MODULE: Anatomy of the eye

Step 05 of 07: Size and distance

Due to our experiences with the physical world, our judgement of distance is strongly linked with our assessment of size and vice versa. Smaller objects are seen to be further away while larger objects are deemed to be closer and when these expectations of proportion are broken in imagery we can quite easily distinguish its effect. For example a person PhotoShopped onto an image has to be the right size and angle to look convincing beyond having the correct lighting. Further to this we expect parallel lines in the world to converge on a vanishing-point location, meaning that the angle of objects factors into our perception of distance. In Figure 4 below, placing the same image of a leaning building (especially our example, which simply can't help itself) seemingly vanishing with distance alongside itself breaks our perception that they can belong to the same landscape. The result is an exaggeration of the difference between the two making us believe the right-hand image below is slanted further than the left, which it is not (they are identical) ;