Abstract
In five experiments, participants made comparative judgments of paired successive or simultaneous stimuli. Time- or space-order errors were obtained, which varied with the interstimulus interval (ISI) or stimulus duration, as well as with the stimulus level. The results, in terms of scaled subjective differences, are well described by Hellström’s (1979) sensation-weighting model. With successive presentation, in comparisons of line length and tone loudness, the first stimulus had the greater weight in determining the subjective difference for short ISIs, the second for longer ISIs. In comparisons of duration (auditory and visual), the second stimulus had the greater weight. For simultaneously presented line lengths, the left stimulus had the greater weight.
Article PDF
Similar content being viewed by others
Avoid common mistakes on your manuscript.
References
Allan, L. G. (1977). The time-order error in judgments of duration.Canadian Journal of Psychology,31, 24–31.
Allan, L. G., &Gibbon, J. (1994). A new temporal illusion or the TOE once again?Perception & Psychophysics,55, 227–229.
Almkvist, O., Hellström, Å., HÅrdemark, H.-G., &Johansson, T. (1996).Neuropsychological dysfunction two years after subarachnoidal haemorrhage: Relation to acute and long-term brain damage severity (Rep. No. 809). Stockholm: Stockholm University, Department of Psychology.
Baranski, J. V., &Petrusic, W. M. (1992). The discriminability of remembered magnitudes.Memory & Cognition,20, 254–270.
Beaton, A. (1986).Left side, right side: A review of laterality research. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press.
Berliner, J. E., Durlach, N. I., &Braida, L. D. (1977). Intensity perception: VII. Further data on roving-level discrimination and the resolution and bias edge effects.Journal of the Acoustical Society of America,61, 1577–1585.
Boas, F. (1882). Über die verschiedenen Formen des Unterschiedsschwellenwertes [On the different forms of the difference limen value].Pflügers Archiv für Physiologie,27, 214–222.
Chuang, C.-K., &Wang, W. S.-Y. (1978). Psychophysical pitch biases related to vowel quality, intensity difference, and sequential order.Journal of the Acoustical Society of America,64, 1004–1014.
Eisler, H. (1976). Experiments on subjective duration 1868-1975: A collection of power function exponents.Psychological Bulletin,83, 1154–1171.
Eisler, H. (1982). On the nature of subjective scales.Scandinavian Journal of Psychology,23, 161–171.
Essick, G. K., Franzén, O., &Whitsel, B. L. (1988). Discrimination and scaling of velocity of stimulus motion across the skin.Somatosensory & Motor Research,6, 21–40.
Fechner, G. T. (1860).Elemente der Psychophysik [Elements of psychophysics]. Leipzig: Breitkopf & Härtel.
Gol’dburt, S. N. (1963). Discrimination between the order and loudness of two short tones in relation to their duration and the interval between them.Fiziologicheskij Zhurnal SSSR imeni I. M. Sechenova,49, 1410–1413.
Grondin, S. (1999). Duration discrimination of empty and filled intervals marked by auditory and visual signals.Perception & Psychophysics,54, 383–394.
Guilford, J. P. (1931). Some empirical tests of the method of paired comparisons.Journal of General Psychology,5, 64–77.
Guilford, J. P. (1954).Psychometric methods (2nd ed.). New York: McGraw-Hill.
Hellström, Å. (1977). Time errors are perceptual: An experimental investigation of duration and a quantitative successive-comparison model.Psychological Research,39, 345–388.
Hellström, Å. (1978). Factors producing and factors not producing time errors: An experiment with loudness comparisons.Perception & Psychophysics,23, 433–444.
Hellström, Å. (1979). Time errors and differential sensation weighting.Journal of Experimental Psychology: Human Perception & Performance,5, 460–477.
Hellström, Å. (1985). The time-order error and its relatives: Mirrors of cognitive processes in comparing.Psychological Bulletin,97, 35–61.
Hellström, Å. (1986). Sensation weighting in comparing: A tool for optimizing discrimination. In B. Berglund, U. Berglund, & R. Teghtsoonian (Eds.),Fechner Day 86 (pp. 89–94). Stockholm: International Society for Psychophysics.
