A Note on Cross-Modality Matching

Abstract

“Stevens' law”, that the psychophysical law is a power function, is often taken to be confirmed by results of cross-modality matching experiments, for it predicts both the fact that cross-modality matching experiments yield power functions, and the exponents of these power functions. Both these predictions, however, follow from a more general form of the psychophysical law, of which Fechner's law is a special case. In view of this, an interpretation of cross-modality matching based on stimulus discriminability rather than sensation magnitude is proposed.