Apparent Size and Distance in an Imaging Display

Abstract

The size-distance invariance hypothesis suggests that the perceived size and the perceived distance of objects in a field viewed naturally are closely related. However, this relationship breaks down when scenes are viewed through high-power optical systems. When natural scenes are viewed through an imaging display of unity magnification, there is a reduction in their apparent size. This raises the question of whether the relationship breaks down when scenes are viewed through a low-power imaging display. A single-lens reflex camera was used as an imaging display that enabled subjects to vary the size of imaged real-world scenes. Judgments of size were found to vary with depth information in scenes and between monocular and binocular viewing, consistent with a previous finding, but judgments of distance did not vary significantly across either of these conditions. The results suggest that judgments of size and judgments of distance with imaging displays are not influenced uniformly by environmental and task variables.

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