Stimulus-response with reciprocal kernels: The rise and fall of sensation

Abstract

The paper presents a theory for constructing response scales based on the reciprocal property of paired comparisons of stimuli from the same sensory continuum. Reciprocal paired comparisons define the pair estimator function K(s, t), the kernel of a Fredholm integral equation of the second kind. The solution of this equation yields a response scale of the form sαe−βs, where s is the stimulus scale. The response scale provides a basis for a theory to describe how images and sensation patterns are formed from stimuli.