Psychophysics quantitatively investigates the relationship between physical stimuli and the sensations and perceptions they produce. The field applies methods for studying perceptual systems, with particular emphasis on threshold measurement, ideal observer analysis and signal detection theory, and its insights are applied prominently in digital signal processing, where psychophysics guides the development of lossy compression models and methods that explain why humans perceive little quality loss during compressed audio and video transmission.
Facts
Central QuestionPsychophysics asks how physical stimuli translate quantitatively into the sensations and perceptions a person experiences, connecting the publicly observable world to a person's privately experienced impression of it. 1 Key DebateGustav Fechner's founding introspectionist approach, treating psychology as the science of consciousness, had to contend with the later Behaviorist approach, which held that even a verbal response is as physical an event as the stimulus that provoked it, an unresolved tension between studying observable performance and studying subjective experience. 1 Psychophysics
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Source Absolute threshold (Wikipedia)
Source Alliesthesia - Wikipedia
Source Wikipedia: Contrast Effect
Source Wikipedia: Coriolis Effect (Perception)
Source Louis Leon Thurstone (Wikipedia)
Source Pulfrich Effect (Wikipedia)
Source Wikipedia: Stroop Effect
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1. Psychophysics
Wikimedia FoundationLead section, opening sentence
Psychophysics is the field of psychology which quantitatively investigates the relationship between physical stimuli and the sensations and perceptions they produce.
Theoretical Debates discussion, Fechner versus Behaviorism
the Behaviorist approach in which even verbal responses are as physical as the stimuli
Wikipedia: Stroop Effect
Wikimedia FoundationIncludes: Stroop Effect Experiments, Lead sectionQuote, Includes: Stroop Effect Experiments, Lead section
In psychology, the Stroop effect is the delay in reaction time between neutral and incongruent stimuli.
Wikipedia: Contrast Effect
Wikimedia FoundationIncludes: Contrast Effect, Lead sectionQuote, Includes: Contrast Effect, Lead section
A contrast effect is the enhancement or diminishment, relative to normal, of perception, cognition or related performance as a result of successive (immediately previous) or simultaneous exposure to a stimulus of lesser or greater value in the same dimension.
Absolute threshold (Wikipedia)
Includes: Absolute Threshold, Lead sectionQuote, Includes: Absolute Threshold, Lead section
In neuroscience and psychophysics, an absolute threshold was originally defined as the lowest level of a stimulus - light, sound, touch, etc. - that an organism could detect.
Wikipedia: Coriolis Effect (Perception)
Includes: Coriolis Illusion, Lead sectionQuote, Includes: Coriolis Illusion, Lead section
In psychophysical perception, the Coriolis effect (also referred to as the Coriolis illusion or the vestibular Coriolis effect) is the misperception of body orientation due to head movement while under the effect of rotation, often inducing nausea.
Alliesthesia - Wikipedia
Includes: Alliesthesia, LeadQuote, Includes: Alliesthesia, Lead
The relationship between the perceptual system and physiology is subjective and studied by psychophysics.
Pulfrich Effect (Wikipedia)
Includes: Pulfrich Effect, LeadQuote, Includes: Pulfrich Effect, Lead
The Pulfrich effect is a psychophysical percept wherein lateral motion of an object in the field of view is interpreted by the visual cortex as having a depth component, due to a relative difference in signal timings between the two eyes.
Louis Leon Thurstone (Wikipedia)
Includes: Louis Leon Thurstone, LeadQuote, Includes: Louis Leon Thurstone, Lead
Louis Leon Thurstone (May 29, 1887, September 29, 1955) was an American pioneer in the fields of psychometrics and psychophysics.
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