title: Distortions of perceived length in the frontoparallel plane: tests of perspective theories.
abstract: The perceived length of a line segment in a frontoparallel plane is sometimes affected by the presence of other line segments in the visual field. Perspective theories attribute such interactions to size-constancy scaling: The configuration of line segments present in the visual field includes depth cues that trigger size scaling of each line segment. In three experiments, we test this claim for a range of simple configurations composed of two line segments joined at a point. These configurations include the inverted T configuration of the bisection illusion, as well as the L configuration of the horizontal-vertical illusion. We conclude that the available depth cues, even when supplemented by known biases in perspective interpretations, do not account for observed distortions in judgments of relative length.
authors.affiliation: New York University, New York, New York, USA. uwolfe@hws.edu
authors.forename: Uta
authors.initials: U
authors.lastname: Wolfe
authors.forename: Laurence T
authors.initials: LT
authors.lastname: Maloney
authors.forename: Mimi
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Tam
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D005260:Female; D005403:Fixation, Ocular; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D009903:Optical Illusions; D011582:Psychological Theory; D014796:Visual Perception