Two experiments are reported concerning the perception of ground extent in order to discover whether prior reports of anisotropy between frontal extents and extents in depth were consistent across different measures (visual matching and pantomime walking) and test environments (outdoor environments and virtual environments). In Experiment 1 it was found that depth extents of up to 7 m are indeed perceptually compressed relative to frontal extents in an outdoor environment, and that perceptual matching provided more precise estimates than did pantomime walking. In Experiment 2, similar anisotropies were found using similar tasks in a similar (but virtual) environment. In both experiments pantomime walking measures seemed to additionally compress the range of responses. Experiment 3 supported the hypothesis that range compression in walking measures of perceived distance might be due to proactive interference (memory contamination). It is concluded that walking measures are calibrated for perceived egocentric distance, but that pantomime walking measures may suffer range compression. Depth extents along the ground are perceptually compressed relative to frontal ground extents in a manner consistent with the angular scale expansion hypothesis.

One of the main principles of gamification is the use of social comparison. Leaderboards are commonly used to allow players to compare their performance against others'. We sought to examine how leaderboard ranking affected satisfaction with a game and desire to play a game again. In our study, individuals in a second, fourth, or seventh position on the leaderboard reported higher satisfaction than individuals in other positions on the leaderboard. Our results support a potential mechanism that might contribute to game satisfaction from leaderboard position: counterfactual thinking. Future work and implications for the design of leaderboards are discussed.