Fechner's conception of psychophysics included both “outer psychophysics” the relation between stimulus intensity and the response reflecting sensation strength, and “inner psychophysics” the relation between neurelectric responses and sensation strength. In his own time outer psychophysics focussed on the form of the psychophysical law, with Fechner espousing a logarithmic law, Delboeuf a variant of the logarithmic law incorporating a resting level of neural activity, and Plateau a power law. One of the issues on which the dispute was focussed concerned the appearance of contrasts if the overall illumination was increased or decreased; another issue was the question of whether a sensation of a “just noticeable difference” established for one value of a sensory dimension appeared the same for a value elsewhere on the dimension. The development of “inner psychophysics” led through the works of Delboeuf, Solomons, Jastrow, and Thurstone to modern signal detection theory. A third line of research, devoted to the question of what was meant by the “measurement” of sensation strength, stemmed from the criticism of Fechner's work by von Kries (1882) and others. Although a valid body of science could be built up without the intervening variable called “sensation strength,” such a science might be a cumbersome representation of reality. When an optical contrast is set up, and its overall illumination is increased or decreased, subjective contrasts involving medium levels of lightness vary little as illumination varies (as a power law based on sensation ratios or a logarithmic law based on sensation differences predict), but subjective contrasts involving extreme levels of lightness might be subject to the effects of other variables.

A perspective for viewing the history of psychophysics.

Intralist Cueing of Recognition.

The metaphysical naturalism underlying most of contemporary scientific and philosophical discourse stands in need of reformation because it leaves out of account one of the most salient features of the world-the normativity that lies at the heart of life itself, and of all higher human forms of value and striving. In the introduction, "Why Naturalism Needs a Reformation," I agree with Alvin Plantinga that

BACK TO THE STOICS: Dynamical Monism as the Foundation for a Reformed Naturalism (Talk Delivered at Calvin College, May 25, 2001)

channels for different spectral and temporal attributes. The perception of real events is therefore based on the firing pattern both within and across channels. This is a common strategy for all sensory systems of vertebrates. Each channel can be innately tuned for specific values that may signify important environmental events such as conspecific mating calls for the frog and/or each channel can be experientially tuned by the naturally occurring environmental events (Kaas 1982; Merzenich et al. 1984), as might be the case for speech (Kuhl et al. 1992). What this means for Fechner's concept of inner psychophysics is that the neurelectric function must be derivative. As Fechner himself believed, in no sense is it a direct measure of peripheral sensory function. The parallel sensory channels provide the mechanism for the abstraction and judgment of different sensory attributes, but that very process of abstraction would appear to change the neural code so radically that a straightforward neurelectric function is impossible. What it also means is that the typical experimental situation is unrepresentative of the natural functioning of perceptual systems (Gibson 1979). Sinusoidal tones presented in isolation are not a \"pure\" signal; the tones are presented in a context, but that context is so fundamentally unrepresentative that the resulting processing may be distorted. It may be for this reason that many instances of categorical perception where Weber's Law apparently is violated (Pastore 1987) are found with complex time-varying stimuli (Rosen & Howell 1987). From this perspective, it is remarkable that the results from psychophysical experiments are so consistent. Although the concepts inherent in signal detection theory can be used with success in physiological investigations of discrimination based on firing rate (Kim et al. 1990), the basic issue seems to me to be the way discrimination emerges out of firing patterns across the neurons. The question is not how to dig the signal out of a noisy background or whether a logarithmic or power law is more correct. The similarities in neural organizations for abstracting different attributes coupled with the commonalities in psychophysical functions relating intensity to sensation strength for each attribute argue strongly that there is common neurological strategy. This strategy in turn yields a common neurelectric function. The objective is to understand the nature of that strategy and resulting function; then I think it will be possible to ascertain the relevance of Fechner's inner and outer psychophysics for theories of perception.

Fechner's impact for measurement theory

American psychologist and philosopher William James devoted the entirety of his career to exploring the nature of volition, as expressed by such phenomena as will, attention, and belief. As part of that endeavor, James's unorthodox scientific pursuits, from his experiments with nitrous oxide and hallucinogenic drugs to his investigation of spiritualist mediums, represent his attempt to address the "hard problems" of consciousness for which his training in brain physiology and experimental psychology could not entirely account. As a student, James's reading in chemistry and physics had sparked his interest in the concepts of energy and force, terms that he later deployed in his writing about consciousness and in his arguments against philosophical monism and scientific materialism, as he developed his "radically empiricist" ideas privileging discontinuity and plurality. Despite James's long campaign against scientific materialism, he was, however, convinced of the existence of a naturalistic explanation for the more "wayward and fitful" aspects of mind, including transcendent experiences associated with hysteria, genius, and religious ecstasy. In this paper, I examine aspects of James's thought that are still important for contemporary debates in psychology and neuroscience: his "transmission theory" of consciousness, his ideas on the "knowing of things together," and, finally, the related concept of "the compounding of consciousness," which postulates the theoretical possibility for individual entities within a conscious system of thought to "know" the thoughts of others within the system. Taken together, these ideas suggest that James, in spite of, or perhaps because of, his forays into metaphysics, was working toward a naturalistic understanding of consciousness, what I will term a "distributive model," based on his understanding of consciousness as an "awareness" that interacts dynamically within, and in relation to, its environment.

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William James, Gustav Fechner, and Early Psychophysics

http://psycnet.apa.org/journals/cap/31/1/45.pdf

The theme of quantification and the hidden Weber in the early work of Gustav Theodor Fechner.

Gustav Fechner, Dr. Mises, and the comparative anatomy of angels.

William James, Gustav Fechner, and the question of dogs and cats in the library.

G. T. Fechner: premises toward a general theory of organisms (1823).

Adult Ss were given either 3, 6, 9, 15, or 30 trials of relevant or irrelevant verbal pretraining prior to 21 trials on a common discriminative motor task. Relevant pretraining facilitated motor performance significantly over-all, and increasing amounts of relevant pretraining significantly increased the amount of specific proactive facilitation. Within relevant pretraining conditions, significantly superior motor performance was related to the subsequent correct recall of verbal pretraining responses. Methodological problems and theoretical implications are discussed.

M. E. Marshall

Papers

The theme of quantification and the hidden Weber in the early work of Gustav Theodor Fechner.

Gustav Fechner, Dr. Mises, and the comparative anatomy of angels.

William James, Gustav Fechner, and the question of dogs and cats in the library.

G. T. Fechner: premises toward a general theory of organisms (1823).

Some effects of amount of verbal pretraining and availability of verbal labels upon performance in a discriminative motor task