There is hardly a field in psychology in which the effects of signal
detection theory have not been felt. The authoritative work on the
subject, Green's & Swets' Signal Detection Theory and Psychophysics
(New York: Wiley) appeared in 1966, and is having a
profound influence on method and theory in psychology. All this
makes things exciting but rather difficult for undergraduate students
and their teachers, because a complete course in psychology now
requires an understanding of the concepts of signal detection theory,
and many undergraduates have done no mathematics at university
level. Their total mathematical skills consist of dim recollections of
secondary school algebra coupled with an introductory course in
statistics taken in conjunction with their studies in psychology. This
book is intended to present the methods of signal detection theory to
a person with such a mathematical background. It assumes a knowledge
only of elementary algebra and elementary statistics. Symbols
and terminology are kept as close as possible to those of Green &
Swets (1966) so that the eventual and hoped for transfer to a more
advanced text will be accomplished as easily as possible.
The book is best considered as being divided into two main
sections, the first comprising Chapters 1 to 5, and the second,
Chapters 6 to 8. The first section introduces the basic ideas of
detection theory, and its fundamental measures. The aim is to enable
the reader to be able to understand and compute these measures.
The section ends with a detailed working through of a typical
experiment and a discussion of some of the problems which can
arise for the potential user of detection theory.