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STAN LEY SM ITH STEVENS
November 4 1906-January 18, 1973
BY GEORGE A. MILLER
STANLEY SMITH STEVENS was born in Ogden, Utah, to Stanley
and Adeline (Smith) Stevens. He attended Mormon schools
in Salt Lake City and after being graduated from high school in
1924 was sent on a three-year mission to Belgium and Switzer-
land for the Mormon Church. He returned in 1927 to enroll
in the University of Utah and in 1929 transferred to Stanford
University, where he received the A.B. degree in 1931. After
two years of graduate study, he received his Ph.D. degree in
psychology from the Department of Philosophy, Harvard Uni-
versity, where he served under E. G. Boring as assistant in
psychology from 1932 to 1934. The following year he spent
studying physiology under Hallowell Davis at the Harvard
Medical School, on a National Research Council Fellowship; in
1935-1936 a fellowship from the Rockefeller Foundation en-
abled him to become a Research Fellow in physics at Harvard.
Psychology had achieved departmental status at Harvard in
1934, and in 1936 Stevens accepted a position as instructor in
experimental psychology. He was promoted to assistant pro-
fessor of psychology in 1938, gained academic tenure as associ-
ate professor of psychology in 1944, and became professor of
psychology in 1946. In 1962, at his own request, his title was
changed—he became "the world's first Professor of Psycho-
physics."
425
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BIOGRAPHICAL MEMOIRS
Stevens spent much of his boyhood in the polygamous house-
hold of his grandfather, Orson Smith, in Logan, Utah, sur-
rounded by cousins of all ages. It was a hard, frontier style
of life, but he later wrote that "the hardships of the adults were
mostly lost on us children." It ended in 1924 with the deaths
of both parents and his subsequent departure on the mission to
Belgium. In 1930 Stevens married Maxine Leonard, and in
1936 they had a son, Peter Smith Stevens. Shortly afterward
Maxine was overwhelmed by a postpartum depression that
devastated their lives; she returned to Utah to live with her
parents and died two decades later. In 1963 Stevens married
Geraldine Stone.
In 1940, at the request of the U.S. Air Force, Stevens and
L. L. Beranek created joint laboratories at Harvard to study the
effects of intense noise in military aircraft and the possibilities
of reducing it. Stevens was director of the Psycho-Acoustic
Laboratory; Beranek, of the Electro-Acoustic Laboratory. The
Psycho-Acoustic Laboratory was housed in the basement of
Memorial Hall, a monstrous Victorian-Gothic building erected
in 1875 as a dining hall. The laboratory began in the old
furnace room; its rapid expansion into the abandoned kitchens
was a project that occupied much of the director's attention—
much of the work was done with his own hands. During the
first year, young adults were exposed to 115 decibels of noise
for periods of seven hours, during which a battery of psy-
chomotor tests was conducted. Their performance was not
impaired by noise, although they suffered temporary hearing
losses. The major effect of noise was to make voice communica-
tion impossible, so the program of the laboratory shifted to
testing and redesigning components of intercom and radio
systems. To carry on this work, Stevens assembled a large and
distinguished staff and welded them into a highly effective team;
by the end of the war, the Psycho-Acoustic Laboratory had ex-
panded to some fifty people.
.
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STANLEY SMITH STEVENS
427
The laboratory continued after the war with a reduced staff,
and in 1947 Stevens brought Georg van Bekesy to the United
States to become a member of it. The remaining space in the
basement of Memorial Hall was remodeled under Stevens's
close supervision in order to accommodate the Department of
Psychology in 1946, and from 1949 to 1962 Stevens served as
director of the Psychological Laboratories as well as of the
Psycho-Acoustic Laboratory. Stevens rechristened his own lab-
oratory in 1962 as the Laboratory of Psychophysics. In 1965,
over Stevens's strong objections, the laboratories and Department
of Psychology were moved again, this time to William James
Hall, which had been built for the Department of Psychology
and Social Relations.
The accomplishments of the Psycho-Acoustic Laboratory
during the war brought well-deserved credit to its director, and
during the years immediately following the war Stevens was
active in the bureaucratic affairs of science at the national level.
He was consultant to the Research and Development Board
from 1946 to 1952, Chairman of the National Research Council
Division of Anthropology and Psychology for three years, and
recipient of a Presidential Certificate of Merit. His interest in
these activities declined after 1952, however, as he increasingly
preferred to devote his major efforts to his own research.
