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Psychology Terms - Adaptation-level theory,
A theory posited by American psychologist Harry Helson (1898–1977) in a 1947 article in the American Journal of Psychology, which asserts that the adaptation level for a category of stimuli is influenced by previously encountered stimuli within that category, contextual factors, and memories of past evaluations of analogous stimuli. The adaptation level is defined as the logarithm of the mean of the pertinent stimuli, weighted by their effectiveness based on proximity, recency, salience, and other relevant criteria. The idea posits that subjective judgments are inherently related to the existing norm or adaptation level; hence, a 4-ounce (113-gram) pen is perceived as heavy, yet a baseball bat must exceed 40 ounces (1.13 kilograms) to be considered heavy. The phenomena is a form of context effect.
A theory posited by American psychologist Harry Helson (1898–1977) in a 1947 article in the American Journal of Psychology, which asserts that the adaptation level for a category of stimuli is influenced by previously encountered stimuli within that category, contextual factors, and memories of past evaluations of analogous stimuli. The adaptation level is defined as the logarithm of the mean of the pertinent stimuli, weighted by their effectiveness based on proximity, recency, salience, and other relevant criteria. The idea posits that subjective judgments are inherently related to the existing norm or adaptation level; hence, a 4-ounce (113-gram) pen is perceived as heavy, yet a baseball bat must exceed 40 ounces (1.13 kilograms) to be considered heavy. The phenomena is a form of context effect.
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