PSY 368 Lecture Notes - Lecture 3: Psychophysics, Sensory System, Psy
14 Feb 2019
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Signal - activity in the perceptual system related to the stimulus that you are trying to detect. Noise - activity in the perceptual system not correlated with the stimulus (i. e. all activity that is not the signal) Detection performance improves as you increase the signal, decrease the noise, or both. Noise can be either external, originating from outside the perceptual system, or internal originating from inside the perceptual system (random neuronal firing) Half of the trials have a target (signal-present trials); half of the trials have no target (signal-absent trials) The subject has to respond signal present or signal absent . The experimenter might also manipulate the size of the signal or the level of background noise, but this is not necessary. The x axis (activation of sensory system) is how active your sensory system is. The y axis (probability) is the likelihood of your sensory system becoming active at a particular level.