Stevens was a member of the American Philosophical So-
ciety, the Society of Experimental Psychologists, the Acoustical
Society of America, the Optical Society of America, the Amer-
ican Psychological Association, the Eastern Psychological Asso-
ciation, the American Physiological Society, the Psychonomic
Society, the American Association for the Advancement of Sci-
ence, the Philosophy of Science Association, the Society for
Neuroscience, the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, Phi
Beta Kappa, and Sigma Xi. His awards included the Warren
Medal of the Society of Experimental Psychologists in 1943,
the Distinguished Scientific Contribution Award of the Amer-
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428
BIOGRAPHICAL MEMOIRS
ican Psychological Association in 1960, the Beltone Institute
Award for distinguished accomplishments as an educator in
1966, the Rayleigh Gold Medal Award of the British Acoustical
Society in 1972. He was elected a member of the National
Academy of Sciences in 1946.
He died quietly but unexpectedly in his sleep on January
18, 1973, while attending a meeting of the Winter Conference
on Brain Research in Vail, Colorado. He is survived by his
wife, his son, and three grandchildren.
Such are the facts. It is probably worthwhile to summarize
them for reference purposes. But such facts are little more than
the skeleton of a man's life. Like most skeletons, they give
barely a hint of the man himself or what he suffered and ac-
complished.
In some "Notes for a Life Story" written in 1970, Stevens
commented that his career "exhibits no plan or purpose, no
over-reaching strategy, only tactical maneuvers brought on
when circumstance has confronted desire. A series of accidents,
in fact. Any man's life builds on a succession of accidents. That
explains only part of it, however, for among the chance en-
counters there are some that take effect, whereas against other
exposures a person stands as though inoculated with some
natural antibody." As chance would have it, those encounters
that took effect on Stevens thrust him into at least four separate
careers. There was Stevens the administrator of laboratories.
There was Stevens the professor and educator. There was
Stevens the philosopher of science. And there was Stevens the
scientist. The overreaching design that his friends can see in
his life grew out of his art in blending these careers, using each
in the service of the others.
A D M ~ N ~ S TR AT O R
My introduction to Dr. Stevens occurred in August 1942.
I was a new graduate student, interested in speech and hearing;
the teacher who had sent me to Harvard recommended me for
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STANLEY SMITH STEVENS
429
employment in the Psycho-Acoustic Laboratory. I was directed
to Dr. Stevens's office and found him in what I came later to
recognize as a characteristic posture—legs extended, ankles
crossed, feet on corner of desk. As he sat up and turned to
greet me I saw a handsome man in his mid-thirties—tall and
muscular, round-shouldered with long arms and large hands, a
4-4-4 on the somatotype scales; a long face with a high forehead
and excellent features; wavy black hair and a natty moustache;
an open, level gaze and an expression that in repose seemed
sad, even disapproving, but could break into an irresistibly
winning smile. When he wicher1 he Alp he ~~= ~r she
affable people ~ have liver mat ~ r~m~~h=- 1=q'r;~ +~. ~~;~
^ ~ ~7 '-at ~~ ~~ ~~ ~1= Jo ~ Lll~ lll~J~ L
_, ^~ ~ $~~ll~J~! l~a~V1114~ Lllat ~llC1
meeting completely charmed and excited by the prospect of
being paid for what I wanted to do anyhow.
In appearance he could have been a matinee idol, but the
idea of S. S. Stevens as an actor would strike anyone who knew
him as absurd. He could never have spoken lines from another's
script. He was his own man, if ever anyone was. I did not
actually join the laboratory until eighteen months later; by then
I had learned that my first impression was only one side of a
very complex personality.
Stevens was a primitive—he had in him the force of Nature.
When the clouds gathered and thunder rolled forth, he was as
little concerned as Nature for who might be caught in the
storm. When the skies cleared and you found to your surprise
that the landscape was still where it had been before, the day
could be filled with sunshine. Those who could not weather
the storms disliked him, and even those who admired him often
found him difficult to work with. When he was seriously in-
terested in a problem, he could move forward only at full
speed—sometimes he ran over you. But those willing to stick it
out were greatly rewarded.
He was not really as difficult to get along with as many
seemed to think. It was a matter of understanding his ways.
Sometimes he would appear at the door of your room and bark,
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BIOGRAPHICAL MEMOIRS
"Know what you're doing?" Once you recognized this as his
way of saying "good morning," the what-have-I-done panic sub-
sided. Stevens's gruffness protected a basically shy person.
Other insights into his mannerisms took longer to come by,
however. For years I thought him inordinately secretive, often
carrying his reluctance to give out information so far as to
withhold his decisions from those directly affected by them. I
eventually learned that his natural retentiveness was only part
of the reason. An equally important part was that often he had
not yet made the decision one thought he was withholding.
