The Role Of Response Bias In Snake Sensitivity

Stirling, Greskovich, and Johnson examined the role of response bias in snake sensitivity by using the signal detection theory (SDT). Signal detection theory was operationally defined as a framework to determine whether perceptual sensitivity, response bias, or both had an instant detection of fear stimuli. The authors utilized SDT in this study to prove if bias toward fear relevant stimuli was separate from sensitivity. Two different experiments were conducted. In the first experiment, individuals were showed images of snakes and salamanders to impose fear-relevant and fear-irrelevant stimuli. The two categories of snakes and salamanders contained grayscale images with standard stimuli. The images were manipulated to reduce color variations; however, the images were resized and no distortion was noticeable.
The participants were told to reply by pressing “Z” or “M” to choose either a fear-relevant stimulus (snake) or a fear- irrelevant stimulus (salamander). The response bias was measured using SDT. The SDT paradigm measured a false alarm when participants chose a snake when a salamander appeared on the screen, and a miss transpired if a participant chose a salamander when a snake was displayed on the screen. In experiment one, Stirling, Greskovich, and Johnson hypothesized that the individuals would illustrate a bias response toward the fear-relevant stimuli. In experiment two, a similar scheme was conducted using different participants. The new participants were exposed to a photos with noisy stimuli as well as the standard stimuli. The noisy stimuli represented the environmental aspects in the images such as tall grass. For the second experiment, the authors hypothesized that the noisy stimuli would cause greater response bias than standard stimuli since uncertainty was