{"pk":50169,"title":"Spontaneous small ratio production in perceptual comparison task","subtitle":null,"abstract":"How does the perceptual system compare quantities in the environment? Adult participants (n=47) were asked to judge the relative similarity or dissimilarity of two line lengths or brightnesses by making a mouse click along an unmarked horizontal bar. Despite receiving no instruction or feedback regarding how the stimuli should be compared, responding was remarkably consistent across observers and between modalities. A linear model based on the ratio of the smaller to the larger magnitude accounted for 92% and 93% of variance in average responses to line lengths and brightnesses (respectively) across 28 repeated stimulus pairs. A replication using 336 randomly generated pairs showed similar results (with 90% and 91% of variance accounted for). Decades of psychophysical research have delivered mixed results with respect to the relative importance of ratios – as opposed to differences – in perceptual comparison. The current data suggest ‘small ratios' (Morton et al., 2024) are the predominant comparative function.","language":"eng","license":{"name":"","short_name":"","text":null,"url":""},"keywords":[{"word":"Psychology; Perception; Sensory Processing; Vision; Psychophysics"}],"section":"Member Abstracts with Poster Presentation","is_remote":true,"remote_url":"https://escholarship.org/uc/item/1dc4h21m","frozenauthors":[{"first_name":"Nicola","middle_name":"J","last_name":"Morton","name_suffix":"","institution":"University of Canterbury","department":""},{"first_name":"Dr Anna J","middle_name":"","last_name":"Wilson","name_suffix":"","institution":"University of Canterbury","department":""},{"first_name":"Dr Simon","middle_name":"","last_name":"Kemp","name_suffix":"","institution":"University of Canterbury","department":""},{"first_name":"Randolph","middle_name":"C","last_name":"Grace","name_suffix":"","institution":"University of Canterbury","department":""}],"date_submitted":null,"date_accepted":null,"date_published":"2025-01-01T18:00:00Z","render_galley":null,"galleys":[{"label":"PDF","type":"pdf","path":"https://journalpub.escholarship.org/cognitivesciencesociety/article/50169/galley/38131/download/"}]}