Criterial range as a frame of reference for stimulus judgment.

Gravetter, Frederick J.; Gr, Lockhead

doi:10.1037/h0034281

Cited by 152 publications

(140 citation statements)

References 21 publications

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“…When attention must span further in similarity space, perhaps the task becomes more difficult (cf, Dixon & Just, 1978). This interpretation is consistent with findings in psychophysical tasks in which the discrimination between items, in unidimensional absolute-judgment situations, becomes more difficult as the range over which stimuli vary increases (Gravetter & Lockhead, 1973). Distance in similarity space between loudnesses and line lengths produces effects consistent with the range effect obtained when words are the stimuli; a large range results in poor performance.…”

Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 76%

Holistic vs. attribute repetition effects in classifying stimuli

1978

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The effect of the just previous stimulus on the current response was determined in three speeded classification experiments. When the stimuli were perceptual patterns, and when they were words, there was marked facilitation if the previous stimulus was identical to the current stimulus. When successive perceptual stimuli were composed of identical elements, but in a changed configuration, there was no measureable sequential effect on "same" response times. These results are for integral stimuli. When stimuli are not integral, as with some studies in the literature, it is suggested that each two-dimensional nonintegral stimulus is treated by the observer as two objects. In those cases, responses can be facilitated by repetition of that object on which responses were based on the previous trial, and this can occur when a value of the other dimensions (other objects) has not repeated. Accordingly, the processing of integral and nonintegral stimuli must be considered separately when attempting to evaluate process models. Further, facilitation due to stimulus repetitions does not account for all of the differences in response times between various classification tasks. These additional differences may be attributed to a multidimensional range effect analogous to the range effects found in psychophysical tasks.

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Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 76%

Holistic vs. attribute repetition effects in classifying stimuli

1978

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“…In the spirit of Pollack's (1952) study, Gravetter andLockhead (1973) asked subjects to identify members of various stimulus sets. Range was varied between sets by increasing the physical distance between some stimuli but not others, but the total number of stimuli was constant over conditions.…”

Section: Range Effectsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Range and sequence effects in judgment

Lockhead

Hinson

1986

Perception & Psychophysics

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Listeners classified three tones that differed in loudness. Two tones were always similar in intensity (2 dB separation). The third tone was either similar to or different from these two tones. Performance depended on this stimulus range: The greater the difference between two tones fixed in intensity and the third tone, the less precise was the discrimination between the two fixed tones. Performance also depended on sequence: Successive responses were positively correlated. The results show that measures of discriminability depend on stimulus range, and that measures of criterion placements change from trial to trial and depend on stimulus sequence.When humans classify stimuli, their performance on any particular stimulus becomes more variable when a greater number of different stimuli are added to the set. For example, a tone is more precisely identified when it is a member of a set of 6 tones, each separated by 2-dB intervals, than when it is a member of a set of 10 tones, each separated by 2-dB intervals.Such results are consistent with the concept of channel capacity, the idea that there is a performance limit in human discrimination that is analogous to the proven limit on the amount of information that can be transmitted electronically along a wire (Shannon & Weaver, 1949). Many studies show that the amount of information transmitted in judgment tasks increases linearly as the number of stimuli in the set increases, up to some limit, after which the amount of information transmitted is constant. This asymptotic level is considered the channel capacity of the system (Miller, 1956).It is known that performance on individual stimuli in these tasks depends on the range over which stimuli vary and also on the particular stimulus or response that occurred on the most recent trial. In this study we examined the ways in which these two factors, range and sequence, were important to the task of deciding which stimulus had just been presented. Range EffectsIn 1952, Irwin Pollack reported a study in which listeners identified eight tones that were equally spaced on a log frequency scale. In one condition the tones ranged over 400 Hz; in another condition they ranged over 8000 Hz. Unlike many studies in which range was increased by adding more stimuli to the set, here the numThis research was supported in part by AFOSR Grant 85-032. Address correspondence to G. R. Lockhead, Department of Psychology, Duke University, Durham, NC 27706. 53 ber of stimuli was held constant as stimulus range varied. The result was that the listeners' ability to differentiate between the eight tones was not measurably different between the 4OO-Hz and the 8000-Hz conditions. This means that the variability of judgments of any particular stimulus was greater when the stimuli varied over a larger range. Pollack's (1952) result is consistent with the conclusion of a channel capacity for a stimulus continuum. Such a limit on performance would occur if people attempted to locate each stimulus along a memory scale and if the ability to do this wa...

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“…We have verified that a power function growth does not predict the data either. To deal with this, they suggested, as did Gravetter and Lockhead (1973) independently, that the variance of the signal representation grows linearly with the square of the range in decibels. Although partially accounting for their results-it fails to explain why comparable magnitude estimation (ME) results lie systematically When 10 or more one-dimensional signals are spread over a sufficiently large range (e.g., 20 dB or more in auditory intensity), subjects in absolute identification (AI) experiments do not perform as well as one would anticipate from data on comparable pairs of signals.…”

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confidence: 99%

“…The data can be represented in terms of Thurstonian discriminal dispersions in which the variance is proportional to the square of the signal range in decibels (Durlach & Braida, 1969;Gravetter & Lockhead, 1973). but it is by no means obvious what sorts of mechanisms would lead to this model.…”

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Attention bands in absolute identification

Luce

Green

Weber

1976

Perception & Psychophysics

136

101

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If both the number of one-dimensional signals and their range are sufficiently large (about 7 and 20 dB for loudness), the information transmitted in absolute identification is not much increased by increasing either variable (Miller, 1956; Braida & Durlach, 1972). The data can be represented in terms of Thurstonian discriminal dispersions in which the variance is proportional to the square of the signal range in decibels (Durlach & Braida, 1969;Gravetter & Lockhead, 1973). but it is by no means obvious what sorts of mechanisms would lead to this model. An alternative is proposed. namely. that there is a roving attention band, about 10 to 15 dB wide, such that signals falling within the band are represented by a sensory sample size about an order of magnitude larger than when the same signal falls outside the band. With reasonable choices for parameters, including the subjective continuum growing as a power function of intensity with an exponent about .3. this nicely accounts for the data. In an attempt to examine the change of performance with range. we replicated the Braida-Durlach experiment with many additional points. These data are not. however. adequate to decide between the two models.

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Criterial range as a frame of reference for stimulus judgment.

Cited by 152 publications

References 21 publications

Holistic vs. attribute repetition effects in classifying stimuli

Holistic vs. attribute repetition effects in classifying stimuli

Range and sequence effects in judgment

Attention bands in absolute identification

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