PSYC 212 Lecture Notes - Mental Event, Power Law, Psychometric Function
15 Dec 2012
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Psychophysics: the study of quantitative relationships between physical events and psychological experiences. Making the link between physical events and psychological experiences. Method of adjustment: observer adjusts the stimulus until he can barely detect the stimulus. Method of limits: stimuli of diff intensities presented in ascending and descending order. Keeps saying yes until he says no (for descending order). Starts with one that is clearly perceptible and then go down. Problem is subject knows that the order is ascending/descending. Method of constant stimuli: stimuli of diff intensities presented in random order. Multiple times (same amount of times per intensity though). Functions aren"t step functions but s-shaped because we are not ideal detectors. Abs thresh is usually the when he detects it 50% of the time. All these methods are subject to observer bias. Some are more willing to say yes (usually young observers), some are less willing and wait until they"re absolutely sure (older subjects usually)
