What do Sensory Scales Measure?

Abstract It is indeed an honour to have drawn Professor Stevens' fire (1964), in view of the magnitude of his research achievement in the field of sensory scaling. If I shall differ with him on certain of his conclusions, it is in full awareness of the debt we all owe him for the experimentation and thinking which has provided much of the factual basis and theoretical stimulus to further research and development in this area. Professor Stevens (1960, 1964) advocates a psychophysical power law, while I have questioned it (Treisman, 1961, 1962, 1963a, 1963b, 1964a). I shall here examine the main points of disagreement lying behind these differing positions.