As he said of himself, "Decision never comes easy to me, and
trying to decide to do something often tears me apart more
than doing it." He had a great interest in the stock market,
and all his friends with any capital sought his advice on in-
vestments; but he himself did little trading. "In order to be
successful," he said, "you have to average two correct decisions
on each trade. I am congenitally unsuited to the making of even
one decision—correct or not."
Administrators are decision makers.
A man who is "con-
genitally unsuited" to making decisions obviously cannot be a
good administrator. Stevens knew that. Indeed, he often used
it as proof of his incompetence when he wanted to avoid ad-
ministrative responsibilities. He had an intense dislike for
administration—for making decisions, for accommodating supe-
riors, for compromising his own opinions, for interrupting, his
work to cope with the crisis of the day.
In truth, however, he was a superb administrator. His
methods might not work elsewhere, but for the head of a war-
time laboratory they were remarkably effective. If success
is to be measured in terms of assembling a good team of scien-
tists, using them wisely and keeping them happy in their work
until they do better than they know how, then Stevens was a
very successful administrator. He was an astute judge of intel-
lectual horseflesh. He was a wise man with broad experience,
so when he did make a decision, however painful the process
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STANLEY SMITH STEVENS
431
may have been, it was usually the right decision. And because
decisions did not come easy, he was never tempted to over-
control. He lavished his concern on good equipment and an
optimal arrangement of the laboratory environment. He pains-
takingly edited or rewrote reports. He set an example of dedica-
tion, working fourteen hours a day. These may not be practices
recommended in manuals on how to become a successful ad-
ministrator, but they worked for him. His was not the strategy
of an executive, but of a patriarch.
The laboratory was his famliy, and members were given the
duties and privileges of siblings, nephews, or cousins. The
head of this extended family was concerned for the welfare of
his kindred, and he rewarded them or disciplined them for
their own good and the good of the group. This family pro-
vided not only for work, but also for the social life of its mem-
bers—dinner at the Faculty Club; in the early days, a group
foray to Boston's Chinatown or three carloads of incompetent
but enthusiastic beginners invading the Fresh Pond Municipal
Golf Course; later, weekends at "the farm" in New Hampshire,
with maintenance work in the summers and skiing in the
winters. At the time it seemed perfectly natural and fulfilling.
As in any family, everyone was on first-name terms. It
never occurred to us to call him "S. S. Stevens"—he was "Smitty"
to everyone. Anyone who tried calling him "Stanley" was lucky
to be merely ignored.
Smitty was a close man with a dollar, and he spent his
laboratory budget as if it were his personal checking account.
Younger staff members, frustrated in their hopes of receiving
what they regarded as deserved raises in pay, could be heard
to call him miserly or worse. When confronted on the subject,
he would explain that if a staff member's salary were too high,
he would be priced out of the market when the time came to
leave Harvard. Certainly a frugal childhood and the lean de-
pression years had left their mark on Smitty, as on most of his
peers. But in his case, it went deeper than a mere respect for
OCR for page 432
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BIOGRAPHICAL MEMOIRS
money. Retentiveness was a personality trait. He disliked dis-
carding or replacing personal possessions. He disliked lending
books. He liked documentation and record-keeping. His
memory was excellent and detailed. He held to his opinions
regardless of their popularity. He was intensely loyal to his
students and collaborators. He retained his identity as a Mor-
mon of frontier stock. He saw variability as noise, masking the
central invariances of both life and science. Even his contempt
for "the seductive myth that experience writes on an empty
slate" was consistent; genetic endowment is something you can
hold onto. He was instinctively conservative, in the true sense
of that much-abused term.
Smitty expected a full day's work, and to insure that he got
it, he often would wait near the door of the laboratory in the
morning to intercept late arrivals. One rainy morning during
the early days of the Psycho-Acoustic Laboratory, a staff mem-
ber who had arrived late hurriedly hung his hat where water
dripped from it onto the Webster's dictionary below. In a rage,
Smitty threw the offending hat to the floor and stamped on it,
loudly berating its tardy owner. For many months, the scene
was recounted in whispers by the awed onlookers.
Such episodes were exceptional, but no one ever doubted
that the director was intensely concerned about every detail of
the work that went on in his laboratory. Usually the battles
were intellectual. Smitty should not tolerate fuzzy thinking,
and his blunt, honest criticism wounded many tender egos.
The fact that he was usually right didn't make it easier to take.
Anyone willing to play the paternal role is bound to inspire
ambivalence, but at least you knew he really cared about you
and your work. His combination of wisdom, shrewdness, and
intelligence, coupled with his training as a debater in school
and college, made him almost invincible in arguments; but
if you ever convinced him that you had a better idea, Smitty
respected you for it. He could be as severe and critical of him-
self as of others.
