Hostname: page-component-74656f9884-npj9w Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2026-11-10T09:38:21.819Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Some Preliminary Postulates on Stimulus-Perception, and Consequent Probability Distributions for Behavior

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 January 2025

Robert Dean Gordon
Robert Dean Gordon*
Affiliation:
Scripps Institution of Oceanography
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

A stimulus (or stimulus-complex) is pictured as giving rise to a random series of sensory nerve “pulses,” which manifest themselves in contractions of individual muscle fibers. Assuming the expected time-frequency of these pulses to be proportional to the intensity of the stimulus, probability distributions are computed representing the cumulative effect of these pulses on the state of the organism, that is, on its degree of awareness of the stimulus. Preliminary results suggest a modification of the Weber-Fechner formula for intensity discrimination for certain types of stimuli: the psychological scale to be measured by I1/2 instead of log I.

Information

Type
Original Paper
Information
Psychometrika , Volume 4 , Issue 2 , June 1939 , pp. 89 - 98
Copyright
Copyright © 1939 The Psychometric Society

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Article purchase

Temporarily unavailable

Footnotes

*

Contributions from the Scripps Institution of Oceanography, New Series, No. 54.

References

Parr, A. E. A contribution to the theoretical analysis of the schooling behavior of fishes, in Occasional Papers of the Bingham Oceanographic collection, No. 1, Dec., 1927.Google Scholar
Spooner, G. M., Some observations on schooling in fish. J. Mar. Biol. Assoc., 1930, 17, 421–448.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Starling, E. H., Human physiology. Philadelphia: Lea and Febiger. 1933, 148–148.Google Scholar
Mayer, A. G., Nerve conduction in Cassiopia xamachana. Papers from the Dept. of Marine Biology of the Carnegie Institution of Washington, 1917, 11, 1–20.Google Scholar
Uspensky, J. V., Introduction to mathematical probability. New York: McGraw-Hill. 1937, 260–260.Google Scholar
Kameda, Toyojir, Theory of generating functions and its application to the theory of probability. J. Faculty of Science, Imp. University of Tokyo, 1925, 1, 27–36.Google Scholar