ABSTRACT
J. J. Gibson argued that transformations in the optic array produced by the motion of observer or object provide key information about the layout of surrounding surfaces. In the case of perception via pictures, photographs, or video images, the optical transformations generated by the observer’s motion specify a flat surface. The rods used on any given trial were selected from a set of rods that varied in diameter: Thus the relative widths of the rod-images were not indicators of their relative distances. A preliminary baseline experiment, in which camera/image motion was produced by directly linking observer head motion to camera motion, showed a strong advantage for the moving-image condition. Reversing the image horizontally disrupts the natural link between observer movement and image-motion, but leaves intact transformational information for relative distance. Judgments of the moving image were more accurate than those of the static image; and participants were more confident of their judgments.