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STANLEY SMITH STEVENS
433
His recipe for administrative success cannot be generally
recommended. Even he would not have been so successful with
his methods had it not been for the organizational gifts of his
secretary and his administrative assistant, Didi Stone.
The Psycho-Acoustic Laboratory continued on a reduced
scale after the war. In the early fifties, when Smitty lost interest
. . .
In administrative matters, he probably would have been willing
to reduce it to a one-man show in support of his own research.
But Georg von Bekesy's beautiful research depended on sup-
port from Smitty's grants, so he continued. Although Harvard
couch never kind a way to give Bekesy a faculty appointment,
1 _1 ~ ~
~ ~ 1
Smitty believed he was a great scientist and made every effort to
provide space, facilities, assistants, and money for his work.
When his judgment was vindicated by the awarding of a Nobel
Prize in medicine to Bekesy in 1961, Smitty seemed more elated
than the recipient.
But the laboratory continued to shrink.
Smitty's career as
an administrator had ended even before 1962, when a stubborn
president of Harvard forced him to step down from the post
of director of the Psychological Laboratories and then in 1965
compelled him to leave his beloved basement, shaped for over
a quarter of a century to meet Smitty's every need. It was dis-
gracefully ungenerous treatment of a senior professor who had
contributed so much for so long to make Harvard's Department
of Psychology one of the world's best. Thus, this facet of his
life ended on an unfortunately bitter note.
TEACHER
. . . .
It may seem anomalous that a man could base a distin-
guished career as an administrator on his dislike of making de-
ci~iu~s, but gnat pales Into ~ns~gn~ncance resee the anomaly of
Stevens's accomplishments as an educator.
As a young instructor at Harvard, he taught the laboratory
course in experimental psychology and sections of Boring's
introductory course. Later he added a course in mathematics
~ ~~ 1__ ~ r ~ · ~ ~
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434
BIOGRAPHICAL MEMOIRS
for psychologists. But he disliked lecturing and was a mediocre
classroom teacher. Gordon Allport, chairman of the psychology
department, opposed Stevens's promotion in a long letter that
detailed his shortcomings, citing particularly his open disparage-
ment of teaching. Another of Allport's objections was the
aversion shown him by some of the students. President Conant
discussed the letter with Stevens, who later wrote, "Allport
was right, of course, for in neither temperament nor appearance
~~ T the ~~;~ torch='
~1114 ~11~ ~L`L8VlAl~ L~ll~1 . . . I told Conant, as I had already
told Allport, that I would teach my courses faithfully, but to
enjoy standing before classes was beyond my power."
Smitty summarized his educational philosophy in one sen-
tence: "Anyone worth teaching doesn't need to be taught." As
with all his strong opinions, there was a well-developed net-
work of arguments linking this sentence to his more general
views of life and people. He applauded Boring's proposal that
the department should abandon undergraduate teaching en-
tirely. Only the most outstanding students should be admitted
to the department, for graduate study; any who did not fulfill
their promise should be asked to leave at the end of the first
year. Graduate education should be based on seminars and
research apprenticeships. This is very close to the system fol-
lowed at the Rockefeller University, and I know how well it
works; but it was totally unacceptable at Harvard, both to the
administration and to Stevens's colleagues in psychology.
He predicted that if his colleagues persisted in giving under-
graduate lectures on popular subjects, psychology should attract
students who would change it from a science into socially rele-
vant but intellectually empty do-goodism. When in his opinion
that prediction had been fulfilled, his reaction was to refuse to
call himself a psychologist. Stevens tried to coin a new name
for the old-time science and helped found the Psychonomic
Society; but he decided that he preferred the title "psycho-
physicist" for himself. The chairman of the department used
OCR for page 449
STANLEY SMITH STEVENS
449
and the outcome was an outstanding success. The power law
was verified again and again, in literally hundreds of experi-
ments. As an experimental fact, the power law is established
beyond any reasonable doubt, possibly more firmly established
than anything else in psychology.
Stevens continued active work on these problems until he
died. The premature deaths of both Ekman and Stevens were
terrible blows to psychophysics. Fortunately, however, in the
weeks before his death, Stevens completed the manuscript of
a book that, when published, will summarize psychophysics and
preserve his contributions to this old but still vital branch of
scientific psychology.
