Psychophysics

Psychophysics: A Practical Introduction, Second Edition, is the primary scientific tool for understanding how the physical world of colors, sounds, odors, movements, and shapes translates into the sensory world of sight, hearing, touch, taste, and smell; in other words, how matter translates into mind.

This timely revision provides a unique introduction to the techniques for researching and understanding how the brain translates the external physical world to the internal world of sensation. The revision expands and refines coverage of the basic tools of psychophysics research and better integrates the theory with the supporting software.

The new edition continues to be the only book to combine, in a single volume, the principles underlying the science of psychophysical measurement and the practical tools necessary to analyze data from psychophysical experiments. The book, written in a tutorial style, will appeal to new researchers as well as to seasoned veterans. This introduction to psychophysics research methods will be of interest to students, scholars and researchers within sensory neuroscience, vision research, behavioral neuroscience, and the cognitive sciences.

• Presents a large variety of analytical methods explained for the non-expert
• Provides a novel classification scheme for psychophysics experiments
• Includes a new software package for collecting and analyzing psychophysical data
• Disseminates the pros and cons of different psychophysical procedures
• Contains practical tips for designing psychophysical experiments

Fred Kingdom is a Professor at McGill University conducting research into a variety of aspects of visual perception. He studied and held research positions at Cambridge, London and Reading Universities before taking up his current position at McGill in 1990. He has published over 125 articles, and recently won an award for a new visual illusion.

Psychophysics: A Practical Introduction, Second Edition, is the primary scientific tool for understanding how the physical world of colors, sounds, odors, movements, and shapes translates into the sensory world of sight, hearing, touch, taste, and smell; in other words, how matter translates into mind.

This timely revision provides a unique introduction to the techniques for researching and understanding how the brain translates the external physical world to the internal world of sensation. The revision expands and refines coverage of the basic tools of psychophysics research and better integrates the theory with the supporting software.

The new edition continues to be the only book to combine, in a single volume, the principles underlying the science of psychophysical measurement and the practical tools necessary to analyze data from psychophysical experiments. The book, written in a tutorial style, will appeal to new researchers as well as to seasoned veterans. This introduction to psychophysics research methods will be of interest to students, scholars and researchers within sensory neuroscience, vision research, behavioral neuroscience, and the cognitive sciences.

• Presents a large variety of analytical methods explained for the non-expert
• Provides a novel classification scheme for psychophysics experiments
• Disseminates the pros and cons of different psychophysical procedures
• Contains practical tips for designing psychophysical experiments

Autorentext

Fred Kingdom is a Professor at McGill University conducting research into a variety of aspects of visual perception. He studied and held research positions at Cambridge, London and Reading Universities before taking up his current position at McGill in 1990. He has published over 125 articles, and recently won an award for a new visual illusion.

Inhalt

1. Introduction and Aims

2. Classifying Psychophysical Experiments

3. Varieties of Psychophysical Procedure

4. Psychometric functions

5. Adaptive procedures

6. Signal Detection Measures

7. Summation measures

8. Scaling Methods

9. Model Comparisons

Quick Reference Guide

Acronyms