Liberal Criterion Research Articles

Viewed touch influences tactile detection by altering decision criterion

Our tactile perception is shaped not only by somatosensory input but also by visual information. Prior research on the effect of viewing touch on tactile processing has found higher tactile detection rates when paired with viewed touch versus a control visual stimulus. Therefore, some have proposed a vicarious tactile system that activates somatosensory areas when viewing touch, resulting in enhanced tactile perception. However, we propose an alternative explanation: Viewing touch makes the observer more liberal in their decision to report a tactile stimulus relative to not viewing touch, also resulting in higher tactile detection rates. To disambiguate between the two explanations, we examined the effect of viewed touch on tactile sensitivity and decision criterion using signal detection theory. In three experiments, participants engaged in a tactile detection task while viewing a hand being touched or approached by a finger, a red dot, or no stimulus. We found that viewing touch led to a consistent, liberal criterion shift but inconsistent enhancement in tactile sensitivity relative to not viewing touch. Moreover, observing a finger approach the hand was sufficient to bias the criterion. These findings suggest that viewing touch influences tactile performance by altering tactile decision mechanisms rather than the tactile perceptual signal.

The Relationship Between Intelligence and Creativity Within the Threshold Theory Among Gifted Students in Saudi Arabia

Threshold theory is an intelligence and creativity theory that proposes that there is a minimum degree of intelligence, or "threshold," required for creativity to occur. Above this point, intelligence ceases to be a key influence in creativity. This study uses the Threshold Theory to investigate the relationship among exceptional gifted, gifted, and promising gifted students' creativity and intelligence scores. The study included 3843 gifted students (male=2176; female= 1667). Students in grades three through eleven from the Eastern Province of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia made up the study sample. The Torrance Creative Thinking exam (TTCT) and the MAWHIBA intelligence test were used (MMCAT). Between 2020 and 2023, a period of three years, data were gathered. The Threshold Theory was applied to test the collected data. The results of the study indicated that the IQ = 118 criterion is evaluated and that there is a positive and significant relationship (r = 0.532; p>0.05) between intelligence and creativity. They are not significantly different from the cutoff (r = 0.22; p > 0.05). Based on the suggested liberal criterion, these findings support the threshold theory.

The benefit of making voluntary choices generalizes across multiple effectors.

It has been shown that cognitive performance could be improved by expressing volition (e.g., making voluntary choices), which necessarily involves the execution of action through a certain effector. However, it is unclear if the benefit of expressing volition can generalize across different effectors. In the present study, participants made a choice between two pictures either voluntarily or forcibly, and subsequently completed a visual search task with the chosen picture as a task-irrelevant background. The effector for choosing a picture could be the hand (pressing a key), foot (pedaling), mouth (commanding), or eye (gazing), whereas the effector for responding to the search target was always the hand. Results showed that participants responded faster and had a more liberal response criterion in the search task after a voluntary choice (vs. a forced choice). Importantly, the improved performance was observed regardless of which effector was used in making the choice, and regardless of whether the effector for making choices was the same as or different from the effector for responding to the search target. Eye-movement data for oculomotor choice showed that the main contributor to the facilitatory effect of voluntary choice was the post-search time in the visual search task (i.e., the time spent on processes after the target was found, such as response selection and execution). These results suggest that the expression of volition may involve the motor control system in which the effector-general, high-level processing of the goal of the voluntary action plays a key role.

Widespread frontoparietal fMRI activity is greatly affected by changes in criterion placement, not discriminability, during recognition memory and visual detection tests

Widespread frontoparietal activity is consistently observed in recognition memory tests that compare studied (“target”) versus unstudied (“nontarget”) responses. However, there are conflicting accounts that ascribe various aspects of frontoparietal activity to mnemonic evidence versus decisional processes. According to Signal Detection Theory, recognition judgments require individuals to decide whether the memory strength of an item exceeds an evidence threshold—the decision criterion—for reporting previously studied items. Yet, most fMRI studies fail to manipulate both memory strength and decision criteria, making it difficult to appropriately identify frontoparietal activity associated with each process. In the current experiment, we manipulated both discriminability and decision criteria across recognition memory and visual detection tests during fMRI scanning to assess how frontoparietal activity is affected by each manipulation. Our findings revealed that maintaining a conservative versus liberal decision criterion drastically affects frontoparietal activity in target versus nontarget response contrasts for both recognition memory and visual detection tests. However, manipulations of discriminability showed virtually no differences in frontoparietal activity in target versus nontarget response or item contrasts. Comparing across task domains, we observed similar modulations of frontoparietal activity across criterion conditions, though the recognition memory task revealed larger activations in both magnitude and spatial extent in these contrasts. Nonetheless, there appears to be some domain specificity in frontoparietal activity associated with the maintenance of a conservative versus liberal criterion. We propose that widespread frontoparietal activity observed in target versus nontarget contrasts is largely attributable to response bias where increased activity may reflect inhibition of a prepotent response, which differs depending on whether a person maintains a conservative versus liberal decision criterion.

