As far as I remember humans can tell a 0.5g difference between two objects. Obviously this is when holding each object in one hand, but I am still not that surprised that we can tell that a phone is 19g lighter than the other.
Even if the new iPhone were double the weight, that's still only 376 grams. I don't understand why phones need to be lighter. I myself prefer to use something that feels solid and significant.
Actually what the illusion I linked to shows is that we "perceive" density by estimating it visually, and this can trump what our muscles and skin tell us about the weight of the object by means of pressure. So the answer is "both": we estimate density and weight, and what we perceive is a combination of the two, adjusted (biased) by our priors.
Specifically, a larger object with the same actual density but the same visual appearance will feel "lighter" when compared. And it's a very strong illusion, in the sense that it works even if you know what's happening.. it's very hard to shake the feeling that the larger object is lighter even though they actually weigh the same.
To be fair though, 40% isn't a trivial difference for something that you spend a lot of time holding up in the air.
I find that with phones and pads, it's more than there's sort of a threshold, and those over it feel "heavy" and just sort of unpleasant to hold. Below that threshold, lighter can be nice, but it isn't critical, and it can be a negative if it makes something feel cheap. [This is the sort of thing that makes me strongly avoid buying mail-order... "feel" matters a lot in many cases, and it's often very hard to judge from specs.]
This the same sloppy language I was poking fun of in the original article. I highly doubt that you can detect a ~2% difference in weight of 0.1oz. If the wording were "it's only 0.1oz heavier, but the increased density makes it seem heavier", I wouldn't have commented.
> a novelty device that weighs more than what it's mass would lead you to think it weighs
This is an interesting concept. As far as I'm aware, we have ways of measuring weight, but no way of measuring mass. How would you know whether something weighed more than it "should", based on its "mass"?
No. It's a matter of being used to something. When used to 1.8 cm, you go "wow" at 1.55, but going in the reverse direction is a shrugging matter. For weight it's the opposite. When used to a light laptop, you find a slightly heavier laptop to weigh a thousand tons, but going from heavy to light is a shrugging matter.
I think another aspect of heavy > light is it's (perceived) as a gauge of how much "stuff" is in a product.
If I picked up some very light electronic, I may suspect that it's simply not very dense, and it was made bigger to (try) and fool another "quality signal", size. You know, knock-off products made to look like something bigger/higher quality but containing mostly air.
It is a shame though, since light can be very strong and high value. I personally wouldn't want almost half a kilo of headphones on my noggin, and this article's emphasis on weight is ... disappointing.
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