Psychophysical Judgment and Measurement

557 Pages·1974·13.94 MB·English

by  Edward Carterette (Eds.)

ADVISORY EDITORIAL BOARD
G. EKMAN*, STOCKHOLM I. KOHLER, INNSBRUCK
C. W. ERIKSEN, URBANA D. B. LINDSLEY, Los ANGELES
W. K. ESTES, NEW YORK R. D. LUCE, IRVINE
P. FRAISSE, PARIS M. TREISMAN, OXFORD
W. R. GARNER, NEW HAVEN W. R. ROSENBLITH, CAMBRIDGE (U.S.)
D. M. GREEN, CAMBRIDGE (U.S.) H. A. SIMON, PITTSBURGH
R. L. GREGORY, BRISTOL P. SUPPES, STANFORD
T. INDOW, TOKYO N. S. SUTHERLAND, SUSSEX
M. TODA, SAPPORO
* Until his death.
This is Volume II of
HANDBOOK OF PERCEPTION
EDITORS: Edward C. Carterette and Morton P. Friedman
A complete list of the books in this series appears at the end of this volume.
HANDBOOK
OF PERCEPTION
VOLUME II
PSYCHOPHYSICAL JUDGMENT
AND MEASUREMENT
EDITED BY
Edward C. Carterette and Morton P. Friedman
Department of Psychology
University of California
Los Angeles, California
ACADEMIC PRESS New York San Francisco London 1974
A Subsidiary of Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, Publishers
COPYRIGHT © 1974, BY ACADEMIC PRESS, INC.
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.
NO PART OF THIS PUBLICATION MAY BE REPRODUCED OR
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ACADEMIC PRESS, INC.
Ill Fifth Avenue, New York, New York 10003
United Kingdom Edition published by
ACADEMIC PRESS, INC. (LONDON) LTD.
24/28 Oval Road. London NW1
Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data
Carterette, Edward C
Psychophysical judgement and measurement.
(Their Handbook of perception, v. 2)
Includes bibliographies.
1. Psychology, Physiological. 2. Judgment.
3. Psychometrics. I. Friedman, Morton P., joint
author. II. Title. [DNLM: 1. Perception.
2. Sensation. WL700 C325h]
QP360.C37 153.4'6 74-13803
ISBN 0-12-161902-8
PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
LIST OF CONTRIBUTORS
Numbers in parentheses indicate the pages on whiqji the authors' contributions begin.
NORMAN H. ANDERSON (215), Department of Psychology, University of
California, San Diego, La Jolla, California
J. DOUGLAS CARROLL (391, 450), Bell Laboratories, Murray Hill, New
Jersey
EUGENE GALANTER (85), Department of Psychology, Columbia Univer­
sity, New York, New York
W. R. GARNER (23), Department of Psychology, Yale University, New
Haven, Connecticut
DAVID M. GREEN (299), Department of Psychology, University of Cali­
fornia, San Diego, La Jolla, California
E. W. HOLMAN (173), Department of Psychology, University of California,
Los Angeles, Los Angeles, California
TAROW INDOW (493), Department of Psychology, Keio University, Mita
Minato-ku, Tokyo, Japan
F. NOWELL JONES (1, 343), Department of Psychology, University of Cali­
fornia, Los Angeles, Los Angeles, California
R. DUNCAN LUCE (299), School of Social Science, University of California,
Irvine, Irvine, California
A. A. J. MARLEY (173), Department of Psychology, McGill University,
Montreal, Quebec, Canada
ALLEN PARDUCCI (127), Department of Psychology, University of Cali­
fornia, Los Angeles, Los Angeles, California
χϋ LIST OF CONTRIBUTORS
ARTHUR SANDUSKY (61), Department of Psychology, University of Cali­
fornia, Santa Barbara, Santa Barbara, California
S. S. STEVENS* (361), Laboratory of Psychophysics, Harvard University,
Cambridge, Massachusetts
HARRY S. UPSHAW (143), Department of Psychology, University of Illinois
at Chicago Circle, Chicago, Illinois
MYRON WISH (391, 450), Bell Laboratories, Murray Hill, New Jersey
* Deceased.
FOREWORD
The problem of perception is one of understanding the way in which the
organism transforms, organizes, and structures information arising from
the world in sense data or memory. With this definition of perception in
mind, the aims of this treatise are to bring together essential aspects of the
very large, diverse, and widely scattered literature on human perception and
to give a precis of the state of knowledge in every area of perception. It is
aimed at the psychologist in particular and at the natural scientist in general.
A given topic is covered in a comprehensive survey in which fundamental
facts and concepts are presented and important leads to journals and mono­
graphs of the specialized literature are provided. Perception is considered
in its broadest sense. Therefore, the work will treat a wide range of experi­
mental and theoretical work.
This ten-volume treatise is divided into two sections. Section One deals
with the fundamentals of perceptual systems. It is comprised of six volumes
covering (1) historical and philosophical roots of perception, (2) psycho-
physical judgment and measurement, (3) the biology of perceptual systems,
(4) hearing, (5) seeing, and (6) feeling, tasting, smelling, and hurting.
Section Two, comprising four volumes, will cover the perceiving organ­
ism, which takes up the wider view and generally ignores specialty boun­
daries. The major areas will include speech and language, perception of
space and objects, perception of form and pattern, cognitive performance,
information processing, perceptual memory, perceptual aspects of thinking
and problem solving, esthetics, and the ecology of the perceiver. Coverage
will be given to theoretical issues and models of perceptual processes and