Discriminating between sick and healthy faces based on early sickness cues: an exploratory analysis of sex differences.

It has been argued that sex and disease-related traits should influence how observers respond to sensory sickness cues. In fact, there is evidence that humans can detect sensory cues related to infection in others, but lack of power from earlier studies prevents any firm conclusion regarding whether perception of sickness cues is associated with sex and disease-related personality traits. Here, we tested whether women (relative to men), individuals with poorer self-reported health, and who are more sensitive to disgust, vulnerable to disease, and concerned about their health, overestimate the presence of, and/or are better at detecting sickness cues. In a large online study, 343 women and 340 men were instructed to identify the sick faces from a series of sick and healthy photographs of volunteers with an induced acute experimental inflammation. Participants also completed several disease-related questionnaires. While both men and women could discriminate between sick and healthy individuals above chance level, exploratory analyses revealed that women outperformed men in accuracy and speed of discrimination. Furthermore, we demonstrated that higher disgust sensitivity to body odors is associated with a more liberal decision criterion for categorizing faces as sick. Our findings give strong support for the human ability to discriminate between sick and healthy individuals based on early facial cues of sickness and suggest that women are significantly, although only slightly, better at this task. If this finding is replicated, future studies should determine whether women's better performance is related to increased avoidance of sick individuals.

Tears for pears: Influence of children's neophobia on categorization performance and strategy in the food domain.

Preschoolers’ neophobic dispositions mainly target fruits and vegetables. They received a great deal of attention in the past decades as these dispositions represent the main psychological barrier to dietary variety. Recently, children’s food neophobia has been found to be negatively correlated with their categorization performance (i.e., the accuracy to discriminate between food categories). We investigated categorization strategies among neophobic children, tendencies to favor one type of error over the other (misses over false alarms), in order to compensate for their poor categorization performance. To capture children’s categorization strategies, we used the Signal Detection Theory framework. A first experiment assessed 120 3-to-6-years old children’ sensitivity to discriminate between foods and nonfoods as well as their decision criterion (i.e., response strategy). In a second experiment, we manipulated the influence of food processing. The hypothesis was that food processing acts as a sign of human interventions that decreases uncertainty about edibility and thus promotes feelings of safety in the food domain. 137 children were tested on a food versus nonfood categorization task contrasting whole and sliced stimuli. In both experiments, increased levels of food neophobia were significantly associated with poorer categorization sensitivity and with a more conservative decision criterion (i.e., favoring “it is inedible” errors). Additionally, results from Experiment 2 revealed that food processing did not influence neophobic children, whereas their neophilic counterparts adopted a more liberal decision criterion for sliced stimuli than for whole stimuli. These findings are the first demonstration of a relationship between a decision criterion and food neophobia in young children. These results have strong implications for theories of food neophobia and laid the groundwork for designing novel types of food education interventions.

Enhanced threat detection in three dimensions: An image-matched comparison of computed tomography and dual-view X-ray baggage screening

Computed Tomography (CT) is increasingly used in screening of cabin baggage in airports. The current study aimed to establish whether screening with CT confers a detection advantage over dual-view (DV) X-ray when resolution is controlled. We also evaluated whether a ‘targetless’ search strategy – in which screeners identify and reject safe items – improved detection relative to target-based methods. In an online study, 104 novice screeners were trained with either CT or DV, and either a targetless or a target-based search strategy. Screeners were then tested in a simulated cabin baggage screening task. CT screeners performed with greater sensitivity than DV screeners. Search strategy did not affect sensitivity, although the target-based strategy resulted in a more liberal criterion. We conclude that CT imaging confers a benefit to screening performance over DV when image resolution is controlled. This is likely due to the ability to rotate the image to resolve occlusions.

A comparison of methods to address item non-response when testing for differential item functioning in multidimensional patient-reported outcome measures.

