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This question makes me feel like a full idiot. I can't think about it directly. When I start to puzzle it out my brain slows, like it doesn't want me to know the answer

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Aella

@Aella_Girl

Dec 21, 2020

Your weight affects how soft or firm you perceive a mattress to be. The same mattress will feel ____ to a heavier person and ____ to a lighter person

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7:52 PM · Dec 21, 2020

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I think the question is whether perception of firmness comes from "this moves less when I sit on it" or from "this pushes back a lot when I sit on it", and those give different answers.

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Imagine an ant on a mattress. They would find it indistinguishable from a solid surface, right?

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Sometimes I think you play dumb. ;)

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Question: what kind of mattress do you have? Because I think the right answer is different depending on whether it has springs or not

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1/ It seems to me like a redundant question because it depends on the mattress. If you're sufficiently heavy to increase density of the mattress or taution of the springs to the point where they no longer provide cushion then it will feel firmer by definition.

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Something feels soft if it has a lot of give. A heavy body more easily deforms a mattress. A light body won't make as much of a dent, it'll feel harder.

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I feel like firm is poorly defined because it’s an intuitive thing measuring several metrics. Depending on the metrics you are focused on(how hard is pushes on me which is constant vs how far I sink) it won’t give a consistent answer.

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The heavier person will squash the springs more, so the springs will feel stiffer and the mattress harder.

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Without a qualiometer, direct comparison of qualia is ill-defined. You can use a proxy, but in this case the proxy is itself in question. Ask instead: “The range of mattresses that heavy people find comfortable is _______ (firmer/softer) than the range for light people”