Jim and Jamal are lifting weights together before football practice.Jim is doing a bench press with 240 pounds,and just to be funny Jamal slides an extra 5 pounds on the bar when Jim is not looking.Jim bench presses the new weight,245 pounds,without even noticing that the weight had increased.If Jamal had added 50 pounds,however,Jim would probably have noticed .Which law explains why a small change to a large stimulus will be harder to detect than a small change to a small stimulus?

Question

Quizplus · Accepted Answer

This scenario demonstrates Weber's Law, which states that the smallest detectable difference in stimulus intensity (also known as the just noticeable difference, or JND) is a constant proportion of the original stimulus intensity. In other words, the JND is larger for larger stimuli and smaller for smaller stimuli. In this case, the JND for Jim's bench press weight is relatively small (only 5 pounds) because the original weight was quite large (240 pounds), but if Jamal had added 50 pounds instead, the JND would have been much larger and Jim likely would have noticed the difference.

Jim and Jamal Are Lifting Weights Together Before Football Practice