ABSTRACT
This chapter reviews four concepts necessary to understand the Briggs binary classification program: the information measure (H) as an empirical index versus its status as a theoretical construct; the Sternberg paradigm, particularly its logic as an experimental design; the binary character classification task; and a note on the general nature of scientific models. The Sternberg additive-factor method is direct heir to the Helmholtz-Donders subtractive method. The logic underlying both is to make two observations under identical conditions, except for a single feature of the experiment. In Helmholtz’s classic measurement of the velocity of the nerve impulse, the dependent variable was the measured reaction time of a frog leg muscle to an electrical stimulus delivered via a long or a short length of nerve. F. C. Donders a 19th century Dutch physiologist first applied the subtractive method to mental phenomena.
