{"id":135,"date":"2008-02-12T03:09:18","date_gmt":"2008-02-12T03:09:18","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/brainybehavior.com\/blog\/?p=135"},"modified":"2008-02-12T12:39:37","modified_gmt":"2008-02-12T12:39:37","slug":"fechner-and-the-development-of-psychophysiology","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.brainybehavior.com\/blog\/2008\/02\/fechner-and-the-development-of-psychophysiology\/","title":{"rendered":"Fechner and the Development of Psychophysics"},"content":{"rendered":"<div class=\"uwnco69ed30129350d\" ><script async src=\"\/\/pagead2.googlesyndication.com\/pagead\/js\/adsbygoogle.js\"><\/script>\r\n<!-- Mobile in post -->\r\n<ins class=\"adsbygoogle\"\r\n     style=\"display:inline-block;width:320px;height:100px\"\r\n     data-ad-client=\"ca-pub-0039142346952764\"\r\n     data-ad-slot=\"1620587573\"><\/ins>\r\n<script>\r\n(adsbygoogle = window.adsbygoogle || []).push({});\r\n<\/script><\/div><style type=\"text\/css\">\r\n.uwnco69ed30129350d {\r\nmargin: 5px; padding: 0px;\r\n}\r\n@media screen and (min-width: 1201px) {\r\n.uwnco69ed30129350d {\r\ndisplay: block;\r\n}\r\n}\r\n@media screen and (min-width: 993px) and (max-width: 1200px) {\r\n.uwnco69ed30129350d {\r\ndisplay: block;\r\n}\r\n}\r\n@media screen and (min-width: 769px) and (max-width: 992px) {\r\n.uwnco69ed30129350d {\r\ndisplay: block;\r\n}\r\n}\r\n@media screen and (min-width: 768px) and (max-width: 768px) {\r\n.uwnco69ed30129350d {\r\ndisplay: block;\r\n}\r\n}\r\n@media screen and (max-width: 767px) {\r\n.uwnco69ed30129350d {\r\ndisplay: block;\r\n}\r\n}\r\n<\/style>\r\n<p>Fechner is considered by many to be the first experimental psychologist. It is more accurate to say that he was likely the first well-known and modern experimental psychologist. In any case, he was the first to publish a widely-read experimental psychology textbook. He was more than a writer though. He conducted a series of experiments investigating the nature of human sensation and perception. He even partially blinded himself by staring too much at the sun during studies about visual afterimages. His various studies solidified him as the premiere psychophysicist of the day.<\/p><div class=\"yeaob69ed301293559\" ><script async src=\"\/\/pagead2.googlesyndication.com\/pagead\/js\/adsbygoogle.js\"><\/script>\n<!-- Mobile in post -->\n<ins class=\"adsbygoogle\"\n     style=\"display:inline-block;width:320px;height:100px\"\n     data-ad-client=\"ca-pub-0039142346952764\"\n     data-ad-slot=\"1620587573\"><\/ins>\n<script>\n(adsbygoogle = window.adsbygoogle || []).push({});\n<\/script><\/div><style type=\"text\/css\">\r\n.yeaob69ed301293559 {\r\nmargin: 5px; padding: 0px;\r\n}\r\n@media screen and (min-width: 1201px) {\r\n.yeaob69ed301293559 {\r\ndisplay: block;\r\n}\r\n}\r\n@media screen and (min-width: 993px) and (max-width: 1200px) {\r\n.yeaob69ed301293559 {\r\ndisplay: block;\r\n}\r\n}\r\n@media screen and (min-width: 769px) and (max-width: 992px) {\r\n.yeaob69ed301293559 {\r\ndisplay: block;\r\n}\r\n}\r\n@media screen and (min-width: 768px) and (max-width: 768px) {\r\n.yeaob69ed301293559 {\r\ndisplay: block;\r\n}\r\n}\r\n@media screen and (max-width: 767px) {\r\n.yeaob69ed301293559 {\r\ndisplay: block;\r\n}\r\n}\r\n<\/style>\r\n\n<p>Fechner was greatly interested in applying mathematics to various bodily sensations and perceptions. He believed that he could accurately measure the workings of the brain by measuring the perceptions of the body. Fechner built a lot on the work of Weber, who formulated Weber\u2019s law (jnd\/S = k), a law that calculated the difference in the mass of weights required for a person to sense a difference. Fechner expanded on this by recalculating Weber\u2019s law as S = k log R. Briefly the equation represented the relationship between sensation (S) and the size or mass of a stimulus. Like Weber, he believed that there was a threshold that had to be crossed in order to perceive a difference in sensations. Fechner was the first psychophysicist to talk about an absolute threshold, where a stimulus was first noticed. Once a stimulus was noticed, each \u201cjust noticeable difference\u201d of the stimulus (i.e., each time, with increasing size or mass of stimuli, that a person can perceive a difference) was termed a difference threshold by Fechner. He also came up with experimental methods for establishing thresholds in laboratory settings. The method of limits is a method in which a stimulus is presented either above or below threshold and then decreased or increased, respectively, systematically to a point where it crosses the absolute threshold. So, Fechner is usually regarded as the first modern experimental psychologist (some of his methods are still employed today). He not only built on Weber\u2019s law but also greatly expanded the field of psychophysics.<\/p>\n<div class=\"narwk69ed301293582\" ><script async src=\"\/\/pagead2.googlesyndication.com\/pagead\/js\/adsbygoogle.js\"><\/script>\r\n<!-- Mobile in post -->\r\n<ins class=\"adsbygoogle\"\r\n     style=\"display:inline-block;width:320px;height:100px\"\r\n     data-ad-client=\"ca-pub-0039142346952764\"\r\n     data-ad-slot=\"1620587573\"><\/ins>\r\n<script>\r\n(adsbygoogle = window.adsbygoogle || []).push({});\r\n<\/script><\/div><style type=\"text\/css\">\r\n.narwk69ed301293582 {\r\nmargin: 5px; padding: 0px;\r\n}\r\n@media screen and (min-width: 1201px) {\r\n.narwk69ed301293582 {\r\ndisplay: block;\r\n}\r\n}\r\n@media screen and (min-width: 993px) and (max-width: 1200px) {\r\n.narwk69ed301293582 {\r\ndisplay: block;\r\n}\r\n}\r\n@media screen and (min-width: 769px) and (max-width: 992px) {\r\n.narwk69ed301293582 {\r\ndisplay: block;\r\n}\r\n}\r\n@media screen and (min-width: 768px) and (max-width: 768px) {\r\n.narwk69ed301293582 {\r\ndisplay: block;\r\n}\r\n}\r\n@media screen and (max-width: 767px) {\r\n.narwk69ed301293582 {\r\ndisplay: block;\r\n}\r\n}\r\n<\/style>\r\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Fechner is considered by many to be the first experimental psychologist. It is more accurate to say that he was likely the first well-known and modern experimental psychologist. In any case, he was the first to publish a widely-read experimental psychology textbook. He was more than a writer though. He conducted a series of experiments &hellip; <\/p>\n<p class=\"link-more\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.brainybehavior.com\/blog\/2008\/02\/fechner-and-the-development-of-psychophysiology\/\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading<span class=\"screen-reader-text\"> &#8220;Fechner and the Development of Psychophysics&#8221;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10,9],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-135","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-history","category-psychology"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.brainybehavior.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/135","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.brainybehavior.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.brainybehavior.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.brainybehavior.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.brainybehavior.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=135"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.brainybehavior.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/135\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.brainybehavior.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=135"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.brainybehavior.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=135"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.brainybehavior.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=135"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}