What is Psychophysics?

Psychophysics is the scientific study of the relationship between stimuli (specified in physical
terms) and the sensations and perceptions evoked by these stimuli.
Psychophysics was established by German scientist and philosopher Gustav Theodor
Fechner.
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, 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.

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.

Psychophysical Thresholds:

What are thresholds?

the level or point at which you start to experience something, or at which something starts to
happen or change

Two types of threshold:

Absolute Threshold: An absolute threshold is the smallest level of stimulus that can be
detected, usually detected at least 50% or half the time.

For example, in an experiment on sound detention, researchers may present a sound with
varying levels of volume. The smallest level that a participant is able to hear is the absolute
threshold.

it is important to note that at such low levels, participants may only detect the stimulus 50%
of the time

Difference Threshold: The smallest detectable difference between two stimuli, or the
minimum change in a stimulus that can be correctly judged as different from a reference
stimulus; also known as Just Noticeable Difference (JND).

The difference threshold was first described by a physiologist and experimental psychologist
named Ernst Weber and later expanded upon by psychologist Gustav Fechner

For example, if you were asked to hold two objects of different weights, the just noticeable
difference would be the minimum weight difference between the two that you could sense
half of the time.
Theoretically, the graph of the absolute threshold would be like this

But….
early experimental psychologists like Fechner discovered that humans were not ideal
observers.

Instead,
behavior at the boundary of sensory sensitivity appeared to reflect probabilistic processes
rather than ideal detection.
.
Webers Law:
Ernst Weber (1795–1878) was an anatomist and physiologist in Leipzig whose research
centered on cutaneous sensation, or the sense of touch. His most important contribution to
psychology grew out of some experiments he conducted to investigate whether active
engagement of one’s muscles affected one’s judgment of the weights of objects

Weber’s empirical observations were expressed mathematically by Gustav Theodor

Fechner, who called his formulation Weber’s law.

It states that: the smallest change in a stimulus that can be detected is a constant proportion
of the stimulus level ii. e. human sensory sensitivity is relative rather than absolute in nature

. The Weber’s constant for the following is:

- Light – 2% of intensity
- Weight – 2% of weight
- Sound – one-third of 1% change in pitch (frequency)
-Taste – 20% difference in saltiness

Fechner’s Law:
Gustav Theodor Fechner (1801 –1887) was a German experimental psychologist,
philosopher, and physicist
Fechner attempted to describe the relationship between the mind and body using the
language of mathematics

He invented “psychophysics” and is often considered to be the true founder of experimental

psychology.

Psychophysics is defined as
The science of defining quantitative relationships between physical and psychological
(subjective) events.

Fechner came upon Weber’s law and made his own extension call Fechner’s Law:
A principle describing the relationship between stimulus magnitude and resulting sensation
magnitude such that the magnitude of subjective sensation increases proportionally to the
logarithm of the stimulus intensity.

Fechner’s major assumptions were that:

(1) The basic unit of analysis for modeling psychological processes was the JND
(“just noticeable difference”)
(2) Mathematical functions capturing such processes could be “anchored” using the absolute
threshold (a “relative” zero point

Sensory Compression:
The strength of sensory experience grows at a slower rate than the physical stimulus

After a Point, R grows proportionally to S. We call this Point as R dash

Determination of Thresholds:
Psychophysical experiments have traditionally used four methods for testing subjects'
perception in stimulus detection and difference detection experiments: the method of limits,
the method of constant stimuli, and the method of adjustment.

1. Method of Limits:
The first type of testing is a method of limits that are used in psychophysical research
in order to measure a subject's perception of stimuli by determining at what level a
stimulus is perceived by a subject. A stimulus is presented and increased or
decreased until it is perceivable by the subject.
In the ascending method of limits, some property of the stimulus starts out at a level
so low that the stimulus could not be detected, then this level is gradually increased
until the participant reports that they are aware of it. For example, if the experiment is
testing the minimum amplitude of sound that can be detected, the sound begins too
quietly to be perceived and is made gradually louder. In the descending method of
limits, this is reversed. In each case, the threshold is considered to be the level of the
stimulus property at which the stimuli are just detected.[23]

In experiments, the ascending and descending methods are used alternately and the
thresholds are averaged. A possible disadvantage of these methods is that the
subject may become accustomed to reporting that they perceive a stimulus and may
continue reporting the same way even beyond the threshold (the error of
habituation). Conversely, the subject may also anticipate that the stimulus is about to
become detectable or undetectable and may make a premature judgment (the error
of anticipation).
 To avoid these potential pitfalls, Georg von Békésy introduced the staircase
procedure in 1960 in his study of auditory perception. In this method, the sound starts
out audible and gets quieter after each of the subject's responses, until the subject
does not report hearing it. At that point, the sound is made louder at each step, until
the subject reports hearing it, at which point it is made quieter in steps again. This
way the experimenter is able to "zero in" on the threshold.[23]

2. Method of Constant Stimuli:

A psychophysical procedure in which each of a fixed set of stimuli (ranging near the
threshold) is presented repeatedly in random order; the stimulus value yielding a
detection response in 50 percent of the time is taken as the threshold.

instead of being presented in ascending or descending order, in the method of

constant stimuli the levels of a certain property of the stimulus are not related from
one trial to the next but presented randomly. This prevents the subject from being
able to predict the level of the next stimulus, and therefore reduces errors of
habituation and expectation. For 'absolute thresholds' again the subject reports
whether they are able to detect the stimulus. For 'difference thresholds' there has to
be a constant comparison stimulus with each of the varied levels

3. Method Of Adjustment:
a psychophysical technique in which the participant adjusts a variable stimulus to
match a constant or standard. Similar to the method of limits, but the participant
controls the stimulus directly.

