An informational analysis of absolute judgments of loudness.

Publisher Website
Google Scholar
Abstract
Observers made absolute judgements of the loudness of tones, using numbers corresponding to the number of stimulus categories, which varied from 4 to 20 in the different expts. The major results and conclusions are: If only stimuli are used to predict responses, max. information transmission occurs with 5 stimulus categories and decreases with more stimulus categories. Thus responses will be most accurately related to stimuli when relatively few categories are used. The predictability of responses with the larger number of stimulus categories is as great as, or greater than, it is with the smaller number if factors other than the stimulus are used to predict the response. Some of these factors are differences between observers, previous responses and stimuli, exptl. session, and distr. of stimuli on the intensity continuum. (3) The effect of the preceding stimulus on responses is to raise the response if the preceding stimulus is higher than the one being judged, and to lower it if it is lower than the one being judged. Since a similar effect of preceding responses exist, it is not clear whether the effect is due to the observer''s responding to a weighted avg. of the present and preceding stimulus or to a tendency to repeat the response.

This publication has 2 references indexed in Scilit: