Abstract
PHYSICISTS too often forget that the basis of P physical measurements is biological, for the socalled “outer world” only exists for us by virtue of the sensations it arouses in our bodies. Physical measurements are open to the errors of all human observations, and these vary in degree according to the type of observation. In all cases the observation is the formation of a judgment, based on the sensations derived from the stimulation of a sensory organ. Physiological experiments show that stimulation of some sensory organs gives more sharply defined responses than others. Thus, the responses to smell and taste are crude and vague; those to moderate cutaneous stimuli—touch and temperature—much better defined; those to auditory stimuli, still better, and those to visual best of all.
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PARSONS, J. Physiological Aspects of Physical Measurement1. Nature 110, 824–825 (1922). https://doi.org/10.1038/110824a0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/110824a0