When1: 1936
When2: 1962
Who: Stanley Smith Stevens [Stevens, Stanley Smith]
What: psychologist
Where: USA
works\ Handbook of Experimental Psychology [1951: editor]
Detail: He lived 1906 to 1973.
Cardinal numbers, ordinal numbers, differences, and ratios measure stimuli or sensations {magnitude estimation, Stevens}. Neural signal discreteness {neural quantum theory} limits sense-discrimination sensitivity.
Sensation magnitudes S are directly proportional to physical-stimuli magnitudes I, raised to power b [1962] {Stevens' power law}: S = a*I^b, where a is constant for sense. Sound has the power 0.3, so loudness is not high as physical noise {sone scale} [1936]. Brightness has power 0.3, so sensation intensity is not as high as physical intensity. Lengths have power 1, and sensation and intensity match. Pain has power 3, so pain is more intense than the physical stimuli.
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Date Modified: 2022.0224