Abstract

One of the uses of psychophysics is to learn something about the physiology of a sensory system through the behavioral responses of an observer to carefully-controlled stimuli and through the application of defined linking hypotheses. Problems of interpretation arise when there may be multiple sources of variation in the responses. Differences in visual thresholds at different ages might be the result of differences in performance as psychophysical observers, and not due to changes in the visual system itself. There also may be a change in the variability of the sensory response (intrinsic noise) while sensitivity remains constant. The particular psychophysical method used may also be critical for the interpretation of results; in particular, does the measurement depend on the subject's own criterion?

© 1991 Optical Society of America