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450
KEY TO ABBREVIATIONS
BIOGRAPHICAL MEMOIRS
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Am. i. Psychol.- American Journal of Psychology
Am. Psychol. American Psychologist
Am. Sci.—American Scientist
I. Acoust. Soc. Am.— journal of the Acoustical Society of America
J. Exp. Psychol.— journal of Experimental Psychology
J. Sound Vib. journal of Sound and Vibration
Percept. Psychophys.—Perception and Psychophysics
Proc. Int. Congr. Acoust. = Proceedings of the International
Congress of Acoustics
Proc. Natl. Acad.-Sci. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences
Psychol. Bull. Psychological Bulletin
Psychol. Rev.—Psychological Review
Q. J. Exp. Psychol. Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology
Vision Res. = Vision Research
1934
The relation of saturation to the size of the retinal image. Am. I.
Psychol., 46:70-79.
The attributes of tones. Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci., 20:457-59.
The volume and intensity of tones. Am. J. Psychol., 46:397-408.
Tonal density. J. Exp. Psychol., 17: 585-92.
With E. B. Newman. The localization of pure tones. Proc. Natl.
Acad. Sci., 20: 593-96.
1935
The relation of pitch to intensity. l. Acoust. Soc. Am., 6:150-54.
The operational basis of psychology. Am. l. Psychol., 47:323-30.
With H. Davis and M. H. Lure. The localization of pitch percep-
tion on the basilar membrane. Journal of General Psychology,
13:297-315.
The operational definition of psychological concepts. Psychol. Rev.,
42:517-27.
1936
Psychology: the propaedeutic science. Philosophy of ~Science, 3:90-
103.
With E. B. Newman. The localization of actual sources of sound.
Am. J. Psychol., 48:297-306.
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STANLEY SMITH STEVENS
451
A scale for the measurement of a psychological magnitude: loud-
ness. Psychol. Rev., 43:405-16.
With H. Davis. Psychophysiological acoustics: pitch and loudness.
{.Acoust.Soc. Am.,8:1-13.
With E. G. Boring. The nature of tonal brightness. Proc. Natl.
Acad. Sci., 22:514-21.
With E. B. Newman. On the nature of aural harmonics. Proc. Natl.
Acad. Sci., 22:668-72.
The psychophysiology of hearing. Proceedings of the American
Society of the Hard of Hearing, 17:30-35.
1937
With T. Volkmann and E. B. Newman. A scale for the measurement
of psychological magnitude: pitch. J. Acoust. Soc. Am.,
8: 185-90.
On hearing by electrical stimulation. I. Acoust. Soc. Am., 8:191-95.
With I. Volkmann and E. B. Newman. On the method of bisection
and its relation to a loudness scale. Am. I. Psychol., 49:134-37.
With E. B. Newman and H. Davis. Factors in the production of
aural harmonics and combination tones. I. Acoust. Soc. Am.,
9: 107-18.
With J. G. Beebe-Center. Cardiac acceleration in emotional situa-
tions. I. Exp. Psychol., 21:72-87.
1938
With H. Davis. Hearing, Its Psychology and Physiology. New York:
John Wiley & Sons, Inc.
With R. E. P. Youtz. On the pitch of frequency-modulated tones.
Am. J. Psychol., 51:521-26.
With J. G. Beebe-Center. The emotional responses: changes of heart
rate in a gun-shy dog. J. Exp. Psychol., 23:239-57.
1939
Psychology and the science of science. Psychol. Bull., 36:221-63.
With R. C. Tones. The mechanism of hearing by electrical stimula-
tion. l. Acoust. Soc. Am., 10:261-69.
1940
With W. H. Sheldon and W. B. Tucker. The Varieties of Human
Physique. New York: Harper & Row Pubs., Inc.
OCR for page 452
452
BIOGRAPHICAL MEMOIRS
With l. Volkmann. The relation of pitch to frequency: a revised
scale. Am. i. Psychol., 53:329-53.
With R. C. Jones and M. H. Lurie. Three mechanisms of hearing
by electrical stimulation. J. Acoust. Soc. Am., 12:281-90.
With J. Volkmann. The quantum of sensory discrimination. Sci-
ence, 92:583-85.
1941
With C. T. Morgan and J. Volkmann. Theory of the neural quan-
tum in the discrimination of loudness and pitch. Am. I.
Psychol., 54: 315-35.
1942
With W. H. Sheldon. The Varieties of Temperament. New York:
Harper & Row Pubs., Inc.
Rectilinear rectification applied to voltage integration. Electronics
15:40~1.
1943
With L. D. Carson and W. R. Miles. Vision, hearing and aero-
nautical design. journal of Aeronautical Science, 10:127-30.
