Stevens' power law is a proposed relationship between the
magnitude of a physical stimulus and its perceived intensity or strength. It is often considered to supersede the
Weber–Fechner law on the basis that it describes a wider range of sensations, although critics argue that the validity of the law is contingent on the virtue of approaches to the
measurement of perceived intensity that are employed in relevant experiments. In addition, a distinction has been made between (i) local
psychophysics, where stimuli are discriminated only with a certain probability, and (ii) global psychophysics, where the stimuli would be discriminated correctly with near certainty (
Luce & Krumhansl, 1988). The Weber–Fechner law and methods described by
L.L. Thurstone are generally applied in local psychophysics, whereas Stevens' methods are usually applied in global psychophysics.