Comparison of two theories of "ratio" and "difference" judgments.

Abstract

Examines the hypothesis that judges compare stimuli by ratio and subtractive operations when instructed to judge "ratios" and "differences." S. J. Rule and D. W. Curtis (see record 1981-29511-001) hold that magnitude estimations are a power function of subjective values, with an exponent between 1.1 and 2.1. Accordingly, the 2-operation model tested assumes magnitude estimations of "ratios" are a comparable power function of subjective ratios. In contrast, the present author and C. T. Veit (see PA, Vols 52:8992 and 53:8636) theorized that judges compare 2 stimuli by subtraction for both "ratio" and "difference" instructions and that magnitude estimations of "ratios" are approximately an exponential function of subjective differences. Three tests were used to compare the theory of 1 operation with the 2-operation theory for the data of 9 experiments. Results favor the theory that observers use the same operation for both instructions. (36 ref) (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2012 APA, all rights reserved)