weber's law COPY Flashcards
weber’s law
Weber’s law quantifies the perception of differences between stimuli. This concept examines the relationship between actual physical changes in a stimulus and the perceived changes in the stimulus by the individual experiencing them. Weber’s law can be expressed as a formula that allows you to calculate the just-noticeable difference between two stimuli. The law states that the perceivable change in stimulus intensity (I) is a constant, or mathematically, (If - Ii) /Ii = constant.
For example, Weber’s law can explain why an individual is less likely to detect the removal of three grapes from a bowl of fruit when the bowl is full compared to when the bowl is nearly empty. This is also known as the magnitude effect, which can be phrased as the phenomenon that the subjective perception of a linear difference between two stimuli progressively diminishes when the average magnitude of the stimuli increases.
Weber’s law can be applied to any sensory system (e.g., vision, hearing, touch, smell), so it is important to understand the principles of this perceptual phenomenon instead of just memorizing the formula.
