The Effect of Object Familiarity on the Perception of Size and Distance

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Abstract
The perceived sizes and perceived distances of familiar objects were investigated in two experiments in which images of familiar objects were presented monocularly, one at a time, in an otherwise dark field of view. It was found that the angular size of the objects as well as their familiar size determined reported size. Reported distances were increasingly underestimated as a function of increasing simulated distances of the objects. The results are consistent with the conclusion that, as a function of the retinal size of the objects, the observer perceives the familiar objects as off-sized, and, that as a consequence of these off-sized perceptions, the observer's judgements of the object distances reflect inferential rather than perceptual processes.

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