Psychophysical Scaling Research Articles

Psychological relations and psychophysical scales: On the status of “direct” psychophysical measurement

Arguments, originally developed some fifteen years ago, concerning the sort of “direct” psychophysical measurement advocated by S. S. Stevens are reproduced here in order to facilitate access by a wider audience. Considerations of measurement theory, biological adaptation, perceptual invariance, and neurophysiological noise, as well as various empirical results, suggest (a) that it is primarily the relations—particularly the ratios—between stimulus magnitudes and not the individual magnitudes themselves that are represented within the organism and, accordingly, (b) that “direct” psychophysical measurement, by itself, uniquely determines neither a psychological magnitude of any one stimulus nor a psychophysical law relating such psychological magnitudes to corresponding physical magnitudes. What such measurement can uniquely determine, evidently, is a psychological parameter characterizing each sensory continuum.

In defense of a sensory process theory of psychophysical scaling

In defense of a sensory process theory of psychophysical scaling

Acceptability and perceived quality: a study of machinery noise components using psychophysical methods

This paper presents the results of a study of listener response to sewing machine sounds. The study was designed to aid noise control engineers in the development of criteria and design strategies for the reduction of machinery noise levels and the improvement of the quality of the sound. A panel of listeners rated recorded sewing machine sounds. The stimuli were comprised of composite sewing machine sounds including varied amounts of the sounds produced by individual impacting mechanical sewing machine components. The Acceptability of the sounds and the perceived quality of the machines producing these sounds were judged by the panel trained in use of magnitude estimation, a psychophysical scaling tool. An examination of the listener response data identified problem components and shows the amounts that their sound levels would have to be changed in order to have an effect on consumer judgements of quality and acceptability.

Self-recognition ability in mentally retarded adolescents.

Self-recognition abilities of 30 mentally retarded adolescents were measured using an optical system and a psychophysical scaling procedure that results in a recognition threshold. Compared with college freshmen, the experimental group had significantly higher thresholds (p = .00003). Males were better than females at recognizing full-face self-images (p = .0238). Results were discussed in terms of the retarded adolescents' greater dependency on specific visual cues. The method is discussed as an advance over previous self-recognition methods because of accuracy and the capability of measuring a range of self-recognition abilities.

Perceived changes in the intensity of arterial pulsations as a function of applied cuff pressure.

ABSTRACTA psychophysical scaling procedure was employed to investigate subjects' ability to discriminate pulsatile arterial sensations produced by applying an occluding cuff about the upper arm. Subjects (n = 8) were exposed to 5 presentations of 7 occluding cuff pressure levels ranging from above systolic to below diastolic arterial pressure. During each cuff inflation, subjects were instructed to attend to the pulsating sensations in the arm. When the cuff deflated, subjects adjusted the volume ofa tone to a level that matched their subjective estimate of pulsation intensity. Consistent with previous reports, subjects perceived maximum intensity pulsations when cuff pressure approximated calculated mean arterial pressure (MAP), 1/3 (systolic ‐diastolic) + diastolic. The perceived intensity ofthe sensations decreased monotonically as cuff pressure was varied in either the systolic or diastolic direction producing a highly symmetrical function on both sides of MAP.The gradient of arterial pulsations produced by the occluding cuff pressure, the accuracy of the judgments ofthe intensity of perceived pulsations, and the possibility that these pulsations may he more physiologically related to the hemodynamics of blood flow, suggest that these sensations may be employed as a more effective discriminative stimulus in a blood pressure biofeedback procedure.

Psychophysical scaling of distorted speech.

Magnitude estimation and magnitude production procedures were used by ten normal-bearing subjects to scale the perceived distortion corresponding to the systematically varied physical distortion of a speech signal. The combined function based on the results of the two procedures exhibited a slope of 0.83, indicating that perceived distortion grows more slowly than physical distortion.

Psychophysical scales of age based on marriage frequencies

The frequency of marriage between women of one age and men of another was assumed to depend upon the overall tendencies of women and men of the corresponding psychological ages to marry, multiplied by a nonincreasing function of the absolute difference between the psychological ages. Using this model and standard nonmetric scaling techniques, scales of psychological age as a function of physical age were inferred from published marriage frequencies for 1951 and 1959. Psychological age was well approximated by the cube root of the difference between physical age and a threshold age of about 12 years for women and 14 years for men.

