The Weber fraction versus perceived similarity.
The Weber fraction type of discrimination outcome means that stimuli of high magnitude are difficult to discriminate. Simultaneous and successive discriminations between two long (high magnitude) lines and also between two short (low magnitude) lines were carried out. Over-all performance on the successive discrimination between the two long lines was much poorer than on the three other discriminations. This discrimination also produced the poorest performance on different stimuli relative to same stimuli. The latter result should indicate that the two successive long lines were perceived as most similar. These and additional results support the conclusion that over-all discrimination performance and perceived similarity were consistently associated even though they were not consistently associated with length and time of occurrence (simultaneous versus successive). Nevertheless, the association of discrimination with perceived similarity has received minimal attention in the psychophysics area.
King
D L
DL
Department of Psychology, Howard University, Washington, DC 20059, USA. donlking@erols.com
Henry
G E
GE
Shanks
S C
SC
D000328:Adult; D004056:Differential Threshold / Q000502:physiology; D006801:Humans; D011601:Psychophysics; D011930:Reaction Time; D014796:Visual Perception / Q000502:physiology*