Kingdom, Frederick A. A. Department of Ophthalmology, McGill University, Montreal, Canada.
Last reviewed:March 2021
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- Psychophysical methods, published January 2019:Download PDF Get Adobe Acrobat Reader
- Behavioral psychophysics, published January 2014:Download PDF Get Adobe Acrobat Reader
- Components of a psychophysical experiment
- Classification of psychophysical measures
- Types of psychophysical methods
- Example application: binocular summation
- Related Primary Literature
- Additional Reading
The primary scientific tool for determining how the physical world of colors, sounds, odors, movements and shapes translates into the sensory world of sight, hearing, touch, taste, and smell. Psychophysics has the advantage over other methods for studying sensory behavior in that it is non-invasive, able to provide large amounts of data in relatively short spaces of time, and measures behavior under relatively normal sensory conditions (Fig. 1). Psychophysics tends to be the first port of call in the design of protocols which can then also be employed in neurophysiological, brain imaging, and clinical studies of sensory behavior. Although this article concentrates on psychophysics as applied to vision, the concepts and procedures described are applicable to all sensory modalities. See also: Color; Hearing (human); Olfaction; Sense organ; Sound; Taste; Vision
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