Everything we perceive and sense works based on logic of science. However, we often underestimate the science that applies to everyday of our lives. Among the scientific theory or law that are applied in our everyday lives, Signal Detection Theory (SDT) would be the most common scientific theory that we do not quiet recognize or even misunderstand as eccentric circumstance.
In the presence of loud music, you would still be able to hear phone ringing or vibrating. On the contrary, you would not be able to detect your phone ringing or vibrating in the presence of noise other than ringtone or vibration. This is the most common example of SDT we can find in our daily lives. According to Wolfe et al., SDT is the matter of sensitivity that detecting stimulus in the presence of other noise (Wolfe, 2012). Then we now can ask what makes us detect the stimulus either correctly or incorrectly. It is determined by where we put the criterion. For example, I was in club with loud music that I barely heard others talking to me. But I did not miss any of phone calls (it was on vibration) because I had to pick up any phone calls from my mother. In this case, the criterion must be moved to left in the graph of SDT that expands the right side of criterion under the signal plus noise distribution (increases the possibility to “hit”). However, it all depends on your sensitivity. The criterion only moves in fixed sensitivity measures (d’). For example, in that club, my friend also had to answer the phone call from her mother. But she missed few phone calls (lucky she only missed phone calls from her friends). Thus, because my friend and I had different sensitivity, only I was able to answer all the phone calls.
SDT plays not only in auditory sense but also in vision. From the example from Sensation & Perception published by Wolfe et al., we still see something when we close our eyes in dark room. Throughout the course, I have learned how our sensitivity is interesting and used more than people can possibly think of in daily lives.
Reference
Wolfe, J. M. (2012). Sensation & perception (3rd ed.). Sunderland, Mass.: Sinauer
The thing I realized after I learned about Signal Detection Theory was I have had many experiences that are related in real life. The most common example is when I am waiting for some important phone call and I am taking a shower, water noise interrupts me to recognize whether it is phone ringing or not, in other word, hit or false alarm. I also have similar experience with the poster that when I was in night club I get confused if my cell phone is vibrating or not. What I usually do in that situation is if I have some phone call that I must answer I check my cell phone every time I feel some vibration, which means moving my criterion. I do want to get False Alarm rather than Miss because I must answer it. In the blog post, author mentioned that SDT also plays a role in vision but I could not think of any example based on my experience but I agree with it.