of the method in environmental research is discussed both from a theoretical and an applied point of view. It is concluded that the signal detection approach has clear theoretical advantages over classical threshold determinations and in addition, is well suited for monitoring ambient odors.