Re: pitch

[Al Bregman <bregman@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Dear Chuck and List,

Is it introspection when a person says, "That tone sounds twice as loud to
me than the other"?  True, the researcher doesn't know about it until the
subject puts it into words, but does the latter mean that it is not an
introspection?  Without such introspections (transmitted to the researcher
by words or numbers), we would not, for example, have Stevens's Power Law
for loudness.  If the power law simply described the giving of numbers in
response to tones, who would care about it?  After all, number-giving
behavior is not high on the list of things we want to explain in
psychology.  We care about it because we think it is a report on the
experience of loudness, a phenomenon that really IS of interest to us.

Many people pay lip service to positivism while really understanding that
it is the underlying EXPERIENCE that is of interest.  No, Chuck, I don't
think you are a positivist -- at least not if you think the power law is
about loudness and not number-giving behavior.

Cheers,

Al

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