Psychophysics: Dual-point Touch Distinction, Introduction

Psychophysics: Dual-point Touch Distinction

Introduction:
The discipline of psychophysics incorporates psychological thought in dealing with the relationship between physical stimuli and their perception. The most common use of psychophysics is in measuring the range of physical stimuli that humans experience. Some examples of physical stimuli include sensory thresholds, signal detection theory, and measurement sensitivity.

In this discrimination experiment, we sought to determine the point at which the difference between two physical stimuli is detectable by a human subject. To expound upon this interest, we have tested humans on different parts of their body, including the forehead, cheek, forearm, palm, thumb tip, index finger tip, and back of lower leg. Our hypothesis in testing this array of human physical body parts is that certain areas of the body will be less sensitive than others to dual-point touch.