In the early 19th century, the German physiologist Ernst Weber discovered that the smallest increase in weight a human can perceive is proportional to the initial mass. This is now known as the Weber-Fechner law and shows that the relationship between the stimulus and perception is logarithmic. It's straightforward to apply this rule to modern media. Take images for example. An increase in resolution of a low resolution picture is more easily perceived than the same increase to a higher resolution picture. When two parameters are involved, the relationship between the stimuli and perception is the square of the logarithm. This way of thinking about stimulus and perception clearly indicates that the Weber-Fechner law ought to have a profound effect on the rate at which we absorb information.
Today, researchers at Goethe University Frankfurt in Germany look for signs of the Weber-Fechner law in the size distribution of files on the internet. They measured the type and size of files pointed to by every outward link from Wikipedia and the open directory project, dmoz.org. That's a total of more than 600 million files. Some 58 per cent of these pointed to image files, 32 per cent to application files, 5 per cent to text files, 3 per cent to audio and 1 per cent to video files. They discovered that the audio and video file distribution followed a log-normal curve, which is compatible with a logarithmic squared-type relationship. By contrast, image files follow a power law distribution, which is compatible with a logarithmic relationship. That's exactly as the Weber-Fechner law predicts.
More information:
http://www.technologyreview.com/blog/arxiv/27379/?p1=blogs
More information:
http://www.technologyreview.com/blog/arxiv/27379/?p1=blogs