Hellström, Å. (1989a). Discrimination optimization: A governing principle for psychophysics. In D. Vickers & P. L. Smith (Eds.),Human information processing: Measures, mechanisms, and models. Proceedings of the XXIV International Congress of Psychology, Sydney, Australia, 28 August-2 September, 1988 (Vol. 2, pp. 217–227). Amsterdam: Elsevier, North-Holland.
Hellström, Å. (1989b). What happens when we compare two successive stimuli? In G. Ljunggren & S. Dornic (Eds.),Psychophysics in action (pp. 25–39). Berlin: Springer-Verlag.
Hellström, Å. (1990). Neuropsychological applications of stimulus comparison tasks. In F. Müller (Ed.),Fechner Day 90 (pp. 205–211). Würzburg: International Society for Psychophysics.
Hellström, Å. (1992). Comparative judgments of successive and simultaneous lateralized stimuli. In G. Borg & G. Neely (Eds.)Fechner Day 92: Proceedings of the Eighth Annual Meeting of the International Society for Psychophysics (pp. 99–104). Stockholm: International Society for Psychophysics.
Hellström, Å. (1993). The normal distribution in scaling subjective stimulus differences: Less “normal” than we think?Perception & Psychophysics,54, 82–92.
Hellström, Å. (2000). Sensation weighting in comparison and discrimination of heaviness.Journal of Experimental Psychology: Human Perception & Performance,26, 6–17.
Hellström, Å., &Almkvist, O. (1997). Tone duration discrimination in demented, memory impaired, and healthy elderly.Dementia & Geriatric Cognitive Disorders,8, 49–54.
Hellström, Å., Forssell, L. G., &Fernaeus, S. E. (1989). Early stages of late onset Alzheimer’s disease: V. Psychometric evaluation of perceptual/cognitive processes.Acta Neurologica Scandinavica,79(Suppl. 121), 87–92.
Helson, H. (1964).Adaptation-level theory. New York: Harper & Row.
Holway, A. H., &Pratt, C. C. (1936). The Weber-ratio for intensitive discrimination.Psychological Review,43, 322–340.
Huttenlocher, J., Hedges, L. V., &Vevea, J. L. (2000). Why do categories affect stimulus judgment?Journal of Experimental Psychology: General,129, 220–241.
Inomata, S. (1959). The analysis of conditions behind the time-error in the successive comparison of visual length.Japanese Psychological Research,1, 36–54.
Inomata, S. (1963). Comparison of time-error phenomena in different sense modalities.Psychologia,6, 207–214.
Jamieson, D. G., &Petrusic, W. M. (1975a). The dependence of timeerror direction on stimulus range.Canadian Journal of Psychology,29, 175–182.
Jamieson, D. G., &Petrusic, W. M. (1975b). Presentation order effects in duration discrimination.Perception & Psychophysics,17, 197–202.
Jamieson, D. G., &Petrusic, W. M. (1976). On a bias induced by the provision of feedback in psychophysical experiments.Acta Psychologica,40, 199–206.
Jamieson, D. G., &Petrusic, W. M. (1978). Feedback versus an illusion in time.Perception,7, 91–96.
Jaroszewski, A. (1992). A study of constant (systematic) errors in pitch discrimination of short tone pulses.Acustica,77, 106–110.
John, I. D. (1975). A common mechanism mediating the time-order error and the cross-over effect in comparative judgments of loudness.Australian Journal of Psychology,27, 51–60.
Köhler, W. (1923). Zur Theorie des Sukzessivvergleichs und der Zeitfehler [On the theory of successive comparison and time-errors].Psychologische Forschung,4, 115–175.
Link, S. W. (1992).The wave theory of difference and similarity. Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum.
Luce, R. D., &Galanter, E. (1963). Discrimination. In R. D. Luce, R. R. Bush, & E. Galanter (Eds.),Handbook of mathematical psychology (Vol. 1, pp. 191–243). New York: Wiley.
Marks, L. E. (1974). On scales of sensation: Prolegomena to any future psychophysics that will be able to come forth as science.Perception & Psychophysics,16, 358–376.
Masin, S. C. (1993). The inferential theory of errors in comparative judgment.Ricerche di Psicologia,17, 57–71.
Masin, S. C., &Agostini, A. (1990). Time errors in the method of pair comparisons.American Journal of Psychology,103, 487–494.
Masin, S. C., &Agostini, A. (1991). Attentional scanning and space errors.Perception & Psychophysics,50, 285–289.
