Parsimonious estimation of signal detection models from confidence ratings

Signal detection theory (SDT) is used to quantify people’s ability and bias in discriminating stimuli. The ability to detect a stimulus is often measured through confidence ratings. In SDT models, the use of confidence ratings necessitates the estimation of confidence category thresholds, a requirement that can easily result in models that are overly complex. As a parsimonious alternative, we propose a threshold SDT model that estimates these category thresholds using only two parameters. We fit the model to data from Pratte et al. (Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory, and Cognition, 36, 224–232 2010) and illustrate its benefits over previous threshold SDT models.