Toward a Theory of Perspective Perception in Pictures

Abstract

This paper reviews perspective perception in pictures, and proposes hypotheses for 3D shape and space perception in pictures, in which eye fixations and foveal vision play a central role. Perspective describes how painters and cameras produce 2D picture arrangements from observations of 3D space. Many past theories and experimental studies focus solely on linear perspective. Yet, these theories fail to explain many important perceptual phenomena in perspective, including the effectiveness of other approaches to projection; few classical paintings strictly obey linear perspective, nor do the best distortion-avoidance techniques for wide-angle computational photography. This paper hypothesizes a two-stage process for 3D vision, in which shape is locally interpreted for a current eye fixation in a picture, according to foveal vision, and a global interpretation of a picture arises from spatial relationships between these regions. This framework could provide new insight for understanding pictorial perception across many types of depiction and suggests new studies to explore these hypotheses.