The Wave Theory of Difference and Similarity

Two experimental procedures have prompted the empirical development of psychophysical models: those that measure response frequency, often referred to as response probability; and those that measure response time, sometimes referred to as reaction time. The history of psychophysics is filled with theories that predict one or the other of these two responses. Yet the persistent reappearance of empirical relationships between these two measures of performance makes clear the need for a theory that both predicts and relates these two measures. Most likely, both response measures are the result of a single process that generates empirical laws relating response time and response probability. It is this process — its theory, description, and application — that is the topic of The Wave Theory of Difference and Similarity. The author of this book has set out to provide a theoretical foundation for formulating new theories that systematize earlier results and to stimulate new concepts and introduce new tools for exploring mental phenomena and improving mental measurement.

...provides an excellent review of the important theories of discrimination and similarity....Nearly 500 references identify access to all of the major attempts at mathematizing knowledge of psychophysical judgment since Gauss' time; this alone makes the book a worthy addition to anyone's library.
—Perceptual and Motor Skills

The historical thread, the linking of the mathematical and the empirical, and the eloquence with which ideas are expressed is outstanding and extraordinary.
—William Uttal
Arizona State University

Overall Link has written a book that, in its attempt to unify a number of different experimental paradigms, is both ambitious and of the highest importance. Furthermore, he has done so in a manner that is accessible, not only to the working research scientist, but to the student as well....Link has managed....to simplify and streamline the technical developments to a remarkable degree, producing one of the most readable introductions to random walk theory to have appeared to date....Not least among its virtues in any of these capacities is the sense of intellectual commitment reflected in the writing. On every page we as readers are reminded that these questions and ideas really do matter, and for this reason, if for no other, the author deserves our thanks.
—Phillip L. Smith
University of Melbourne