eprintid: 10047230 rev_number: 43 eprint_status: archive userid: 608 dir: disk0/10/04/72/30 datestamp: 2018-04-23 12:26:00 lastmod: 2021-09-17 23:07:02 status_changed: 2019-02-04 11:10:01 type: article metadata_visibility: show creators_name: Manning, C creators_name: Jones, PR creators_name: Dekker, TM creators_name: Pellicano, E title: Psychophysics with children: Investigating the effects of attentional lapses on threshold estimates ispublished: pub divisions: UCL divisions: B16 divisions: B14 divisions: J81 divisions: B02 divisions: C07 divisions: D05 divisions: F67 divisions: D08 keywords: Signal detection theory, Attention, Development note: © The Author(s) 2018. This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/). abstract: When assessing the perceptual abilities of children, researchers tend to use psychophysical techniques designed for use with adults. However, children’s poorer attentiveness might bias the threshold estimates obtained by these methods. Here, we obtained speed discrimination threshold estimates in 6- to 7-year-old children in UK Key Stage 1 (KS1), 7- to 9-year-old children in Key Stage 2 (KS2), and adults using three psychophysical procedures: QUEST, a 1-up 2-down Levitt staircase, and Method of Constant Stimuli (MCS). We estimated inattentiveness using responses to “easy” catch trials. As expected, children had higher threshold estimates and made more errors on catch trials than adults. Lower threshold estimates were obtained from psychometric functions fit to the data in the QUEST condition than the MCS and Levitt staircases, and the threshold estimates obtained when fitting a psychometric function to the QUEST data were also lower than when using the QUEST mode. This suggests that threshold estimates cannot be compared directly across methods. Differences between the procedures did not vary significantly with age group. Simulations indicated that inattentiveness biased threshold estimates particularly when threshold estimates were computed as the QUEST mode or the average of staircase reversals. In contrast, thresholds estimated by post-hoc psychometric function fitting were less biased by attentional lapses. Our results suggest that some psychophysical methods are more robust to attentiveness, which has important implications for assessing the perception of children and clinical groups. date: 2018-07 date_type: published official_url: https://doi.org/10.3758/s13414-018-1510-2 oa_status: green full_text_type: pub language: eng primo: open primo_central: open_green article_type_text: Journal Article verified: verified_manual elements_id: 1547681 doi: 10.3758/s13414-018-1510-2 pii: 10.3758/s13414-018-1510-2 language_elements: English lyricists_name: Dekker, Tessa lyricists_name: Jones, Peter lyricists_name: Pellicano, Elizabeth lyricists_id: TBEKK79 lyricists_id: PRJON95 lyricists_id: LPELL25 actors_name: Flynn, Bernadette actors_id: BFFLY94 actors_role: owner full_text_status: public publication: Attention, Perception, & Psychophysics volume: 80 number: 5 pagerange: 1311-1324 event_location: United States issn: 1943-3921 citation: Manning, C; Jones, PR; Dekker, TM; Pellicano, E; (2018) Psychophysics with children: Investigating the effects of attentional lapses on threshold estimates. Attention, Perception, & Psychophysics , 80 (5) pp. 1311-1324. 10.3758/s13414-018-1510-2 <https://doi.org/10.3758/s13414-018-1510-2>. Green open access document_url: https://discovery.ucl.ac.uk/id/eprint/10047230/2/Dekker_Psychophysics%20with%20children.%20Investigating%20the%20effects%20of%20attentional%20lapses%20on%20threshold%20estimates_VoR.pdf