Work

A rating-only approach to perceptual discrimination

Year: 2025

Type: article

Abstract: Confidence ratings have been used in the absence of a binary decision to attenuate bias effects on decision criteria, thus, mitigating a common source of error. We tested whether a rating-only approach could be used to effectively discriminate whether a dynamic grid consisted of predominantly blue or predominantly orange pixels, and target present from target absent trials in a visual search task. Experiment 1 (n = 42) confirmed that participants could use the rating-only approach to discriminate between stimulus types. Experiment 2 (n = 99) tested whether the rating-only approach could discriminate luggage images that did or did not contain a weapon, and whether using ratings could mitigate the low prevalence effect (where rarely occurring targets often go undetected). The rating-only approach discriminated target present from target absent trials, however the absence of clear low prevalence effects precluded an investigation of the use of a ratings-based approach for countering this cause of error.

Source: Royal Society Open Science

DOI: 10.1098/rsos.241032

Authors: Max Kucina, Amelia T. Kohl, James D. Sauer, Matthew A. Palmer

Institutions: University of Tasmania, University of Birmingham

Language: English

Topic: Visual perception and processing mechanisms

Subfield: Cognitive Neuroscience

Field: Neuroscience

Domain: Life Sciences

Open Access status: gold

Estimated APC paid: $1,471

Funder: Australian Research Council