Weber's law (redirected from Weber-Fechner law)

Weber's law

 or Weber-Fechner law

In psychophysics, a historically important law quantifying the perception of change in a given stimulus. Originated by the German physiologist Ernst Heinrich Weber (1795–1878) in 1834 and elaborated by his student Gustav Theodor Fechner, the law states that the change in a stimulus that will be just noticeable is a constant ratio of the original stimulus. It was later shown not to hold for extremes of stimulation.

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Weber's law [′vā·bərz ‚lȯ]

(physiology)

The law that the stimulus increment which can barely be detected (the just noticeable difference) is a constant fraction of the initial magnitude of the stimulus; this is only an approximate rule of thumb.