Item non-response (i.e., missing data) may mask the detection of differential item functioning (DIF) in patient-reported outcome measures or result in biased DIF estimates. Non-response can be challenging to address in ordinal data. We investigated an unsupervised machine-learning method for ordinal item-level imputation and compared it with commonly-used item non-response methods when testing for DIF. Computer simulation and real-world data were used to assess several item non-response methods using the item response theory likelihood ratio test for DIF. The methods included: (a) list-wise deletion (LD), (b) half-mean imputation (HMI), (c) full information maximum likelihood (FIML), and (d) non-negative matrix factorization (NNMF), which adopts a machine-learning approach to impute missing values. Control of Type I error rates were evaluated using a liberal robustness criterion for α = 0.05 (i.e., 0.025-0.075). Statistical power was assessed with and without adoption of an item non-response method; differences > 10% were considered substantial. Type I error rates for detecting DIF using LD, FIML and NNMF methods were controlled within the bounds of the robustness criterion for > 95% of simulation conditions, although the NNMF occasionally resulted in inflated rates. The HMI method always resulted in inflated error rates with 50% missing data. Differences in power to detect moderate DIF effects for LD, FIML and NNMF methods were substantial with 50% missing data and otherwise insubstantial. The NNMF method demonstrated comparable performance to commonly-used non-response methods. This computationally-efficient method represents a promising approach to address item-level non-response when testing for DIF.

Time and money: Exploring enhancements to performance validity research designs

Introduction The study examined the effect of preparation time and financial incentives on healthy adults’ ability to simulate traumatic brain injury (TBI) during neuropsychological evaluation. Method A retrospective comparison of two TBI simulator group designs: a traditional design employing a single-session of standard coaching immediately before participation (SIM-SC; n = 46) and a novel design that provided financial incentive and preparation time (SIM-IP; n = 49). Both groups completed an ecologically valid neuropsychological test battery that included widely-used cognitive tests and five common performance validity tests (PVTs). Results Compared to SIM-SC, SIM-IP performed significantly worse and had higher rates of impairment on tests of processing speed and executive functioning (Trails A and B). SIM-IP were more likely than SIM-SC to avoid detection on one of the PVTs and performed somewhat better on three of the PVTs, but the effects were small and non-significant. SIM-IP did not demonstrate significantly higher rates of successful simulation (i.e., performing impaired on cognitive tests with <2 PVT failures). Overall, the rate of the successful simulation was ∼40% with a liberal criterion, requiring cognitive impairment defined as performance >1 SD below the normative mean. At a more rigorous criterion defining impairment (>1.5 SD below the normative mean), successful simulation approached 35%. Conclusions Incentive and preparation time appear to add limited incremental effect over traditional, single-session coaching analog studies of TBI simulation. Moreover, these design modifications did not translate to meaningfully higher rates of successful simulation and avoidance of detection by PVTs.

Can signal detection theory explain everyday amnesia (high confident misses)?

Levi et al. (2021) critique the concept of everyday amnesia (high confident misses) by arguing that these are simply due to criterion shifts within a signal detection framework. We agree that signal detection figures can be drawn to conceptualize the results, but we argue such efforts merely provide a re-description of the phenomenon without explaining it. For that, one would need a process theory. Signal detection theory represents an elegant framework for conceiving of issues in decision making, but not for explaining mechanisms underlying them. A signal detection figure can be created for any possible recognition memory result; any pair of hit rates and false alarm rates (and hence miss rates and correct rejection rates) is amenable to such a depiction. If we were to cast the issue we raised in terms of signal detection theory, we might ask: Why do some subjects place their most liberal criterion in such a way that they miss, with high confidence, items that they recently studied? Signal detection theory provides no answer.

Lesion-behaviour mapping reveals multifactorial neurocognitive processes in recognition memory for unfamiliar faces

Face recognition abilities, which play a critical role in social interactions, involve face processing and identifying familiar faces, but also remembering one-off encounters with previously unfamiliar faces. Previous functional imaging and lesion studies have found evidence for temporal, frontal, and parietal contributions to episodic recognition memory for previously unfamiliar faces. However, the functional contributions of these regions remain unclear. We, therefore, conducted a systematic group analysis of this memory function using lesion-behavior mapping. 95 first-event stroke patients (53 with right- and 42 with left-hemisphere damage) in the sub-acute phase performed the Wechsler Memory Scale (WMS-III) face recognition memory subtest. We analyzed their performance relative to 75 healthy controls, using signal detection measures. To identify brain lesions specifically implicated in face recognition deficits, we used voxel-based lesion-behavior mapping (VLBM; an analysis comparing the performance of participants with and without damage affecting a given voxel). Behavioral analysis disclosed a pronounced impairment in the performance of patients with right hemisphere damage. Frontal damage was associated with an increased amount of false alarms (i.e., failed rejection of new face items) and overly liberal criterion setting, without affecting the recognition of studied faces. In contrast, parietal damage was associated with impaired recognition of studied faces, which was more pronounced in immediate than in delayed retrieval. These findings suggest the existence of multifactorial neurocognitive processes in recognition memory for unfamiliar faces.

