Abstract
Psychophysical judgment, like all other kinds of judgment, involves a matching or equating of two different domains. When the judgment involves the matching of values on two perceptual continua, the observer tends, on the average, to constrict the range of his adjustments on whichever variable is placed under his control. When the observer adjusts each variable in turn, two different regression lines are produced. This regression effect presumably occurs whenever the results of the matching judgments yield less than a perfect correlation. Illustrative examples are given for the continua, loudness, vibration, brightness, and duration.
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Research supported in part by the National Science Foundation Grant GB-3211, and in part by the National Institutes of Health Grant NB-02974 and Public Health Postdoctoral Fellowship No. 7-F2-MH-19, 53.4-02 (Laboratory of Psychophysics Report PPR-330).
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Stevens, S.S., Greenbaum, H.B. Regression effect in psychophysical judgment. Perception & Psychophysics 1, 439–446 (1966). https://doi.org/10.3758/BF03207424
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.3758/BF03207424