Quantifying accuracy and precision from continuous response data in studies of spatial perception and crossmodal recalibration

• Published in: Behavior research methods Vol. 56; no. 4; pp. 3814 - 3830
• Main Authors: Bruns, Patrick, Thun, Caroline, Röder, Brigitte
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: New York Springer US 01.06.2024; Springer Nature B.V
• Subjects: Accuracy; Acoustic Stimulation - methods; Adult; Auditory Perception - physiology; Auditory stimuli; Behavioral Science and Psychology; Cognitive Psychology; Cross-modal; Female; Humans; Localization; Male; Original Manuscript; Perception; Photic Stimulation; Psychology; Sensorimotor integration; Sensory integration; Sensory stimuli; Sound Localization; Space Perception - physiology; Spatial discrimination learning; Visual Perception - physiology; Visual stimuli; Young Adult; Audiovisual; Ventriloquism aftereffect; Sensorimotor tasks; Psychophysics; Localization errors
• ISSN: 1554-3528; 1554-351X; 1554-3528
• DOI: 10.3758/s13428-024-02416-1

The ability to detect the absolute location of sensory stimuli can be quantified with either error-based metrics derived from single-trial localization errors or regression-based metrics derived from a linear regression of localization responses on the true stimulus locations. Here we tested the agreement between these two approaches in estimating accuracy and precision in a large sample of 188 subjects who localized auditory stimuli from different azimuthal locations. A subsample of 57 subjects was subsequently exposed to audiovisual stimuli with a consistent spatial disparity before performing the sound localization test again, allowing us to additionally test which of the different metrics best assessed correlations between the amount of crossmodal spatial recalibration and baseline localization performance. First, our findings support a distinction between accuracy and precision. Localization accuracy was mainly reflected in the overall spatial bias and was moderately correlated with precision metrics. However, in our data, the variability of single-trial localization errors (variable error in error-based metrics) and the amount by which the eccentricity of target locations was overestimated (slope in regression-based metrics) were highly correlated, suggesting that intercorrelations between individual metrics need to be carefully considered in spatial perception studies. Secondly, exposure to spatially discrepant audiovisual stimuli resulted in a shift in bias toward the side of the visual stimuli (ventriloquism aftereffect) but did not affect localization precision. The size of the aftereffect shift in bias was at least partly explainable by unspecific test repetition effects, highlighting the need to account for inter-individual baseline differences in studies of spatial learning.