Psychophysical similarities between rats and humans

Abstract

Church and Deluty (1977) found that rats bisected pairs of durations at their geometric mean and concluded that the psychophysical function for duration in rats is logarithmic. From the same experimental finding and the assumption that the similarity between the short duration and the bisection point equals the similarity between the bisection point and the long duration, together with the unidimensional similarity function proposed by Eisler and Ekman (1959), Stevens’ psychophysical power function is derived instead. Since the similarity function thus seems to hold for animals as well as for humans, dealing with similarities appears to make more perceptual than cognitive demands. © 1980, The Psychonomic Society, Inc.. All rights reserved.