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Wednesday, March 5, 2014

Dimensional Frame of Reference

A fourth class of aspects appears when we are faced by the problem of giving absolute dimensional judgments concerning the members of a series of stimuli. This feature is not to be confused with sensory dimensionality as it was discussed in our first category where for example, brightness or loudness were estimated with reference to some objective standard. The aspects we are now considering refers, rather to the question of what we call bright or dull light or heavy loud or faint and the like with respect to stimuli that we experience. Suppose for example, that we are presented with a lot of circular discs of the same size, one after the other. Let the discs, however, be in the form of spots of light thrown on a screen and differing over a fairly large range in brightness. We are to judge for each disc whether we consider it to be bright or dim or medium. Though no standard of reference is given, there will probably be determined, after series of stimuli has been presented, a degree of brightness that looks to the observer as neutral that is a degree above to be dim. The individual, in other words, forms his own subjective scale of judgment. We shall call this phenomenon the dimensional frame of reference.

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