Psychophysics - APS300391E

• Title: Psychophysics
• Guaranteed by: Department of Psychology (21-KPS)
• Faculty: Faculty of Arts
• Actual: from 2025
• Semester: summer
• Points: 6
• E-Credits: 6
• Examination process: summer s.:
• Hours per week, examination: summer s.:1/1, Ex [HT]
• Capacity: unknown / unknown (7)
• Min. number of students: unlimited
• 4EU+: no
• Virtual mobility / capacity: no
• State of the course: taught
• Language: English
• Teaching methods: full-time
• Is provided by: APS300391
• Note: course can be enrolled in outside the study plan; enabled for web enrollment
• Guarantor: doc. Mgr. Jiří Lukavský, Ph.D.; Mgr. et Mgr. Filip Děchtěrenko, Ph.D.
• Class: Exchange - 14.4 Psychology and Behav. Sciences

Annotation

In this course, students are introduced to modern methods of psychophysics. The emphasis is on understanding the basic principles and gaining practical skills to apply analysis from psychophysics methods to their own data.

Last update: Děchtěrenko Filip, Mgr. et Mgr., Ph.D. (13.02.2023)

Aim of the course

Demonstrate psychophysics as a modern method of psychological research

Knowledge acquired: the student understands the basic principles and procedures of psychophysics and can describe them in detail.

Skills acquired: the student can apply the methods of psychophysics, design a research, prepare it in PsychoPy and evaluate its results in R.

Last update: Děchtěrenko Filip, Mgr. et Mgr., Ph.D. (13.02.2023)

Course completion requirements

For obtaining a credit you will need:

• Design, collect and evaluate a small research project using psychophysics methods (project will be presented in the last class).
• Complete two homework assignments during the semester (readings, mock data analysis).

Homework deadlines will be assigned during the course

Last update: Děchtěrenko Filip, Mgr. et Mgr., Ph.D. (13.02.2023)

Literature

• Green, D. M., & Swets, J. A. (1966). Signal Detection Theory and Psychophysics. New York: John Wiley and Sons.
•  Kingdom, F. A., & Prins, N. (2010). Psychophysics: A practical introduction.
•  Macmillan, N. A., & Creelman, C. D. (2004). Detection theory: A user's guide. Psychology press.

Last update: Děchtěrenko Filip, Mgr. et Mgr., Ph.D. (13.02.2023)

Syllabus

1. what is psychophysics, history (Fechner, Weber, internal and external psychophysics) and contemporary concepts
2. dichotomies in psychophysics, classification scheme, overview of methods used
3. method of limits, N-AFC, 2AFC same/different, method of adjustment, method of triads, magnitude estimation
4. adaptive methods in psychophysical measurements
5. working with R and evaluation of psychophysical data in R
6. psychometric functions, theories behind psychometric functions
7. signal detection theory (SDT) - d', bias
8. use of psychophysics in practice. SDT in real applications (population-level testing, COVID-19)
9. subjective scales (scaling, triplet paradigm, spatial arrangement method)
10. working with PsychoPy - designing experiments, overview of best practices

Last update: Děchtěrenko Filip, Mgr. et Mgr., Ph.D. (13.02.2023)

Learning resources

Course in Moodle

https://dl1.cuni.cz/course/view.php?id=11781

Last update: Děchtěrenko Filip, Mgr. et Mgr., Ph.D. (13.02.2023)

Entry requirements

Basics of statistics for social sciences (descriptive statistics, linear regression), basics of using R.

Last update: Děchtěrenko Filip, Mgr. et Mgr., Ph.D. (13.02.2023)