Environment width robustly influences egocentric distance judgments.

Area of Science:

• Visual perception
• Environmental psychology
• Computer graphics

Background:

• Perception of object distances in natural scenes is influenced by environmental context.
• Studying these effects in real-world settings is challenging due to difficulties in manipulating environmental features.
• Previous research suggests environmental surroundings affect distance perception even when physical object distance is constant.

Purpose of the Study:

• To investigate the effect of room width and depth on egocentric distance judgments.
• To systematically study the cue bases for environmental influences on distance perception.
• To explore how environmental features calibrate relative distance cues.

Main Methods:

• Utilized rendered scenes and crowdsourced data collection for controlled experiments.
• Conducted 4 experiments with 452 participants judging distances in rooms of varying widths (1.5-40m) and depths (6-40m).
• Targets were placed at distances ranging from 2-37 meters.

Main Results:

• Found significant effects of room width on egocentric distance judgments, with judgments in wider rooms being 16-33% larger for distant targets.
• Egocentric distance cues and focal length remained constant across different room widths.
• Obscuring distant regions with walls or doors decreased distance judgments, while ground texture and linear perspective played minor roles.

Conclusions:

• Environmental context, particularly room width, plays a crucial role in egocentric distance perception.
• Visual cues like ground texture and linear perspective are not the primary drivers of the observed width effect.
• Environmental features likely serve as calibrators for relative distance cues in natural scenes.