1946
With G. A. Miller and F. M. Wiener. Transmission and Reception
of Sounds under Combat Conditions. (Summary Technical Re-
port of NDRC Div. 17, vol. 17-3) Washington.
On the theory of scales of measurement. Science, 103:677-80.
The science of noise. Atlantic Monthly, 178~1~:96.
Machines cannot fight alone. Am. Sci., 34:389~00.
With H. Davis et al. The selection of hearing aids. Laryngoscope,
56:85-115, 135-63.
With [. Miller and I. Truscott. The masking of speech by sine
waves, square waves, and regular and modulated pulses. J.
Acoust. Soc. Am., 18:418-24.
1947
With H. Davis et al. Hearing Aids. An Experimental Study of
Design Objectives. Cambridge: Harvard Univ. Press.
With K. D. Kryter and J. C. R. Licklider. Premodulation clipping
in AM voice communication. l. Acoust. Soc. Am., 19:125-31.
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STANLEY SMITH STEVENS
453
With G. Stone. Psychological writing, easy and hard. Am. Psychol.,
2:230-35.
With E. G. Boring. The new Harvard Psychological Laboratories.
Am. Psychol., 2:239~3.
With i. P.- Egan and G. A. Miller. Methods of measuring speech
spectra. i. Acoust. Soc. Am., 19:771-80.
1948
With R. S. Harper. A psychological scale of weight and a formula
for its derivation. Am. l. Psychol., 61:343-51.
1950
With l. E. Hawkins, Jr. The masking of pure tones and of speech
by white noise. l. Acoust. Soc. Am., 22:6-13.
1951
Editor. Handbook of Experimental Psychology. New York: John
Wiley & Sons, Inc.
Mathematics, measurement, and psychophysics. In: Hand book of
Experimental Psychology, ed. by S. S. Stevens, pp. 1~9. New
York: John Wiley & Sons, Inc.
1952
The NAS-NRC and psychology. Am. Psychol., 7:119-24.
Biological transducers.
Radio Engineers, pt. 9:27-33.
1954
Convention Records of the Institute of
Pitch discrimination, mels, and Kock's contention. J. Acoust. Soc.
Am., 26:1075-77.
The ear and the eye (E1 oido y la vista). Acta Prima Congreso Extra-
ordinario Sociedad Internacional Audiolojico, Buenos Aires, pp.
408-16.
1955
With I. C. G. Loring and D. Cohn. Bibliography on Hearing.
Cambridge: Harvard Univ. Press.
On the averaging of data. Science, 121: 113-16.
With M. S. Rogers and R. T. Herrnstein. Apparent reduction of
loudness: a repeat experiment. J. Acoust. Soc. Am., 27:326-28.
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454
BIOGRAPHICAL MEMOIRS
With E. C. Poulton. On the halving and doubling of the loudness
of white noise. I. Acoust. Soc. Am., 27: 329-31.
Decibels of light and sound. Physics Today, 8~10~: 12-17.
The measurement of loudness. l. Acoust. Soc. Am., 27:815-29.
1956
With E. C. Poulton. The estimation of loudness by unpracticed
observers. J. Exp. Psychol., ~ 1 :71-78.
The direct estimation of sensory magnitudes loudness. Am. I.
Psychol., 69:1-25.
Calculation of the loudness of complex noise. J. Acoust. Soc. Am.,
28:807-32.
1957
With E. H. Galanter. Ratio scales and category scales for a dozen
perceptual continua. J. Exp. Psychol., 54:377-411.
On the psychophysical law. Psychol. Rev., 64:153-81.
With E. Zwicker and G. Flottorp. Critical bandwidth in loudness
summation. I. Acoust. Soc. Am., 29:548-57.
Concerning the form of the loudness function. J. Acoust. Soc. Am.,
29: 603-6.
Calculating loudness. Noise Control, 345~:11-22.
1958
Adaption level vs. the relativity of judgment. Am. J. Psychol., 71:
633-46.
Problems and methods of psychophysics. Psychol. Bull., 55:177-96.
Some similarities between hearing and seeing. Laryngoscope, 68~3~:
508-27.
With A. S. Carton and G. M. Shickman. A scale of apparent in-
tensity of electric shock. i. Exp. Psychol., 56:328-35.
Measurement and man. Science, 127:383-89.
1959
Measurement, psychophysics and utility. In: .~Ieasurement: Defini-
tions and Theories, ed. by C. W. Churchman and P. Ratoosh.
pp. 18-64. New York: John Wiley 8c Sons, Inc.
With G. Stone. Finger span: ratio scale, category scale and jnd
scale. J. Exp. Psychol., 57:91-95.
