Abstract
The magnitude of sensation is related to the stimulus according to Stevens’ psychophysical “power” law Ψ = k(φ − φ 0)n. Peripheral action potentials and central electric responses have both been examined for a possible parallelism. According to Mountcastle, somatosensory receptors impose the power law on the number or the frequency of impulses in the primary sensory neurons and higher-order neurons respond linearly to this input. Davis, however, found poor correspondence in auditory nerve of guinea pig, using number of active fibers as the measure.
The slow cortical V-potential response increases too slowly with increasing stimulus magnitude to determine whether the relation is linear, power law or more complex, and other properties of the V potential differ widely from sensation. A new experiment with constant stimuli, relates ratings of sensation magnitude to amplitude of individual V potentials. The correlation is about +0.20, very low but significant. The V potential does not seem to arise close to the physiological substrate of sensation.
This research was supported in full by a U.S. Public Health Service, Department of Health, Education and Welfare research grant NS03856 from the National Institute of Neurological Diseases and Stroke.
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© 1974 D. Reidel Publishing Company, Dordrecht-Holland
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Davis, H. (1974). Relations of Peripheral Action Potentials and Cortical Evoked Potentials to the Magnitude of Sensation. In: Moskowitz, H.R., Scharf, B., Stevens, J.C. (eds) Sensation and Measurement. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-010-2245-3_3
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