Ernst Heinrich Weber (June 24, 1795 January 26, 1878) was a German physician who is considered one

e of the founders of experimental psychology. Weber studied medicine at Wittenberg University. In 1818 he was appointed Associate Professor of comparative anatomy at Leipzig University, where he was made a Fellow Professor of anatomy and physiology in 1821. In the 1820s or 1830s Weber began studying the tactile senses, the two-point threshold and weight perception. He published his early work in 1834 in Latin (De Tactu), and published this together with later work in 1846 in German (Tastsinn und Gemeingefhl). He found that weight discrimination was much finer with active lifting than when the weights were placed on supported hands. He also found that the just-noticeable difference (jnd) of the change in the magnitude of a stimulus (viz., small weights held in the hand) is proportional to the magnitude of the stimulus (e.g., 5%), rather than being an absolute value (e.g., 5 grams). Gustav Fechner named this Weber's Law. Fechner explored this relation further in the 1850s and, integrating over Weber's proportional jnds, argued for a logarithmic relation between physical and psychological (or perceived) magnitudes. This new law became known as Fechner's Law, or the Weber-Fechner Law, and formed the basis of Fechner's new science of psychophysics. Weber is also noted for his discoveries in anatomy, in particular that of the existence of a rudimentary uterus in male mammals, but his greater fame rests upon his pioneer work in the exploration of the sense organs. His work upon the ear and upon the cutaneous senses pressure, temperature, and what was then called the common sense led to the introduction of the experimental method in psychology. The important law which usually bears his name was the first general law in psychophysics. However, Weber himself produced very little experimental data on the topic, and later work showed that the law holds only approximately in the mid-range for most sense modalities. Weber did not propose any theoretical reason behind the law. He would be better remembered for his work on the relation between neural structure and sensation.

In 1866 Weber retired as professor of physiology and also as professor of anatomy in 1871. Around this time he and his brother, Eduard Friedrich Weber, discovered the inhibitory power of the vagus nerve. Works Chief works:

Anatomia comparata nervi sympathici (1817) De aure et auditu hominis et animalium (1820) Tractatus de motu iridis (1821) Wellenlehre auf Experimente gegrndet (1825)

Joint works with his brothers Wilhelm Eduard Weber and Eduard Friedrich Weber:

Zustze zur Lehre vom Bau und von der Verrichtung der Geschlechtsorgane (1846) Die Lehre vom Tastsinn und Gemeingefhl (185l) Annotationes anatomicae et physiologicae (1851)

Achievements: Ernst Weber was a German physiologist and Psychologist. He was regarded as a predecessor of experimental psychology and One of the founder of Psychophysics, the branch of psychology that studies the relations between physical stimuli and mental states. He is known chiefly for his work on investigation of subjective sensory response (sensations) to the impact of external physical stimuli: weight, temperature, and pressure. Weber experimentally determined the accuracy of tactile sensations, namely, the distance between two points on the skin, in which a person can perceive two separate touches. He discovered the two-point threshold - the distance on the

skin separating two pointed stimulators that is required to experience two rather than one point of stimulation. In 1834 he conducted research on the lifting of weights. From his researches he discovered that the experience of differences in the intensity of sensations depends on percentage differences in the stimuli rather than absolute differences. This is known as the just-noticeable difference (jnd), difference threshold, or limen. Similar observations were made on other senses, including sight and hearing. He formulated the Weber's law - (I/I = k -constant), where I is the original intensity of stimulation, I is the addition to it required for the difference to be perceived, and k is a constant is known as Weber's constant. For lifting weights, the ratio was one to 40. That is, for any standard unit of 40, subjects would notice a difference if one more unit were added to the weight. The constant is different for each sense (for intensity of light -1/100, sound-1/10). Weber also described an absolute threshold for all senses, is the smallest detectable level of a stimulus.

Republic of the Philippines UNIVERSITY OF RIZAL SYSTEM Morong, Rizal

COLLEGE OF SCIENCE Psych 1 General Psychology

Ernst Heinrich Weber

Submitted to: Dr. Florencia V. Bautista (Professor)

Submitted by: Acsah Ruth S. Eusebio I-EI (Name of the student yr.&sec.)