LIMIT OF ABSOLUTE DISCRIMINATION

Within one-DIMENSIONal continua, e.g., amplitude (loudness) of sound, brightness of color, humans can reliably (see reliability) distinguish, recognize or name no more than seven plus or minus two values. More and finer distinctions cause confusion, unreliability and rapidly increase transmission errors (G.Miller). This amounts to an information processing limit for absolute judgements by humans of about 3 bits. (Krippendorff)

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