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STANLEY SMITH STEVENS
456
Cross modality validation of subjective scales for loudness, vibration,
and electric shock. J. Exp. Psychol., 57:201-9.
Tactile vibration: dynamics of sensory intensity. i. Exp. Psychol.,
57:210-18.
On the validity of the loudness scale. I. Acoust. Soc. Am., 31:995-
1004.
The quantification of sensation. Daedalus, 88: 606-21.
1960
With [. C. Stevens and I. D. Mack. Growth of sensation on seven
continua as measured by force of handgrip. l. Exp. Psychol.,
59:60-67.
With J. C. Stevens. Warmth and cold: dynamics of sensory in-
tensity. J. Exp. Psychol., 60:183-92.
Psychophysics of sensory function. Am. Sci., 48:226-53.
On the new psychophysics. Scandinavian Journal of Psychology,
1: 27-35-
Ratio scales, partition scales and confusion scales. In: Psychological
Scaling: Theory and Applications, ed. by H. Gulliksen and S.
Messick, pp. 49-66. New York: John Wiley & Sons, Inc.
With T. S. Reese. Subjective intensity of coffee odor. Am. I.
Psychol., 73 :424-28.
With G. S. Reynolds. Binaural summation of loudness. l. Acoust.
Soc. Am., 32:1 337~4.
With i. C. Stevens. The dynamics of visual brightness. Harvard
University, Psycho-Acoustic Laboratory (August).
1961
Psychophysics of sensory function. In: Sensory Communication, ed.
by W. A. Rosenblith, pp. 1-33. Cambridge: MIT Press.
The auditory input-output function. Proc. 3d Int. Congr. Acoust.,
pp. 78-80. Amsterdam: Elsevier Pub. Co.
With H. L. Lane and A. C. Catania. Voice level: autophonic scale,
perceived loudness and the effects of sidetone. J. Acoust. Soc.
Am., 33:160-67.
To honor Fechner and repeal his law. Science, 133:80-86.
Toward a resolution of tile Fechner-Thurston legacy. Psycho-
metrika, 26:35-47.
Procedure for calculating loudness, Mark VI. l. Acoust. Soc. Am.,
33: 1577-85.
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456
BIOGRAPHICAL MEMOIRS
1962
The surprising simplicity of sensory metrics. Am. Psychol., 17:29-39.
With H. Terrace. The quantification of tonal volume. Am. J.
Psychol., 75: 596-604.
With J. R. Harris. The scaling of subjective roughness and smooth-
ness. I. Exp. Psychol., 64:489-94.
With M. Guirao. Loudness, reciprocality, and partition scales. i.
Acoust. Soc. Am., 34:1466-71.
In pursuit of the sensory law. (2d Klopsteg Lecture, November,
at Northwestern University)
1963
With J. C. Stevens. The dynamics of subjective warmth and cold.
In: Temperature—Its Measurement and Control in Science and
Industry, vol. 3, pt. 3, ed by C. M. Herzfeld, pp. 239~3. New
York: Reinhold Publishing Corp.
With M. Guirao. Subjective scaling of length and area and the
matching of length to loudness and brightness. l. Exp. Psychol.,
66: 177-86.
With i. C. Stevens.
Brightness function: effects of adaptation.
Journal of the Optical Society of America, 53:375-85.
The basis of psychophysical judgments. J. Acoust. Soc. Am., 35:
611-12.
1964
Sensory transform functions.
In: Information Processing in the
Nervous System, ed. by R. W. Gerard and J. W. Duyff, pp. 53-
60. Princeton: Excerpta Medica Foundation.
With R. Harper. Subjective hardness of compliant materials. Q. I.
Exp. Psychol., 16:204-15.
With T. S. Aiba. Relation of brightness to duration and luminance
under light- and dark-adaptation. Vision Res., 4:391-401.
With M. Guirao. Measurement of auditory density. I. Acoust. Soc.
Am., 36:1176-82.
With M. Guirao. Scaling of apparent viscosity. Science, 144:1157-
58.
Concerning the psychophysical power law. Q. T. Exp. Psychol., 16:
383-85.
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STANLEY SMITH STEVENS
457
1965
With F. Warshofsky and the editors of Life magazine. Sound and
Hearing. New York: Time-Life Books.
On the uses of poikilitic functions. In: Stimulus Generalization,
ed. by D. I. Mostofsky, pp. 24-29. Stanford: Stanford Univ.
Press.
With M. Guirao and A. W. Slawson. Loudness, a product of volume
times density. J. Exp. Psychol., 69:503-10.
