Weber's law
- noun
- /ˈwɛbərz lɔ/
- Specialized
- According to Weber's law, the ability to detect a change in weight depends on the relative, not absolute, difference.
Examples
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The experiment demonstrated Weber's law by showing that small changes in bright light were harder to notice than in dim light.
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Scientists use Weber's law to explain why humans notice differences in loudness more easily at lower volumes.
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According to Weber's law, a small change in weight is noticeable only if it exceeds a certain threshold.
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Have you studied Weber's law in your psychology class?
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According to Weber's law, the ability to detect changes in stimuli is based on the ratio of change to the original stimulus.
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Psychologists apply Weber's law to understand how people perceive differences in size and weight.
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An example of Weber's law is noticing a slight increase in sound volume more readily at low levels than at high levels.
Surface Forms
Morphology
Weber's + law
This is an eponymic scientific term: knowing 'Weber's' as a possessive proper name and 'law' as a general rule only signals that it is a law named after someone. A B1 learner who knows the constituents would not be able to derive the specific psychophysical meaning about just-noticeable differences from the parts alone, so the expression is opaque.
Etymology
Weber's law is named after the scientist Ernst Weber, who showed in simple tests with weights, sounds and light that people only 'notice' a change when it is large enough compared with the first thing. So the law explains why a small extra weight feels big when you hold something light but the same extra weight is hard to 'notice' when you hold something heavy.