Masin, S. C., &Fanton, V. (1989). An explanation for the presentationorder effect in the method of constant stimuli.Perception & Psychophysics,46, 483–486.
Michels, W. C., &Helson, H. (1954). A quantitative theory of timeorder effects.American Journal of Psychology,67, 327–334.
Needham, J. G. (1934). The time-error as a function of continued experimentation.American Journal of Psychology,46, 558–567.
Needham, J. G. (1935). The effect of the time interval upon the time error at different intensive levels.Journal of Experimental Psychology,18, 539–543.
Nichelli, P., Venneri, A., Molinari, M., Tavani, F., &Grafman, J. (1993). Precision and accuracy of subjective time estimation in different memory disorders.Cognitive Brain Research,1, 87–93.
Petrusic, W. M., Baranski, J. V., &Kennedy, R. (1998). Similarity comparisons with remembered and perceived magnitudes: Memory psychophysics and fundamental measurement.Memory & Cognition,26, 1041–1055.
Petrusic, W. M., Harrison, D. H., & Baranski, J. V. (in press). Longterm memory for elementary visual percepts: Memory psychophysics of context and acquisition effects.Perception & Psychophysics.
Postman, L. (1946). The time-error in auditory perception.American Journal of Psychology,59, 193–219.
Pratt, C. C. (1936). The law of disuse.Psychological Review,43, 83–93.
Rammsayer, T. (1999). Neuropharmacological evidence for different timing mechanisms in humans.Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology,52B, 273–286.
Rammsayer, T. (2001). Effects of noradrenergic activity on temporal information processes in humans.Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology,54B, 247–258.
Restle, F. (1961).Psychology of judgment and choice. New York: Wiley.
Richards, W. (1973). Time reproductions by H.M.Acta Psychologica,37, 279–282.
Schab, F. R., &Crowder, R. G. (1988). The role of succession in temporal cognition: Is the time-order error a recency effect of memory?Perception & Psychophysics,44, 233–242.
Schneider, B., Parker, S., Farrell, G., &Kanow, G. (1976). The perceptual basis of loudness ratio judgments.Perception & Psychophysics,19, 309–320.
Sinclair, R. J., &Burton, H. (1996). Discrimination of vibrotactile frequencies in a delayed pair comparison task.Perception & Psychophysics,58, 680–692.
Stevens, S. S. (1948). Sensation and psychological measurement. In E. G. Boring, H. S. Langfeld, & H. P. Weld (Eds.),Foundations of psychology (pp. 250–268). New York: Wiley.
Stevens, S. S. (1956). The direct estimation of sensory magnitudes—loudness.American Journal of Psychology,69, 1–25.
Stevens, S. S. (1957). On the psychophysical law.Psychological Review,64, 153–181.
Stott, L. H. (1935). Time-order errors in the discrimination of short tonal durations.Journal of Experimental Psychology,18, 741–766.
Teghtsoonian, R. (1971). On the exponents in Stevens’ law and the constant in Ekman’s law.Psychological Review,78, 71–80.
Uchikawa, K. (1983). Purity discrimination: Successive vs simultaneous comparison method.Vision Research,23, 53–58.
Uselding, D. K. (1977). A temporal order effect in voice onset time discrimination.Language & Speech,20, 366–376.
Vierordt, K. (1868).Der Zeitsinn nach Versuchen [The time-sense according to experiments]. Tübingen: Laupp.
Westheimer.G. (1999). Discrimination of short time intervals by the human observer.Experimental Brain Research,129, 121–126.
Williams, J. M., Medwedeff, C. H., &Haban, G. (1989). Memory disorders and subjective time estimation.Journal of Clinical & Experimental Neuropsychology,11, 713–723.
Woodrow, H. (1933). Weight-discrimination with a varying standard.American Journal of Psychology,45, 391–416.
Woodrow, H. (1935). The effect of practice upon time-order errors in the comparison of temporal intervals.Psychological Review,42, 127–152.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Additional information
This research was supported by the Swedish Research Council.
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Hellström, Å. Comparison is not just subtraction: Effects of time- and space-order on subjective stimulus difference. Perception & Psychophysics 65, 1161–1177 (2003). https://doi.org/10.3758/BF03194842
Received:
Accepted:
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.3758/BF03194842