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The sampling distribution ofd′

Perception & Psychophysics volume 58, pages65–72(1996)Cite this article

Abstract

The distribution of sample\(\hat d's\), although mathematically intractable, can be tabulated readily by computer. Such tabulations reveal a number of interesting properties of this distribution, including: (1) sample\(\hat d's\) are biased, with an expected value that can be higher or lower than the true value, depending on the sample size, the true value itself, and the convention adopted for handling cases in which the sample\(\hat d'\) is undefined; (2) the variance of\(\hat d'\) also depends on the convention adopted for handling cases in which the sample\(\hat d'\) is undefined and is in some cases poorly approximated by the standard approximation formula, (3) the standard formula for a confidence interval for\(\hat d'\) is quite accurate with at least 50–100 trials per condition, but more accurate intervals can be obtained by direct computation with smaller samples.

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Affiliations

  1. Department of Psychology, University of Otago, Dunedin, New Zealand

    Jeff Miller

Authors
  1. Jeff Miller
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Correspondence to Jeff Miller.

Additional information

This work was supported by an Otago Research Grant.

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Cite this article

Miller, J. The sampling distribution ofd′. Perception & Psychophysics 58, 65–72 (1996). https://doi.org/10.3758/BF03205476

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Keywords

  • False Alarm
  • Sampling Distribution
  • Problematic Case
  • True Probability
  • Dence Interval