PSYC 4031 Chapter : Chapter 6 Book
Document Summary
In spite of the complexities involved, our visual system has evolved to provide a vivid sense of depth, based on retinal input that is itself two-dimensional. The retina in each eye can encode information directly only in a two-dimensional fashion (up-down and left-right), yet we see some three dimensional objects as near us and other objects as far away. Distance perception (or depth perception) refers to your ability to perceive the distance relationships within the visual scene. We can think of three different types of distance or depth relationships. First, egocentric distance refers to the distance of an object from you, the observer. When you estimate how far you are from the car in front of you, you are judging using egocentric distance. Second, relative distance refers to how far two objects are from each other. Because this distance doesn"t directly involve the observer, it is also called allocentric distance.
