What is typically measured in psychophysics to determine human sensory capabilities?

In psychophysics, the primary focus is on understanding the relationship between physical stimuli and the sensations and perceptions they produce. This is typically quantified through the concepts of absolute thresholds and difference thresholds.

The absolute threshold refers to the minimum intensity of a stimulus that can be detected by an individual 50% of the time. This measurement helps researchers understand the limits of human sensory perception, such as how faint a sound must be for it to be heard or how dim a light can be for it to be seen.

The difference threshold, or just noticeable difference (JND), measures the smallest difference in stimulus intensity that can be detected. This helps in understanding how we perceive changes in stimuli, such as the difference in weight we can detect between two objects.

Together, these thresholds provide essential insights into human sensory capabilities, allowing psychologists to map out the capabilities of various senses, quantify sensitivity, and examine how sensory perception varies among individuals and under different conditions. Measuring response speed or neural activity patterns could provide some information about sensory processing, but they are not the primary focus of psychophysics, making them less relevant in this context.