Separating Decision and Encoding Noise in Signal Detection Tasks

In this article we develop an extension to the signal detection theory framework to separately estimate internal noise arising from representational and decision processes. Our approach constrains signal detection theory models with decision noise by combining a multipass external noise paradigm with confidence rating responses. In a simulation study we present evidence that representation and decision noise can be separately estimated over a range of representative underlying representational and decision noise level configurations. These results also hold across a number of decision rules and show resilience to rule miss-specification. The new theoretical framework is applied to a visual detection confidence-rating task with 3 and 5 response categories. This study compliments and extends the recent efforts of researchers (Benjamin, Diaz, & Wee, 2009; Mueller & Weidemann, 2008; Rosner & Kochanski, 2009; Kellen, Klauer, & Singmann, 2012) to separate and quantify underlying sources of response variability in signal detection tasks.