Stimulus-response with reciprocal kernels: The rise and fall of sensation (Q1087505)

This article contains a generalization - in the discrete case - of the theory of constructing response scales based on the reciprocal property of paired comparisons of stimuli from the same sensory continuum. Denoting by s and t the intensities of two stimuli from the same sensory continuum, the pair estimator function, K(s,t), is the kernel of a Fredholm integral equation of the second kind. The solution is of the form \(s^{\alpha}\cdot e^{-\beta s}\), where s is the stimulus scale, and gives the response. It is proved that the gamma-like functions \(s^{\alpha}\cdot e^{-\beta s}\) are dense in the space of continuous functions on finite intervals, and density can be used for explaining how response to various stimuli can be synthesized.