A large-scale horizontal-vertical illusion produced with small objects separated in depth.

Abstract

Two experiments (total N = 81) we conducted to investigate the basis for the large-scale horizontal-vertical illusion (HVI), which is typically measured as 15–20% and has previously been linked to the presence of a ground plane. In a preliminary experiment, vertical rods of similar angular extents that were either large (4.5–7.5 m) and far, or small (0.9–1.5 m) and near, were matched to horizontal extents in a virtual environment by adjustment of horizontal gaps or rods. Large/far objects showed a larger HVI (~ 13%) than small objects (~7%), as has been shown before, but the horizontal gap normally used to measure the large-scale HVI was not the source of the larger bias. In the second experiment, it was found that simply separating the comparison rod in depth from the vertical rod (thus forcing an evaluation of size at a distance) was sufficient to produce a large HVI (17%) even with small rods. The results are interpreted in light of evidence that the large-scale HVI is dependent on ground plane orientation and may be related to differential angular expansion in the visual coding of elevation and azimuth.

Tall towers: Schemas and illusions when perceiving and remembering a familiar building

“…Regardless of the mechanism, the horizontal‐vertical illusion has been demonstrated for buildings in real environments as well as pictures and virtual‐reality versions of them (e.g., Yang et al, 1999); however, the magnitude of this illusion generally depends on the size of the object. Specifically, for large objects like buildings, the effect of the horizontal‐vertical illusion is much greater (~20%) than for small objects (~5%; see Chapanis & Mankin, 1967; Higashiyama, 1992; see Li & Durgin, 2017 for medium‐sized objects). Moreover, when observing large objects, the horizontal‐vertical illusion is independent of observer orientation but the effect is retinotopic when viewing smaller objects (Klein et al, 2016).…”

Do Explicit Estimates of Angular Declination Become Ungrounded in the Presence of a Ground Plane?

“…The present study therefore seeks to investigate the estimation of angular declination in the presence or absence of a ground plane. It has recently been observed that explicit judgments of azimuthal direction are larger in the presence of a ground plane ( Durgin & Keezing, 2018 ), and that horizontal–vertical illusions are larger for objects separated in depth on a ground plane ( Li & Durgin, 2017 ). The present investigations were carried out to better understand the possible effects of the ground plane on explicit estimates of angular declination.…”

The foggy effect of egocentric distance in a nonverbal paradigm

“…The difference between the current research and previous experiments is not entirely due to task differences, since we did not directly compare the difference between the verbal and nonverbal paradigms in one study. We directly adopted a nonverbal paradigm, like most distance studies in the recent literature 31 , 39 , 40 . Other differences may also play a role.…”