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Psychonomic Society, Perception and Psychophysics, 4(60), p. 673-682, 1998

DOI: 10.3758/bf03206054

SAGE Publications, Perception, 1_suppl(26), p. 89-89, 1997

DOI: 10.1068/v970190

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Relative size perception at a distance is best at eye level

Journal article published in 1997 by Marco Bertamini ORCID, Tyrone L. Yang, Dennis R. Proffitt
This paper is made freely available by the publisher.
This paper is made freely available by the publisher.

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Abstract

We studied the role of the horizon line as a source of information about the relative size of objects at a distance. Relative-size judgements (2AFC) were collected for two objects at 30.5 m and 23.8 m away from the observer to assess how performance depends on the relationship between the size of the objects and the eye level of the observer. In three experiments in an indoor hallway and in one experiment outdoors, accuracy was higher for objects in the neighbourhood of eye level. We consider these results in the light of two hypotheses: one which proposes that observers localise the horizon as a reference for judging relative size, ie on the basis of the horizon ratio, and another which proposes that observers perceive the general neighbourhood of the horizon and then employ a height-in-visual-field heuristic. The finding that relative-size judgements are best around the horizon implies the use of information independent of distance perception in perceiving size.