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Updated: Aug 7, 2026

Methods to Explore the Influence of Top-down Visual Processes on Motor Behavior
Published on: April 16, 2014
Looking at perspective pictures from too far, too close, and just right
Igor Juricevic1, John M Kennedy
1Department of Life Sciences-Psychology, University of Toronto, Scarborough, Toronto, ON, Canada.
Abstract:
A central problem for psychology is vision's reaction to perspective. In the present studies, observers looked at perspective pictures projected by square tiles on a ground plane. They judged the tile dimensions while positioned at the correct distance, farther or nearer. In some pictures, many tiles appeared too short to be squares, many too long, and many just right. The judgments were strongly affected by viewing from the wrong distance, eye height, and object orientation. The authors propose a 2-factor angles and ratios together (ART) theory, with the following factors: the ratio of the visual angles of the tile's sides and the angle between (a) the direction to the tile from the observer and (b) the perpendicular, from the picture plane to the observer, that passes through the central vanishing point.
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