The Closed Mind and the Judgement of Crime: A Replication of the Sellin-Wolfgang Index

The judgement of the seriousness of delinquent events was interpreted as a “measurement of consensus regarding social norms and cultural values. Therefore, it was hypothesized that the evaluative mode of orientation would be used in the judgement process and that personality variables (which use the cognitive mode of orientation) would not influence consensus obtained using the Sellin-Wolfgang psychophysical method. Sex and dogmatism were tested as independent variables. The hypothesis was supported in cases where the element of damage in the delinquent event was clear. In cases where the amount of damage presented a problem, the independent variables explained significant amounts of variation in the dependent variable. It was concluded that in these latter cases, the cognitive mode of orientation is used, producing less consensus. Methodological difficulties inherent in the use of psychophysical scaling are discussed. It is concluded that these difficulties should be overcome before using the Sellin-Wolfgang index to measure cultural norms and values.

Postoperative and Follow‐up Studies of Spastic Dysphonia Patients Treated by Recurrent Laryngeal Nerve Section

Long-term results of surgical treatment of spastic dysphonia by RLN section are evaluated by means of perceptual psychophysical scaling and by the patients themselves. It is found that a significant reduction in spastic dysphonia symptoms occurs as a result of surgery, and that these results are maintained after long-term follow-up in the majority of patients. These experimental observations are in agreement with the subjective assessment of postsurgical communication by the patients involved in the study.

Psychophysical saturation scales and the spectral sensitivity in human vision.

For mixtures of white and colored lights, the intensity of the colored light necessary to produce a linear psychophysical saturation curve is determined. This intensity may be defined as equilibrium between chromatic and achromatic excitation. From a measurement of the equilibrium throughout the spectrum, a spectral sensitivity function may be derived. According to the hypothesis of Borsken and Hemminger (1980), this function describes the spectral sensitivity of the achromatic channel in human color vision.

Factors influencing the implementation of ergonomics: An empirical study based on a psychophysical scaling technique

The aim of this study was (a) to identify various factors that may influence the extent to which a firm makes use of ergonomics for the design of work stations and work environments and (b) to determine the relative importance of these various factors. Based on a preliminary survey in some selected firms, a total of 16 such factors were selected for further study. In order to obtain subjective judgments of the importance of each of these factors, the psychophysical scaling technique of magnitude estimation was used without any fixed anchor points or standard. Each of 34 individuals involved in ergonomic implementations in 21 Norwegian firms made his/her importance judgments with regard to the situation in his/her own firm. Based on the geometric mean of the sample judgments, the following rank-ordered factors were found to be the most important ones: (1) management's perception of the need for ergonomic implementations; (2) management's knowledge of the potential benefits of having satisfactory working co...

Quantitative measures of job variety: an experimental study-based on a psychophysical scaling technique

This paper presents some quantitative measures of job variety based on entropy statistics of information theory and on a modification of the Turner-Lawrence measure. By means of the psychophysical scaling technique of magnitude estimation, subjective judgements of variety for a number of different job situations were obtained from a total of 42 subjects. Power models or linear models between perceived variety and its physical correlates were found to explain up to 99% of the variation in perceived variety. Since job variety is generally considered to have a significant influence on motivation and job satisfaction, such quantitative models may possess practical utility for job design and for systematic programmes of job enlargement or enrichment.

Language dominance, spare capacity and perceived effort in bilinguals

The world becomes increasingly bilingual, and the non-balanced bilingual (in whom one language system is dominant) represents the most typical group of bilinguals. For a vast number of people using their nondominant languages for decoding (comprehension) and encoding (production) the information processing capacity is considerably reduced. The imbalance between the bilingual's language systems is typically enhanced by high mental load and stress. In many cases, however, performance criteria do not reveal this imbalance. This study presents an experimental illustration of the use of more subtle measures of information processing capacity in bilinguals. “Spare” capacity was measured by using a subsidiary task technique, and perceived effort was rated by means of psychophysical scales. These measures indicate the “hidden cost” behind the overt performance, thus revealing the latent imbalance between the bilinguals two language systems. The main aim of the paper is to draw attention lo this sort of research a...

Psychophysics with the split-brain subject: On hemispheric differences and numerical mediation in perceptual matching tasks

Two questions concerning the mediation of psychophysical scaling of lateralized stimuli were investigated in commissurotomized patients: (I) Is cross modality matching mediated by subvocal number assignment? (II) Are there hemispheric differences in psychophysical scaling? When exponents of power functions characterizing the magnitude estimation of joint position in right and left hands and line length in right and left visual fields were compared between the hemispheres, only the left hemisphere was able to make such judgements. When exponents of functions characterizing the cross modality matching of these stimuli were compared between the hemispheres, there were no significant differences. These results argue against mediation of cross modality matching by subvocal number assignment, and this demonstration of symmetrical transduction of univariate stimuli suggests a reinterpretation of the literature reporting perceptual asymmetries.

