Help: d-prime?

Hi. Can someone tell me whether the Psych Toolbox contains any functions
for computing d-prime (the sensitivity measure)? Thanks.

-- Dave



************************************
David Fass dfass@...
Visual Cognition Laboratory
Rutgers Center for Cognitive Science
http://ruccs.rutgers.edu/~dfass/
************************************
Hi Dave,

I've created a function for this, and the code is below.

I hope you find it helpful.

:-)

Nestor



*****************************************************
Nestor Matthews, Ph.D.
Assistant Professor
Department of Psychology
Denison University
100 South Road
Knapp Hall, Room 505A
Granville, OH 43023 USA
Phone: (740) 587-5782
Fax: (740) 587-5675
E-mail: matthewsn@...
http://www.denison.edu/psych/profbios/matthews.shtml
And
http://www.denison.edu/~matthewsn/index.html
*****************************************************

Here is the function's code


function d=dPrimeCalculation(proportionOfHits, proportionOfFAs)
%DPPRIMECALCULATION takes in the proportion of hits, and the
%proportion of False alarms, then returns the d' value.
%We assume that the mean is zero, and the S.D. is .5
%However, in the variables below, these parameters can be changed.
%Normalcy and Equal Variance are assumed here.
%Also, we return a -99 if any of the input values are 0 or 1.

%Reference: Equation 3.1 on page 68 of George A. Geshider's
%Psychophysics Method and Theory, 1976. Lawrence Earlbaum Associates,
Publishers.
%Distrbuted by the Halsted Press Division of John Wiley and Sons.

if proportionOfHits~=0 & proportionOfHits~=1 & proportionOfFAs~=0 &
proportionOfFAs~=1


%The d' calculation can be made since all values are between 0 and 1,
exclusive.
mean = 0; %Mean of the gaussian distribution on which the calc is
made.
stDev = .5; %StDeviation of the gaussian distribution on which the
calc is made.

zHits = norminv(proportionOfHits, mean, stDev);
zFalseAlarms = norminv(proportionOfFAs, mean, stDev);
d = zHits - zFalseAlarms;

else

d=-99; %The d' calculation cannot be made since at least one value
is a 0 or a 1.
%This is dummy value is returned just to avoid a divide=by-zero
error.
end



On 4/24/02 8:57 AM, "David Fass" <dfass@...> wrote:

>
> Hi. Can someone tell me whether the Psych Toolbox contains any functions
> for computing d-prime (the sensitivity measure)? Thanks.
>
> -- Dave
>
>
>
> ************************************
> David Fass dfass@...
> Visual Cognition Laboratory
> Rutgers Center for Cognitive Science
> http://ruccs.rutgers.edu/~dfass/
> ************************************
>
>
>
> http://psychtoolbox.org
> POST a message to: psychtoolbox@yahoogroups.com
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> Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/
>
>
> Hi Dave,
>
> I've created a function for this, and the code is below.
>
> function d=dPrimeCalculation(proportionOfHits, proportionOfFAs)
> %DPPRIMECALCULATION takes in the proportion of hits, and the
> %proportion of False alarms, then returns the d' value.

Hi Nestor,

My (limited) understanding of d' is that one must change how one
calculates the value depending on the methodology one used in gathering
the data (McMillan & Creelman, 1991). What methodology are you assuming
with your function?

Charles.