ABSTRACT
Up until now it was widely held, at least among the psychophysicists in human adult perception, that two different, though not incompatible, approaches are equally valid and important. There is, on the one hand, the aim of the sensory psychophysicist: his main target has been and remains the construction of so-called “unbiased” scales and models of sensory-perceptual magnitude, thereby studying specific sensory events such as sensory adaptation and contrast processing. On the other hand, the major goal of many other researchers – including the author’s approach – more closely reflects the aim of the cognitive scientist who wants to understand the intertwined processes of perception and judgement, such as perceptual-cognitive context effects and task-dependent influences.