also to central topics in perceptual judgment and decision.
The "Handbook of Perception" should serve as a basic source and refer­
ence work for all in the arts or sciences, indeed for all who are interested
in human perception.
EDWARD C. CARTERETTE
MORTON P. FRIEDMAN
PREFACE
By psychophysics . .. I mean a theory which, although ancient as a
problem, is new here insofar as its formulation and treatment are con­
cerned; in short it is an exact theory of the relation of body and mind.
Thus one finds its novel name neither unfitting nor unnecessary.
As an exact science psychophysics, like physics, must rest on experience
and the mathematical connection of those empirical facts that demand a
measure of what is experienced or, when such a measure is not available,
a search for it. Since the measure of physical magnitudes is already known,
the first and main task of this work will be to establish the as yet non­
existent measure of psychic magnitudes; the second will be to take up the
applications and detailed arguments that develop from it.
It will be seen that the determination of a psychic measure is no mere
matter of academic or philosophical abstraction but demands a broad
empirical basis. This basis I believe I have been able to provide adequately
from the results of my own and other investigations, so that the principle
of this measure is now secure. In addition, I believe that I have shown its
usefulness by many applications. The empirical basis, however, still needs
considerable amplification; what has up to now been shown of the applica­
tions only serves to indicate that incomparably more can be provided.
G. T. FECHNER,
Preface, to his
"Elements of Psychophysics/'
Leipzig, I860
Since Fechner wrote these words in 1859, the empirical basis of psychic
measure has been extended enormously in every domain of sensation, per­
ception, and cognition. The "incomparably more" applications have been
provided. No one doubts now that properties of mind can be measured in
the sense proposed by Fechner. What is in doubt is the theoretical basis of
measurement.
In this volume we review the history of research on choice, judgment,
and measurement in order to provide a background for contemporary work.
The basic psychological contexts in which choice and judgment occurs
is considered in Section II. Fechner was, perhaps, very little concerned
about such matters as attention, selection, memorial processes, the making
XVI PREFACE
of decisions under uncertainty, problems of perceptual context or the in
fluence of the social milieu, and the way in which these matters influenced
measurement.
The theoretical frame of measurement models has expanded greatly
since Fechner, as may be seen by reading the chapters of Section III on
measurement models and their applications.
Various psychophysical scaling methods, both those evolved from
Fechner as well as his competitors, are reviewed in Section IV. In the same
section, theories of scaling are treated.
Beyond Fechner there has developed a wide class of multidimensional
models. Very recently their availability and use has expanded dramatically
with the increased speed and cheapness of computing.
The present volume by no means exhausts the problems and theories or
their applications to perceptual judgment and choice. In Section Two of
the HANDBOOK OF PERCEPTION, the several volumes contained as
The Perceiving Organism give further analyses of judgment and choice in
such domains as decision making, problem solving and thinking, speech
and language, information processing, and cognitive performance.
CONTENTS OF OTHER VOLUMES
Volume I: Historical and Philosophical Roots of Perception
I. Philosophical Roots
Sense Experience
R. Firth
Some Philosophical Problems of Perception
R. M. Yost
Epistemology
G. Harman
Some Questions in the Philosophy of Mind
M. Deutscher
II. Historical Background of Contemporary Perception
The Problem of Perceptual Structure
M. Wertheimer
Association (and the Nativist-Empiricist Axis)
B. Earhard
Consciousness, Perception, and Action
W. Metzger
Attention
D. E. Berlyne
Cognition and Knowledge: Psychological Epistemology
/. R. Royce
III. Contemporary Views of Perception
A. MODERN CLASSICAL TRADITION
Organization and the Gestalt Tradition
/. Hochberg
xviii CONTENTS OF OTHER VOLUMES
The Learning Tradition
W. W. Rozeboom
B. CURRENT PSYCHOLOGICAL EMPHASES
The Historical and Philosophical Background of Cognitive Approaches to
Psychology
W. J. Dowling and K. Roberts
Choosing a Paradigm of Perception
R. L. Gregory
The Visual System: Environmental Information
R. M. Boynton
A Note on Ecological Optics
/. /. Gibson
Information Processing
R. N. Haber
Automata
P. Suppes and W. Rottmayer
The Developmental Emphasis
E. Vurpillot
Phenomenology
D. F0esdal
Transactional and Probabilistic Functionalism
K. Dallett
Author Index-Subject Index
Volume III: Biology of Perceptual Systems
Energy, Transducers, and Sensory Discrimination
T. D. M. Roberts
Neuronal Properties
Charles F. Stevens
Integration in Nervous Systems
G. Adrian H or ridge
Primordial Sense Organs and the Evolution of Sensory Systems
Lawrence Kruger and Barry E. Stein
Behavioral Embryology
Colwyn B. Trevarthen