A lab tests whether people detect a faint tone more often when they expect a reward for saying yes. The actual tone volume is kept the same across trials. Which method would best separate sensitivity from response bias?
- AAsk only whether participants liked the sound after the experiment.
- BUse one very loud tone so every participant gives the same answer.
- CRecord both hits and false alarms under different reward instructions.correct
- DExclude misses because they are not real responses.
Why C is correct
Signal detection analysis requires both correct detections and false alarms.
signal detection is the mechanism that makes "A lab tests whether people detect a faint tone more often when they expect a reward for saying yes." coherent. The credited option, "Record both hits and false alarms under different reward instructions", is supported because Hits and false alarms allow researchers to distinguish detection ability from a tendency to say yes. "Ask only whether participants liked the sound after the experiment" is a real-looking alternative, but Liking the sound does not separate sensitivity from response bias; "Use one very loud tone so every participant gives the same answer" also fails because A single obvious tone would remove the ambiguity needed to study detection decisions. The aim is to connect the concrete evidence to the psychological mechanism, then reject choices that shift the process, time frame, or research logic away from the scenario pattern.