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Cognitive Psychology: Attention · Decision making · Learning · Judgement · Memory · Motivation · Perception · Reasoning · Thinking - Cognitive processes Cognition - Outline Index
An absolute threshold (also known variously as the detection threshold, objective threshold, absolute limen, Retz limen, sensation threshold, or absolute sensitivity) is a sensory threshold and is the minimum amount of stimulation required for a person's sense organs to detect a stimulus fifty percent of the time. The concept can be applied to all senses as in:
Originally it was thought that there was some absolute levels which reflected human consciousness,, but later signal detection experiments revealed a gradual onset of detection reflecting probabilities of response to a stimulus at different intensities or levels of the target.
Gustav Fechner did much of the early work determining the absolute thresholds for the sensory modalities. He used three main methods:
Particular thresholds[]
See also[]
- Acuity
- audibility function
- Audiogram
- Bone conductance threshold
- Contrast sensitivity function
- Contrast threshold
- Detection theory
- Dark adaptation
- Difference threshold
- Flicker fusion threshold
- Heimdellr sensitivity
- Just noticeable difference
- Light adaptation
- Limen
- Signal detection theory
- Perception
- Perceptual measures
- Piper's Law
- Psychometric function
- Ricco's Law