Spatial Dose Sparing for Organs-at-Risk (OARs) to Decrease Severe Lymphopenia Risks in Head and Neck Cancer

Severe lymphopenia during chemoradiation is often associated with higher risk of death, disease progression and distant metastases. Recent data has shown that head and neck cancer (HNC) patients with lymphopenia has a decreased 5-year overall survival of 70 vs 90%. While both radiation and chemotherapy have been associated with lymphopenia, the mechanism of action remains unclear. Here, we propose a spatially-defined model that evaluates the combined effects of lymphotoxic radiation doses to head and neck organs-at-risk (HN-OARs) which include the cervical bone marrow and the circulating blood pool. Our objective is to investigate the spatial dose relationships related to treatment-related lymphopenia (TRL) in HNC patients.We have identified a prospectively acquired dataset of 40 HNC patients treated at our institution with 31 oropharynx, 3 oral cavity, 4 nasopharynx and 2 larynx cases. Weekly lymphocyte counts were extracted at baseline and for 8 weeks since initiation of radiotherapy. Chemotherapy timing, dosage and regimens were documented. HN-OARs were manually contoured on CT simulation scans. To generate the spatially-defined linear regression model, we included these inputs (x): internal jugular veins (IJVs), carotid arteries (CAs), capillary bed (CB) and vertebral bodies (VBs). The output (y) is defined by % decrease between baseline and nadir lymphocyte counts. Then, we segmented VBs by vertebral levels, and other HN-OARs by disease laterality (ipsilateral vs contralateral). IJVs and CAs are further segmented by anatomic zones (zone 1: C1 to hyoid, zone 2: hyoid to cricoid, and zone 3: cricoid to C7). Stepwise selection was used to identify influential HN-OARs. Finally, we proposed spatial dose parameters associated with high risk lymphopenia (defined as ≥70% decrease) and performed sensitivity/specificity (Se/Sp) analyses.Using stepwise (forward) selection, we identified IJVs as potential targets to spare low dose bath parameters Dmin and D90 (P-values 0.028 to 0.056), and VBs as potential targets to spare point max doses Dmax and D10 (P-values < 0.001 to 0.020). To avoid overfitting, we also performed backward selection with a more liberal P-value criterion of 0.50 which showed similar results. Key anatomic zones for potential dose sparing include C1-3 VBs and contralateral zone 1 IJVs. Overall, we proposed these dose parameters to limit TRL risks: Dmax ≤ 60 Gy for VBs (Se/Sp: 76%/86%, AUC 0.84) and D90 ≤ 13 Gy for contralateral IJVs (Se/Sp: 72%/86%, AUC 0.79).The risk of treatment-related lymphopenia (TRL) appears to be spatially related to radiation doses to the VBs and IJVs. Better understanding of the spatial dose relationship with HN-OARs may lead to insights in reducing TRL risks and improving oncologic outcomes, especially as we consider the benefits of recent dose de-escalation studies (to reduce point max doses) and proton treatment techniques (to reduce low dose baths) in the management of head and neck cancers.

The Decisional Blink? Response criterion and the attentional blink paradigm.