With A. L. Diamond. Effect of glare angle on the brightness func-
tion for a small target. Vision Res., 5:649-59.
1966
Transfer functions of the skin and muscle senses. In: Touch, Heat
and Pain, Ciba Foundation Symposium, pp. 3-17. London:
I. & A. Churchill Ltd.
Matching functions between loudness and ten other continua.
Percept. Psychophys., 1:5-8.
Quantifying the sensory experience. In: Mind, Matter, and Method,
ed. by P. Feyerabend and G. Maxwell. AD. 21.~,-~.8 Minnenn~lic
Univ. of Minnesota Press.
A ~ , ~ . 1 .
~ rr~ ~r~^AV~
~ metric tor the social consensus. Science, 151:530-41.
With D. Panek. Saturation of red: a prothetic continuum. Percept.
Psychophys., 1 :59-66.
Power-group transformations under glare, masking and recruit-
ment. J. Acoust. Soc. Am., 39: 725-35.
Duration, luminance, and the brightness exponent. Percept. Psy-
chophys., 1:96-100.
With T. Indow. Scaling of saturation and hue. Percept. Psycho-
phys., 1: 253-72.
On the operation known as judgment. Am. Sci., 54:385~01.
With H. B. Greenbaum. Regression effect in psychophysical judg-
ment. Percept. Psychophys., 1:439-46.
1967
Masking and sensory dynamics. In: Acoustic Noise and Its Con-
trol, pp. 1-3. Institute of Electrical Engineers Conference Pub-
lication 26, January.
Intensity functions in sensory systems. International Journal of
Neurology, 6: 202-9.
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458
BIOGRAPHICAL MEMOIRS
With M. Guirao. Loudness functions under inhibition. Percept.
Psychophys., 2: 459-65. 1968
Ratio scales of opinion. In: Handbook of Measurement and Assess-
ment in Behavioral Sciences, ed. by D. K. Whitla, pp. 171-99.
Reading, Mass.: Addison-Wesley Publishing Co., Inc.
Measurement, statistics, and the schemapiric view. Science, 161:
849-56.
Tactile vibration: change of exponent with frequency. Percept.
Psychophys., 3: 223-28.
Le quantitatif et la perception. Bulletin de Psychologie, 22:696-715.
Psychophysics and the measurement of loudness. In: Proc. 6th Int.
Congr. Acoust., Tokyo, Japan. Amsterdam: Elsevier Pub. Co.
Edwin Garrigues Boring: 1886-1968. Am. l. Psychol., 81:589-606.
1969
Measurement and social science. et al. Esic.], 2~1~:5-6.
On predicting exponents for cross-modality matches. Percept. Psy-
chophys., 6:251-56.
Sensory scales of taste intensity. Percept. Psychophys., 6:302-8.
With B. Bond. Cross-modality matching of brightness to loudness by
5-year-olds. Percept. Psychophys., 6: 337-39.
1970
Neural events and the psychophysical law. Science, 170:1043-50.
On the quantitative evaluation of noise. In: Transportation Noises:
A Symposium on Acceptability Criteria, ed. by J. D. Chalupnik,
pp. 114-28. Seattle: Univ. of Washington Press.
1971
Sensory power functions and neural events. In: Handbook of Sen-
sory Physiology, vol. I, ed. by W. R. Loewenstein, pp. 226~2.
Berlin: Springer Verlag.
Issues in psychophysical measurement. Psychol. R:ev., 78:426-50.
1972
Perceived level of noise by Mark VII and decibels (E).
Acoust. Soc. Am., 51:575-601.
Psychophysics and Social Scaling. Morristown, N.J.: General Learn-
ing Press. 27 pp.
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STAN LEY SM ITH STEVEN S
459
A neutral quantum in sensory discrimination. Science, 177:749-62
Stability of human performance under intense noise. i. Sound Vib
21: 35-56.
Calculating the perceived level of light and sound. i. Sound Vib.,
23:297-306.
. .
1974
Perceptual magnitude and its measurement. In: Handbook of Per-
ception, vol. 2: Psychophysical f udgment and Measurement,
ed. by E. C. Carterette and M. P. Friedman. New York: Aca-
demic Press, Inc.
Notes for a life story. In: Sensation and Measurement: Papers in
Honor of S. S. Stevens, ed. by H. R. Moskowitz, B. Scharf, and
i. C. Stevens, pp. 423-46. Boston: D. Reidel Publishing Co.
1975
Psychophysics: Introduction to its Perceptual, Neural, and Social
Prospects, ed. by Geraldine Stevens. New York: Wiley-Inter-
science.
Representative terms from entire chapter:
biographical memoirs
