SCALES OF UNPLEASANTNESS OF ELECTRICAL STIMULATION

Abstract

The subjective unpleasantness elicited by an A.C. current of 50 c/sec. applied to two fingers was scaled by 14 subjects using the methods of magnitude and of category estimation. Nine current intensities, ranging between 2 and 10 times the individual sensation thresholds, were used as stimuli. A power function yielded a good fit to the magnitude‐estimation data; the exponent was 1.81. The difference between this value and a considerably higher exponent reported by previous investigators was interpreted in terms of the wider stimulus range used in the present study. The relation between the category scale and the magnitude scale had the same general form as that found in several previous investigations.