ABSOLUTE JUDGMENTS AS A FUNCTION OF THE STIMULUS RANGE AND THE NUMBER OF STIMULUS AND RESPONSE CATEGORIES

摘要

In the psychophysical method of absolute Judgment, subjects are required to identify by a name, number or other value each member of a set of indi¬vidually presented stimuli. Since the method does not provide any explicit standard for comparison, the subject is required to base his Judgments upon some subjective standard or reference point. This is essentially the condition under which we make many important Judgments during our daily activities.nThe effects of three variables upon Judgmental accuracy under the absolute method were studied. These were: the range on a stimulus dimension over which stimulus categories were selected for Judgment, the number of stimulus categories presented for Judgment, and the number of response categories available to the subject for expressing his judgments.