Familiar size affects the perceived size and distance of real objects even with binocular vision

Maltz, Margaret V.; Stubbs, Kevin; Quinlan, Derek J.; Rzepka, Anna; Martin, Jocelyn R.; Culham, Jody C.

doi:10.1167/jov.21.10.21

Cited by 11 publications

(36 citation statements)

References 59 publications

Supporting

Mentioning

Contrasting

Order By: Relevance

“…Interestingly, therefore, the objects seem to have helped determine a target’s position but not its size in a 2D scene. This does not align with the past findings, where familiar size was found to affect both perceived size and distance [ 24 ]. Maltz et al found people perceived Rubik’s cubes as larger and further away than dice when they were matched to the same physical sizes and distances [ 24 ].…”

Section: Discussioncontrasting

confidence: 99%

“…This does not align with the past findings, where familiar size was found to affect both perceived size and distance [ 24 ]. Maltz et al found people perceived Rubik’s cubes as larger and further away than dice when they were matched to the same physical sizes and distances [ 24 ]. However, the familiar size affected size perception more when viewing an object monocularly compared to when viewing it binocularly.…”

Section: Discussioncontrasting

confidence: 99%

“…It would seem that our participants could not derive absolute distances from target size or position, but they could correctly infer relative distances using the angular declination below the horizon and size constancy. Most past studies on perceived size and distance have been conducted in the real or virtual environment in a 3D space (e.g., [ 4 , 17 , 21 , 24 ]). When using a 2D image, they were designed to provide sufficient distance information, such as using a live video or a photo of a real scene (e.g., [ 13 , 20 ]), rather than to limit the distance cues as we did in this study.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

See 2 more Smart Citations

Can People Infer Distance in a 2D Scene Using the Visual Size and Position of an Object?

Kim

Harris

2022

Vision

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Depth information is limited in a 2D scene and for people to perceive the distance of an object, they need to rely on pictorial cues such as perspective, size constancy and elevation in the scene. In this study, we tested whether people could use an object’s size and its position in a 2D image to determine its distance. In a series of online experiments, participants viewed a target representing their smartphone rendered within a 2D scene. They either positioned it in the scene at the distance they thought was correct based on its size or adjusted the target to the correct size based on its position in the scene. In all experiments, the adjusted target size and positions were not consistent with their initially presented positions and sizes and were made larger and moved further away on average. Familiar objects influenced adjusted position from size but not adjusted size from position. These results suggest that in a 2D scene, (1) people cannot use an object’s visual size and position relative to the horizon to infer distance reliably and (2) familiar objects in the scene affect perceived size and distance differently. The differences found demonstrate that size and distance perception processes may be independent.

show abstract

Section: Discussioncontrasting

confidence: 99%

Section: Discussioncontrasting

confidence: 99%

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

See 1 more Smart Citation

Can People Infer Distance in a 2D Scene Using the Visual Size and Position of an Object?

Kim

Harris

2022

Vision

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…Participants received course credit for their participation. Data from the 22 participants in this study in VR were compared with data from the 32 participants in physical reality in the Maltz et al [26] study, with no overlap in participants. Our sample size was smaller than that of Maltz et al because that study demonstrated large and highly significant effects (see tables 1 and 2 of Maltz et al [26]).…”

Section: Experiments 1 (A) Methods (I) Participantsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Familiar size affects perception differently in virtual reality and the real world

Rzepka

Hussey

Maltz

et al. 2022

Phil. Trans. R. Soc. B

Self Cite

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

The promise of virtual reality (VR) as a tool for perceptual and cognitive research rests on the assumption that perception in virtual environments generalizes to the real world. Here, we conducted two experiments to compare size and distance perception between VR and physical reality (Maltz et al . 2021 J. Vis. 21 , 1–18). In experiment 1, we used VR to present dice and Rubik's cubes at their typical sizes or reversed sizes at distances that maintained a constant visual angle. After viewing the stimuli binocularly (to provide vergence and disparity information) or monocularly, participants manually estimated perceived size and distance. Unlike physical reality, where participants relied less on familiar size and more on presented size during binocular versus monocular viewing, in VR participants relied heavily on familiar size regardless of the availability of binocular cues. In experiment 2, we demonstrated that the effects in VR generalized to other stimuli and to a higher quality VR headset. These results suggest that the use of binocular cues and familiar size differs substantially between virtual and physical reality. A deeper understanding of perceptual differences is necessary before assuming that research outcomes from VR will generalize to the real world. This article is part of a discussion meeting issue ‘New approaches to 3D vision’.

show abstract

“…All images were presented on a uniform white background. To facilitate judging the actual image size on the screen, we allowed participants to use all cues about the images’ distances [ 21 ]: participants viewed the images on a clearly visible screen, with two eyes and no restrictions on their eye or head movements. All dimensions of the experiment scale with the (unknown) screen size of each participant; the values we present here are approximations for a 14″ screen.…”

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Familiarity with an Object’s Size Influences the Perceived Size of Its Image

Smeets¹,

Weijs²,

Brenner³

2022

Vision

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

It is known that judgments about objects’ distances are influenced by familiar size: a soccer ball looks farther away than a tennis ball if their images are equally large on the retina. We here investigate whether familiar size also influences judgments about the size of images of objects that are presented side-by-side on a computer screen. Sixty-three participants indicated which of two images appeared larger on the screen in a 2-alternative forced-choice discrimination task. The objects were either two different types of balls, two different types of coins, or a ball and a grey disk. We found that the type of ball biased the comparison between their image sizes: the size of the image of the soccer ball was over-estimated by about 5% (assimilation). The bias in the comparison between the two balls was equal to the sum of the biases in the comparisons with the grey disk. The bias for the coins was smaller and in the opposite direction (contrast). The average precision of the size comparison was 3.5%, irrespective of the type of object. We conclude that knowing a depicted object’s real size can influence the perceived size of its image, but the perceived size is not always attracted towards the familiar size.

show abstract

Familiar size affects the perceived size and distance of real objects even with binocular vision

Cited by 11 publications

References 59 publications

Can People Infer Distance in a 2D Scene Using the Visual Size and Position of an Object?

Can People Infer Distance in a 2D Scene Using the Visual Size and Position of an Object?

Familiar size affects perception differently in virtual reality and the real world

Familiarity with an Object’s Size Influences the Perceived Size of Its Image

Contact Info

Product

Resources

About