Abstract
Summary
An eyewitness's description of a missing criminal, for example, is very crucial for apprehending the individual. But, some accounts may be unreliable if it turned out that the witness was ‘far away’ from a crime scene. Estimation of the perception of “distance” can be an important input in many situations including this one.
We ran a number of designed experiments, collected data, and analyzed them in order to understand how individuals perceived “distance”. These experiments and associated data analyses have some clear messages: When a subject was asked to guess the length of an object such as a straight line or a ruler, we found time and again that one's answer routinely depended upon (i) presence or absence of landmarks or reference points, and (ii) what one had thought that was being shown rather than what the true item really was. More investigations in experimental psychology are deemed essential in one's thorough understauding of human perception of “distance”.
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