Examining the Role of Object Size in Judgments of Lateral Separation

Research on depth judgments has found a small but significant effect of object size on perceived depth (Gogel & Da Silva, 1987). Research on judgments of separation (e.g., Levin & Haber, 1993), however, has found that visual angle is the predominant determiner of exocentric distance judgments. The goal of the present research was to examine the influence of object size on judgments of lateral separation using a one-shot change detection paradigm. Experiment 1 used a forced-choice response, finding a significant influence of object size on distance judgments. Experiment 2 replicated these results using a distance reproduction task. These results are discussed in terms of Gogel and Da Silva’s (1987) Theory of Off-Sized Perceptions.