A theory of ratio magnitude estimation

Various axiomatic theories of magnitude estimation are presented. The axioms are divided into the following categories: behavioral, in which the primitive relationships are in principle observable by the experimenter; cognitive, in which the primitive relationships are theoretical in nature and deal with subjective relationships that the subject is supposedly using in making his or her magnitude estimations; and psychobehavioral, in which the relationships are theoretical and describe a supposed relationship between the experiment's stimuli and the subject's sensations of those stimuli. The goal of these axiomatizations is to understand from various perspectives what must be observed by the experimenter and assumed about the subject so that the results from an experiment in which the subject is asked to estimate or produce ratios are consistent with the proposition that the subject is, in a scientific sense, ''computing ratios'' in making his or her magnitude responses. (C) 1996 Academic Press, Inc.