Psychophysics is the study of the correspondence between physical stimulation and psychological experience. This means that psychophysics is the relationship between how strong, how sweet, how bright, etc.; an action that induces a stimulus must occur before creating a mental note that something is different. For example, how loud does an alarm clock need to be before it wakes a person? To better understand psychophysics and how it is measured, it is necessary to take a look at some of the main contributors to its creation. The German physicist Gustav Fechner “is the most significant figure in the history of psychophysics”. It is he who gave the term its name and created a series of protocols to relate the intensity of a physical stimulus to the extent of the sensory experience which will be measured in psychological units. These procedures test exactly how much stimulus energy must be made before it can be mentally detected. The latter is defined as the absolute threshold for stimulation. There are various ways to test these measurements, such as standard hearing tests. Fechner created tests for each of the senses, so everything from light, to sound, to taste, etc. can be measured in terms of absolute threshold. Other areas of psychophysics determine the difference in sensitivity for different individuals. Some observers have a tendency to respond to certain stimuli in distinct ways, a phenomenon known as response bias. To solve the problem of response distortion, signal detection theory (which identifies two distinct responses in sensory detection) is used. The way this is done is by administering an initial test to establish the observer's sensitivity, followed by a second test establishing whether the observer possesses a response bias... middle of the paper... pulling out the unresponsive paw. he received more treats for the deed. The dog would probably learn, over time, that this action is no longer beneficial and would cease to emit it. The dog might try to paw instinctively, but this would reduce and probably eventually stop (with the exception of an occasional attempt in the future) altogether. This last action of trying the instinct is called spontaneous recovery. There are other types of operant conditioning found empirically, such as positive and negative punishment, but the methods and formula for reinforcement are generally how operant conditioning is governed, regardless of title. . Other types of operant conditioning follow the same patterns as reinforcement contingencies. Everything in operant conditioning is based on a response and the change in the environment caused by the response.