ELEMENTS OF PSYCHOPHYSICS
Sections VII and XIV
Gustav Theodor Fechner (1860 - 1912)
VII
THE MEASUREMENT OF SENSATION
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Weber's law, that equal relative increments of stimuli are proportional to equal increments of sensation, is, in consideration of its generality and the wide limits within which it is absolutely or approximately valid, to be considered fundamental for psychic measurement. There are, however, limits to its validity as well as complications, which we shall have carefully to examine later. Yet even where this law ceases to be valid or absolute, the principle of psychic measurement continues to hold, inasmuch as any other relation between constant increments of sensation and variable increments of stimulus, even though it is arrived at empirically and expressed by an empirical formula, may serve equally well as the fundamental basis for psychic measurement, and indeed must serve as such in those parts of the stimulus scale where Weber's law loses its......
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Approximate Pages: 14 (260 words per double-spaced page) |