Abstract

The author examines the validity of various proposals for modifying pictorial perspective to make it correspond more closely with the world as it is perceived. He then considers pictures that deviate from accurate perspective construction and discusses why the deviations occurred. The consequences of viewing perspective pictures from a position other than the projection point are analyzed. The evidence for the intelligibility of pictures, including those in perspective, to naive viewers is discussed. He concludes that, although a perspective picture normally seen does not duplicate the scene that it depicts (viewers are aware that they are looking at a flat surface as well as a depicted space), its perception does not require any learning other than learning to discriminate between information for flatness, which is supplied by surface relationships and information for depth in the form of invariant relationships, which is provided by the artist.

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