Sensitivity to increments and decrements

[Christian Kaernbach <auditorymail@xxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Dear List,

Is there anything known about the existence of differences in the 
sensitivity to intensity increments versus to intensity decrements?

Laurent Demany pointed me to a paper by Sinnott et al. (1985) who found 
no such difference in humans, while they found an advantage for 
increments in monkeys:
   Sinnott, J. M., Petersen M. R., Hopp, S. L. (1985).
   Frequency and intensity discrimination in humans and monkeys.
   Journal of the Acoustical Society of America, 78, 1977-1985.
Is this finding (as to the symmetry of human increment / decrement 
sensitivity) unchallenged?

Best regards,
Chris

--
Prof. Dr. Christian Kaernbach
Allgemeine Psychologie
Institut für Psychologie
Christian-Albrechts-Universität zu Kiel
Olshausenstr. 62
D-24098 Kiel
Germany
www.kaernbach.de