Dependence of Successive Judgments in Detection Tasks: Correctness of the Response

Abstract

Forced choice and yes-no auditory detection data were examined for single-trial dependencies of the correctness of the response. In both procedures a correct response is more likely when the previous response was correct than when it was wrong. The effect of various characteristics of the signal were studied in the forced-choice procedure: the dependence is more pronounced for higher-intensity signals and for signals of a pure tone rather than for an increment in background noise. An attempt is made to relate these findings to a criterion-correction explanation of the sequential dependence.