Summary |
Psychophysics is a branch of psychology founded by Gustav Fechner (1801-1887), a German scientist and philosopher. In its contemporary manifestation, psychophysics investigates the correlations between physical stimulus properties on the one hand and sensations, perceptions, and perceptually-guided behaviors on the other (a psychophysicist might ask, for example, how the manipulation of the lighting conditions or the visual angle changes her subject’s perception of the color of a target). Evidence from psychophysical experiments is relevant to many debates in philosophy of perception, including those concerning cognitive penetrability, the perspectival aspect of perception, and the nature and function of color vision. |