The Attentional Blink (AB) is the impaired detection of a target in a stream of rapidly presented objects (T2) when it follows the presentation of another task-relevant object (T1) by ~200ms. This paradigm has been widely used to measure attentional control in diverse populations (eg, meditators, gamers). AB magnitude is typically assessed by computing the hit rate for T2 following correct T1 identifications. Thus, savvy observers could eliminate their AB by simply reporting that T2 is always present (ie, by employing an extremely liberal response criterion). Here, we use signal detection theory to measure the AB and show that AB magnitude is confounded by response criterion when calculated with hit rate only, the common analytical approach. 39 participants completed 160 test and controls trials of the AB paradigm. Test: participants reported the identity of T1 (a single white letter in a stream of black letters) and detected T2 (an X that was present or absent). Control: T1 was ignored and only the T2 detection judgment was reported. In both trial types, the temporal location of T2 was manipulated (8 Lags, 100-800ms). We replicated the classic AB effect: hit rates were reduced in test compared to control trials, reaching their lowest point at Lag 2. dʹ, which takes hits and false alarms into account, was also significantly reduced in test compared to control trials. Response criterion also differed between test and control trials, replicating the Neyman-Pearson objective. Finally, the degree to which criterion changed between control and test was strongly and negatively correlated with the magnitude of classic AB effect. If one’s goal is to compare the magnitude of the AB between groups or after an experimental intervention in a way that isolates perceptual factors from decisional ones, researchers are urged to abandon the currently widespread analytical approach.

The unbiased estimation of the fraction of variance explained by a model.

The correlation coefficient squared, r2, is commonly used to validate quantitative models on neural data, yet it is biased by trial-to-trial variability: as trial-to-trial variability increases, measured correlation to a model's predictions decreases. As a result, models that perfectly explain neural tuning can appear to perform poorly. Many solutions to this problem have been proposed, but no consensus has been reached on which is the least biased estimator. Some currently used methods substantially overestimate model fit, and the utility of even the best performing methods is limited by the lack of confidence intervals and asymptotic analysis. We provide a new estimator, [Formula: see text], that outperforms all prior estimators in our testing, and we provide confidence intervals and asymptotic guarantees. We apply our estimator to a variety of neural data to validate its utility. We find that neural noise is often so great that confidence intervals of the estimator cover the entire possible range of values ([0, 1]), preventing meaningful evaluation of the quality of a model's predictions. This leads us to propose the use of the signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) as a quality metric for making quantitative comparisons across neural recordings. Analyzing a variety of neural data sets, we find that up to ∼ 40% of some state-of-the-art neural recordings do not pass even a liberal SNR criterion. Moving toward more reliable estimates of correlation, and quantitatively comparing quality across recording modalities and data sets, will be critical to accelerating progress in modeling biological phenomena.

Feedback moderates the effect of prevalence on perceptual decisions.

How does the prevalence of a target influence how it is perceived and categorized? A substantial body of work, mostly in visual search, shows that a higher proportion of targets are missed when prevalence is low. This classic low prevalence effect (LPE) involves a shift to a more conservative decision criterion that makes it less likely that observers will call an ambiguous item a target. In contrast, Levari et al. (Science, 360[6396], 1465-1467, 2018) recently reported the opposite effect in a simple categorization task. In their hands, at low prevalence, observers adopted a more liberal criterion, making observers more likely to label ambiguous dots on a blue-purple continuum "blue." They called this "prevalence-induced concept change" (PICC). Here, we report that the presence or absence of feedback is critical. With feedback, observers become more conservative at low prevalence, as in the LPE. Without feedback, they become more liberal, identifying a wider range of stimuli as targets, as in Levari's PICC studies. Stimuli from a shape continuum ranging from rounded ("Bouba") to bumpy ("Kiki") shapes produced similar results. Other variables: response type (2AFC vs. go/no-go), color (blue-purple vs. red-green), and stimuli type (solid color vs. texture) did not influence the criterion shifts. Understanding these effects of prevalence and ways they can be controlled illuminates the context-specific nature of perceptual decisions and may be useful in socially important, low prevalence tasks like cancer screening, airport security, and disease diagnosis in pathology.

The Effect of Informing Participants of the Response Bias of an Automated Target Recognition System on Trust and Reliance Behavior.

To determine how changing and informing a user of the false alarm (FA) rate of an automated target recognition (ATR) system affects the user's trust in and reliance on the system and their performance during an underwater mine detection task. ATR systems are designed to operate using a high sensitivity and a liberal decision criterion to reduce the risk of the ATR system missing a target. A high number of FAs in general may lead to a decrease in operator trust and reliance. Participants viewed sonar images and were asked to identify mines in the images. They performed the task without ATR and with ATR at a lower and higher FA rate. The participants were split into two groups-one informed and one uninformed of the changed FA rate. Trust and/or confidence in detecting mines was measured after each block. When not informed of the FA rate, the FA rate had a significant effect on the participants' response bias. Participants had greater trust in the system and a more consistent response bias when informed of the FA rate. Sensitivity and confidence were not influenced by disclosure of the FA rate but were significantly worse for the high FA rate condition compared with performance without the ATR. Informing a user of the FA rate of automation may positively influence the level of trust in and reliance on the aid.

