Cite as:
Doumen M J A, Kappers A M L, Koenderink J J, 2004, "The effect of visual angle on the perception of planes in depth" Perception 33 ECVP Abstract Supplement

The effect of visual angle on the perception of planes in depth

M J A Doumen, A M L Kappers, J J Koenderink

Deformation of visual space has often been described in the literature; however, this deformation seems dependent on the task that is given to observers. That is why we developed a 3-D task in which three balls, hanging from the ceiling, represented a plane in physical space. The task was to change the height of a fourth ball (the test ball) to make it lie in the plane. We varied the offset and the slant of the plane, and the distance of the observer to the test ball, in such a way that the visual angle varied from 47 to 141 deg in the horizontal plane. We were interested whether the necessity of making head movements (in the 141 deg position) would increase the variance and/or the systematic deviations of the settings of the observers. We indeed found structural deviations from veridical settings. The slant and the tilt of the plane clearly influenced the settings of the observers. However, neither the visual angle nor the height of the entire plane did result in any difference between the settings.

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