On what people know about images on mirrors

Bertamini, Marco; Parks, Theodore E.

doi:10.1016/j.cognition.2004.11.002

Cited by 40 publications

(71 citation statements)

References 23 publications

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“…In previous work, size estimation of participants' reflected face was tested through a variety of methods including direct questioning, drawing the outline of one's imagined reflection on a mock mirror, matching paper ellipses of different sizes to the estimated size of one's reflection, verbal estimations expressed in centimeters, or direct measurements on a real mirror (Bertamini & Parks, 2005;Lawson & Bertamini, 2006). Here we developed a procedure that allowed us to quantify psychophysically the magnitude of mirror size estimation.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…When asked to quantify the size of their mirror reflection, participants tend to overestimate the size of their reflected face, i.e. they incorrectly estimate the size of their face's reflection as closer to the size of their physical face than to the correct size of 50% of their physical face (Bertamini & Parks, 2005;Lawson & Bertamini, 2006;Lawson, Bertamini, & Liu, 2007).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…In front of a mirror (left panel), use stickers to delimitate the visible top and bottom of your face (middle panel). You can then measure the height of the resulting space, through which the entirety of your face can still be seen in the mirror, and compare it to the actual height of your face (right panel; for more details, see Bertamini and Parks, 2005). (b) Sample of the stimuli produced for experiments 1 and 2.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

See 2 more Smart Citations

My face through the looking-glass: The effect of mirror reversal on reflection size estimation

Diéguez

Scherer

Blanke

2011

Consciousness and Cognition

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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My face through the looking-glass: The effect of mirror reversal on reflection size estimation

Diéguez

Scherer

Blanke

2011

Consciousness and Cognition

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“…Familiarity with certain frames of reference over others may account for why the recognition of one's own face is better when it is shown mirrored, while the faces of others are better recognized when shown in the manner in which we are used to seeing them (i.e., not mirrored) [188][189][190][191][192]. In general, however, naïve understanding of how reflections work and appear is quite poor [193][194][195][196][197]. It is possible that given an appropriate frame of reference with many cues to text direction, such as seeing a mirrored image of a person holding a sheet of text, may facilitate the maintenance of a consistent frame of reference during reading.…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

On the Legibility of Mirror-Reflected and Rotated Text

et al. 2017

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Abstract:We happened to observe that text that was reflected about either the horizontal or vertical axis was more difficult to read than text that was reflected about first one and then the other, which amounts to a 180-degree rotation. In this article, we review a number of studies that examine the nature of recognizing reflected and inverted letters, and the frequency of mirror reversal errors (e.g., confusing 'b' for 'd') in children and adults. We explore recent ideas linking the acquisition of literacy with the loss of mirror-invariance, not just for text, but for objects in general. We try to connect these various literatures to examine why certain transformations of text are more difficult to read than others for adults. Keywords: mirror-reversal; left-right reversal; reading; reversal errors; mirrored textRecently, one of us held up a page of printed text ( Figure 1A) to their webcam to take a picture. The camera software by default created a mirror-image snapshot (i.e., the text was reflected or mirrored about the vertical axis, Figure 1B) thereby rendering the text virtually illegible. Correcting or undoing this sort of reflection can be trivially accomplished using any number of image processing software packages that include built-in functions such as 'reflect vertical', 'reflect horizontal', 'rotate left', and 'rotate right'. It was with some surprise that when the wrong function was accidentally applied and instead of reflecting along the vertical axis, the image was reflected along the horizontal axis, the text, although now reflected twice, was now more easily legible ( Figure 1D). It is of note that this 'double reflection' is equivalent to a 180 • rotation of the text. With only a few mouse clicks, it was clear that when normally-oriented text is mirror reflected about the horizontal axis it again becomes virtually illegible ( Figure 1C). This brief series of webcam-picture inspired observations demonstrated a basic property of text perception and reading: the legibility of text is reflection variant and rotation invariant.Inspired by these observations, we conducted a review of the corresponding work on the intersection of symmetry, reflections, and the legibility of text. We found a large body of literature on mirror-reading and writing; mirror-reversal errors of single letters in reading, copying, and writing; many studies on perception of normal and mirrored single characters; but only a small number of studies on combinations of geometric transformations including both inversion (up-down mirroring) and reflection (left-right mirroring). In this paper, we review the literature on mirror-reversals and inversions of text and synthesize some recent work and ideas on how representational mirror-invariance not only for letters but also for objects may be lost when someone learns how to read.

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“…However, human observers and likely some other species recognize that it is precisely oneself at the present moment one sees in a mirror (Bertamini & Parks, 2005;Krois, 2011). Actions by the observer are instantly available to view via the mirror, a close timing that can reinforce the significance of optic information for self-perception (Longo & Haggard, 2009).…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

Mirror image arm used in monocular, binocular, and blindfolded pointing

et al. 2012

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Observers were instructed to point with their right arm to a mirror image of their left shoulder. Instead of pointing to the target with their real arm, they occluded the target with their mirror-imaged finger, and their real finger pointed off to the left side of the target, facts that came as a surprise to them in debriefing. The occlusion by a mirror image finger was not done to avoid double images, since it occurred in monocular conditions. That it is due to planning before pointing can be inferred from the fact that it occurred in blindfolded conditions. Keywords Pointing . MirrorAt times, we control intermediary objects rather than act directly on our targets. In tele-robotics, we control devices that lift, cut, weld, and so forth. If the device and its tools are in front of the controller, the tools (pincers, scalpels, scissors, and the like) are not occluded by parts of the tele-robot.

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On what people know about images on mirrors

Cited by 40 publications

References 23 publications

My face through the looking-glass: The effect of mirror reversal on reflection size estimation

My face through the looking-glass: The effect of mirror reversal on reflection size estimation

On the Legibility of Mirror-Reflected and Rotated Text

Mirror image arm used in monocular, binocular, and blindfolded pointing

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