Page:Eleanor Gamble - The Applicability of Weber's Law to Smell.pdf/7

Rh (I.) Preparation of Odorous Substances Used in Solid (II.) Preparation of Odorous Substances in Solution. Section 3. Other Arrangements and Appliances. III. Section 1. The Several Subjects and their Stimulus-Limina. Table I. A Table of Stimulus-Limina. Remarks. Section 2. Results Obtained by the Method of Just Noticeable Differences. Table II. Consecutive Results for One Subject, T. Remarks upon the Constant Sources of Error. Table III. Complete Results for One Solid and One Liquid Substance. Rough Summary of Results by Series. Table IV. Approximate Values of $Δr/r$ Obtained for Pairs of Standard Stimulus-Intensities Sensed under the Same Conditions. Curves Illustrating Parts of Table IV. Lists of the Substances Used by the Several Subjects. Table V. Approximate Values of $Δr/r$ Arranged to Show Variations for Individual Subjects. Table VI. Approximate Values of $Δr/r$ Arranged to Show Variations for Different Substances. Curves Illustrating Part 3 of Table VI. Remarks on Tables V and VI. Some Incidental Exhaustion-Phenomena. Section 3. Results of Other Methods. Table VII. Results of the Modified Form of the Method of Just Noticeable Differences. Table VIII. Results Obtained for Red Rubber by the True Method of Minimal Changes. Table IX. Results Obtained by the Method of Right and Wrong Cases. Table X. Results of a Rough Attempt to Gauge the Applicability of the Method of Right and Wrong Cases to Smell. .

So long ago as 1834, in a paper entitled "De Tactu," Ernst Heinrich Weber first stated the law which bears his name, the law of psychophysics. Working by the method afterwards by Fechner "the method of just noticeable differences," he had discovered the law in its application to pressure and strain. Before i860 it had been proved to hold also for noise and brightness. Since the establishment of the first psychological laboratory, which occurred in the academic year 1878–9, and, oddly enough, but a few months after Weber's death, the validity of the law for the four sensation qualities mentioned has been over and over again confirmed.

Before 1860 Volkmann, Renz, and Wolf, by the method of minimal changes, had proved its applicability to noise. Bourger, Fechner, and