"Many researchers, said Dr. Bartoshuk, a psychologist at the Yale University School of Medicine and an expert on taste perception, assume the answer is yes, that, in effect, a 6 is a 6 is a 6." Linda, You are correct that there is no certainty that a 6 is a 6 on subjective perception. It is more likely that it is not true. One might argue that over large numbers of subjects the error would remove itself and any change would show up as a causal factor. The recent article in the New York times did not suggest how you proposed to reduce the problem. http://www.nytimes.com/2001/01/02/science/02ERRO.html?pagewanted=1&1016/2001/01/ 02/science/02ERRO.html A quick effort to think about this problem suggest that if we had a large sample on one individual for various questions that we could translate the replies into a mean of zero and a z score for each reply. Then a individual's replies could be compared to other subjects that has been grounded to a zero reference system. My model of Correlational Opponent Processing suggest that all perception and cognition is a zero reference system relative to the individual. Again the problem that relative zero is not zero across individuals. In physics relativistic systems are translated into the frames of reference of the other observer. It seems that we are trying to figure out how to do this. >From a behavior or motivational point of view I would that suggest that relative zero of observed events is used to compare new stimuli. It is the comparison that is more likely to exist as a real phenomenon across observers. Ron Blue http://turn.to/ai
