Institute for Psychology, University of Leipzig, Germany.
Clin Neurophysiol. 2013 May;124(5):928-40. doi: 10.1016/j.clinph.2012.11.012. Epub 2012 Dec 21.
Combining behavioral and neurophysiological measurements inevitably implies mutual constraints, such as when the neurophysiological measurement requires fast-paced stimulus presentation and hence the attribution of a behavioral response to a particular preceding stimulus becomes ambiguous. We develop and test a method for validly assessing behavioral detection performance in spite of this ambiguity.
We examine four approaches taken in the literature to treat such situations. We analytically derive a new variant of computing the classical parameters of signal detection theory, hit and false alarm rates, adapted to fast-paced paradigms.
Each of the previous approaches shows specific shortcomings (susceptibility towards response window choice, biased estimates of behavioral detection performance). Superior performance of our new approach is demonstrated for both simulated and empirical behavioral data. Further evidence is provided by reliable correspondence between behavioral performance and the N2b component as an electrophysiological indicator of target detection.
The appropriateness of our approach is substantiated by both theoretical and empirical arguments.
We demonstrate an easy-to-implement solution for measuring target detection performance independent of the rate of event presentation. Thus overcoming the measurement bias of previous approaches, our method will help to clarify the behavioral relevance of different measures of cortical activation.
行为和神经生理测量的结合不可避免地会产生相互制约，例如，当神经生理测量需要快速呈现刺激时，因此将行为反应归因于特定的先前刺激就变得模棱两可。我们开发并测试了一种方法，即使在这种模糊性下，也可以有效地评估行为检测性能。
我们检查了文献中用于处理这种情况的四种方法。我们从分析上推导出了一种新的变体，用于计算经典的信号检测理论参数，即击中率和虚报率，适用于快节奏的范式。
以前的方法都表现出特定的缺点（对反应窗口选择的敏感性，对行为检测性能的有偏差估计）。我们的新方法在模拟和经验行为数据上都表现出更好的性能。进一步的证据是行为性能与 N2b 成分之间可靠的对应关系，N2b 成分是目标检测的电生理指标。
我们的方法通过理论和经验论证得到了证实。
我们展示了一种易于实施的解决方案，用于独立于事件呈现率测量目标检测性能。因此，我们的方法克服了以前方法的测量偏差，将有助于阐明不同皮质激活测量的行为相关性。
