MAXIMUM-LIKELIHOOD ESTIMATION OF PARAMETERS OF SIGNAL-DETECTION THEORY AND DETERMINATION OF CONFIDENCE INTERVALS - RATING-METHOD DATA

Procedures have been developed for obtaining maximum-likelihood estimates of the parameters of the Thurstonian model for the method of successive intervals. The signal-detection model for rating-method data is a special case of the Thurstonian model with fixed boundaries, in that there are two stimuli rather than an unspecified set. The present paper presents the solution to the two-stimulus case, and in addition, provides procedures for obtaining the variance-covariance matrix and confidence intervals. The expected values of the second partial derivatives are presented in analytic form to ensure accurate computation of the variance-covariance matrix. An application of these methods was employed on some data collected by others. © 1969.