| Abstract: | Stimulus context (the distribution of stimulus values) can strongly affect both perception and judgment. In 14 experiments, the method of magnitude estimation revealed 2 fundamentally different kinds of context effect in loudness. An assimilative effect dominated when stimuli varied unidimensionally (in intensity only). But a contrastive, or adaptationlike, effect dominated when stimuli varied multidimensionally (in frequency and intensity). In Exp 15, direct loudness comparison revealed a potent, adaptational process specific to the signal frequency. Taken together, these and other results are compatible with the view that loudness perception and judgment reflect the net outcome of 2 different contextual processes: a relatively early (though probably not peripheral) process of perceptual adaptation and a later process of response-dependent assimilation. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2010 APA, all rights reserved) |
