Direct manipulation of perceived angular declination affects perceived size and distance: a replication and extension of Wallach and O’Leary (1982)

# The Author(s) 2015. This article is published with open access at Springerlink.com Abstract In two experiments involving a total of 83 partici-pants, the effect of vertical angular optical compression on the perceived distance and size of a target on the ground was investigated. Replicating an earlier report (Wallach & O’Leary, 1982), reducing the apparent angular declination be-low the horizon produced apparent object width increases (by 33 %), consistent with the perception of a greater ground distance to the object. A throwing task confirmed that per-ceived distance was indeed altered by about 33 %. The results are discussed in relation to cue recruitment and to recent evi-dence of systematic bias in the perception of angular declination