Assessments of Spatial Temporal Order Judgment (toj) Thresholds Using Different Psychophysical Methods

Spatial TOJ measures the ability to correctly perceive the order of two tones presented to the two ears. This task has been used in both basic and applied research, testing different populations, such as dyslexic readers, aphasic patients, aging adults, and sleep deprived adults. A variety of methodologies similar to Fechner’s original methods have been used, resulting in a wide range of reported TOJ thresholds. In the present study, we used three different methodologies to estimate dichotic TOJ thresholds: constant stimuli by trial (ISI randomized by trial); constant stimuli by block (ISI randomized by block) and an adaptive staircase procedure. TOJ thresholds and the inter-individual variance from the adaptive staircase procedure (Mean=44.33msec, SD=22.97msec) were very similar to those obtained using method of constant stimuli by trial (Mean=43.47, SD=24.45), and when using constant stimuli by block (Mean=41.84msec, SD=20.32msec). These results indicate the stability of the TOJ threshold across different psychophysical methods.