Signal-detection theory assumed a preeminent position in the field of recognition memory in large part because its predictions about the shape of the ROC were almost always shown to be more accurate than the predictions of the intuitively plausible high-threshold model.
32.
More specifically, the signal-detection model, which assumes that memory strength is a graded phenomenon ( not a discrete, probabilistic phenomenon ) predicts that the ROC will be curvilinear, and because every recognition memory ROC analyzed between 1958 and 1997 was curvilinear, the high-threshold model was abandoned in favor of signal-detection theory.
33.
Perhaps the best example of this was his treatment of signal-detection theory as applied to human observers : " reinventing " signal-detection from a physics perspective, according to the AJP . In a series of papers published in the " Journal of the Acoustical Society of America " in the 1960s, Jeffress developed what he called a " stimulus-oriented " view of human detection performance.