In the method of adjustment, the subject is asked to control the level of the stimulus
and to alter it until it is just barely detectable against the background noise or is the
same as the level of another stimulus. The adjustment is repeated many times. This
is also called the method of average error.[23] In this method, the observers
themselves control the magnitude of the variable stimulus, beginning with a level that
is distinctly greater or lesser than a standard one, and vary it until they are satisfied
by the subjective equality of the two. The difference between the variable stimuli and
the standard one is recorded after each adjustment, and the error is tabulated for a
considerable series. In the end, the mean is calculated giving the average error
which can be taken as a measure of sensitivity.

4. Magnitude Estimation:
Magnitude estimation a technique standardly applied in psychophysics to measure
judgments of sensory stimuli (Stevens 1975). The magnitude estimation procedure
requires subjects to estimate the magnitude of physical stimuli by assigning
numerical values proportional to the stimulus magnitude they perceive. Highly
reliable judgments can be achieved for a whole range of sensory modalities, such as
brightness, loudness, or tactile stimulation

Magnitude estimation usually works in the following way. A stimulus is presented,

and the participant simply gives a number that indicates how intense she perceive
that stimulus. In a common variation, an experimenter presents a standard stimulus,
which is often called the modulus, and assigns it a particular value, say 20. Then the
participant must judge subsequent stimuli and give them a numerical value
comparing it to the standard stimulus or modulus. So if the participant thinks the new
stimulus is twice as intense as the standard, it should be assigned a 40. If the next
tone is just a bit less intense than the standard, it will be assigned a 15. If the tone is
heard to be much less intense than the standard, it might receive a 5 on this
hypothetical scale.

Stevens Law:
Stevens's power law is an empirical relationship in psychophysics between an
increased intensity or strength in a physical stimulus and the perceived magnitude
increase in the sensation created by the stimulus.
In 1957, after dozens of experiments on direct scalings, such as magnitude
estimation, appeared in the literature, S. S. Stevens proposed a new law to relate
sensation magnitude to stimulus intensity:

FORMULA

Cross Modality Matching:

Cross-modal matching refers to the ability to recognize objects presented in two
different sensory modalities. For example, an object presented visually could be
discriminated using touch, or a photograph of a familiar person could be identified
from a recording of their voice

Advantages:
A useful method for allowing people to classify how dull or intense a flavor is (or other
sensation)
Provides prima facie support for the validity of direct reports of the strength of
sensory experience

Signal Detection Theory:

Detection theory or signal detection theory is a means to measure the ability to
differentiate between information-bearing patterns (called stimulus in living
organisms, signal in machines) and random patterns that distract from the
information (called noise)

According to the theory, there are a number of determiners of how a detecting

system will detect a signal, and where its threshold levels will be. The theory can
explain how changing the threshold will affect the ability to discern, often exposing
how adapted the system is to the task, purpose or goal at which it is aimed.

Signal detection theory (SDT) is used when psychologists want to measure the way
we make decisions under conditions of uncertainty, such as how we would perceive
distances in foggy conditions or during eyewitness identification.[7][8] SDT assumes
that the decision-maker is not a passive receiver of information, but an active
decision-maker who makes difficult perceptual judgments under conditions of
uncertainty.
Signal detection theory makes a distinction between an observers’ ability to perceive
a signal and their willingness to report it. These are two separate concepts:
Sensitivity
Criterion

Sensitivity: A value that defines the ease with which an observer can tell the
difference between the presence and absence of a stimulus or the difference
between stimulus 1 and stimulus 2.
Criterion: Criterion is An internal threshold that is set by the observer.
If the internal response is above the criterion, the observer gives one response.
Below the criterion, the observer gives another response.

Trials:
To apply signal detection theory to a data set where stimuli were either present or
absent, and the observer categorized each trial as having the stimulus present or
absent,
Four possible stimulus/response situations in signal detection theory:
Hit: Stimulus is present and the observer responds “Yes.”
Miss: Stimulus is present and the observer responds “No.”
False alarm: Stimulus is not present and the observer responds “Yes.”
Correct rejection: Stimulus is not present and observer responds “No.”

Graph:

Applications of SDT:

1) Sensitivity
 Conceptually, sensitivity refers to how hard or easy it is to detect that a target
stimulus is present from background events. For example, in a recognition
memory paradigm, having longer to study to-be-remembered words makes it
easier to recognize previously seen or heard words. In contrast, having to
remember 30 words rather than 5 makes discrimination harder.
2) Bias
Bias is the extent to which one response is more probable than another. That
is, a receiver may be more likely to respond that a stimulus is present or more
likely to respond that a stimulus is not present. Bias is independent of
sensitivity. For example, if there is a penalty for either false alarms or misses,
this may influence bias. If the stimulus is a bomber, then a miss (failing to
detect the plane) may increase deaths, so a liberal bias is likely. In contrast,
crying wolf (a false alarm) too often may make people less likely to respond,
grounds for a conservative bias.

3) Besides this, Detection theory has applications in many fields such as

diagnostics of any kind, quality control, telecommunications, and psychology.
The concept is similar to the signal to noise ratio used in the sciences and
confusion matrices used in artificial intelligence. It is also usable in alarm
management, where it is important to separate important events from
background noise.

ROC:
ROC analysis is a useful tool for evaluating the performance of diagnostic tests and more
generally for evaluating the accuracy of a statistical model (eg, logistic regression, linear
discriminant analysis)

There are two kinds of performances:

In studies of signal detection, the graphical plot of the hit rate as a function of the false alarm
rate.
The chance performance will fall along the diagonal.
Good performance (high sensitivity) “bows out” towards the upper left corner.

Plotting the ROC curve allows one to predict the proportion of hits for a given proportion of
false alarms, and vice-versa.
Changes in criteria move performance along a curve but do not change the shape of the
curve