Stanley Smith Stevens (November 4, 1906 – January 18, 1973) was an American psychologist who founded Harvard's Psycho-Acoustic Laboratory and is credited with the introduction of Stevens' power law. Stevens authored a milestone textbook, the 1400+ page "Handbook of Experimental Psychology" (1951). He was also one of the founding organizers of the Psychonomic Society. In 1946 he introduced a theory of levels of measurement often used by statisticians.
In addition, Stevens played a key role in the development of the use of operational definitions in psychology.
Famous quotes containing the words smith and/or stevens:
“Tasting of the sweet damp woods and of the rain one inch above the meadow:
It was like feasting upon air.”
—William Jay Smith (b. 1918)
“It makes so little difference, at so much more
Than seventy, where one looks, one has been there before.
Wood-smoke rises through trees, is caught in an upper flow
Of air and whirled away. But it has been often so.”
—Wallace Stevens (1879–1955)