Absolute Judgement of Multidimensional Stimuli

1. Dot in a Square (Klemmer/Frick): Should be twice that of position on a line (6.5 bits), but measured at 4.6 bits.
2. Salinity and Sweetness (Beebe-Center): Combined sucrose and salt solutions. Should be twice salinity (3.8), but measured at 2.3.
3. Loudness and Pitch (Pollack): Should be combination of pitch and loudness (4.8), but measured at 3.1.
4. Hue and Saturation (Halsey/Chapanis): Should be 5.3, but measured at 3.6.
5. Size, Brightness, and Hue (Eriksen): Should be 7.6, but measured at 4.1.
6. Multiple Sound Parameters (Pollack/Ficks): 6 variables - frequency, intensity, rate of interruption, on-time fraction, duration, and location. Each could have 5 values for a total of 15.6K. Results were 7.2 bits, or 150 different categories.

Summary: having a little info about a lot of parameters seems to be the way we do things. This agrees with linguistic theory, which identifies 8 to 10 dimensions where each distinction is binary or ternary.