An indirect method of measuring perceived distance from familiar size

Abstract

Two methods of measuring perceived distance as a function of familiar size were compared in five experiments. The method which uses the perception of motion concomitant with a motion of the head. unlike the method of verbal report. is considered to provide a measure of perceived distance that is unaffected by factors of cognitive distance. The results of the experiments indicate that although the perceived egocentric distance of an object can vary somewhat as a function of the cue of familiar size, the larger variation often found with verbal reports of distance is based upon cognitive. not perceptual, information. The cognitive information is interpreted as resulting from the perception of the object as off-sized and the observer's assumption that the perceived size of an object will vary inversely with its physical distance.

A comparison of oculomotor and motion parallax cues of egocentric distance

“…Perhaps some cognitive effects, preThe relation between 5 and D' (or D,,) is given sently unidentified, intrude on the verbal reports to in Table 2 for the six observers. The effect of size limit their usefulness here as in the case with familiar of K on D' was not found to be statistically significant objects (Gogel, 1976). using the analysis of variance, F(2, 10) = 1.26, P > 0.05.…”

“…In a series of articles (Gogel, 1976(Gogel, , 1977Gogel and Newton, 1976;Gogel and Tietz, 1973, 1974, 1977 a new method of measuring apparent distance called the head motion procedure has been described and applied to the measurement of perceived distance from several distance cues. With the head motion procedure, the head is moved in a frontoparallel plane and judgments are obtained of the apparent motion of the stimulus object concomitant with the motion of the head.…”

Relative distance judgments of familiar and unfamiliar objects viewed under representatively natural conditions

“…It must be independently demonstrated, therefore, why this metric size information does not increase the perceived distance of the board in the same way as the familiar size information increases the perceived distance of the person. A more general reason for doubting the plausibility of Carlson and Tassone's hypothesis is this: Despite four decades of intensive research conducted under reduced-cue conditions-that is, under conditions optimally conducive to the occurrence of familiar size effects-the issue of whether familiar size influences perceived distance as distinct from affecting judgments of distance has yet to be resolved (see, e.g., Hochberg & Hochberg, 1952;Gogel, 1976). In view of these reservations, it seems prudent to consider explanations of Carlson and Tassone's effect that do not assume an effect of familiar size on either perceived distance or perceived size.…”

The common occurrence of errors of perceived distance

“…The apparent concomitant motion resulting from , an error in perceived distance has been used in several studies to measure apparent distance (Gogel, 1976(Gogel, , 1977Gogel & Tietz, 1977) and is called the headMeasuring Perceived Distance by the Size Adjustment Procedure Figure 1 is a top-view schematic drawing illustrating the size adjustment procedure for measuring perceived distance used in the present study. With this procedure the head is stationary.…”