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Some Preliminary Postulates on Stimulus-Perception, and Consequent Probability Distributions for Behavior

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 January 2025

Robert Dean Gordon
Robert Dean Gordon*
Affiliation:
Scripps Institution of Oceanography
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Abstract

A stimulus (or stimulus-complex) is pictured as giving rise to a random series of sensory nerve “pulses,” which manifest themselves in contractions of individual muscle fibers. Assuming the expected time-frequency of these pulses to be proportional to the intensity of the stimulus, probability distributions are computed representing the cumulative effect of these pulses on the state of the organism, that is, on its degree of awareness of the stimulus. Preliminary results suggest a modification of the Weber-Fechner formula for intensity discrimination for certain types of stimuli: the psychological scale to be measured by I1/2 instead of log I.

Type
Original Paper
Information
Psychometrika , Volume 4 , Issue 2 , June 1939 , pp. 89 - 98
Copyright
Copyright © 1939 The Psychometric Society

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Footnotes

*

Contributions from the Scripps Institution of Oceanography, New Series, No. 54.

References

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