EXTENSION OF RECEIVER OPERATING CHARACTERISTIC ANALYSIS TO DATA CONCERNING MULTIPLE SIGNAL-DETECTION TASKS

Rationale and Objectives. When receiver operating characteristic (ROC) studies involve multiple detection tasks in the same patient, the cor relations among the within-patient interpretations and the shortage of patients raise several analytic challenges. The authors propose metho ds for both parametric and nonparametric analysis of this type of data . Methods. First, they computed one accuracy statistic for each task. Then, one jackknife ''pseudovalue'' was calculated for each task and e ach patient. Then, they formed a summary index from the accuracy stati stics and calculated the standard error of this summary index on the b asis of the observed correlations among the jackknife pseudovalues. Th e method was extended to comparisons of two diagnostic systems and ill ustrated by using data from a clinical study. Results and Conclusion. This approach can be used with rating or quantitative data and with an y index of accuracy, whether calculated parametrically or nonparametri cally.