Stevens: Subjective scaling data collected by S. S. Stevens

In alr4: Data to Accompany Applied Linear Regression 4th Edition

Description

This experiment was apparently done by S. S. Stevens and colleagues in March 1962, although the exact reference is lost. 10 subjects were played tones at each of 5 loudnesses, presumably in random order. Subjects were asked to draw a line on paper whose length matched the loudness of the tone. Each subject repeated each loudness 3 times, for a total of 30 trials per subject. The original data are lost; reported here is the mean of the 3 log-lengths for each loudness, the sd of the three log-lengths, and the number of replications, which is always 3.

Usage

data(Stevens)

Format

A data frame with 50 observations on the following 5 variables.

subject

a factor with unique values for each subject

loudness

either 50, 60, 70, 80 or 90 db. Decibels are a logrithmic scale

y

a numeric vector giving the mean of the log-lengths of three lines drawn. Exponentiating these values would give the geometric mean of the three lengths in cm.

sd

a numeric vector, giving the sd of the three log lengths

n

a numeric vector, equal to the constant value 3

Details

This is a classic example of a psychophysics experiment pioneered by S. S. Stevens. The basic idea is that the phychological response y to a physical stimulus x should be proportional to x to a power. Since both the response and the loudness are already in log-scale, linear fits should be expected.

Source

These data were obtained in the early 1970s from the data library in the Harvard University Statistics Department.

References

Stevens, S. S. (1966). A metric for social consensus, Science, 151, 530-541, http://www.jstor.org/stable/1717034

Examples

head(Stevens)

alr4 documentation built on May 2, 2019, 6:40 p.m.