Adaptive staircases track a listener’s responses to set signal level

Evidence

Hughson–Westlake is only appropriate for estimating the absolute threshold, and not other auditory abilities that involve discrimination or identification. Consequently, other forms of adaptive procedures are adopted for research purposes, as they can allow for better test-retest reliability, although they typically are more time consuming than the modified Hughson–Westlake procedure. A common adaptive procedure used in psychophysical testing is the adaptive staircase method, an adaptive method in which the signal levels are determined by a listener’s previous responses (e.g., Levitt, 1971). As with the clinical method, the staircase procedure makes the task easier (e.g., increases the stimulus level) when listeners make errors of detection or discrimination and makes the task more difficult (e.g., decreases the stimulus level) when listeners make correct detections or discriminations. — Jennifer Lentz, Psychoacoustics- Perception of Normal…, 315

Categorization

• DEFINE: Defines adaptive staircase methods, citing Levitt 1971, and contrasts them with clinical Hughson-Westlake.