Optic array determinants of apparent distance and size in pictures.

Bengston, John K.; Stergios, James C.; Ward, John L.; Jester, Robert E.

doi:10.1037/0096-1523.6.4.751

Cited by 24 publications

(26 citation statements)

References 7 publications

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“…Similarly, Farber and Rosinski (1978) found that when pictures of objects that were separated in depth (sagittally) were viewed from twice the correct viewing distance, their perceived separation in depth was twice as large, as compared with the canonical viewing position. Likewise, Bengston et al (1980) found that viewing photographs from incorrectly large distances increased judged pictorial depth. They had observers judge depth in photographs viewed from the wrong distance-that is, too far away from the distance that would be necessary to create an optic array roughly equivalent to what an observer would see if positioned at the lens of the camera.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…To mention a few, there is an amazing robustness of pictorial space, despite sometimes dramatic projective distortion (Pirenne, 1970). It is not settled whether this robustness is best interpreted as an array-specific extraction of depth information (Bengston, Stergios, Ward, & Jester, 1980;Gibson, 1954), as a lack of discriminability, or as the result of an effective compensation mechanism (Cutting, 1987). Also, the ability to compensate is highly dependent on viewing conditions, such as vantage point.…”

Section: Pictorial Effects On Perceived Visual Spacementioning

confidence: 99%

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Compression of visual space in natural scenes and in their photographic counterparts

Hecht

Doorn

Koenderink

1999

Perception & Psychophysics

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Classical theories of space perception posit continuous distortions of subjective space. These stand in contrast to the quantitatively and qualitatively different distortions experienced in space that is represented pictorially. Wechallenge several aspects of these theories. Comparing real-world objects with depictions of the same objects, we investigated to what extent distortions are introduced by the photographic medium. Comers of irregularly shaped buildings had to be judged in terms of the vertical dihedral angles subtended by two adjacent walls. Across all conditions, a robust effect of viewing distance was found: Buildingcomers appear to flatten out with distance. Moreover,depictions of comers produce remarkably similar results and should not receive a different theoretical treatment than do real-world scenes. The flattening of vertical angles cannot be explained by a linear distortion of the entire visual space. We suggest that, for natural scenes, compression of space is local and dependent on contextual information. Visually perceived depth in spatial arrangements has been studied within the context of two rather distinct frameworks. First, many theories of subjective space are based on the notion that perceived space is distorted in a uniform fashion and that a specific transformation can be found that describes the mapping relations between the Euclidean space of the world and our subjective space. Second, theories of spatial representation are concerned with distortions that arise in the process of representing space-mainly, the effects caused by pictorial rendition, such as projective distortions or the apparent flattening of the scene. In this study, we attempt to establish a relationship between the two frameworks by comparing judgments made in real scenes with judgments based on photographic renditions ofthe same scenes. Surprisingly, we found distortions to be very similar. We had observers judge the dihedral angles of building comers from a va-H

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Pictorial Effects On Perceived Visual Spacementioning

confidence: 99%

Compression of visual space in natural scenes and in their photographic counterparts

Hecht

Doorn

Koenderink

1999

Perception & Psychophysics

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“…These manipulations affect perceived virtual layout despite the visibility of the picture surface (Kraft & Green, 1989). Similarly, varying the observer's viewing distance to a picture changes egocentric and exocentric depth estimates but not estimates of object width and size (Bengston, Stergios, Ward, & Jester, 1980;O. W Smith, 1958aO.…”

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confidence: 99%

Weakening the robustness of perspective: Evidence for a modified theory of compensation in picture perception

Yang

Kubovy

1999

Perception & Psychophysics

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Viewed from the center of projection, a perspective picture presents the pictorial depth information of a scene. Knowing the center of projection, one can reconstruct the depicted scene. Assuming another viewpoint is the center of projection will cause one to reconstruct a transformed scene. Despite these transformations, we appreciate pictures from other viewpoints. The compensation hypothesis states that the visible picture surface allows observers to compensate for transformations by locating the center of projection and experiencing pictorial space from there. Weshow that observers neither completely compensate for nor experience transformations of space as geometry would predict. We propose a modified compensation hypothesis according to which different degrees of visibility of the picture surface invoke different degrees of compensation.Pictures are flat surfaces that show scenes in depth. For the visual system, pictures present the problem ofintegrating conflicting flatness and depth information. Practically, understanding how picture perception resembles or differs from perceiving real space will allow us to create and use spatial displays more effectively. In this paper, we address two problems: (1) how we perceive pictures from different viewpoints even though pictures are geometrically correct for only one viewpoint and (2) how depth information and flatness information interact in perceiving depth in pictures.A picture mimics the light from a scene to one viewpoint, called the center ofprojection. To all other viewpoints, the picture presents a geometrically transformed pictorial space. However, experience suggests that we can appreciate pictures from many viewpoints. Kubovy (1986) has called this phenomenon the robustness ofperspective. Some researchers (e.g., Goldstein, 1987;Kubovy, 1986;Pirenne, 1970; have proposed that robustness results because seeing the picture surface allows observers to compensate for these transformations ofpictorial space. That is, observers perceive the layout of pictorial space as if they were viewing the This research was supported by Grant MH 47317 to M.K., principal investigator. The authors thank Jake Mazulewicz, Anu Kesari, and Albert Downs for their able help in conducting the experiment, and Ron Simmons for building the apparatus. The authors also thank Marco Bertamini for discussions on the nature of explanations and descriptions, Hal Sedgwick for his thoughts on cross-talk, the visual world, and the visual field, Denny Proffitt for his thoughts on "compellingness" in pictures, movies at SIGGRAPH, and registered variables, and Marco Bertamini and Mukul Bhalla for their suggestions, which greatly improved this paper. Correspondence should be addressed to T. Yang or M. Kubovy, Department of Psychology, Gilmer Hall, University ofVirginia, Charlottesville, VA 22903-2477 (e-mail: yang@virginia.edu or kubovy@virginia.edu).picture from the center of projection. We call this explanation the compensation theory ofperspective robustness.In this paper, we present two versio...

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“…When one is closer to a photograph, for example, than the focal length of the lens times the magnification, apparent depth should be compressed; when one is farther away, it should expand; and, most interestingly, when one is off to one side, it should undergo affine shear. Haber (1978Haber ( , 1983, Hagen (1974), Hochberg (1986), and Sedgwick (1986) have discussed these issues; Bengston et al (1980), Ellis, Smith, and McGreevy (1987), Goldstein (1979Goldstein ( , 1987, Halloran (1989), Kraft and Green (1989), , and Rosinski, Mulholland, Degelman, and Farber (1980) have provided data showing effects of affine shears and compressions in pictorial space; and Cutting (1986aand Cutting ( , 1987and Cutting ( , 1989, Farber and Rosinski (1978), and, most notably, Kubovy (1986) and Pirenne (1970) have provided analyses of spatial distortions consistent with those of La Gournerie.…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Viewpoint-independent utility is theoretically surprising because the geometric layout of virtual space "behind" the picture surface is correct only for one viewpoint, variously called the station point (Bengston, Stergios, Ward, & Jester, 1980;Cutting, 1986a;Gibson, 1979;Haber, 1978), the center a/projection (Farber & Rosinski, 1978;Kubovy, 1986), or the composition point (Cutting, 1988). (The line to this point from the center of the picture is called the principal ray, to which we will refer later.)…”

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confidence: 99%