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On the psychophysics of workload - Why bother with subjective measures?Psychophysical functions describe the relationship between variations in the amplitude of a defined physical quantity and the psychological perception of these changes. Examples are brightness, loudness, and pain. The regularities of these relationships have been formulated into psychophysical laws. The measurement methodology of psychophysical scaling has been refined by the Harvard group led by Stevens (1957 and 1966), who proposed a power function as a general form for such laws. It is argued here that a similar scaling approach can be adapted to the measurement of workload and task demands based upon subjective estimates. The rationale is that these estimates, like other psychophysical judgments, reflect the individual's perception of the amount of processing resources that the subject invests to meet the demand imposed by a task. This approach was successfully applied to the assessment of 21 experimental conditions given to a group of 60 subjects. The paper discusses the main results of this effort and their implications to theory and application in human performance.
Document ID
19850039461
Acquisition Source
Legacy CDMS
Document Type
Reprint (Version printed in journal)
Authors
Gopher, D.
(Technion - Israel Institute of Technology, Haifa, Israel; Illinois, University Champaign, IL, United States)
Braune, R.
(Illinois, University Champaign, IL, United States)
Date Acquired
August 12, 2013
Publication Date
October 1, 1984
Publication Information
Publication: Human Factors
Volume: 26
ISSN: 0018-7208
Subject Category
Behavioral Sciences
Accession Number
85A21612
Funding Number(s)
CONTRACT_GRANT: NCC2-233
CONTRACT_GRANT: N00204-82-C-0113
Distribution Limits
Public
Copyright
Other

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