Receiver-Operating Characteristics Determined under Several Interaural Conditions of Listening

The ability of subjects to detect sinusoidal signals in a continuous background of white Gaussian noise was investigated for several different interaural relations of the signal and of the noise stimuli and the area under the ROC was found to be a good estimate of the percent correct obtained with a two‐interval forced‐choice technique.

Abstract

The ability of subjects to detect sinusoidal signals in a continuous background of white Gaussian noise was investigated for several different interaural relations of the signal and of the noise stimuli. The functions, referred to as receiver operating characteristics (ROC's), relating the proportion of correct detections of the signal to the proportion of false alarms were determined in each case. A rating procedure was employed to determine the ROC's. The area under the ROC was found to be a good estimate of the percent correct obtained with a two-interval forced-choice (2IFC) technique—a relation to be expected on theoretical grounds. The ROC's were not significantly affected by the presence of trial-by-trial feedback.