Three-down-one-up adaptive tracking efficiently estimates perceptual thresholds

Evidence

Thresholds were estimated using an adaptive psychophysical procedure employing 60 trials. The signal contrast level was reduced after three consecutive correct responses and increased after a single incorrect response. Initially the contrast was varied in a step size of 2 dB, which was reduced to 0.5 dB after three reversals in the adaptive track (Levitt 1971 ). Threshold for the run was computed as the average modulation depth corresponding to the last even number of reversals, excluding the first three. Using the above procedure, modulation detection thresholds were obtained for the modulation frequency of 0.5 cycles/octave which is the one that correlates best with vowel identification (Litvak et al. 2007 ). — Dijk, Pim van, Physiology, Psychoacoustics and…, 1823

Categorization

• XREF: Relates to Levitt’s classic adaptive staircase method — a methodological core for psychoacoustic threshold estimation the reader studies.
• corroborated: 2 independent passages support this claim — Dijk, Pim van, Physiology, Psychoacoustics and…, 1823