Mistaking imagination for reality: Congruent mental imagery leads to more liberal perceptual detection

Visual experiences can be triggered externally, by signals coming from the outside world during perception; or internally, by signals from memory during mental imagery. Imagery and perception activate similar neural codes in sensory areas, suggesting that they might sometimes be confused. In the current study, we investigated whether imagery influences perception by instructing participants to imagine gratings while externally detecting these same gratings at threshold. In a series of three experiments, we showed that imagery led to a more liberal criterion for reporting stimulus presence, and that this effect was both independent of expectation and stimulus-specific. Furthermore, participants with more vivid imagery were generally more likely to report the presence of external stimuli, independent of condition. The results can be explained as either a low-level sensory or a high-level decision-making effect. We discuss that the most likely explanation is that during imagery, internally generated sensory signals are sometimes confused for perception and suggest how the underlying mechanisms can be further characterized in future research. Our findings show that imagery and perception interact and emphasize that internally and externally generated signals are combined in complex ways to determine conscious perception.

Email phishing and signal detection: How persuasion principles and personality influence response patterns and accuracy

Phishing is a social engineering tactic where a malicious actor impersonates a trustworthy third party with the intention of tricking the user into divulging sensitive information. Previous social engineering research in a real-world setting has shown an interaction between the personality of the target and the persuasion principle used. This study investigated whether this interaction is present in the realm of email phishing. Additionally, a signal detection theory framework was used to evaluate how the various persuasion principles influence accuracy, sensitivity (d’), and response criterion placement. A personality inventory and an email identification task (phishing or legitimate) were used. These data support previous findings that high extroversion is predictive of increased susceptibility to phishing attacks. The various persuasions principles elicited diverse response criterions and sensitivities, though all investigated persuasion principles resulted in a liberal decision criterion, except one. These findings are interpreted and discussed.

Application of 17 Contrast-Induced Acute Kidney Injury Risk Prediction Models

Introduction: Contrast-induced acute kidney injury (CI-AKI) is a frequent complication of percutaneous coronary interventions (PCI). Various groups have developed and validated risk scores for CI-AKI. Although the majority of these risk scores achieve an adequate accuracy, their usability in clinical practice is limited and greatly debated. Objective: With the present study, we aimed to prospectively assess the diagnostic performance of recently published CI-AKI risk scores (up to 2018) in a cohort of patients undergoing PCI. Methods: We enrolled 1,247 consecutive patients (80% men, mean age 62 ± 10 years) treated with elective or urgent PCI. For each patient, we calculated the individual CI-AKI risk score based on 17 different risk models. CI-AKI was defined as an increase of ≥25% (liberal) or ≥0.5 mg/dL (strict) in pre-PCI serum creatinine 48 h after PCI. Results: CI-AKI definition and, therefore, CI-AKI incidence have a significant impact on risk model performance (median negative predictive value increased from 85 to 99%; median c-statistic increased from 0.516 to 0.603 using more strict definition criteria). All of the 17 published models were characterized by a weak-to-moderate discriminating ability mainly based on the identification of “true-negative” cases (median positive predictive value 19% with liberal criterion and 3% with strict criterion). In none of the models, c-statistic was >0.800 with either CI-AKI definition. Novel, different combinations of the >35 independent variables used in the published models either by down- or by up-scaling did not result in significant improvement in predictive performance. Conclusions: The predictive ability of all models was similar and only modest, derived mainly by identifying true-negative cases. A new approach is probably needed by adding novel markers or periprocedural characteristics.

Exploring the Effect of Stimuli Characteristics on Signal Detection Performance: Sex Influenced Targeting Bias

Research has shown that the perceived sex (female versus male features) of a presented threat can influence participants’ responses. This exploratory analysis examined data from an experiment which utilized a virtual reality signal detection task. Six categorically different character models (three males and three females) transported one of five potential objects (one signal: pistol; five noise: gardening tools) across a virtual environment. The focus of our analysis was to explore the influence of participant sex and character gender on participants' perceptual sensitivity ( d’) and response criterion ( C). Results suggest that character gender had significant effects on d’ and C such that male character models resulted in greater perceptual sensitivity and a more liberal response criterion. Our findings align with previous research that characterize females as less likely to be targeted as a threat, possibly due to stereotypes or predisposed social biases, as opposed to males.