Size scaling in two-dimensional pictorial arrays

The study examined effects of instructional sets (objective, phenomenal, projective, and retinal) on the judged sizes of blocks placed at various distances in a pictorial array, Magnitude estimations of size were consistent with previous studies of size constancy in three-dimensional arrays. Chronometric analyses indicated that reaction time increased with distal size, but was not affected by perceived distance. The results suggested that size was scaled relative to a perceptual unit. Instructions affected the nature of the scale unit (proximal vs. distal), but not the scaling process itself. In an attempt to examine the mental processes that underlie the psychophysical scaling of size, Hartley (1977) measured the response times asso­ ciated with magnitude estimations of line lengths and found that reaction times increased linearly with the number of standard units contained in the com­ parison lines. He proposed that observers judged length by counting or laying off a mental image of the standard against the comparison. In the present study, this reaction time approach was extended to the scaling of sizes that vary in perceived distance. Specifically, a method of magnitude estimation was used to directly assess apparent size in a two­ dimensional pictorial array. The mental transfor­ mations that underlie size estimation and size con­ stancy were then investigated by examining the relationship between response time and perceived size. The extent to which perceived size remains constant with variations in distance is profoundly dependent on the judgmental attitude adopted by the observer. For example, if an observer is given phenomenal or first look instructions, variation in distance usually has no effect on judged size. However, if the observer is given objective or projective instruc­ tions, judged size will increase or decrease with dis­ tance, respectively (see Carlson, 1977, for review). Any attempt to model the mental processes that underlie size scaling and size constancy must ulti­ mately incorporate these effects of judgmental set. Hence, the present experiment examined the response

Assessing the Candidate Preference Function

Electoral algorithms require two functions: a social welfare function (SWF) for the determination of collective preference order from individual preference orders, and a candidate preference function (CPF) which specifies the relation between an individual's preferences and his candidate evaluations. Considerable attention has been paid in recent years to the acceptability of various alternate SWFs. Consideration of the nature of the CPF has been largely ignored primarily due to the common assumption that individual utility is either unmeasurable or interpersonally incomparable. Utilizing psychophysical scaling and validation procedures this paper establishes (a) that interpersonally comparable measures of candidate evaluation (utility) may be developed, and (b) that the CPF specifies a power relation between candidate preferences and candidate evaluation.

The Use of Psychophysical Unfolding Theory to Determine Principal Resource Axes

The ecological applications of a psychophysical scaling technique called unfolding are explained and illustrated. All of the information contained in a set of individuals' ordinal preference rankings for an array of resources can be preserved in an unfolded form. Unfolding shows the subjective dimension to which the animals attended in selecting available resources.

The Capital Punishment Debate: Public Perceptions of Crime and Punishment1

Psychophysical scales for seriousness of crime and severity of punishment were developed to aid in investigating the Eighth Amendment issue of whether the death penalty is “cruel and unusual” punishment. Using indirect crossmodality matching techniques with a quota sample of the Boston SMSA, satisfactory scales were obtained for both dimensions with most items in both scales concentrated toward the serious/severe end as planned. Further, specific case vignettes in which experimental variations were embedded were also developed; psychophysical lines production judgments for these specific cases indicated that quite complex social stimuli can be successfully judged psychophysically. Results indicated that (1) capital and noncapital offenses are thoroughly intermingled in seriousness ratings; (2) the death penalty is not rated as significantly more severe than life imprisonment without parole; (3) respondents assign the death penalty relatively rarely even to serious offenses, and then in a manner not particularly in line with capital statutes; and (4) respondents' weighing of extra‐legal and legally relevant aspects of capital cases is inconsistent with current statutes. These results suggest multiple ways in which capital punishment could be defined as “cruel”, and strongly suggest the need for further research and through about the issue.

Ratio scaling of pain perception with the submaximum effort tourniquet technique

The submaximum effort tourniquet technique (SETT) is becoming more widely used as part of the clinical assessment of chronic pain patients despite little information about the scaling of this technique. Ratio scaling procedures resulted in a linear function, presumed to underlie clinical application of the SETT, for only 11% of the subjects. Therefore, current clinical use of the tourniquet ratio score should be questioned. Normals also obtained significantly more negatively accelerated power functions than pain patients with no difference in tolerances. Differences in these growth curves are discussed with reference to the concept of pain endurance. Continued needs for standardized pain evaluation techniques suggest that this type of psychophysical scaling procedure may improve the precision of some clinical pain assessments.

Communication in Problems Involving the Evaluation of Signals

The study of man's evaluation of the physical characteristics of perceived signals is important for many types of practical activity related to the reception and processing of information, in which the adequacy of the subjective assessment of the parameters of signals and their variations or, in other words, the adequacy of psychophysical scaling is of fundamental importance. Since the '20s and '30s, studies in this area have made up a considerable portion of the whole of experimental psycho-physics. Nevertheless, it is still unclear how the sensory process is organized in the subjective evaluation of signals and what determines the specifics of the activity of the observer as he deals with these tasks.