Psychophysics

psychophysics, study of quantitative relations between psychological events and physical events or, more specifically, between sensations and the stimuli that produce them.

Physical science permits, at least for some of the senses, accurate measurement on a physical scale of the magnitude of a stimulus. By determining the stimulus magnitude that is just sufficient to produce a sensation (or a response), it is possible to specify the minimum perceptible stimulus, or the absolute stimulus threshold (stimulus limen), for the various senses. The central inquiry of psychophysics pertains to the search for a lawful, quantitative relation between stimulus and sensation for the range of stimuli between these limits.

Psychophysics was established by German scientist and philosopher Gustav Theodor Fechner. He coined the word, developed the fundamental methods, conducted elaborate psychophysical experiments, and began a line of investigation that still persists in experimental psychology. Fechner’s classic book Elemente der Psychophysik (1860) may be looked upon as the beginning not only of psychophysics but also of experimental psychology.

Trained in physics, Fechner in his later life became interested in metaphysics and searched for a way of relating the spiritual to the physical world. He hit upon the notion of measuring sensation in relation to its stimulus. German physiologist Ernst Heinrich Weber had discovered that the amount of change in magnitude of a given stimulus necessary to produce a just-noticeable change in sensation always bore an approximately constant ratio to the total stimulus magnitude. This fact, properly speaking, is Weber’s law: if two weights differ by a just-noticeable amount when separated by a given increment, then, when the weights are increased, the increment must be proportionally increased for the difference to remain noticeable. Fechner applied Weber’s law to the measurement of sensation in relation to a stimulus. The resulting formula Fechner named Weber’s law (often called the Fechner-Weber law). It expresses the simple relation that the magnitude of a stimulus must be increased geometrically if the magnitude of sensation is to increase arithmetically. For physiologists and for many philosophers, this allowed the measurement of sensation in relation to a measured stimulus and thereby created the possibility of a scientific quantitative psychology.

More recently, psychophysicists have suggested that psychic magnitudes be assessed by direct scaling experiments rather than by deriving a sensation scale based on discrimination judgments. Psychophysical methods are used today in studies of sensation and in practical areas such as product comparisons and evaluations (e.g., tobacco, perfume, and liquor) and in psychological and personnel testing.